Almost past Immigration!

I know many of you are beginning to realize how slow this process can feel.  I've had a few people ask, "Are you still adopting?"  As if to say, "We haven't heard anything for quite a while... did you change your mind?"  Well, of course, we are still hard at work!  I can't believe our last post was in January.  So, here's the latest:  Having completed our home study, we sent our info off to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services ("USCIS" or, more commonly "CIS" or even just "Immigration").  Then we received our appointment for biometrics with CIS.  If you miss your appointment, you get to submit the application all over again!  We realized that making our appointment was going to take a lot of rearranging, so we gambled and went a day early.  We begged and pleaded for them to fit us in, and amazingly, it worked!  Less than a half-hour later we were fingerprinted and on our way!  According to our social worker, it should only be about a month before we get our approval from CIS.  This will mean that we are approved to bring a child into the US as our son.  At that point we will send our dossier off to China.  So.... hopefully sometime around July we will be ready to get matched to a child.  Now, what is truly amazing about that timeline is regarding a new development at Lifeline, our adoption agency.  Here's an except from their announcement:

"Lifeline Children’s Services’s China Team is very excited to announce our partnership with three new orphanages in China beginning June 2012. Our medical teams will be visiting the Chong Qing Orphanage of Chong Qing City, Sui Xi Orphanage of Guangdong Province, and Zhu Hai Orphanage of Guangdong Province during the month of April. While at the orphanages, pediatricians and therapists associated with the International Adoption Clinic of Birmingham, Alabama as well as other doctors and medical professionals will be evaluating the children and providing reports for their referral files. Many of our staff will also be on the ground with the teams to photograph and video each child to provide potential adoptive families with glimpses into the lives and faces of these children."


This is great news, and the timing is truly amazing.  The doctors and therapists from the IAC here in Birmingham will be evaluating the children personally, and the partnership with these orphanages will begin just as we are ready to be matched.  It makes us realize that although we try so hard to control things, this is all really in God's hands.  It is His timing that actually matters.  Even though we have felt "behind" through so much of this process, it may be that we are right on time after all!  We are so excited as the IAC specialists travel to meet the children!  In the next few months this process should finally begin to reveal who our little boy is!


As we celebrate Easter, let us pray for Lifeline's China team.  Let us put our trust in God as we walk with them on the journey to meet our son!  


"The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps." Proverbs 16:9


Joyfully,

Zander & Zoe riding "Daisy", Birmingham Zoo

Zuri and Ken riding "Big Joe"

Hurry up and wait (some more)...

Our hopes to tie up the home study with a pretty Christmas bow and send it off for good were somewhat disappointed this month.  We couldn't quite get our medicals done in time, the letter from my supervisor turned out to be missing some details, and DeAnna's fingerprints were deemed "unreadable".  I'm pretty sure she had her fingerprints removed when the government recruited her to track aliens here on Earth... or was that Men in Black?  Anyway, for the first couple of weeks in January we have had to put our heads back down and forge ahead.  We spent a day getting DeAnna's fingerprints re-done and mailed off (third time's a charm!), and another day renewing our passports (no, you can't show your teeth!).  We completed some more discussion questions (our favorite!), got the medicals sent in, and had my boss add some more describing words (really, really, really excellent...).  Everything is in except for the final word on DeAnna's fingerprints.  So today we get to relax and breathe while we pray for everything to process swiftly.  My consolation is that God is sovereign in all this.  I know that the timing is all part of His plan.  To me it seems like a delay, but to our son it may be perfect timing!  One day it will all make sense.  Let's all hope that day is sooner rather than later!

Love you all,

Ken

A Christmas prayer

Just wanted to put out a little Christmas prayer as we get ready for the countdown to the big day!  As an adoptive-father-to-be, I am constantly thankful to God who adopted us all as sons through Jesus.  And this week I am turning my thoughts to Joseph, our most famous adoptive father.  God breathed life into creation, but we would eventually succumb to sin.  Then He promised us a seed delivered through a woman that would crush sin and save us all.  Joseph was faithful to God, and adopted Jesus as his own, raising him, shepherding him, teaching him.  I pray that I can be half the man that Joseph was as I become a father to this little boy.  I pray that I can be faithful to follow the path that God has laid before me.  Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope it brings joy and wonder to us all.  We love you!

Ken

Yes, you CAN cut down a
Christmas tree in Alabama!

Ballet princess Suzy Snowflake! 

Home Study Complete!

Yesterday, Friday December 2nd, we finished our home study!  This is a milestone for us, the last of five meetings.  It will take a couple weeks for our social worker to put everything together, and then it will all go off to immigration.  This is the first big step to get past.  Once we get immigration approval we will send our dossier to China (the next big step), and eventually get our "log-in date".  That's when we will be ready for placement.  So our home study should go off around Christmas, and probably about 3 months later we should be accepted for placement.  That's about as far as we can think right now, anything else would be getting ahead of ourselves!  We saw video this week of a little girl being adopted from the Mao Ming orphanage.  It was amazing to think that our little boy might be one of the faces there among the crowd, yet we don't even know him yet!  It's easy to feel a little helpless at this point, but DeAnna and I believe strongly that God is sovereign in all this.  The day we were born we were destined to adopt this little boy, just as the day he was born he was destined to be ours.  We have to have faith that he will be cared for and protected until the day we can bring him home.  It reminds me of one of my favorite verses, Ephesians 2:8, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And it is not your own doing; it is the gift of God."  It is amazing to me how simple God's plan is for all of us.  And we take comfort in knowing that this is the same salvation He offers to every one of us, even a little boy born across the world in China.

And as we appreciate His simple road to salvation, I hope you all enjoy this season as we celebrate the birth of our savior.  Let's try to see past the traffic and the lines and open our hearts to the love that He brought into the world.

Merry Christmas!
Ken

Dear Santa:

A couple of weeks ago Zoe and Zander were working on a Christmas list.  Zoe was writing, and Zander was contributing thoughts.  They were even taking requests from Zuri.  What they produced was a list that combined all their interests.  It melted out hearts to see the list...

Of course, they won't get their little brother quite so soon, but with Christmas fast approaching, their list prompted me to make a request.  I guess most of you know that international adoption is expensive.  On average it costs $25-30,000.  The federal tax credit, which we will hopefully get back in 2013 is $13,170.  Needless to say, there is a lot of saving going on in the Horton house, and every little bit helps!  So, our request is this:  If you're planning presents or gift cards for our family this Christmas, please instead contribute that amount to our adoption.  The kids know we're saving and making sacrifices for the adoption, and they are excited by every dollar that goes into the fund.  After we complete our home study (probably late December/ early January) we may be able to establish an account with an organization called Lifesong that will allow donations to be tax-deductible.  We'll take an IOU if you want to wait and see if that gets up and running!  Please don't feel pressured to donate.  Just consider this request before you buy us that gift card!

We had the home visit portion of our Home Study today.  Mallory toured the house and verified that everything was safe and appropriate for our little boy.  She even counted smoke alarms and fire extinguishers!  Then we sat down and discussed parenting skills, discipline, and everything else related to raising a child.  The last home study meeting will be in a few weeks.  Until then we will be hard at work completing our "education" (reading assignments and online videos).

It is our prayer that the process will go smoothly, that God will be with us as we face the challenges that lay ahead, and that our little boy will be safe and happy until the day we can bring him home.

Ken and DeAnna

When Love Takes You In - Steven Curtis Chapman

04 When Love Takes You In by kslice

Hurry Up and Wait.

Well, we're learning that when it comes to adoption, everything takes time!  After exploring various options, we decided to pursue international adoption in... CHINA!  Our goal is to adopt a boy younger than Zuri.  Most experts suggest maintaining the birth order of your family, so the new addition is also the youngest.  Lifeline, the adoption agency we've chosen, has a special relationship with an orphanage in MaoMing, Guangdong, China.  We don't know if our son will come from MaoMing, but only Lifeline works with the orphanage, so it's a good chance.  We also think that having his Chinese-American cousins Caleigh and Corey will be a great advantage!  So, to bring everyone up to speed, on Sept. 15 we went to DHR to get fingerprints and start our background check.  Then we filled out a stack of papers and turned everything in.  We had our first homestudy meeting on Oct 12.  There will be 4 homestudy meetings culminating in our social worker, Mallory, visiting the house and meeting the kids.  Zoe asked why she can't just tell them we're good parents so we can get our boy!  Please pray for us through this journey.  We have a lot of reading and writing ahead of us right now.  The kids are excited and want him here for Christmas!  It has become real to us that our son is in China and we have to leave it in God's hands that he is being taken care of in the orphanage.  We wish we could speed up the process, but this is how it works.  On a related note, we met Katie Davis today at church.  She is a missionary in Uganda and has adopted 13 girls!  Don't worry, we're not competing!  It was so moving to hear her story.  http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/  The next step is writing our autobiographies from childhood to present.  That should be fun!  We are so eager to be matched with our little boy that it's hard to be still.  We'll keep you posted!  Love you all, DeAnna and Ken.