We are going to China!!! A story about how God makes papers fly in the sky with super powers.

THIS IS HAPPENING! 

Donnie and I had just opened our eyes this morning at 7:13 am (8/7/2015) when MY PHONE RANG! I answered it right away! Frog voice and all! I heard my travel agent from our agency say in a giddy voice, "Tiiiiffany!" and I looked at Donnie and said, "THIS IS IT!!!" I honestly have no idea what she was telling me haha. I need to call her back to double check, but I do remember that we will be traveling to China August 19th to pick up our son! He will be in our arms August 23rd and in our house on September 2nd! I mean, are you dying? Im dying. .... like, this is me right now....WATCH THIS HILARIOUS SHORT VIDEO OF HOW EXCITED I AM. #yourwelcome

Now, let me tell you 

the back story, 

(...I mean God story).  :)

Back in October, we did our first Garage Sale and were able to send in our first official (major) check to start our process of paper chasing for our Dossier. (Da-see-ae) We did not know our son at the time but we came to find out later that our agency had sent out a team to Little Donnies orphanage to love on the children there and educate the nannies. I learned all of this information from a contact that our agency gave us. That contact sent us pictures of Donnie from their visit in October and told us great info about the nannies and his orphanage. We were so grateful that our agency would invest in our son so much already. Through hearing stories from this contact, we learned that Donnies paperwork (to place him up for adoption) started the very same time that we started our paperwork to adopt him. :)

...and if you remember, (back in May) our paperwork left the U.S on a Friday and was LOGGED IN (not just entered into China through the post office) to the system THE VERY NEXT TUESDAY! We received our referral for Donnie exactly 5 days later. The FIRST day our agency had received referrals that month. 

So, as you can see, God had it all planed out from the very beginning! He knew when our papers had to be on the right persons desk ,at the right time that Donnies file would be heading to our agency in order for us to receive his referral. The Lord had us on the same time schedule THE. ENTIRE. TIME. 

We were told that we were one of three families open to boys at the time of our Dossier completion.

I ended up meeting my friend Melinda through one of our China Adoption Facebook groups. We both noticed that we each had the EXACT SAME log in date and referral date. After she read my blog about our Referral news, she messaged me and said, 

"I KNOW YOUR SON!" 

Come to find out, all of those pictures I received from the team that visited Donnies orphanage back in October WERE MELINDA! She was in the team in October and she was snuggling and loving and feeding my son for me! And the coolest part, she is adopting Donnies buddy, Sam! So remember when I said there were only 3 families open to boys at the time of our referral? She was one of them! Sam and Donnies referrals came in at the same time. They did not know that Sam would be their son when Melinda was visiting the orphanage until after they got home. The fact that Sams file came (to our agency non the less) and at the exact time it did (right after Melindas Dossier log in date) IS AN ABSOLUTE MIRACLE. 

So, as if we need any more evidence that Donnie is OUR SON, Sam was clearly given to Melinda and her family by God, and Donnie ......to us. We are excited to possibly meet the third person in this story when we travel.   :) 

This is Melinda back in October loving on her son, Sam (that she didn't know was her son at the time) and our son, Donnie. :) 

So the past few months we have been planing on traveling together because all of our dates have been the same. 

Until we received a letter saying one of our papers had an issue on the immigration form! 

Ever since then we have been a week or two behind Melinda and her families process. We were so bummed that we probably wouldn't travel together because we needed our travel approval by August 6th and it was supposed to come August 11th (or later) IF our process kept up with the status quo. But we begged the Lord to grant us this tiny desire to travel together (not to mention our HUGE desire to travel as soon as we possibly could because I cannot wait one more second without him). 

As of yesterday, I was reading through Facebook posts on our adoption pages and some people have been waiting for their Travel Approval for 25 days! So if it were up to "how things are happening" right now. I would not be writing this blog today :) 

So do you see where I'm getting at here? 

GOD GAVE US OUR 

TRAVEL APPROVAL IN TWO DAYS!!!!

In JUST the right time for us to leave on August 19th, with our new friends that were with us since the beginning of this story!!! Isn't that the coolest, thing ever? God is such a loving Father! I mean really, we would have been fine waiting 2 weeks to get our healthy, adorable son. It would have been HARD but, I was prepared to trust that Gods timing is better than mine. Because he says, 

"Those who trust in the Lord are like mount Zion which cannot be moved but abide forever. As the mountain surrounds Jerusalem so the Lord surrounds His people. From this time forth and forever more." Psalm 125:1-2 

(most people wait years). But God allowed us to travel with our friends and VERY QUICKLY! 

for that we will shout HIS Praises and say THANK YOU, JESUS for how you care for us so tenderly! 

"God sets the lonely in families." Psalm 68:6

"Sing to Him, sing praises to him; tell of all His wondrous works!" 1 Cronicles 16:9