Thanksgiving—Chinese style!

I got this from the Bethany Blog site and thought it was cool! Sorry we are a b it late! Happy Thanksgiving!

"Xie xie" (pronounced: Sheay-sheay)

Did you know that "xie xie" means "thanks" in Mandarin-Chinese?

"Xie xie ni" (pronounced: Sheay-sheay nee)

This is the more formal way to say "thank you" in Mandarin-Chinese.

The Mandarin language is the most commonly used form of Chinese in China and around the world. The second most commonly used Chinese language is Cantonese, generally used more in the Southern regions and in Hong Kong. There are many (hundreds) other dialects used throughout other parts of China as well.

In honor of Thanksgiving, we would like to say "xie xie" for the following:

Xie xie to China for allowing us the privilege of adopting their children.

Xie xie to CCAA for allowing Bethany, a Christian organization to work in China and find homes for their children.

Xie xie to Bethany's adoptive families for opening their hearts and homes to orphaned children.

Xie xie to the caretakers of the world.

Xie xie to the brave and selfless birth-parents that choose life for their child and oftentimes feel forced to abandon their children.

Xie xie to those who find the abandoned Chinese children and place them in the arms of caregivers.

Xie xie to the Bethany staff and social workers across the country that all share the same mission to find families for orphans.

Xie xie to the professionals/practitioners working with post adoptive families to help heal, restore and provide hope for the traumatized and grieving.

Xie xie to the educators who help prepare adoptive families.

Xie xie to the medical professionals that care for the children.

Xie xie to the prayer warriors that never forget to pray for the forgotten.

Xie xie to the communities that embrace diversity.

Xie xie to those who founded adoption.

Xie xie to those who fought for our freedoms.

Xie xie to those who made it possible for us to pray at work and at home, as this is a freedom that many do not have.

Xie xie to the children who resiliently adapt and embrace their adoptive families as their own.

Xie xie to our Gracious God who Created all to be thankful for.

October Referrals

It took a long time for the October Referrals to come out because of the New Moon Holiday in China. They did come out though and the CCAA has progressed through March 28th. So they only progressed 4 more days. This means though that they will be out of March next month. I have never looked forward to April so much! So....another 4 stones out of the jar. That is better than none!

LID Anniversary

Well here we are! 3 years and still waiting. Yesterday (August 30th) was the 3 year anniversary of our LID-the date that we were logged in in China. We could never have imagined that 3 years our we would still be waiting.
There has been a tiny bit of progress (we take what we can get) so another two days are marked off the list. They have matched babies with parents who have LID's of March 24, 2006 and before.

July Referrals

Well...the July referrals came out this week, and we have advanced 2 days (to March 22) I can not wait until they are out of March. It has been a very long month. So two more red stones get to come out of the jar! I also can't wait until the discard jar has more red stones than the waiting jar.....but that might be a while yet. In the mean time, I will be working on getting ready for school. I have two seminars to prepare for a conference in November, so that is keeping me out of trouble (not an easy thing to do:-)

The Countdown jar!

June Referrals
It took a while for them to come out, but the CCAA has progressed another 6 days. That means that they have finished giving referrals to people who have LIDs of March 20th. It isn't much progress, but it is progress. I have filled a jar with some red "jewels" to help us count down the number of LIDs between ours and where they are now (our computer has crashed, and so uploading pictures is not possible right now, but as soon as I can, I will take a picture of our countdown jar!)

In the meantime....let the summer house projects begin!

May Referrals

Referrals have come in once again! This time the CCAA progressed 6 days (woo hoo) That is 3 times as many days as they progressed the past few months, so there is hope that this will move along. The other part of the good news is that Bethany was able to give referrals to two sets of their LID's (March 9th and March 14th) I have added a new link in the sidebar of this page which contains a countdown clock showing how many LID's are left before ours. As of today it is 169--so let's start praying for some big batches of referrals!

April Referrals

Referrals from China have come in again this week. Once again the progression is slow, but there is progression. They have made it to March 8th of 2006. That means we there are only 175 LID's (Log in dates) to go before they get to ours. We are also praying for a faster progression, as they move through these dates. There are a number of web sites out there that keep adoptive parents up to date on things. If you want to check it out, I will add the web site to this web page.

Adoption Journey

So....how did we get started on this journey to adopt our daughter from China. Here is a bit of the history (in future posts I will let you know about some of the specifics of this very long process) Mark and I met in 1990 and started dating in 1993 (that in and of itself is a great story, which I will save for another day) We got married on September 23, 1995 and began our journey together as a family. As the years went by, we realized that having a child was apparently not going to be as easy as we thought it would be. Our quest for a baby took us to an infertility clinic in PA. After many procedures and a lot of medication, it was clear that if we wanted to grow our family, it would have to be through adoption.



In early 2005 we attended an informational meeting at Bethany Christian Services about international adoption. Right away we were drawn to China. Nancy's dad had lived in China for 7 years, and always had tales of how great the chinese are. There were also some financial considerations for going with China. So we started was is affectionately called the paper chasing. We had to get original birth certificates, marriage certificates and other documents. Of course, everything had to be authenticated and state sealed--so it is a long process. We also began our homestudy. This included each of us writing a biography of our life so far, 3 home visits, physicals and finger prints by both homeland security and the DE state police (we are happy to report--that although getting fingerprinted is not Nancy's forte--both Mark and Nancy have squeaky clean records!) We finally had all of our paper work together by the end of June, 2006. This is where it gets fun.



Nancy had to take all of our documents to Dover to get them state sealed. I almost had a panic attack when two of our documents came back with new staples and the old marks glaring me in the face--you are not allowed to have any stray marks anywhere on any document. Our social work assured us that the people in Grand Rapids (Bethany's home office location) could work wonders, so we packed it up and sent it to GR. This was on July 5th.



After it arrived in GR, the China team looked it over and then sent it out for authentication and translation. We found out that our Dossier was headed to China on August 8th, 2006. We then had to wait(so what is new) for our Log-In-Date--the date everything was checked in to the CCAA (Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs). We finally heard that our LID was August 30,2006. The next step in our wait was about to begin.

To be continued........

It looks like they made it to March 6, 06 for referrals this month--at least it is another 4 days down! We will take what we can get. In the mean time, I will be enjoying a snow day tomorrow (Lord willing). Enjoying a snow day means putting my living room and dining room back together since they were both painted last week. It was a great opportunity to clean thing out. Both rooms look fresh and new--it is a great feeling!

New Referrals for Babys from China usually come at the end of each month (or sometimes the first week) This is how we know where we are in the line up. Last month they referred babys through March 2nd (Our Log in Date is August 30th--so you can see how long we have to go before it is our turn.)

Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year! 2009 is the year of the ox. The chinese new year is also sometimes called the Spring Festival. It always falls on the first day of the new lunar year--so it is a rotating holiday. When our daughter finally joins our family, this holiday will become a regular part of our lives. For today, Mark and I will be having Chinese food for dinner! If you would like to read more about this holiday, you can go to the following web site:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year

Welcome to our blog about our adoption. We have been waiting a very long time for our baby from China, and we know that there are many who are waiting with us. So this will be one way for us to keep all of you updated on our progress. We are trusting that God knows our child and when we will all get to meet her. Please join us as we continue this journey toward our daughter.