Olivia....

Everyone keeps asking, "do we know anything yet?", so I thought I'd update something. Though there isn't much of anything to update. We started the paper chase process Sept. 2005, which included, stacks of paper, forms and documents, everything signed, sealed and notorized. Nothing can be, near being out of date, including your notory's stamp. Also, included during this time are the fingerprinting and back ground checks by our local, state and Federal governments. When complete it is quite the work. That large packet was translated and then sent and officially received in China Feb. 6, 2006. Once we were reviewed by CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs), our paperwork is placed in a pile and they just work their way through it, going by "Log in Date", ours being Feb. 6, 2006. The problem is there are just so many more adoption applications going into CCAA, that they can not keep up with them all. In our agency's small Chicago office alone, the number of China applications that this office sends to China has tripled. So imagine through out the Western world and Australia/New Zealand, that the number of all applications have greatly increased. When the CCAA gets to a certain point we can make a guess that our referral would come in about 2 months. (We are not to that point.) But we've made guess before, the latest guess that our referral would be here by Bob's birthday, Oct. 10, but that is probably not going to happen. Now we're thinking it would be really hard to even travel this year. Remember a referral is when we actually have a girl assigned to us. We would receive a picture of her with some brief medical or personality info about her. At that time we would agree to that referral or not. If so, then the referral would become official and we could plan on traveling to China in about 6 weeks to pick her up and bring her back here. At the time of travel, our baby should be about a year old.



So the update is really nothing, except we are still waiting. We know this entire matter is in God's hands and we can rest in that. So we keep waiting and praying and going on with our life. We're all quite busy and there is always something new and exciting to deal with as our family journeys on. Thanks for your interest and prayers.



Specific prayer request: pray for Olivia's safety and that God would prepare her for our family; and also that God would prepare us for her.