9 days

days to GO!

After 1 1/2 years of waiting, we are only 9 days away from going to China and will meet our son on June 26th in Shanghai. 

We are trying our best to prepare our hearts and minds for this incredible journey, but there are so many unknowns.

 We are traveling across the world to meet our son for the first time on June 26th.  He doesn't know us, doesn't know our sounds, our smells, our behaviors.  He doesn't know how much we all love him and have been waiting for this day to come. 

We may try and have a plan for how it will go, but the reality is that we will look to little Gus for what his needs are and adapt as we need to for him. 

When we first meet him, we will taking him away from ALL he's ever known.  The sounds, smells, environment, and people around him will change in an instant.  Nothing will be familiar.  He's not been in a car, or car seat, or airplane, or restaurant, hotel, parks, etc.    The food he will eat will all be different, his routine will be no longer as it was, the way we speak is completely different.

We cannot plan for how he will react when he first see's us.  Of course, I have dreamt of such a day when I long to finally hold him in my arms, he will not understand why these "strangers" are taking him away from the "nannies" he's known for almost 2 years.

Please PRAY for us:

Prayer teams for TRAVEL

Prayer teams for HEALTH

Prayer teams for TRANSITIONS & attachment.

Prayer teams for our kids:  Ben & Maddie, as they adapt themselves to having a new brother, who may have quite a few "hard times" adjusting into our family

In the meantime, I'm packing & packing.

I feel like I triple check every suitcase over and over again which can play tricks on one's mind for sure and at times I feel like I've lost my mind.  

We continue to have our gofundme campaign, as we recently found out that our in country costs have increased in cost, so we are praying over our finances to come through to cover the extra expenses. 

MORE SHIRTS for sale:  message me your size.  Just $22.  We are leaving on the 22nd.  (: 

If you would be interested in donating or if you want to purchase an adoption shirt, you can pay on our gofundme page

http://www.gofundme.com/rowlandsadopt

Thank you for following along  

les, sara, ben & maddie & gus

Update and more.

The time is drawing near

Today someone in the grocery store asked me how I can look so calm.  Inside, I feel I am bursting with a flood of emotions, but for whatever the reason,  I am holding it together on the outside.  

Be still and KNOW that I AM GOD.  Seriously, I remind myself of this promise every single day.   God wants us to go to HIM, to lean on HIM when we are not calm, when there are storms, worries, and fears.  We are His children and He desperately seeks after us, to love us, to protect us, to hold us close.  

Those who know me well, know of my anxious heart, my worrisome personality, my endless multitasking mind.  I am not one to sit still EVER.  

Here I am, two weeks away (TODAY) from traveling across the world, across oceans, to bring home a child whom we've never met.  How great is our Father's love to call us children His children and to make a way for an orphan to be called a son or daughter.  

  I've spent the last year and half doing paperwork, preparing the way for us to bring home our son.  Now, I am on a whole new level of preparation and I'm a bit overwhelmed right now.  I know that it will all come together, but in the preparing for the readiness, I feel a mess in my mind.  I've got a ton of items to organize before packing.  I've sorted through the items dozens of times over and over again, checking my lists too many times to the point I think I'm going crazy.  

Today, I am calling upon prayer warriors:  You know who you are.  I ask for prayer during this time of getting ready.   If you can message me below and let me know you are praying, it would mean the world to me.  

Other requests:  Pray for our health, Pray for travel safety, Pray for our little boy to have peace when we meet him, Pray for our kids (Ben and Maddie) who are going with us, and pray for continued provisions to fall into place as we found out yesterday that our in country costs have nearly doubled.

Thank you everyone.  

Tickets are BOOKED!

Lots of emotions

 Today, we just finished up another fundraiser.  I am totally OK with being DONE with about a year of fundraisers and am way beyond thankful for all the people who showed up and supported.

It's amazing the kind of people who just seem to be planted at a place (even at a rummage sale), who offer a word of encouragment, who share of an adoption story, who are just curious and ask questions about international adoption, and who just want to support our journey.   I'm humbled and grateful.  

Last week we found out that we got: TRAVEL APPROVAL

We believe that we were called to adopt from China.  I cannot tell you of a specific moment we knew, but we just knew.   We are about 3 weeks out from traveling to China to bring home our son, brother, grandson, nephew and cousin to our entire family who already love him and yet haven't met.  What an amazing gift.  

This beautiful little boy will no longer be an orphan.  

We believe that God has placed adoption on the hearts of so many people, and the fact that we have accepted our call to bring home a son from China, makes me love Jesus so much more.  His word says, that He will make orphans our sons and daughters.  What a beautiful God, who loves His children without borders.

"for the God who calls you is faithful, and He can be trusted to make it so.."  1 Thess 5:24.

Please pray for me this week.  I'm super anxious all the time.  We will be leaving soon and our lives will change forever.  We've anticipated this moment for over a year and half.   It's finally almost time to GO.

Thank you for following our journey, it means so much.

_sara

Timeline Chart & new pic

For interested readers: a bit longer. 

Some have asked, so here's the chart of events from beginning to now.  Adoption is surely a journey of faith.

After years of waiting, the timing was such and we announced that we are adopting from CHINA.

• Feb 2015:  we put in our formal application to adopt from China

• March 2015:  We filled out our first set of paperwork and sent it off.

We were approved to begin our intention adoption journey to China.  

• April 2015:  We started 1 of 4 home study visits

• May 2015:  Started on fundraising (had garage sales, bake sales, craft sales, on line fundraisers, t-shirt sales...)
• May 29, 2015:  Home study was approved!  

• June 16, 2015:  1800-A sent off (asking our government permission to adopt little boy from China)
• June/July 2015:  Started our dossier (enormous amount of paperwork, took 3 months to compile...enough said)

• July 2015:  more fundraisers, still working on dossier.  The paperwork for our dossier was more papers than I've ever dealt with. 

• August 2015:  1800-A was APPROVED.  We had permission to pursue adopting from China.  
• August 2015:  still working on dossier (feels like forever)

• Sept 2015:  Our DTC (dossier was sent to China!), awaiting review, translation, and approval which takes awhile.

• October 2015:  Had our first Shoe drive fundraiser, gathered about 12 boxes of tennis shoes to send all over the world. Raised $924.00
• October 13, 2015:  We had our LID (log in date), meaning our dossier was reviewed and approved and we are ready to be matched to our child.

• November......waiting to be matched.  This waiting time was one of the most difficult times.  

We trusted God's hand throughout and new that He was preparing us all in HIS beautiful, perfect timing.  

He is faithful to work out even the tiniest of details and He surely has.  

• December......waiting to be matched

2016

• January..........waiting to be matched.  

2016

• Feburary 19, 2016:  passed on our first referral of a 10 month old baby boy and trusted God had another plan.

2016

• March 2016:  OUR PHONE RANG and we had been matched with a 19 month old boy!

Here is our "referral" picture.  First time we saw him and we just KNEW he was "ours"

• April 1, 2016:  We sent in our LOI (letter of intent) to adopt that little boy.
• April 5, 2016:  We received our LOA (letter of acceptance) 
• April 11, 2016:  We sent in our 1800 (permission to adopt specifically our child)
• April 18 2016:  We introduced our little boy publicly.

• April:  applied for our Visa stamps, more paperwork required
• April 2016:  our home study expired , so we had to do a renewal of THAT.....more paperwork.  I'll again, spare you the details of our frustration. 
• We had an agency bill due of almost $5000.

We officially accepted our referral to adopt little Gus.

We received a $4000  grant from an amazing ministry from a near by town.  It was an answered prayer.  With their grant and our shoe drive fundraiser funds, we were able to pay in full our agency bill!

All praise to GOD.  

The endless paperwork will force anyone to be organized....even ME.  Every i dotted and every t crossed, or it will cost you a lot of time and delays and a few too many headaches, and much coffee.  lol

• May 26, 2016:  Our Article 5 is scheduled for Pick up (which means that we will have met ALL requirements to make our adoption official and travel can now be initiated).  

Here is our precious son as of May 2016.

August Jingfan Rowland

aka:  Gus

June 22, 2016:  "anticipated" travel day!   Will be in China for 2 weeks.  

Update

Our year and a half journey of wait is about over.....

We are currently awaiting our Article 5 pick up, which is the paperwork that says we are ready for our consulate appointment , we've met all the requirements, and travel can be initiated.  This should come at any given moment.  

 And this little boy is waiting to come home, very soon.

After a year and a half of waiting, the time is surely drawing near now.  
We have chosen our travel agency, and once we are given the go-ahead, we will be booking our tickets with them.  The sad news:  due to the peak travel times, our airfares are nearly doubled in cost.  

Be praying about the travel funds to arise through small donations from a ton of people.  $10 given by 1000 people in 10 days, can make our travel costs disappear.  

Our gofundme campaign is an easy way to share with your friends or family who may want to help.
www.gofundme/rowlandsadopt

Thank you for following along our journey.  Stay tuned.

Our hearts are very humbled by the overwhelming support we've received so far.  You've made our journey possible and we are truly grateful.  

At just the right time

We owed:  $4751.00.
Our paperwork was all in, but would have to be on hold until all agency funds were paid.
We applied for a grant from a local church but had not heard back from then for past few weeks, and assumed we were not chosen.

WRONG thinking

Yesterday, (at the perfect time), we found out we had been chosen to receive a grant for $4000.00!  

We still owed:  751.00.   Our check from our shoe drive came in, and was for $1400.   Guess what? 

We had our agency costs PAID.  We raised $18,000 since last February 2015.  That's amazing.  Now, our paperwork can continue moving forward and we can get our travel approval which we are hoping by mid-end of June.  

The rest of our costs are just for travel and in -country fees.  I don't want to sound unappreciative by any means, but we still have a few milestones to go.  To finish this race we need $24,000.
We know that so many people have contibuted so much already, our hearts overflow with thankfulness.  


Please share forward our story with others.  With a whole village of people, and a small donation, we can make this $24,000 disappear in a blink of an eye.   

God's timing is perfect, this we know.  We are so close to meeting our son.  Thank you all for being a part of making this possible for our family to be complete.  We love you all.

-The Rowlands

Step 14: Paper pregnancy

A longer read......be advised.  

Our year and a half journey of international adoption. Countless forms to fill out, approvals to wait for, child to be matched to, and so much more.  

Today, I am full of emotion.  For the past year and a half , I've been doing the paperwork and today we sent off some of the last of it and I find myself at a loss.

The reality is that we could be issued travel approval within the next few weeks.  This is what we've been waiting for, but now I don't know where to begin to get ready on a whole new level of preparation.   (if that makes sense).

We are about to gain another family member, a TODDLER.  (this is when you say....."are you crazy?".  Perhaps, but with open hearts and arms, we are ready to meet him, hold him, love him and bring him home. 

He's just waiting for us and we are waiting for him to be out of his orphanage and into the arms of his forever family.  Isn't he precious?  


In the above diagram, it gives you a little perspective of the steps we've taken to be now be where we are waiting to travel.

Please pray for my nerves....they are at an all time high.  I have butterflies in my stomach every day and all day long.  I'm scared.  I'm ready but I'm not.  The upcoming preparations are quite consuming of my time, plus I need to get my business in order before I leave, and I still need a crib.  LOL 

Today, we found out we were gifted with a $4000 grant from a church in a nearby community-HUGE prayer answered, as we currently owe over $5000 to our agency.   Our financial support needs are still great.  We know that what seems to be impossible-IS possible.   Our hope is that we can raise $10,000 in next 4 weeks, as we need to book our plane tickets and having that funding raised would be such a burden lifted.   We know that God can raise up a village of people to make this happen.  The smallest amounts given with the largest of crowds can do GREAT things.  

Pure charity is an organization that is tax deductible.  All the funds given are sent directly to our adoption agency.  If you feel led to help in our efforts, we are humbled and thankful.

www.purecharity.com/rowlands-china-adoption

Stay tuned.....its happening FAST now.  

Little baby Gus.....your family is coming soon.