Journey of Faith:Our Little Guy From China

Just a short post to say we named him Caleb Jon Melser.  We had a list of names we liked from many years ago when we started on this journey.  Then we saw his picture and we narrowed it down to two names.  Then we did a little more research on who these people were in the Bible.  We wanted a biblical name and for it to mean something to us and to him some day. 

I have met so many people, Christians that is, online that know of Caleb.  Many are sending us photos at different stages of his life so far.  We will have a full photo book before we meet him!  I have been looking into how to send him gifts and a cake for his birthday.  It is exciting to think a camera will be sent along with the cake and then we should get the camera back or the photos (I cannot remember how that works).  Oh, how we are longing to travel to meet him and bring him home...

Numbers 14:24
"But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it."

So I asked to get more information on this boy.  I gathered what I could and knew Tim was coming home from traveling.  I knew, though, that I was hesitant to show him more kids that I found because we have been through an emotional roller coaster with others I have found, so I waited until he was settled in for the night.  I quickly showed him the picture of this little guy and he immediately said he was cute and asked a ton of questions.  I was able to answer some and we agreed that I was to call the agency the next day ask for the original medical file for him (that is if he was still on the list) and if the file showed everything I was told by the advocators I was to send it off to the International Adoption Clinic (IAC).  I did all of that the next day as he was on the list.  Without the information coming back from the IAC we decided to lock the child's file.  We then had 72 hours to make a decision as well as allow our counselor to enter our information into the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) system.  They do not work on Fridays so we were told we needed to make a decision by early afternoon on Thursday, July 15th.  We knew that we could not make the best, full decision by then so our counselor said she would go into the office on Saturday morning.  Whew, we felt some relief at that point.

I had been in touch with three different women who somehow knew this child.  Each of them had information on this child for us.  They all responded to my questions in such timely fashion and we cannot thank them enough. I even was in touch with a woman who is part of a foundation that got him to doctors in Shanghai for tests.  She was on vacation and even responded to my emails while on vacation.  She was able to get us the written medical reports too!

So I know you are saying, get on with it!  So after all this correspondence, Tim and I made the decision to put in our letter of intent (LOI).  Julie, our counselor entered all our information into the CCAA system on the morning of Friday, July 16th.  On Wednesday, July 21st we were given pre-approval (PA) to adopt him!!

This post is for catching up with where we have been.  Back in February when I stopped posting to this blog, I just had nothing to report on the adoption front.  There was no news coming from anywhere.  We received a letter from our agency giving us different options of moving forward with an adoption plan since we did not know if Nepal would work out.  One option was looking at children on the China special needs list without having to pay any fees up front.  This sounded like a great option to us.  Then I heard from a new friend in the adoption world that she had just met with our agency about the program and she called me to tell me she thought it would be a great option for us. 

So we made an appointment to meet with Jill on March 25th.  We met with her and filled in our needs list then and there.  We were open to a variety of needs so we were excited to hear that the whole process could take anywhere from 6-8 months.  We did not have to do the paperwork for the dossier, but we chose to move forward with it if it would help us get a child sooner.  I went into the agency many times over the last three months to look at the special needs list.  We went through some challenging situations, some sad ones, and all in all it was pretty emotional, but I knew we were getting close so that helped keep what we were going through in perspective.

Our dossier went to China on July 1st.  We were told that China received our dossier on July 5th.  We have yet to get a log in date (LID).  Then on July 13th I was on a website looking to find out how long it should take to get our LID and found a post about an adorable two year old.  Of course I got sucked in and had to look at who this boy was.  When I saw his picture I fell in love.

I know many of you are reading this and see the changes occuring.  I have so much to tell you about.  For now all I will say is that God is good!  Stay tuned....