LOA LOA LOA! YAHHOOOOOO

Today is the day! Finally our LOA came! 48 days of waiting and it is finally here!

We are so excited and cant believe it is finally here! Tears of Joy and relief and happiness are flying! I cant believe we are finally seeing some progress! Next step is provisional approval of our I-800 and we will mail that out as soon as Madison gets the LOA to me and we sign it, we have to make copies and then send one in with our I-800.  I have all of the next forms done (they have been for weeks) so as soon as it gets here we are signing it, copying it with our signatures and it is outta here! Praying everything moves quickly and smoothly from this point on!

God is SOOOO watching over my boy!

How crazy is this.. I google my son's Chinese name just for the heck of it and guess what? I find out that he was at a Christian camp this summer!!!!!!!!  There is a group of Christians that travel to China every year called "Bring me Hope" and they had the honor of showing the love of the Lord to my son! I am so amazed and blessed! The Lord our God is already preparing Luke's heart so that Luke will one day be a strong Man of God! I am so humbled and blessed that my son was able to be a part of this group and be shown the love of the Lord our God that I was brought to tears when I saw this picture! Thank you so much to the amazing people of Bring me Hope who have touched my sons life in a way that is truly amazing! Every parent that is in the process of adopting prays that their child is safe and that the Lord is watching over them while they are not with their momma and daddy and I had the Lord send me a picture today and say

 "Hey Tracy, dont worry! for I have been watching over this little boy since before he was even born, he is mine and I am taking care of him!" 

ahhhhhhhhhhhh.. GOING NUTS HERE!

42 DAYS, 42 DAYS OF WAITING ON THIS ONE PEICE...42, 42 42 DAYS........DAY 42 HAS NOW COME AND GONE AND NO LOA!!!! ENOUGH ALREADY AS I AM GOING CRAZY HERE!!!! I NEED THIS NEXT PIECE SO THINGS CAN REALLY START ROLLING!! ENOUGH TORTURE AND BRING ON THE LOA PLEASE!

AHHHHH I am applying for grants like a crazy woman and digging into fundraising ideas. Anyone that has any great ideas they would love to share would be greatly appreciated. We are hoping to get some grants but fundraising would be great too! The applications for the grants are LONG and taking way more time then I had expected but it will be worth it if we qualify for one or more! We are praying that God will help us find a way and that the funds needed to bring our son home will be here when they are needed. So far God has been amazing and we have truly been blessed and met every need. We are coming up on some big needs though and any prayers for funds would be a blessing! Praying to bring our handsome son home sometime in the very beginning of 2011. I am hoping for the very beginning of January but of course this is not up to us and the longer we wait for LOA the longer the wait until we can go. We are on day 38 of our LOA wait and with this being Friday there goes my dream of having an LOA in the 20 or 30 day range, so now I am praying for the 40 day range! After LOA we have about 9-12 weeks before we travel so as you can see the faster LOA comes the faster it is to bring our Luke home! 

Where are you LOA????

Well It is now the end of day 36 and still no LOA. I am definitely getting antsy.  I have all of the next forms filled out and ready to go! So we just sit here and wait! LOA LOA LOA where are you? Here is hoping our prayers get answered soon and our LOA arrives any day now! 

Pictures I have found, what a joy and a blessing!

Awhile ago someone posted a link to hundreds of photos from Luke's orphanage and I was lucky to find these on there! It is nice to be able to find some pictures and see what he has been doing and watch him change. It is nice to find some younger pictures of our boy! What a joy of a find!

Found these of our guy when he was
 younger.. Love the gaps in teeth!

Dont you just love that face

 He is in the orange sweatshirt sitting
 on the chair under the butterfly                                                                          

Cant wait to find out what this was for!

Celebrating a friends Birthday!

Ok can we get him a bigger chair for those
 long legs, he does take after me!

 He sure is one tall boy!

This was on the front page of a Newspaper in Jinan,
 Luke is bottom right wearing a blue shirt 

Luke is the handsome tall boy in the dark 
uniform behind the little guy

30 days and counting!

Tomorrow is day 30 of our LOA wait. I must say I am losing patience but, trying hard to find where I left it. Funny how those little patiences always disappear hehe. I was hoping we had our LOA on Friday of last week when a pretty large group from our agency received theirs.  A few people who received theirs were ahead of me in days they have been waiting since LID and a few were exactly the same LID as me. So I was sure praying hard mine would arrive too, but alas it did not. Plus I knew if it didnt come last Friday that the CCAA is closed from Oct 1st -Oct 7th and no paperwork will go out, so there is no hope of seeing it until the end of next week at the earliest. I have all of my I-800 forms filled out and ready to go so as soon as this bad boy arrives we can sign it, make a copy and send it and all the accompanying forms off to the CCAA and send some paperwork to Madison Adoption Associates and then we are good to go! I am praying we see LOA next week. I dont know how much longer I can wait. From LOA there are a number of steps left such as:


 I-800 provisional approval - @2 weeks
 NVC notification - @1 week
Article 5 notification -@ 2 weeks
Article 5 to Travel Approval (TA)- 2-3 weeks
TA to Consulate Appointment - 2-3 weeks
TA to Departure - 2 weeks

SO as you can see after LOA it is about 11-13 weeks before we travel.  So if LOA comes next week we could be traveling in the beginning of January.  ALL of the times I gave are approximate so who knows when we will actually travel but the beginning of January sounds good to me. AHHH Northern China in the winter. Boy that sounds interesting..... I am NOT a cold person hahah. I better learn to adapt real fast, at least we get to end the last part of our trip in Guangzhou and it will be much warmer down there near Hong Kong then in Jinan (north near Beijing but near the coast).  Ok so I am praying for LOA next week! Lets see how it goes!! Feel free to pray along with me. Praying our little boy home is very important!