Exciting news!

We received soft LOA yesterday!!  This means that China has officially approved our family to adopt Hannah and we are just waiting for the formal document to get to our agency.  That went crazy fast!  With Asher's adoption, it took right at 60 days for us to receive LOA and at that time that was pretty fast.  This time it only took around 14 days!  Because Hannah is aging out soon, the CCCWA is moving her file through faster than normal to make sure we have enough time to get to her before her birthday.  This is such exciting news and I honestly didn't expect it to come quite that fast.  We are still around $10,000 short of being fully funded and we won't hear back until September sometime about the two grants we applied for, so we are just trusting that God has a plan for these funds to be available when we need them.

We did have a very generous anonymous donation of $500 so we were able to add more pieces to our puzzle!  We have 88 pieces left that need sponsors and we would be so blessed if you'd consider being a part of this journey to bring Hannah home.  Will you share with your family, friends, and churches?  This is a great opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus and give a precious orphan a forever family.

We love you all!

~Carly

Puzzle update!

Our dossier is officially in China as of Monday!!  Now we wait to hear that it has been logged into China's system, and then we wait to hear it's been approved.  The timing on this part of the process is completely up to the CCCWA (China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption) and has no rhyme or reason.  Our agency has asked for them to speed our process up because Hannah is aging out, but it's up to them whether or not they do it.

Barring some unforseen obstacle, we are roughly 2 months away from travel and still several thousand dollars short of being fully funded.  We recently found out about another grant that we are eligible for and we were able to get our application in right before their last deadline for the year.  We are now waiting to hear back from them and from Show Hope.  Other than that, we only have our puzzle fundraiser that still has the ability to raise more funds for us.

We just received a few more generous doantions and that leaves us with 140 pieces that have yet to be sponsored.  At $10 a piece, that has the ability to bring in $1,400 and that is a huge amount for us.

If you would like to be a part of this journey to Hannah, and sponsor a piece (or pieces!), all you have to do it click on the Paypal Donate button at the top left side of this blog page.  You can email me at carlyduvall1628 at hotmail.com to let me know what you'd like me to write on the back of your piece(s).

I will leave you with an updated picture of Hannah's puzzle.  You can finally see mama panda's eyes! :)

~Carly

Great news!

DTC today!!!

Update!

We are moving right along!  We got all of our dossier papers through the notarization, certification, and authentication process and now our dossier is at our agency for review.  After they have everything put together, reviewed, and translated, they will send our dossier to China and we will officially be DTC (documents to china)!!  God is again providing and your awesome generosity has allowed us to have the funds needed at each step so far and we are beyond grateful!  Our agency will be asking the CCCWA (China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption) to expedite our dossier by first logging it into their system faster than usual and then reviewing it faster than usual.  IF they comply with this, we could possibly be looking at mid October travel!  (I'm still kind of in shock at how fast this adoption has gone compared to Ashers!)

We also just ended our t-shirt fundraiser with a total of 21 shirts sold and a $190 profit for the adoption.  Thank you all SO much for your continued support through this second journey of adoption.

We will continue to have our PUZZLE FUNDRAISER going until all the pieces have been sponsored and you can click the link above for more info on how to support that.

We recently sent a care package to Hannah that included a translated letter from us, a photo album of family pics, some candy to share with friends and nannies, and a flash drive that they will hopefully fill with pictures of our sweet girl.  The amazing Angela from Ladybugs 'n Love put it together and will keep us updated on it.

We are getting SO excited to travel to China soon and meet our Hannah.  We are so very thankful that the whole family is traveling this time and we will all meet her together and have a wonderful two weeks of bonding time in Guangzhou.  My brother-in-law will also be traveling with us to help with the kids and experience the awesomeness of China :)  I'm anxious and nervous to find out how transversing the Hong Kong airport and then having a 14 1/2 hour plane ride with 5 kids will be!

Please continue to pray that this adoption process would proceed according to God's will and timetable and that He would prepare Hannah for all the changes that are approaching.  We love you all!

~Carly