Everything Is Awesome!

This latest blog update is going to be a roundup of some news already posted on Facebook, as well as some thoughts that I have had over the last few days.  There's so much good news packed into this update, it has been dubbed, "Everything Is Awesome".  Things are going great.  Paperwork is getting processed, preparations are being made, packages are being sent, and God is reminding us every day why He called us to do this.

The Village
Everyone knows the old adage of, "It takes a village to raise a child."  As we were packing our carport full of yard sale donations this week, I thought, "It takes a village to adopt a child as well."  When you really think about all the people who have been involved in the adoption, that really rings true.  I think Jack has an awesome village waiting when he gets home.  We thank everyone who has done anything to help us through this journey.  I keep looking to the future when we are able to send out Christmas cards and birthday invites!


Camp
Last weekend, I went to Waukaway Springs in Vossburg, MS with my church to a youth camp.  We had an awesome time hanging out, playing, and worshiping together.  We read about the first church in Acts.  They got rid of everything they had, lived together, ate together, shared together, and worshiped together.  That's what makes church camp so awesome.  It's so great to get away from "The World".  As I got to hang out with all of the kids, I kept thinking, "I can't wait to share these kinds of moments with Jack."  I look forward to raising Jack in the ways that the Bible teaches us to love God, and love each other.

Here is a fun little video I put together from the weekend:

Facebook Post Roundup

June 26

CCAI received our Dossier today! Woohoo! 

Here is the email we got from CCAI:

Hi T.J. & Brandy,

Congratulations! Your dossier has arrived at our office! 

Your dossier will now go through the following steps:
Check-in: Your dossier package is checked to ensure all necessary dossier items are present. If your package is missing any item(s), we will let you know. If all dossier items are present, we will begin the review of your dossier! Please do not be alarmed if your fees are not checked-in immediately; they are handed to the Accounting Department and are processed on a different timeline than the rest of your dossier.

Critical Review and Translation: Your dossier will be here for 9-11 business days if it is complete and problem-free. During the critical review process, your dossier is looked through another 3 full times for any mistakes or errors. This review includes a careful inspection of the document in terms of content and format, possible translation problems, and dates. A thorough check of the notarization, certification, and authentication pages are also made at this time just to make sure all is in perfect order. We will notify you once this step is complete.

**PLEASE NOTE: Precedence for review is given to complete dossiers so that we can get them off to China as soon as possible. Incomplete dossiers may be reviewed within this timeframe, however it cannot be guaranteed. The 9-11 business day timeline for critical review and translation begins once your dossier is completed.

Once your dossier is complete and the critical review is finished, a summary translation of your dossier is completed, making sure the most important information is easy to locate when your dossier is received by the China Center for Children’s Welfare and Adoption (CCCWA) in China. This also helps decrease the chance this important information is mis-interpreted during the full translation of your dossier in China.

Binding: Your dossier is bound together in a very professional red folder, with photos being mounted and documents carefully lined up and ordered according to the CCCWA’s preference.

Mailing: Lastly, your dossier will be carefully packaged and sent to China via international express mail!

Remember, we are as anxious as you are to get your dossier to China and will keep you posted every step of the way!

June 30

My sweet Mom wanted to buy Jack a couple of outfits to send in his care package. It was so nice to be able to pick out some cute things for him to wear while he plays and some PJ's to sleep in. While I was trying not to be too picky about the first outfit he will receive from us (HA), it was so fun imagining him getting this care package and hoping he feels the love that we are sending with it. We should be able to have it all put together by the end of the week and send it off. This will be the first time he will know anything about us! How exciting! Also a very dear friend of mine bought him a book that records us telling him a story, even though he won't understand the words he will be able to hear our voices and let us read to him whenever he likes. He is so loved already!

-Brandy

July 1

All done with the care package except for Joanna Lynn Hughes family photo! I don't have one with all 7 of them. (They keep adding to their bunch  ) However I am getting that done today so I can send it off tomorrow! I cannot express how excited I am for Jack to get it. Wish I could see his little face when he opens it! This will be the first of what I am sure will be a lot that we send to him! LOL Starting to work on getting his room set up so we can send him a picture that. I pray that these packages will help prepare him some for when he comes home. And I hope that he knows how much he is loved already!

-Brandy

July 1

From CCAI:

Hi T.J. & Brandy!

My name is Laura and I assist the Dossier Department. This is a courtesy email to let you know that we have just finished checking in your dossier, and a response is not necessary. “Check in” ensures that our Dossier Team have all of the required documents needed to complete the critical review of your dossier. It currently appears that all of the required items have been received (hooray!), and therefore the Dossier Team will begin their critical review of the dossier immediately. Please allow 9-11 business days for completion of the review, and a response from the Dossier Team.

Thanks and have a great day!

July 3

While driving into work this morning I looked at the license plate on the SUV in front of me and read: JCKSMOM (I couldn't get a picture of it while driving 70 miles per hour) However it did make my heart speed up! It has been little things like this license plate through out this whole journey proving that God is right beside us telling us to keep going, He has got this! GOD IS GOOD!!!!! ALWAYS!!!!!!

-Brandy

Adoption is Hard

Note from Brandy:
June 25

Adoption is just hard! There I said it! When we first started this journey we were told that the Devil will do whatever he can and use whoever he can to take your joy and try to take the focus off the main reason we're on this journey in the first place. And it's not just the paper work either. It's the emotion of it all. The waiting, the not knowing, and the just trying to "prepare" yourself for this HUGE life change. And I will tell you this, the people in your life will either bring you up or bring you down. The key is relying on God! He has truly been by our side this entire time and even the days that I fail, He is still showing His undying faithfulness. Asking for prayers as I go full blow into this battle with Satan, I know it is already won by Christ, however pray for me for strength to react as I should in the Godly manner. Thank you and love you all.

Brandy

Packages

Another FB post from Brandy:

June 23
Got our Dossier back this morning!! Now we can send it to CCAI to be translated and then off to China!!! Getting so much closer to being able to hug our sweet Jack! I have heard from other adopted parents who have used CCAI that it takes about 2 weeks to translate the forms and about 6 weeks for China to "approve" the forms. After that there is more waiting. But this time it will be for our travel dates to go to China! Whoop whoop!!  That usually takes a few months. When I see Jack's sweet face my heart fills with joy and I thank God for His faithfulness and undying love. Also for you all that have supported us in some way! This journey has been crazy, good and not so good, def been emotional but all so worth it! Love you all!

Brandy

Care Package

We were also told by our agency that we can start sending care packages to Jack.  They have an information packet with labels for us to attach to a photo album to send to him. They have labels translated in Chinese like "Mom", "Grandmother", "Your Room", "Our Dog", and "Our House".  They also have labels for us to send a gift to his nanny and/or director of orphanage.  There's even Chinese labels for "We Love You!" and "Happy Birthday!".  They told us we could send stuff we could fit in a shoe box.  We can even send a disposable camera for Jack's nanny to take pictures of him and his friends for us!  One suggestion we got was if we send him a toy, to have that same toy here when he gets home.  A sweet friend of ours got us a story book, where we can record our voices reading the story.  My mom and dad said we should send him a Paul Companies shirt, haha.

A little story about God's provision

As you know, one our fund-raising methods has been yard sales.  Last week we went and picked up some items from a friend who is remodeling her house.  She needed to get rid of some things, and she knew about our yard sales so she called us.  She had a bunch of stuff, and as a coincidence, I happened to be pulling a U-Haul trailer the day we went to pick up her donations.  As it turns out, she owns a business where one of her services is organizing and de-cluttering.  The day after we picked up her items, she called to let us know she had MORE items.  She asked her customer, and they said it was okay for her to donate the clutter to us.  Today, we had this conversation:

Little things like this are our every-day miracles that we have seen throughout the adoption process.  I want to make more of a point to share more of these.

Picture This

First, a message from Brandy from her Facebook page:

Just received our PA (pre-approval) from China for our sweet little Jack!!! This is a HUGE step closer to bringing our son home! We get to send him care packages now, and I want to fill that package with everything! LOL T.j. Paul and I are so blessed and we are praising God! Now we are just waiting on our Dossier to get certified from Houston (Chinese Consulate) then we will be off to the next step! — feeling excited.

Okay, so we've been waiting to share this cute little face with the world for a few weeks now since we got his referral.  We had to wait for our pre-approval from China before we could do that.  A pre-approval is pretty much a formality, but our agency asks everyone to wait for that before we share any of his bio or pictures.  I actually had to delay a blog post called "Meet Jack".  You can go back and read that to learn more about his personality, but for now............

ENJOY!

These first pictures are from when he was a little younger.

Brandy just loves those lips!

Look at the flexibility in those toes!

Looking a little shy.

These next photos were taken just for us, only a few days before they sent his file to us for review.  He's three years old, and he turns four on September 25th.

This is the picture I have put on the lock screen on my iPhone.  If you've seen me the last few days, you've seen this picture because I'm showing it to err'body.

There is a video of him, and this shot is from when he had about four or five Chinese people speaking to him and trying to get him to do something.  It's okay, Jack, I would get confused if one person was giving me commands in Chinese.  Really, he looked more like he was just defiant like Butters does when you know she knows what we are saying, but it's just not something she wants to do right this second.  Lord, help us if we spoil this boy the way we spoil Butters.

This is another picture from the video.  There is an American girl to his left.  I think she was there from our agency.  You can see a tape measure, and it looks like he is sitting on a scale.  It looks like she was there measuring him and checking on him.  He's drawing circles with his left hand.  Future owner/manager of HP Graphics?

If the pictures just aren't enough, here are two videos they sent to us:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFd2LMPET-g&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fV8CbmsCmzU&feature=youtu.be

Withdrawals

Brandy and I are going through withdrawals this week for a couple of reasons.  First, we don't have any more paperwork to do right now.  We have been filling out forms and writing letters for this adoption non-stop since November of last year, and some even before then.  We finally finished our dossier last week, and knocked off a couple of "To-Do Lists" for our agency.  Now, there is nothing to do but wait, and it feels really weird.  We complained about how much paperwork we had to do before, and now we almost miss it.  It's like those dreams you have after graduation that you had homework that you forgot to do.  It's just been such a big part of our life.

Our second withdrawal this week has been from caffeine.  To try to stay healthy, we both gave ourselves a week-long challenge to drink nothing but water or milk.  Monday was ROUGH.  By the time I got home, I didn't feel like doing anything.  Brandy managed to prepare a delicious dinner.  I had hope that food would give me a burst of energy, but the only energy we got was from laughing at two episodes of America's Funniest Videos.  It NEVER fails, the video with the cute kid ALWAYS wins.  It's America's Funniest, not America's Cutest, people!  We were both in bed at 9 o'clock!

I checked with the courier who took our dossier to the Chinese Consulate in Houston.  She said it looked like everything was in order with our dossier, so that was a relief.  She said it would be ready Friday, and I assume that means we will get it back next week.  When we get it back, we will send it to our agency.  Then, they will translate it and send it to China.  Once China receives it, we will have our Log In Date (LID), which is a big deal in the adoption process.

I just want to express some gratitude.  To our readers, you may feel sick of reading our "thank you's", but I just don't think we can say it enough.  We got some big help over the last few weeks.  I'd love to stand on a rooftop and scream your names and praises.  We just want everyone to know that we REALLY appreciate all the emotional and financial support we have received in the last couple of weeks and throughout the whole process.  We still have shirts available.  If anyone wants a Paul Companies shirt, message us on our FB page https://www.facebook.com/pauladoption?ref_type=bookmark .

Babymoon

Our Dossier is no longer in our hands but on its way to be certified by the Chinese Consulate in Houston, TX.  Then, it comes back to us, then on to our agency, and finally it goes to China! But for now, we wait.  The ones that have been through adoption before understand how awesome this feels. It's like the biggest school project anyone has ever done.  It's been the hardest part of the adoption so far.  It feels like now we are waiting for our grade from the teacher, hoping we didn't miss anything or get anything wrong.  

We are still waiting for our pre-approval, so we can share pictures of our boy.  In the meantime, Brandy and I are discussing how we should spend our last few months as a family of three (if you count our dog, Butters).  We have been talking of taking a "babymoon" before we leave for China.  Obviously, we can't spend a bunch of money and fly across the world, but we want to do something that we can't do with a child.  So, if anyone has any suggestions, please share!

Frequently Frustrated

Sending out our Dossier today or tomorrow depending on the carrier!!! So excited that this MAJOR step is past us! I never knew that paperwork could be so stressful! All the emotions and feelings you go through with adoption is something I don't think we will ever forget however I KNOW that meeting my waiting child is going to be one of the best feelings. I am not the best at words so it is hard to describe all that goes through your mind. To describe the helplessness you feel when you are just waiting on someone else to approve something before you can even do the next step. The feeling of impatience when once again you have to redo a form because it has expired because you are still waiting on a form to get approved or isn't worded JUST right. To describe how frustrated you get because you still don't understand what they are asking for after reading the form for 100th times!! LOL (quite embarrassed by that one)  However the feeling you get just knowing that we will be meeting our child (God willing) by next year is priceless!

Brandy