Carmi called our local post office late Friday afternoon to see if we could come in and apply for Karys’ passport and Eliana’s renewal.
Oh no. They were so busy that they couldn’t see us until Thursday of this week.
Yeah right.
She called the post office in a neighboring city and they could take care of us at 9:00 am this morning. So the four of us jetted.
Carmi handed over some documents, Mr. PO filled out paperwork, we signed our names and he said, “That’ll be $120, please.”
Carmi whipped out the checkbook and started to write the check when we both thought the same thing. “That can’t be right. We want to expedite.”
K-a c-h-i-n-g!
“Oooooh.”, he said with raised eyebrows. “You want to expedite? In that case, it’ll be $260.”
Thanks for the convenience.
Thinking through the fact that we’ll probably travel to China next month, we realized one very important thing just the other night: Karys doesn’t have a passport.
Eeek. Then when we checked Eliana’s passport, we found that it expires in May of this year.
Can you say e-x-p-e-d-i-t-e?
So the girls and I headed to CVS after I got off work to get their passport/visa photo taken and my visa photo. Carmi posed for her visa photo at work today.
On the way back home, Eliana asked, “Why do people in China eat dogs and things like that?”
Where in the world do these random thoughts come from?
I hadn’t even formulated an answer in my mind before she continued, “Is it because they don’t have enough to eat?”
“Well, I would imagine that’s part of the reason why. They just eat everything.”
“Oh,” Eliana mused. “You mean like Karys?”
Many have asked for it so…
Here’s a picture glimpse of our handsome son.
From day one, Carmi and I understood that we probably could not take Eliana and Karys with us on a return trip to China for financial reasons. Those of you who have been through the process can testify that adoption is very expensive. It’s worth every penny…but it’s not cheap.
We’re still paying for Karys’ adoption so to financially commit to a third and concurrent adoption meant that our girls would have to stay home.
Eliana was crushed. I could see it in that beautiful face and I could hear it in her voice. And our hearts broke in two.
She saved nickels and dimes and quarters and was so proud of every dollar because she was “saving up to go to China”. Almost every night she prayed that she could travel with us.
Well, God heard her prayers (and ours) and has made it possible for the girls to go with us to bring their big brother home.
We told Eliana the good news tonight and I wish you could have seen the smile on her face.
She is not usually a very affectionate girl but she ran to both of us and gave us each a big hug. Then she sat down and asked, “But how did you get the money?”
Taking advantage of a teachable moment, I reminded her, “You prayed for it, didn’t you?”
I love it when God proves Himself.
Especially to our children.
We received our LOA today via UPS from the agency.
It’s hard to imagine that the whole process comes down to this simple form from China.
We better check the correct box. No pressure.
:grrr:
Remember what I just said about our Letter of Acceptance not coming today?
Scratch that. That lovely piece of paper came after all.
After Carmi spoke with our case worker (hereafter referred to as CW) on the phone, she emailed CW a little later about something else. When CW answered Carmi’s email, she also put in a note for Carmi to call her. Carmi figured it was about her email but no. DHL evidently thought the agency was still closed so the driver put a package at the agency’s side door instead of bringing it in and CW just found it!
The cool thing is…we will probably travel in late February which means we could be in China for our son’s birthday (on the 24th).
Carmi broke down and called our case worker to see if we had a late Christmas present sitting in the office when they returned to work this morning.
Mmmm…no dice.
I still think we’ll get our LOA this month before the CCAA closes for Chinese New Year.