New day, new hope

I want to thank everyone for the kind words and prayers!  Please keep them coming.  I am really struggling with all of the unknowns right now.  It seems we are so close but yet so far in so many ways.

Just to update everyone, I decided to re-plead my case to our pastor about the reference letter.  It seems he didn't really go through my first note very clearly and without having seen the questionnaire himself he didn't feel like it was something the church could or should do.  When he got the paper and read it and read that I do NOT want him to agree to take on the debt if we default but that he would encourage us to repay it by holding us accountable...not for them to be responsible.....he agreed to sign the letter.

Sooooo, we are applying to them tomorrow, (it took longer than I thought to fill out so I won't make the mail today) and pray that they have funds to loan us.  It is just nice to have an option right now.  Just days before things were looking like we'd hit a brick  wall and now things are starting to settle and feel right again.

Our I800 application is all safe and sound at the TX lock-box and should be forwarded on to our immigration officer within the next few days.  Once we have that approval we will go on to request a VISA for her to come into the US on and once we get that we'll be invited by China to come pick her up.  That invitation is what our agency will use to contact the Consulate in China and set up the swearing in ceremony and we can pick up her Chinese passport with her visa sticker in it.  So there are still a few more steps involved but these all have more predictable timelines.  Looks like a few weeks between each step so I have a little time to breath and find something new to sew and earn some more money!!!!

I am working on a 100 good wishes quilt and for my first quilt I must say I'm pleased with how it's looking so far.  I need a lot more squares though but here is what I've gotten together so far.

hmmm ok, not sure where the green lines are coming from but I'm not going to worry about it today.  You get the idea of what the pattern I'm going for is.  I want to make another block just like this one and then use rectangles along the edges of the rest of the fabrics I will use.  It should be very close to twin sized at that point.  I don't know how to do the backing and quilting yet but I'll figure that out when I get there I guess!

Again, thanks for the prayers and please keep them coming.  We are not out of the woods yet financially and we are closing in on a deadline!!!

My mind is spinning

I don't even know where to start.  I guess I'll start with the news that our letter seeking confirmation, or letter of acceptance, or what ever you want to call it has arrived!  We have been officially approved by China to adopt little T!  I am still in a state of shock, I mean with so many things going wrong at so many of the steps along the way I was never really sure we'd get this far.

Our LOA/LSC arrived at our agency on 6/5 and arrived at our house on 6/6  In the Fed Ex envelope was all the important papers we needed to formally accept T's file and get started on the immigration portion of the adoption.....Or were they?

Of coarse I went over everything with a fine tooth comb and realized very quickly that the very same mistake that probably kept T from finding a family sooner was never fixed.  That is that the English translation of her file was for another child.  A child with a VERY serious possibly fatal disease.  I was able to get a copy of the true translation for Ts file in March of last year so I knew it was available "somewhere".  When I talked to our agency in August of last year to see if they would ask for the waivers we needed they went ahead and sent me her file so I could make sure I wanted to adopt her. (LOL) Well the file they sent me was wrong....still, which meant anyone else seeing her file was going to be getting that wrong information from them too.  I ended up sending the agency the correct file.  Now here we are 10 months after that and when I needed them to send me the file to send to USCIS it was STILL WRONG!  This could have caused a ton of issues for our I800 approval but thankfully I still have the original file here and printed out a new one to send.

Then came the money part.  I was thinking I had more money in the bank then I did (don't we always) and the letter from my agency said we owed 5900 that day.  YIKES  I don't have that!  I went back and forth with them figuring out how to get that paid and found out we didn't owe 5900 that day we owed SIX THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED....yup another thousand more.  (they require a deposit of 1000.00 if you do not prepay all your post placement visits before you receive your child...we prepay them but only when the first one happens 2 weeks after we come home, so we have to pay another 1500.00 then and won't see the other 1000.00 for 5 years when post placement visits are done)  Thank the Lord that we had 1000.00 left from our JSC grant, they requested the 4000.00 from Show Hope and I managed to scrape together the 1900.00 that was left.  (not sure if I'll be eating anything for the next month or so but I got it out) 

I should be excited right?  I should be planning what to take to China, what to wear, all those fun things right?  Instead I'm sitting here near panic again over the 10-12,000 we still need to be able to travel and the only 8 weeks or so to come up with it.  Our original plan to borrow from his 401K was shot flat (they do not do loans from them) The second was to ask for an adoption loan from The ABBA fund which is no interest.  Our pastor will not sign the letter without seeking permission from the entire congregation.  I don't have time for that, it takes them (ABBA fund) up to 6 weeks to decide and who knows how long it will take this to come before the congregation, I need to pay for travel in 8 weeks if I expect to leave in about 10.  I am only seeing the impossible right now.  I mean, yeah God is in the impossible business but what does that look like?  Where do we go from here?  How does 10-12,000.00 just show up?  I mean it's not like a stranger is just going to walk up to me and say, hey you look like you can use 12K so here you go.  We don't have great credit so I'm not sure if we qualify for a "regular" adoption loan.  We don't own a home so we can't get a line of credit that way.  I don't know what we are going to do.  Our last 2 fund raisers made less then 1000.00 total for 2 of them.  I need a better idea AND FAST.

Please, PLEASE be in prayer for us.  I always questioned how someone could go into an adoption so unprepared.  I always wondered what happened if people didn't get the money they need.  I certainly never imagined I would BE one of those people.   I feel so horrible right now, what if we can't do this?  What happens to little T if that last amount of money doesn't come in?  I can't even let my brain go there because it's too scary but I have to.  I have used up plan A, B, C and I don't yet have a plan D. If anyone has any ideas for BIG fundraisers,  (I do appreciate offers for a sales party here or there but 40-50 after getting my friends on the hook to buy something they don't need isn't going to work at this late in the game.)  I need them.  If anyone knows of someone with an extra 10-12K just laying around who would love to donate it to our agency in our name (so they get the tax write off) let me know and I'll get our agency's name out to them. :D  Other than that, just pray for a miracle, because that is exactly what it is going to take at this point.