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FAQ about our switch to the China program

1) Why didn't you start in China to begin with?

- When we decided to pursue an International adoption with our agency, we received a sheet with all of the countries that they worked with. Each country listed certain qualifications such as length of marriage, age, financial status, time in country, cost, # of children in home, etc. When we looked at that list, we did not actually meet the requirements for China. We did however meet the requirements for Ethiopia. We actually knew a few people who had completed adoptions from Ethiopia as well. It seemed like the logical thing to do. All of our qualifications pointed us to Ethiopia.  It wasn't until recently that we found out about the waiver that was offered to some families for the special focus program through the webinar that our agency invited us to. Also, we started out wanting to adopt a fully healthy child ages 0-3. Through time (because we had a lot of it in Ethiopia), God has opened our hearts to adopting a child ages 0-6 and being open to some special needs.


2) What about all of that money that you already poured into Ethiopia?

-The wonderful news is that most of that money is transferring over. Our agency recognizes the huge change that has occurred in Ethiopia as far as time frame goes and allowed us to transfer our agency fees over to the China program. There will be some money lost, money that was paid directly to our placing agency in Ethiopia to be able to translate all of our paperwork, and some money for documents that we needed for Ethiopia. So while we will need to redo paperwork for China now, we were actually going to have to redo paperwork several times in Ethiopia because the wait was so long and the paperwork expires after a certain time frame. All in all, not that much was lost, which is a huge blessing! We wanted to make sure we were being wise financially when we switched programs. We recognize that so much of the financial part of this adoption has come from many of you through fundraisers or just your generous giving. We wanted to be sensitive to that, while also following the road God has laid out for us.

3) Why did things slow down so much in Ethiopia?

-First of all, you are dealing with a foreign government here that can change laws and processes at any time. Apparently, what has happened is that more steps have been added in the process to adopt a child to better ensure that children are not being trafficked. This is a good thing! The not so good thing is that this significantly slows down the process of getting these children into families. The lack of organization and efficiency within the government to be able to move through these steps in a timely manner is not in place. So while a good thing was implemented, it is not being executed in the most efficient manner, thus the slow down aka the "new normal". With the way things were estimated, we were potentially looking at several if not more years of waiting before a child was matched with our family.

4) What is the estimated time of a completed adoption with China?

- A China adoption is typically completed between 12 to 18 months from start to finish. That is a much quicker time frame than we were looking at in Ethiopia. Our hearts have been ready to welcome a child into our family for quite some time now. This new timeline is great news! Likely, our son will be home in 2015 or early 2016. Yippie!


5) When will you be matched with a child? When can you share about him?

-Since we are adopting from the special focus program, we could be matched at any time now. We are actually in the process of reviewing files while we pray and discern about what needs our family feels equipped to handle. Once we decide to pursue a child, we will send a LOI (Letter of Intent) basically telling the Chinese government that we want to pursue adopting that specific child. The CCCWA will then hopefully approve us to move forward with the adoption of that child and issue us a LOA (Letter of Approval) to continue on with the adoption process.


6) Will your child be special needs?

-Yes, since we are adopting from the special focus program in China, he will be considered special needs. That may be physical or mental special needs. Every child is different and unique, which is why we are praying through our decisions as we review files. Like I said before, we were not open to special needs when we started the process, because we were scared. God has softened our hearts to so many more needs as we have sought after Him over the past 2 years. Once again, we want to be wise with what our family feels equipped to handle, but also step out in faith. We will see what child He leads us to.

7) What about that Africa puzzle we donated to? What are you going to do with that?

-So many of you supported our family through that puzzle fundraiser. That was such a sweet time of God reassuring us that he was going to walk us through this and provide. We are going to keep the puzzle as it represents that part of our journey. As I said in my last blog post, we do not feel like the time we poured into and waited in Ethiopia was wasted because God worked on our hearts in that place. Maybe that is why he had us there. Evan calls all of our Ethiopia items that we have collected (books, puzzles, bags, etc.), "souvenirs of obedience". Ethiopia represents us saying "yes" to adoption. It is still very much a part of our story and our hearts.

8) How long will you have to be in China?

-Once we are at the end of this process, we will travel to China for 2 full weeks. The trip that we meet our son on, will be the same trip that we bring him home on. This fills my heart with so much peace. In Ethiopia you have to take 2 trips. One to meet your child and be declared their parents in court and then another several months later to bring your child home once paperwork is complete. The thought of having to meet our child and then leave them in Africa was heart wrenching. Any parent who goes through an Ethiopia adoption could tell you that has to be the hardest part. I am relieved we just do 1 trip with China.

9) What stage are you in now?

-We are in my favorite part of all (NOT!)...paperwork! I feel like I have done enough paperwork to last a lifetime. But at this point, I laugh in the face of paperwork and sometimes cry. But, we are now familiar with how much paperwork this requires and it is no longer intimidating, just another step on the to do list. So, while we are drowning in it AGAIN, we are pressing forward knowing it needs to be done. We are also beginning to review files, which is exciting and yet so heartbreaking. To see these children's stories, to realize the trauma they have been through is yet another reminder that we live in a broken world. It breaks our hearts that these kiddos are not with their biological families. It breaks my heart to see what they have had to overcome in their short little lives so far. But God is a God of redemption and we pray that each one of these kiddos can be placed in loving homes.


We hope this brings some clarity for those of you who have been faithfully following our journey. We are excited about how God is leading. If you have any other questions for us, feel free to send us a personal message. We will be sure to update on our FB page as this story unfolds, so stay tuned.

A BIG CHANGE!!!!

I am about to write words that I never thought that I would write in this adoption journey. It still seems surreal and yet God has guided and led and we have ended up in this place. So, here goes:

We are no longer adopting from Ethiopia. Wow, to type that out feels so strange! I could be sad, but I am not, because this was a God thing. In fact, I have some exciting news...

We have transferred to CHINA! We are adopting from CHINA! Our son will be from CHINA! Now, that feels even crazier to say!

I know I may have totally lost you and you may have a ton of questions going through your mind, so let me fill you in on how we got here.

If you have been keeping up with our story, you know that the Ethiopia program hit a new normal of VERY SLOW last year! We found out that the time frame that we were given when we started this adoption process had significantly increased (and I am talking years). We were upset, frustrated and confused. We knew that we were ready to welcome a child into our home way sooner than that time frame was offering us. We were told that if we wanted to transfer to another program within our agency, that most of our agency fees would transfer over.

That is when I started to panic and started researching every other option out there: other countries, domestic adoption, foster care, etc. We had never felt like we were called specifically to Ethiopia. We did feel like when we started we were called to a foreign country (my Haiti trip had much to do with this) and we happened to qualify for Ethiopia, so we went there. Our heart has always just been to give an orphan a loving family and home. The place was not specific to us.  I was spinning my wheels trying to figure out what to do and I hit an emotional break down on our way to Texas for Thanksgiving (my poor sweet social worker, got to hear me sob like a baby about how frustrated I was). She encouraged us to take a season of prayer over all of it.

Here's the truth, I didn't want to take a season of prayer. I wanted to move forward. We had been waiting in Ethiopia for a year and in this process for 2 years. We had prayed long enough! Now I needed to see some movement, some action, some progress. Yea, I won't be winning a gold medal for best attitude here. It was not a shining moment for me. At the same time, Evan had decided he felt led to teach a sermon series at our church. I asked him what he felt God was leading him to teach and he said "prayer." BAM...smack in the face!"OK God, I hear ya." So, I decided to stop researching and trying to fix this problem and Evan and I dedicated the rest of the year to being on our knees in prayer together over this adoption, over our son, over which direction God would want us to move, if he wanted us to move. I told myself that I would stop searching and if God wanted us to change directions, HE would reveal that to us. As soon as I came to this decision, I felt this insane peace that I had not felt in quite some time. All of my anxiety about what we were going to do had vanished. I KNEW this was HIS story and HE would make things clear to us when HE was ready.

On December 11th, we received an e-mail from our agency inviting us to a webinar for families in the Ethiopia program to be informed on what transferring to the China program would look like. I almost ignored it because we had already looked at the China program and we knew that based on some of the qualifications, we did not qualify. However, we signed up and figured it couldn't hurt to be better informed.  Five days later we were logged into the webinar and hearing about the China program. We were reminded of what the new Ethiopia expectations should be, which just kind of reiterated God closing the door for us in Ethiopia. We also found out that some families may receive a waiver to be able to enter China's special focus program, which includes children 3 and over with more moderate to severe special needs.

After some prayer, we decided to send in an application to see if we would qualify. Beforehand I prayed, "God you seem to be opening doors here, you brought this opportunity to us. If this is the direction you want us to take, please move mountains and let us qualify for this waiver. If this is not the path you have for our family, please close the door here by not allowing us to receive a waiver."

Well, as I am sure you figured out, we were granted the waiver and accepted into the China Special Focus Program. I almost could not believe it. We were transferring out of Ethiopia and into China. I could not have written this story this way. I thought my son would be from Ethiopia, but God had other plans. Both Evan and I had a peace about the move.

So here we are, a CHINA FAMILY now! It has been so crazy to see how our journey is unfolding. We are so excited to see how and when God leads us to our son. While there was so much time spent in Ethiopia, we do not feel like that time was wasted. God worked on our hearts in amazing ways during that wait. He pressed on us to be open to things that we would have never been open to when we started this journey. He prepares us, even when we are unaware of what He is doing.

Nothing is wasted, He works all things for good! His promise remains, forever He reigns!





We know that there will still be many questions that were not answered in this blog post and we want to answer those. So, if you have any, please send them to us via our FB page or email. We will be following up this post with a question and answer post to give you all a better idea of what all of this entails. So stay tuned in the next couple of weeks if you are wanting more clarity.

Thank you to everyone who has already shown us so much love and encouragement as we took this leap of faith!