Happy Birthday Jacob

Our dossier is on a jet plane to Beijing today, on Jacob’s birthday! In the adoption world we are officially DTC (dossier to China)! No turning back now. :)

What a HUGE praise that we wanted to share with you all. Now, our agency says to expect 4-6 months before travel. Jeremy and I are praying, begging really, that we travel as quick as we can. I can go on and on for the reasons we should and want to travel soon, but this morning as I prayed about the timing I was convicted… God has not called our family to adopt only to give this sweet boy a family. He’s called our family to share Jesus with everyone along our journey. This means, adoption agencies, other families, our friends, and guides and other people we will be in contact with while in China. Our calling and purpose here is much bigger than bringing home Jacob, although that is HUGE! I was extremely humbled as God reminded me of this. This doesn’t mean that we won’t still pray for speedy processing, but we will try harder to live out the full calling God has placed on our family! As you pray, definitely pray for speedy paperwork and no bumps or hiccups, but also for us, as the next few months will be a roller coaster that includes many, many preparations in all areas of our life. We thank God for each of you. We feel your prayers. Your encouraging emails and text messages always come at the perfect times. 

Here are the final steps in case you want to pray over them: DTC (today!), LID (7-14 days from DTC), LOA (this step is BIG and can vary from 30-60 days), I800 (immigration-takes a few weeks), NVC (visa), GUZ # and DS260 (these are important numbers we will be given…and right now there are some hiccups with the DS260 system so we are already praying for that part of our process), Article 5 drop off/pick up, TA (travel approval) and then we go to China! Seems like a lot but once we are LOA, everything else goes pretty quickly. 

Jeremy & Nacole 

16 weeks and counting

I started a countdown last week, as I have used lots of estimates from others who are currently in the process of adopting from China. Based on our documents being sent out last week, we should be somewhere around 16 weeks before travel. Unfortunately, our documents did not get sent out as we had anticipated. We experienced a range of emotions from frustration and anger to well, mostly frustration and anger! For whatever reason our documents did not get sent out last week. BUT, I'm still holding on to 16 weeks before travel because I know just what God can do! Praying our documents are on a plane to China tomorrow or Tuesday at the latest! 

One other great thing about last week was summer camp for Austin! He had an amazing time and really experienced Jesus on a deeper level. For those of you who don't know, Austin accepted Christ when he was only 5 1/2. Jeremy and I talked with him and prayed with him for over 6 months before letting him ask Jesus in his heart. You may ask why in the world we'd want him to wait... We wanted Austin to be 100% sure he was hearing from God so that he would never question his decision. Last week at camp Austin heard God speak to him and called him to the next step in his faith. A deeper, closer relationship with Him! It was wonderful to be able to talk with him after camp about hearing from the Lord and what the process of growing closer to Him looks like. God is so faithful and Jeremy and I couldn't be more blessed that Austin is living out his own faith! We look forward to the big plans God has for you Austin! 

It's been a while...

Wow! Every time I update our blog I say that I'm going to keep up with it and not let too much time go by. Since that last post, there has been a LOT that has happened. For the next few months, most of my posts will be adoption related. I expect (and plan) to post fairly often as lots will start happening soon. Most of you know that our family started the adoption process in September 2012 in Bulgaria (Eastern Europe). We chose that country for several reasons but one was the long wait time. Sounds crazy right?! We knew God wanted us to complete this adoption debt free so we intentionally chose a country with a long wait time... We know God had Yin Di picked for our family long before he was born and he knew asking us to adopt debt free would lead us to this sweet boy in His perfect timing. Fast forward to February 2015 and the day before we were to mail out our yearly immigration update, Jeremy and I found this precious little boy on our agency's Facebook. We knew immediately he was our son! So, without hesitation we switched countries (literally overnight) and were on our way to adopting Yin Di from China. It's been a roller coaster ride for sure! Ups and downs, frustrations and miracles. As of yesterday our documents cleared the Chinese consulate and will hopefully be DTC (documents to China) next week! Here is a picture of our little guy. This is an outdated picture and we are hoping for an official update soon. :) He's precious and we KNOW without a doubt he is a perfect fit for our family!

Meet Jacob Yin Di Morgan. More about this sweet boy in the next blog!