Gongxi

Gongxi is a wish for a Happy New Year in Mandarin.  Yesterday was the first day of the Ch*nese New Year celebration.  This is a huge holiday in Ch*na! This year is the year of the dragon. Ch*nese New Year begins on the day of the first new moon of the year and lasts until the first full moon (about 15days).  They have many wonderful traditions to celebrate this holiday.  Yesterday the children and I read about the Ch*nese New Year, made our own laterns and dragons, and had a delicious Ch*nese food meal together.  We prayed for Ellie and thought of the wonderful year ahead of us!

Well today we started our Ch*nese new year off with a bang!!  (No, it wasn't a firecracker)... We FINALLY received our finalized homestudy report!!!  Thomas and I took a road trip to pick up our notorized copy and send it right off to USCIS (Immigration).  Then I promptly did a happy dance... and Thomas looked at me like I was crazy!  He said, "Now can we go get Ellie, already?"  I had to explain that we could not go get her today but took a huge step closer to her... this was not a good way to explain it to a 4 year old!

So what now?

Well we have to wait for our immigration approval (our I-797).  Right now the average wait time for this is 50-70 days!  Once we receive this approval form, we have to "seal" this document for our dossier.  EVERY document needs to be sealed before it is sent to Ch*na.  If  you want to hear more about these steps to authenticating documents read my previous post titled "trust".  I have already taken the first 3 of 5 steps to have our homestudy sealed.  Sooooo... once I recieve our 1-797 and take it along with our homestudy through the final steps of the authenication, our dossier paperwork will finallly be complete, and we will be "dossier to Ch*na" (DTC)!!!
        Today I also sent all of our other sealed documents (11 so far) and our pictures (Thanks to my wonderful friend, Kelly--an amazing photographer  http://kelphoto.com/blog/) to our placing agency.  Everything will be reviewed and all we have to do is..... you guessed it...... WAIT!!!  The most loathed word in the adoption community!  We wait for our immigration approval.  Then our dossier is sent to Ch*na and we....wait again for our next step.  Once our dossier is "logged into" Ch*na's Children Welfare Center the wait is approximately 4-6 months for TA (travel approval).  So.... I am still praying for September...maybe sooner?
 Thank you for the prayers.... some may call it New Year's luck..... I call it the power of the Holy Spirit!!  They both share the same color--red!!

Peace be with you.... and "Gongxi"

Amiee