Finding Min Zhi

We found “our daughter” from the CCAA listing, which is “adoptionese” for Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs. After taking her medical forms to our doctor, we hurriedly threw together forms for our PA (once again, adoptionese for Pre-Approval) and by 2:30 on 5/20 we had a temporary hold put on her files. We later had our official PA from China almost two weeks later on 6/2. Now our dossier is notarized, verified, authenticated, and waiting at our agency for the last piece to be added. We have our fingerprinting appointment on 7/14, and *hopefully* we will have that approval to get notarized, verified, authenticated, and sent to our agency to join the rest of our dossier within a week. The next step is DTC, which means dossier to china. Then the next step is LID (log in date), and then LOA (letter of acceptance), and finally TA (travel assignment). After all of that, we will be buying our tickets to China!!!

Due to regulations in China, we cannot post Min Zhi’s photo until after we receive our LOA. I can tell you that she just had her 7^th birthday on June 19^th. She is about 4 feet tall, and weighs about 43 pounds. She is from Wuzhou, China (hence the blog name), which is in the Guangxi province southern China. She speaks Cantonese, but Mandarin in school. We have photos from the past two years of Min Zhi, and I will post them as soon as possible.

Why We Are Adopting

Our family spent almost 6 months in Shanghai, China, in 2007-2008. The kids and I had the opportunity to volunteer at a residential center for children with disabilities. We quickly learned to look past the disability and at the heart of the child. Each one had our “favorites”; the ones we would seek out to love on and the ones that sought our attention when we arrived. It was an all-week event to plan for what “new” activity we would do with the children. We all left a huge part of our hearts back at the Center. At the same time, we saw what institutionalized life was like.And these were the “lucky” ones, the ones with parents and enough daily food.

All of that to give a bit of the background of our family, and the seeds that were planted in our not too distant past. Now we are all doing whatever we can do to make this adoption happen.Like I previously said, the anticipated costs went from under 10k to over 30k. In light of this, we have already sold some furniture, our hot tub, and hopefully by Tuesday, our boat. We have a car wash and bake sale planned this weekend. Our kids are going through all their toys and games, cleaning and packaging in preparation to selling them at a garage sale next month. In fact, people from our church are partnering with us to make a huge garage sale to benefit our adoption. We hope to have an adoption awareness dinner in October at our church, possibly with a raffle. Some local businesses in Hamilton agreed to donate a percentage of our profits to our adoption on special days. We also are talking about some other ways to have fundraising for the adoption with a family who has adopted two girls from Guatemala and who understand first-hand what it feels like to look at the looming bills that regularly come due. In fact, if it wasn’t for Marcia spear-heading the fundraising projects, most would still be in the planning stage! She has been a huge blessing!

Where To Begin?

How to start? Where do I begin sharing our journey? Is it way back when I had a Chinese doll named “Ling Ling” when I was a child? Is it when our family had a void created in it due to four miscarriages? The point that REALLY started the ball rolling was when David said, out of the blue, “I think we should adopt.” I think my jaw is still bruised from when it hit the floor last November!

Even then, while researching agencies, countries, costs, timelines, and many different people’s stories on multiple yahoo groups, I had no idea what a winding course we would take. Starting with one agency, wanting to adopt from China but thinking we were not “qualified”, straddling two other countries, and making a “final decision” (HA!) were only steps in a circular path. Now, in a new agency, focused on China, we have found our daughter.

I now realize that God had us take those steps to change and prepare our hearts and minds for what was ahead. When we began, we went with the “low cost alternatives” because we couldn’t imagine spending tens of thousands for a child. After deliberating over decisions of “which agency” and “which country” for months, and taking two steps forward and four steps back, God brought us to a point of David saying, “I don’t care what it costs; let’s just get our daughter.” That was important for him to feel, as our estimated fees have more than doubled since we began!