New pictures of our boy!

 

We sent a care package to Samuel, complete with pictures of his family and money for a cake to share with his friends.  Boy, did they buy a giant cake! 

I noticed a white face in the crowd.  Another adoptive family was visiting the orphanage.  Hoping and praying I can find them, cause they were taking video!  I also noticed it was this adoptive father who was showing Samuel the pictures of his forever family.  Thank you!

SO EXCITED!!!!!!

Book a vacation and help bring Samuel home

We have been given a great opportunity.  An awesome family member of ours, Sherry Magness, is a travel agent for Disney.  She has graciously offered to split her commission with our adoption fund for any travel booked through her from our referral.  This service is costs you absolutely nothing.  Please share this with anyone you even think might be looking at a Disney vacation.  Make sure they reference the Meadors' adoption fund.  Sherry will take great care of you!

 

We don't just sell Disney vacation packages out of a brochure. We customize each Disney vacation for each family.   We have built Mickey's Travel based on honesty and integrity and we always will provide you with a choice and the information to help you choose what is best for you and your family.

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www.mickeystravel.com/sherry

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LID!

We have received notice from our adoption agency that our dossier was officially logged in 11/13/12.  We waited a month for that news because of a paperwork issue that thankfully has been taken care of.  Now we begin waiting again, for that LOA.  This part of the wait will very tentatively be 30-90 days.  I'm telling Santa that's what I want for Christmas!

One step closer to Samuel!

"Affording" adoption and important acronyms

I said in closing on my last post that I would discuss the lady who commented about how nice it is that we can afford adoption.  Well, I was ready for a tirade at the moment, but I just smiled nicely at the lady.  Matt chuckled and said quite honestly, "I'll just never get to retire."  I have cooled and no longer feel like the tirade, so I won't.  I will only say that this lady is sadly misinformed.  I have met a LOT of adoptive families, both domestic and international, in the past 10 years.  I can count on one hand the number of families who could really "afford" it.  Honestly, the majority that I know are just trying to follow God's will for their family and are willing to do whatever it takes to bring home their sons and daughters.  I was just trying to add up how much $ we need to complete this.  I'm still waiting for a final tally from the agency, but including travel, it looks like about $20,000.  Will you pray for God's provision?

Now, the FUN part!  We are DTC!!!!  Many of you will say, wonderful, what does that mean?  Here's a run down of some important acronyms in the international adoption world.

LOI - Letter of intent - we put some paperwork together and adoption officials in China that we wanted to adopt Samuel. (July 2012)

PA -  PreApproval ( I think) - China says, yeah, you look acceptable to have this precious boy. (July 2012)

DTC - Dossier to China - All of our required paperwork is completed and sent to China. (October 16, 2012)

LID - Log in Date - the date the dossier is logged into the Chinese adoption system. (Estimated 2   weeks from DTC)

LOA - Letter of Acceptance - everything is good.  You are completely and officially approved. (Estimated 30 - 90 days from LID)

TA - Travel approval - here's the date you can come get him! (Estimated 90 days from LOA)

These estimated lines are subject to fluctuate greatly.  We have no control and can only hold on for the ride.

Thanks to you all who ask us about what's going on and help us in so many ways.  We are grateful for you. 

~Martha

So here's a little more info

I promised a little more info on why Samuel is in China's special needs program.  Many adoptive families don't tell details in order to protect their child's privacy.  In this case, Samuel's needs will become quickly evident, so I'm going to share now and ask you all to start praying specifically for his needs. 

Samuel was born with a heart problem that needs a surgical repair.  His condition, known as tetralogy of fallot, has to do with improper blood flow in the heart.  In the US, the condition would have been repaired when he was an infant.  I had the good fortune of having contact information for a pediatric cardiac surgeon (thanks, friends, you know who you are).  I sent her Samuel's medical file back in March and she said that she would not hesitate to bring this little boy home at all.  His condition can be repaired. 

Samuel also has an issue with one of his hands.  There are two fingers that are joined together.  That may or may not be repairable, but that's not a biggie.

So, there you have it.  Samuel, with his family, will be facing a pretty big surgery when he gets home.  I'm sure combined with all the other crazy changes in his life, the medical stuff will be especially hard on him. 

Here's some specific prayers we would request.

1) That Samuel's heart will be strong enough and that his health will not take any turns for the worse.
2) That the stress of meeting us (yikes) and the traveling home will not not affect his heart negatively.
3) That Samuel will just know we love him and will take care of him from the first moment we meet.  That would be a true miracle folks.  I know that.  But I believe in a God of miracles!

We also appreciate prayers for the financial hurdles that are still in front of us.  God has provided thus far, but we have a long way to go.  I'm truly not sure how, but God will see this through to completion.

In my NEXT POST, I will be addressing a pet peeve.  Someone who said, "How nice for you that you are financially able to keep adopting these children.  That's nice."  I made a decision to smile, nod, and keep my mouth shut, but...

~ Martha

It's On!

The Meadors family proudly presents our new son, Xiu Ming!  He will soon become known as Samuel (middle name to be determined) Meadors.  We are so excited that putting it into words is impossible.  After committing to adopt him back in May, we began filling out and collecting paperwork.  About 1 ½ weeks ago, that paperwork was sent to China.  Today, we received our pre-approval from the Chinese adoption authorities.

Samuel is currently 4 years old and living in an orphanage in China. He does have special needs, but we’ll get into that later with very specific prayer requests.  Right now, we are just overjoyed that he is ours!

Letter of Intent

In the international adoption community, there are abbreviations for everything.  You can say LOI and they all jump up and down.  That stands for Letter of Intent.  It tells the Chinese adoption officials that we want to adopt a little one and ask, "Can we?"  We have all of our paperwork done to send our LOI to China.  We thought it went last week, only to get a Friday call from our agency saying the doctor failed to fill in a couple of blanks on our medicals.  Argh!  I've got a call in to the doctor's office, as does our social worker, so I am praying that this will be fixed today and that LOI will be on it's way to China. 

Just for fun and to give a little perspective, the notebook at the top of the picture is paperwork from Cassidy's adoption.  The one at the bottom is our current adoption notebook.  We have a "few" papers to go, but it's coming together!

Interestingly enough, God provided a Sunday sermon yesterday on developing patience.  Sigh.  I'm kind of wishing in just this one area, God will give up trying to teach me and just give me things on my time table.  Alas, I know He loves me too much to leave me with glaring faults.

Here's a few scriptures from the sermon that I need to memorize.

"You have heard of Job's perseverance, and have seen what the Lord finally brought about.  The Lord is full of compassion and mercy."  James 5:11

"I wait expectantly, trusting God to help, for He has promised."  Psalm 130:5

"But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior, my God will hear me."  Micah 7:7

"The Lord says...No one who waits for My help will be disappointed."  Isaiah 49:23

And lastly, for my friend Connie, who is feeling a pressure that people think she's krazy for adopting again..."Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.  Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven." Matthew 5:11-12

So we wait expectantly for paperwork to be sent.  Then we will wait expectantly for the pre-approval to come back from China.  I cannot bring myself to say we will wait patiently.  God does know that I'm trying. 

~Martha