TA

We recieved our TA today. This means Travel Approval from China. We were given the option to travel next week, leave week of Thanksgiving, or the week after Thanksgiving. We are choosing the week after Thanksgiving. "G" saw no problem with us leaving next week. I informed him we need to get a few more Math, grammer, and Latin lessons done before we can get on a plane! I think the timing willl work out well with our homeschool schedule and Christmas break.

1 month ago

Can't believe it has already been a month since we were referred Maggie. After all of C's speech therapy and surgery I would never of thought our next adoption would be a cleft baby. It wasn't checked on our checklist. I kept telling DH that I didn't think the check list would matter - we would just be shown who our daughter is. Sure enough the list didn't matter. Maggie is not supppose to have a cleft palate. Her paperwork says aveolar cleft which is a cleft gumline. But in the International adoption world nothing is 100%. I will be anxious to peek inside her mouth.

LOA and Fundraising project

LOA means Letter of Acceptance. It is a letter you sign saying "yes we really do want to adopt this child". It usually takes 4-6 weeks to recieve. We received our LOA in 12 days. Wow! Now we only need 1 more paper from China - a TA. This stands for Travel Approval which says you can come now.

Our agency says we should plan to travel the first of December. Our reality is coming at us fast. I pray the transition is managable with our homeschooling. Makes me a bit nervous, but if we travel first of December it will give us a short break before we have to dive back into schooling.

They other last major thing we are doing prior to travel is called a "both hands project". It is a fundraising effort. Both hands ministry pairs you with a widow. You put together a work crew and spend the day fixing her home and doing repairs. Your work crew sends out letters requesting financial support to work on the widows home. Once you pay for supplies all excess money goes to the adoptive family. We are tentively planning to do our project November 20th. Let me know if you would like to help. We have alot of adoption expenses and would love the support.