Letter of Acceptance-And God moves...

Overwhelmed.  That is a huge understatement for the way I am feeling today.  The basic rule of thumb in Andrew and my married life is this-we pray, we wait, and God moves.  And when He moves, He rocks our world!  Yesterday I was enjoying a play date with some of David's preschool friends and their moms when I got a very unexpected call from Villa Hope.  They had received our Letter of Acceptance!  (This is an official document from the China Center of Adoption Affairs stating that we have officially been matched with Kailyn and we can sign to say officially that we still want to adopt her!)  We were expecting a wait of two months from the time we got our pre-approval on April 8-but I guess we'll take 3 weeks!  This moves our expected travel date up from Septemberish to sometime in July!!! (we are still at the mercy of when China says to come).  But I cannot put enough !!!! at the end of that statement and at this very moment I have butterflies.  And as if that weren't enough, God is also in the process of answering another HUGE prayer that involves family members.  I do not feel at liberty to say what that is yet, but it is a good thing-not necessarily easy-but good.  And God's provision for that came yesterday as well!!

It is funny (ok, not funny, but a God thing) that the timing of all this worked out the way it did.  Ideally, before we accepted a referral at the end of March, we had hoped to travel in July.   That just fixes the issues of taking the boys out of school and then dealing with extreme exhaustion, jet lag, and a newly adopted child in the middle of school.   There are no coincidences, only God.   Next it is the boys passports (expedited now,) visas for us all, planning, packing, planning, packing...get boys ready for school before travel, planning, packing...   I am reminded of a verse that God gave me a while back and it was in my post of March 1:

Isaiah 60:22  "I am the Lord; in its time I will hasten it."

And He certainly has...

So anyway, I was taking my time getting our care package together for Kailyn-but not anymore!  I will be getting it out the door pronto!  But first I have to wait for our Agency to get her name in Chinese letters so that the package will for sure be delivered to her because it was supposed to be on the referral paperwork and wasn't.  

So here is the care package that we will send just as soon as we get the characters for her name:

The bear and blanket have been hanging out with my pj's and in our bed during the day so that they smell like mommy and daddy.  Then there is also a letter to the caregiver, the little heart voice message accessory that I altered so that she doesn't attach to it with the bear and keep herself up all night.   That is also for the caregiver's sanity!  There is also a couple of outfits, some pjs, socks, a bag to put all this stuff in when we get her, a ladybug rattle that David and Joseph picked out (and wouldn't you know- ladybugs are a symbol of good luck in China), a baby photo album with picks of our family, some Pink Chiffon Bath and Body works (and some Chinese tea to be added) for the foster family (which we have a good hunch is just one of the elderly ladies who also lives at the SWI).  I stole the big picture idea from another adoptive family's blog.  We will request for Kailyn's caregiver to hang this one over her crib until we come!

These are some of the pics we included in Kailyn's little photo album!

Of course, you know I must leave you with a song!  Enjoy!

My Hope is In You by Aaron Shust

Amy