December Photo Update

Preparing for Adoption Day

 We have been doing some required online training lately for the adoption.  This is a short movie about one ''adoption day'', the day the adoptive family actually takes the child into their family.  Although this is the day we have waited so long for, and such a happy day for us,  it may be the child's worst.  Imagine being put into the hands of strangers by the only people you know, being evicted from the only home you have known.  I hope that Ying Rong has a little easier time with the initial transition since we are in the unique position of having already spent time with her.
 Quite a bit of our training deals with the grief and loss that these children feel throughout their lives.  They miss there caretakers.  They miss their playmates, who they may have been living with for years.  They grieve the loss of their birth parents, who they never knew.  They become sad when they realize that they did not grow in their adoptive mom's tummy, and that they look nothing like their adoptive mom and dad.  They may sometimes doubt that they belong with their new family at all.  All of this sadness manifests itself in different ways and at different stages in their lives.  We hope that our love and the Holy Ghost will ease the sad and confusing times Ying Rong is bound to encounter.   Please pray that she adjusts well and always feels at home in our home.

Adoption Update

We are still working on our dossier and home study paperwork. We are about to submit 8 important documents to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago for authentication, and we are very close to submitting all of our documents to the agency doing our home study. We have applied for one adoption grant and are waiting to hear if we will receive any funds. After our home study is approved we are free to apply for many other adoption grants; most granting organization require families to have an approved home study. We are looking forward to new photos and an update from the orphanage this month!

It has been a beautiful fall here in Kansas, with lots of sun and warm weather. We are preparing for winter and already looking forward to spring, because that is when we hope to be able to travel to China to get Ying Rong! There is so much to look forward to!