I-800A MAILED!!!!!

JUST MAILED OUR I-800A PAPERWORK!!!! 

FINALLY!!!!! Took me forever to get myself to the post office! Now we wait!!!!!! 

With MinLan our approval took 64 days I think! Please pray with me that this time the wait is much SHORTER!!!! Once this approval comes in, we can send our dossier to CHINA!!!! 

For my friends and family that none of this makes sense to, our I-800A is basically our approval from the US government saying we are approved to adopt. Once they get our paperwork, they will give us an appointment to go to Birmingham and have our fingerprints done (again) and then when those come back with no issues they will send our approval.

Once we get our approval, then we can send all of our documents (the big stack called the dossier) to China.  Once the dossier goes to China, the typical timeframe is around six months until travel....praying for faster of course!  A HUGE blessing this time is that we were able to reuse our dossier from MinLan's adoption. Whew......saved us LOTS of time!

Friends from our placing agency recently went to visit John Preston's orphanage. They reported that he was doing well, he seemed to love his foster momma and they sent several pictures and even a video!  The neat thing is that we have met John Preston's foster momma in real life! We were introduced to her while we were eating lunch at the orphanage on our trip to bring MinLan home! How cool is that!?!?!?  She seemed very sweet and kept commenting on how beautiful Ellie's hair was! 

Many of you have asked how we are coming with raising the funds required to bring John Preston home. I love that you ask and that you are cheering us on towards reaching our goal!

We are still working towards coming up with the rest of the money to get our dossier to China.  Total it is about $3700 if my figuring is correct.  Once we get it sent off to China, then our focus will turn to travel expenses and John Preston's orphanage donation.  Please pray with us that his orphanage will agree to waive all or at least part of this donation. It would be a HUGE blessing to our family!

WITH the orphanage donation, we still need to pull together around $22,550.

WITHOUT the orphanage donation, we need $16,850 by my calculations (an estimate of course).

To just look at those numbers is overwhelming....they bring tears to my eyes.  But seeing those numbers also strengthens my faith. I know that God has called us to bring John Preston home to be a part of our family.  He is going to make a way where we see none.  I don't know how and I don't know when but He is going to show out in a mighty way and bring our son home to us.

Could you help us by being part of our Story of 1000? Many of our friends and family have already given so generously.  We are so grateful you have partnered with us.

Now we need your help to spread the word.  

Could you share our story with your friends and family? 

Could you ask them if they would be willing to be a part?

www.youcaring.com/thestoryof1000

Please pray with us too as we begin the process of applying for adoption grants.  There are so many families that apply for these same grants.  All of us in need of help to bring our little ones home. I am praying that God lays it on their hearts to choose us for grant funds that are available.  

I pray one day our family can pay it forward and set up our own grant foundation for families adopting little ones with Down syndrome. How awesome would it be to be able to bless other families coming after us!?!?!

Thank you for following our story...thank you for praying for John Preston...thank you for supporting my over-posting on Facebook, supporting our fundraisers and continuing to walk this journey with us.

We are coming John Preston!!!!!!

Enjoy these beautiful pics and video of our sweet boy!