Thursday, January 16, 2014

taiwan tidbits

came across this article with some other taiwanese adoptive parents this past week...it's really interesting!  10 things you probably didn't know about taiwan...including the fact that they provide free wifi for the entire island...will totally be using that while there...not need to wonder if i'll be instagramming our sweet potato(oes) (once we are allowed to post them of course...)

10 facts you may not have known about Taiwan


Wednesday, January 15, 2014

i600a and fingerprinting!!

sheesh.  i had other adoptive parents warn me about the i600a and getting on it quickly because it was quite a long process...but sheesh....over two months!! it's the only piece of paperwork remaining this side of the referral.  it deals with immigration stuff (i think lol) and it also sets up our FBI fingerprinting appointment.  there was a lot of miscommunication between us and the place we had to file it through...but it finally got sorted out.  our original paperwork for it had an expiration date of january 13th (yup, monday) and our check for it all still hadn't shown it being cashed.  we had been trying to get in contact with people without a whole lot of response...but we were finally okayed yesterday and then were given our fingerprinting appointment today!

so we will be making a little two hour trek to cincinnatti in the coming weeks to walk in for 5 minutes somewhere more legal and legit have our finger smashed on a screen and drive home 2 hours.  seems a bit silly to me...but obviously the government doesn't feel that way.  this doesn't effect our referral timeline or anything like that...just solidifies that literally all we have left is waiting and a phone call. :) two unknown numbers had my heart skipping again today....i don't foresee that changing anytime soon, though.

Monday, January 13, 2014

risk and adventure.

this morning was a unique one.  jacob asked me on a date. and so on a monday morning we went with a handful of other 70-80 year old couples in the lexington area to view "the secret life of walter mitty" at the early bird price.  he used some of his christmas money and it was so sweet and so fun.  today starts his teaching class that i had last semester so he is there on mondays now.

as the movie went on and walter went on his adventures to each new location, i was reminded of the past several years' trips that had us in various parts of the world, like norway, mexico, and africa.  and i was thankful.  you also see walter balance his checkbook throughout the movie and i chuckled on the inside relating to his internal cost vs experience methodology. and as the credits came up...i walked to throw away our mr. pibb (treat #2!!)  and found myself crying.  and by the time i made it to the trash cans in the back of the theater i was all out sobbing.  jacob was, of course, confused as normally i cry during the movie and not 5 minutes after (except for blood brothers, oh my word, i was a wreck for hours after that one....another day's story...).  and as he pulled me in for a hug i muddled out "i just realized that all this time i've been so upset and embarrassed at times that we have spent our savings this past year on adoption and i've been upset about the money...and here's our greatest adventure before us.  and it's all worth it.  i'd spend it all again."

and so we both cried.

yup.  it's out there.  our savings has been greatly diminished because we went all in on the adoption. but as much as i have tried to hide that these past year/months, it's all pride really.  because the past three years of our lives has been nothing short of one adventure after the other. a standing on one stone of faith only to hop blindly to the next. and i've been so concerned, trying to cover my pride and finances that i almost missed recognizing it...and in doing so missed sharing what i believe God is doing in us.

our story is one of adventure. let me lay out the past three years.  (feel free to hop to the last paragraph to miss details that i'll just want for myself in the years to come ha) i felt led to quit my job back three years ago.  and what that means for a self-employed wedding photographer is that i turned down a season of weddings.  all of them. i sat a summer out....quietly.  hoping no one noticed.  i. was. terrified.  but i couldn't move forward in my relationship with christ, knowing what i thought he asked of me and simply ignore it.  so "fear of The Lord" or "fear of God"...yea i get that a little bit...because i followed because i feared being disobedient lol...and i'm not shy to say that...it's the kind of fear that parents ought to have with their children...love them so much that they are afraid to disobey you....i'm already digressing, sorry ha....so i sat a season out.  got my priorities right. changed my business focus back onto the One who gave it to me to begin with...and when i took back those reigns in january of that next season...it was with the heart of "going back to my first love"...and that included film.  on a january day, in a sunday service, i remembered the love of shooting film that began in it all in college and with holga in hand, started taking it back up.

so that was january.  we found out about jose around that time (jose villa that is) and were encouraged by our friends to attend his workshop, knowing it would further push us into the film love we were re-igniting.  i scoffed at the idea, knowing the cost and said i'd "pray" about it.. which is a christian-ese term for "no, but i'll act spiritual and like i'm considering it by saying that".

oh...time out...

did i mention this was at the same time jacob decided it was time to quit his teaching job? oh yea.  that happened too.  for five years he strongly disliked his position for a variety of reasons.  and after 4 attempts every previous summer to find a new position, he found all the doors shut to him by the time fall came back around.  that fifth year, though, with tenure under his belt, we finally both felt at peace for him to leap. cut ties and find that pebble of faith to stand on. so he did.

so i hadn't taken on any weddings. he quits his job and we are "praying" about an incredible opportunity to go to mexico and learn under a master of film using an amount of money we know we don't seemingly have with neither of us foreseeing income later that year ha.  so in a half-hearted effort to follow through with my "praying" about it speech, i told jacob and God that if we got two weddings within that week that it could maybe cover us going and the rest would come after that because that would be our sign to go.  so we went to bed.  and i woke up the next morning...to THREE weddings.  God's funny like that, did you know.  you ask for two and he gives you three.  maybe it's because i'm one of the stubborn believers....like gideon (in judges 6) in the bible, asking for a wet fleece and dry land, and the next day asking for wet land dry fleece...blah blah...i often require too much of God, but he always meets me.  so we booked the workshop.  and began business again the end of that year.  and God provided enough income to cover us. 

and when jacob's year wrapped up and he quit...almost immediately he was given an opportunity to manage a comic bookstore...something he has looked into several summers prior at the wrong locations. considerable less pay and benefits, but with an exceedingly far better work environment to foster his other artistic talents. so we took a leap...and found a stone to stand on.  each step we have taken has cut our pay a little bit more...and yet simultaneously walked us more and more into a plan we know God has laid out for us.

it's a funny wrap up really.  i quit. then he quit. then i came back. and he was handed work. never has God left us alone.  so if i could stop pretending for a minute that i've got this finance thing figured out or that i'm running the show...i MIGHT just be able to shine Christ a little better.  i might be able to explain how we didn't have jobs, but then we did or how when a mortgage payment came up shy, i "found" a check from a client that hadn't been cashed...or when we struggled and fought for health insurance for months, he came through...or maybe how medically i had some of the most trying years of my life and yet he pulled me through...if i could stop, you could see God a little better in me. to know God as provider, requires needing provision. ever thought of that. to know him as healer, you must need healing. it's a scary prayer...to ask to know him as a provider or in any other capacity.  it's frightening in a way any time you ask to know God in a different or new way...because that means testing.  but the testing....THAT is the adventure.  its dying to self and yet it's life giving. it's not safe, but it's amazing.

so at the end of walter mitty...i found myself broken with God.  and humbled.  as i've not thanked him for this adventure we have had...one of transition and trust...one of being moved around and placed where he wanted us to be. and without thanking him, i've not recognized what lies ahead.  it may not have been smart to spend what we had saved. it may not have made dave ramsey sense (and we follow dave ramsey really well...so i hate to disappoint)...but we spent what we did to go where he's called us.  and if he has called us...there is no shame in what it cost me to get there.  he gave it all for me.  and i am willing to give it all back and sometimes that means for a child i don't yet know.  striking similarities.

and so we are on an adventure...and i am now eager to share all that God has done with us, financially and otherwise to carry us along and get us to the places he wants us to be.  because he is worthy of that recognition, deserving of that praise, and it is merely selfish of me to not share the "goodness of the lord in the land of the living".

Saturday, January 11, 2014

dreams.

it's a long one...i'm not hurt if you skip it ;)

i've contemplated posting this one.  not really sure why...but you know how when you feel strongly about something sometimes it's hard to write out and make it sound so....real. like telling everyone that you're actually believing in this or for this?  makes you feel a bit crazier. ha. well it's all part of our story so i'm going to write it out, if only for myself and our family.

april 10th, 2011...is when our family, or the idea of it began. 

I had gone to ethiopia that january to photograph and document the adoption of our dear friends (life changing awesomeness, y'all...but anyways).  came home and we met with a local agency to adopt within that next month.  so february we met with an agency and got all the info, but it just didn't feel right. in march we left for south africa and visited my sister there.  while it was amazing and super enjoyed hanging out with family, we also spent 10 days with my nephew.  and he's an angel, really, don't get the wrong idea at all from this story...but we saw how exhausting it can be to have a child and as we flew back to the states, we talked about maybe holding off a bit longer on a family.  at least give it a few months.  so we get back that first week of april.  and went to church that following sunday.  it was an all worship sunday.  and i was doing my worship thing.  and i looked up to our stage and saw a girl worshipping and felt God tell me "see how she worships me? she is going to teach her children to praise me like that"...it was the sweetest thing.  that girl at the time was trying to get pregnant and i knew that word would be such an encouragement to her.  so i went back to worshiping and tucked that little word in my mind to share with her when she got some positive results. onto another song....and i open my eyes again and immediately heard "you're going to be pregnant with her". i stopped in my tracks.  knowing the discussion i had just had with jacob on holding off i knew it was not a thought i could have come up with on my own.  i was very silent as we left the service that night, went out with friends to eat where the girl confirmed she was excited about being pregnant soon and i just knew it was our time.  so we got in the car to leave and i told jacob i felt strongly that what i had heard was our push to begin a family.  and so it began.

well, within just hardly a couple weeks the friend was pregnant.  and we celebrated!! and all the while i knew what i had heard and started to get excited in my spirit. the months passed and i didn't share what i had heard for me with really hardly anyone. it came october, november and december...and i really began to learn faith in God...faith in what i didn't see. faith in His voice and not the natural and what i saw. up until the very DAY she delivered i believed i would be pregnant and we would be pregnant together even for 12 hours. ha.  her delivery came and passed and then i defaulted to the symbolism.  pregnant together in excitement.  pregnant in the spirit with something big God is going to do....and after many months...pregnant maybe with her second child and my first.  i wasn't discouraged, i knew what i had heard was not from me and so i held up...continued to hold hope. we often intepret what we hear incorrectly...it doesn't mean you heard wrong, but that you see it in a different way than God intended it...He's always right, though...as is His word, His truths and His promises. don't question him...look inward to see if your heart needs to respond differently.

there's a million stories of things i've heard or jacob has over the past three years...."sons of thunder" leading us to believe we would have twins boys....scriptures that have spelled out our lives with a girl's name that has led me to believe we are having a girl...you name it.  God has spoken to us in so many different ways.  it's encouraging...always hope giving...which is all about who He is anyways. so flash forward lots of months....we can cover those other words and months (years) another day...let's stick with my dream. i don't think that all of these are literal, perhaps they're spiritually meant...perhaps to be fulfilled in many years to come...just because we don't see how they work out now does not mean they are not what we heard.  gosh have i ever learned that in the past many years.  God is true to Himself and His word....always.  never question that.

back to my dear friend and the word and my recent dream.

this same awesome gal announced her second pregnancy a few months ago and while i was initially shocked (thinking..."hmm...but i'm not pregnant" ha ha) i ran to my calendar to find that she is the same weeks along as i am into the adoption. how sweet is that??  is that what God meant?? i have no idea. may never...but the dream.

christmas night i dreamed i was pregnant. and i was 8-11 weeks along.  i don't know why 8-11...but it stuck out.  and i was delivering! and everyone was like "no way! that's way too premature! you can't do that yet"...and i was all calm, explaining that it was the perfect timing. and i delivered a perfectly sized, normal baby (not gender specific in the dream, darn, i know :D). i woke up feeling odd.  i shared it with jacob and he asked how long we had been on the waiting list.  at that point it was about 6 weeks.  well that following week i began texting with my friend who is pregnant and learned some new informaiton.  she was going to have an appointment this past week that they might need to do an ultrasound for...and if they did they would know the gender....if they didn't end up needing to do that ultrasound then she would go back in for her normal gender appointment on the 29th.  that's neat, right? cool....

then it hit me.  and i ran to the calendar again.  wednesday when she went we were EXACTLY 8 weeks on the waiting list...and the 29th when she is going back now...EXACTLY 11 weeks on the waiting list.  random? ironic? i think not.  if we are in fact "pregnant" together...it makes sense to me for us to both know the genders of our baby at the same time.

now i write all this knowing that God has a divine plan.  that is clearly not my own. wednesday i was a bit heightened...needless to say. and thursday morning i nearly jumped out of my skin when my phone rang early before we were both up! and come the 29th it might be best you just don't call lol. 

i'm also a firm believer in God constantly providing hope.  there was a time this past year that i was upset and crying with God...i had been experiencing a million new pregnancy symptoms...some id never experienced and some i had....and then they turned out to not lead to me being pregnant.  and in the past many months i've had that a lot...new symptoms that would lead me to believe i could be.  and so after one especially difficult month i was praying about it....yelling about it perhaps, let's be honest this path is not an easy one.  and i asked him why on earth He would continually lead me to thinking that i was, or could be, or might be pregnant, only to reveal i'm not...and i heard this "hope. to give you hope". it stilled my heart and i cried. without little symptoms or little nudges to make me think there was hope to growing our family, i may have crumbled into an awful mess. the silence would have crushed me more.  it was one of the sweetest lessons of the past 3 years.  God was providing me hope...and once i realized that...the months got easier and hope came more easily.

so what does this all mean. i have no idea.  perhaps nothing. maybe it's all a way of providing hope. but i'm currently believing that we will know (get our referral) who our baby(ies) is by january 29th.  and if we don't, that's fine. but we have nothing if we don't have hope. so i'm hopeful we will know and that the craziness of the past three years means something tangible that i can see laid out before me soon.  let's be honest, that'd be a pretty stinkin' awesome testimony.  because it's all for God's glory, guys. if it's not, you best lay it back down. everything that happens is to give him the most glory...THROUGH us.  and if this is part of our story then i can't wait to share it...and if it's all seemingly irrelevant currently, then i'll store it in my dreams/visions/notions category of my mind knowing that at some point in life it will be crystal clear. 

logistically....
we are on the waiting list.  but where our agency is all christ-centered, they pray over every applicant and every baby and place them how they feel God leads them...which doesn't always mean going in order according to a "list" per se.  so my dear friends behind us in the adoption might get their referral before us and that's okay....and people who have been on the waiting list far longer than us may have to wait after us...that one is harder for me to handle...but it's not a check off down the line with this organization.  and i'm thankful for that...it takes even more control out of my hands and i need more of that in my life...things that don't run on my timeline.  so it is, in fact, possible for us to know at anytime.  there was one woman i met who got her referral within THREE WEEKS of being added to the list...those were different times at the orphanage when they had to get their numbers down more quickly....but it is not by any means impossible.

timing wise...
currently taiwan is 13 hours ahead of us.  so it makes sense to me that if they were going to call it would be early morning or later evening.  because if it's 8 am here it's 9pm there....and if it were like 7 pm here it would be 8am there...otherwise during the day either here or there would be middle of the night in the other location.  hence my jumping out of my skin the other morning to answer my phone...perhaps these are the motherly instincts kicking in (i was hoping that would start at some point because man am i a sound sleeper!!)...so the soft buzz of my phone sends me in a whirlwind these days....and our video camera is always on me to get it recorded! :)

soooo.  we are just waiting.  but we are ever so hopeful :)  God is writing our story and i'm thankful.

timeline

i'll need this for reference some day...and i'll keep editing as need be :)

Adoption Timeline:
August 30 2013 - First appointment with All Blessings International to begin the process

September 1 2013 - type out pre approval application to send Mandee/Taiwan
September 2 2013 - sent out pre approval letter to Mandee/Taiwan
September 10 2013 - pre approved to move forward with adoption through THOGL
September 11 2013 - sent in intitial application to begin process to ABI
September 13 2013 - ABI approval given and all documents sent to us to begin home study
September 26 2013 - submitted forms for criminal background check
Septembe 27 2013- - first home visit from the social worker
All September worked on home study paper work, documents, background checks and physicals, fingerprinting, forms from doctors, birth and marriage certificates, also doing education credits for home study

October 1 2013 - criminal background checks go through and are approved
October 4 2013 - ALL home study paper work DONE on our end of things
October 8 2013 - mailed out all of our documents for the home study to ABI to being finalizing
October 14 2013 - second and LAST home study completed, now all finalization of home study can be worked up and typed up at ABI
October 15 2013 - added to THOGL Forum on facebook to meet the other parents
October 28 2013 - proofed out typed up home study report from ABI
October 31 2013 - home study DONE all the way and being sent to taiwan!!! (8 weeks to the day)

November 6 - filed our i600a form for immigration and official fingerprinting
November 13 - officially added to the WAITING LIST

December 20 - found out our second half of i600a was denied and/or filed incorrectly (not our problem, they told us incorrectly) resent the form and payment in an overnight mailer as the cut off expiration is January 13th and must be to Texas then back to our representative

January 29 - had our FBI fingerprinting done in cincinnati, ohio