Fingerprints Complete!

It's been a long time since we have posted.  Time and Technology are not my friends lately.  I think it has also been really difficult for us to feel that this is real.  It is easy to forget we are adopting again.  Don't get us wrong we think about our next little one and pray for him or her so often but because we do not have a child in mind it is hard  for reality to set in.

We do have another step on the process complete though! We had our immigration fingerprints done on Tuesday morning.  We were thrilled that they squeezed us in three weeks before our appointment.  Trust me they weren't as thrilled about it as we were but we decided to play the mama bear and papa bear card and didn't worry too much about upsetting a fine government employee :) 

So where are we now you may ask.  We are waiting to get our final immigration approval back, should be a week or two yet, but perhaps longer and we are supposed to be working on our Dossier.  A Dossier is a pile of official paperwork that gets sent to Hong Kong.  The point of the Dossier is to show who we are to the Hong Kong Government as well as the orphanage.  Then they have to approve us and then we will get matched with a child.  So time frame, the famous adoption question.  I'm thinking 9 months yet.

Fundraising update: it is really hard for us to write down the total amount it will cost to get our little one home but I feel that we need to let people know this time since we are fundraising.  It will be a total cost of $25,000.  We have been so blessed already and have raised $6,000!  As you can see we still have a ways to go.  The support we have received from family, friends, and other wonderful people who believe in adoption has been humbling and breathtaking. If you are still interested in joining us in our fundraising efforts you can still buy Tshirts for $15 or you can donate money to Jason as he competes in three different triathlons this summer. 

This journey is so different than our journey to get Gussers home.  Please continue to pray for us as we complete paperwork, fill out grant applications, and wait to be matched with our next child.  Thank you for all of your loving support.

T-shirts!

We officially have the T-shirt design nailed down and are ready to start taking orders. We are so excited because the T-shirts turned out wonderful and it feels like we are taking the next step in this wonderful journey. So here is the scoop on the T-shirts. Each shirt will be $15, there are three color options for children size small through adult XL. The choices are: a bright magenta pink with a white tree and words, a lime green with a bright blue tree and words or a dark grey with a white tree and words. There are also toddler and infant size shirts for $15. The onsies are size 6 month, 12 month or 24 month. The toddler T-shirts are size 2T-5T. All of the toddler and infant shirts will be bright blue with lime green tree and words. If you would like to order a shirt please respond to me by email (eperton@gmail.com), facebook or by replying to this blog post. Let me know what color and size you would like. All checks can be made out to Emily Perton. We hope that the turnaround time for getting the shirts in your hands will be about 1 week.

Thank you so much for considering supporting the adoption by purchasing
a T-shirt.

As far as the process goes we are still waiting for our completed home study. It has taken a little longer than expected but we remain patient. Once the home study is in our hands we can send out immigration paperwork and work on the Dossier.

We also have our biggest fundraiser the Mom 2 Mom sale quickly approaching on April 21. We are humbled by how much support we have been given through people renting tables, donating items to sell, and volunteering to help out on the day of the sale.

Thank you all for your prayers and support :)

Here we go again!

So this begins round two. Our home study is complete we are officially in the adoption process again! We couldn't be more excited to share this journey with you all. You prayers, support, and love through getting Gus home made all the difference in the world. Each positive comment, promise of prayer, and loving thought sent our way got us through each day of the adoption journey. So now as we begin the process to get our little one home from Hong Kong we eager to share the journey with you all again.

I have a feeling my blog posts will not be as long this time around. With young Gussy man running around at home I don't have near as much time on my hands. I am sure this journey will look much different, it already has. Some of you may know we started this process to adopt again in the domestic infant program. We were struggling with finding peace to come along that decision. In the past three weeks God has changed our minds and hearts. He has opened our eyes to the Country of Hong Kong and the desire to adopt another child with special needs. We do not have a child in mind this time. We would like a child between birth and two and if it is another child with down syndrome we would prefer a boy. We would like Gus to have a brother who always understands and for our next little one to have Gussers to help him out. Also we are thinking about the future and would like the two of them to live together. Now, as we have learned already so many times in our journey to complete our small branch of the Perton family tree, we plan and God decides. I am really starting to like this plan even better, LOOK AT GUS! God knows what he is doing :)

So I am sure you are all wondering time lines, details and how you can help :) I will do my best to answer. We are hoping to have our national bethany office signed home study by the end of this week and then we can send out immigration paperwork. Currently immigration is taking 3-4 months. Once we get our immigration work back we will have our Dossier ready to send to Hong Kong. Processing of the Dossier is also taking 3-4 months, by then we will hopefully be matched with our child. Then we should travel to Hong Kong within the next 3-4 months. So best case scenario is 9 months and worst case is around 16 months. Knowing us and our love to travel to Asia two weeks before Christmas we have that penciled in :)

How can you help? I am so glad you asked! We are two years and three months from getting Gussers home. You may not be aware of the cost of international adoption but it is quite costly to process all of that paperwork I mentioned above. We will again be applying for grants, please keep this process in your prayers. We will also be doing some fundraising this time. We are fundraising in three different ways: 1) Mark your calendars for a Mom 2 Mom Sale at Providence Church on Saturday, April 21 from 9am-12pm. If you are interested in a renting a table in order to sell used and new baby, child, tween or maternity items like your own personal garage sale the cost will be $25. If you are looking to purchase used or new baby, child, tween, or maternity items the cost to get into the sale will $2 per person. 2) We will be selling T-shirts with an amazing family tree design created by our good friend Jenna Green. The cost of the t-shirts will be $15 and you can order them through emailing me or replying to this blog post. eperton@gmail.com. 3) Finally, Jason will be competing in three different triathlons this summer, if you would like to sponsor him in this event please let us know. We are trying to create where you can give money on the blog, wait for it :)

Most importantly we are asking for your prayer support again. The journey of adopting is bumpy and having prayer support makes the bumps easier to come by. Please pray for our future child, their birth parents, little Gus and adapting to a brother and sister, and Jason as I as we prepare our home and hearts for the second Perton child. Thank you so much for caring about our family and taking the time to read about what we are up. God Bless!

Cardiologist and ENT

I know we have not been so good with the blog thing, who knew that chasing a toddler around the house would cause you to have no time to blog. Plus who knew the toddler wouldn't sleep and therefore we wouldn't sleep. Anyways, life is good we are busy but loving every minute. What a joy our little Gus is. We are so blessed and so thankful for every day.

So we have had a few Dr. appointments this week. The first was to the ENT to check out Gus' tiny ear canals and hearing. Gus did great his ear canals are about the size of a mm and they do have some wax in them both have caused him to have minor hearing loss. He was a such a little trooper. The ENT in Holland is referring us to an ENT in GR so that we can coordinate when Gus has to be put under for other procedures to have his ears cleaned out and then also to have a better hearing test done.

Yesterday was the Cardiologist, what a long day we were at Devos Children's Hopstial from 9:30 until 1:00. Again Gus did great! The Dr. was so pleased with the results of the ultrasound and heart test. Gus is showing only slight symptoms of pulmonary hypertension, he is only showing the ASD heart defect not the PSD like they had said. He will not be needing heart surgery anytime soon! YEA What an answer to prayer. Right now we are going to wean him off of his meds and see what happens to his pulmonary hypertension. We are also meeting with the pulmonologist next week Thursday, and then the cardiologist again in a month.

Gus is our little miracle kid, the Drs are amazed after getting all of his paperwork from Korea they can't believe what they are seeing when they meet Gus. Jason and I are not so surprised, God has been so faithful and the power of prayer is unbelievable. We knew this kid had a special connection with God! Thank you to all of you for your prayers, God has heard you and has faithfully provided for Gus.

Our healthy little boy is a prayer come true, who believes in dreams anymore when you serve a God like we do. We will try to keep this more up to date.

Gus is getting baptised on January 24 at Providence at the 11:00 service, we can't wait to thank God publicly for our little miracle.

Home

Hello Everyone, sorry that we have not blogged in a few days. We have been very busy getting adjusted to being home. Our plane flight home was great, Gus slept most of the way and when he wasn't sleeping he was playing peek a boo with people behind us. People offered to switch seats with us before we even asked, God is so good to us. We got home about an hour late due to ice in Detroit. All three sets of grandparents, Uncle Kyle, Aunt Courtney and Uncle Lee met us at the airport. Gus did great with his welcome home party. Lots of smiles.

Now we are working on getting settled in. Gus loves all of his toys, loves the bath tub, is crawling all over the house, loves Morgan (but needs to be reminded to us gentle hands), is eating great, is not sleeping great but that's okay we will get there, and welcomes guests like the host with the most. Beyond the lack of sleep and trying to get Gus' days and nights to American times we are all doing fantastic.

Tomorrow we have our first doctor appointment and then we plan on spending the day at home. Our visit to the great grandma's and Mars Hill was a little much yesterday and we all need a day home. I will hopefully post some new pics tomorrow and also post an update on what the doctor said.

We have to tell all of you that we for sure felt the power of prayer on our entire trip. Thank you for all of the support, love and prayers. It is wonderful to be surrounded by people who love us and Gus so much. Have a fabulous day.

Finally ours!

We have had an amazing day. We picked Gus up around 10:00 am. We spent some time having him say good bye to his caregivers. Then we bundled him up in his bear suit (thanks Jodi) and his puppy hat (thanks Mary and Abby) and took a Taxi back to our hotel. Within a couple of minutes of being at our hotel the entire place was turned upside down with toys, diapers, and clothes. We let Gus explore a little and get a grip on his surroundings. Then we changed into our swim suits and took him for his first swim. He is a little fish, fits in with our family great. He loves the water and threw his first temper tantrum when it was time to get out. We then had a bath, he liked that as well and again tears when we got out. He had some lunch, very good eater and then settled down for an hour and a half nap, on the floor of course. He woke up happy, we played with toys some more ate a banana and got to know each other some more. Then Gus ate dinner and we took a short walk outside to look at the lights of the city and the Christmas lights. Now we are back at the hotel playing with toys and bonding. He is all smiles, easily consolable when sad, and loves to giggle. He loves to play with his tongue as well.

He does have a little bit of a runny nose right now so please pray that it does not turn into anything worse or make his ears sore on the plane. We will be home soon!

DMZ

We had another busy day in Korea. When we woke up this morning we were both just wishing this day to pass quickly in order to make it Friday and get Gus. We scheduled a tour of DMZ in order to keep us busy. It was a good tour we learned a lot more about North and South Korea. We got to see many different things but we didn't get a lot of time at any of the things, they kind of rush you through everything. It was interesting and we are glad we did it but it was not our most enjoyable tourist activity here in Seoul.

We also went to amethyst factory/jewlery store. Amethysts are found in Korea and pretty inexpensive because they are so local. I bought myself an early christmas present of a amethyst necklace, it is very simple and was very reasonable in price.

Then we went to a Korean restaurant and had bibophim, a warm pot full of rice, korean veggies, some spices, and a sunny side up egg on top. Very delicious. We ended our meal with a cup of korean coffee, it is found in most restaurants and it is about ten cents, it is like a shot of cappucino, sweet, warm and yummy.

Our tour guide, Sophie dropped us off at Itaewon which is a very modern, westernized shopping area. We found the last gift we had been looking for there. We took the subway back to our hotel, we are getting pretty good at the subway and it is so cheap and safe.

Now we are packing up stuff so that we can just concentrate on Gus tomorrow. It is crazy to pack up all of the Gus' unworn clothes. It's okay though, we are trying to make room for the extra stuff we are coming home with. Everything is coming together nicely. We are planning on laying low tonight. I am going to go workout and then soak in the hot tub. Then we will probably catch a quick bite to eat and attempt to get a good nights sleep. We don't know when we will get another uninterrupted night of sleep, Gus still wakes up at 2:00am for a feeding.

Have a fantastic Thursday, Friday is coming soon!

City Tour Day

Wow did we have a busy day today. We woke up and had some time to talk to my mom on facebook which was nice. Then we enjoyed a quick breakfast and headed to Holt to meet our volunteer tour guide for the day. Jihyeon Oh was our tour guide, she is trying to get to know English better so helping us was in turn helping her. She was an absolute delight and her English was fantastic. We started out our day with a tour of Gyeongbokgung Palace. Wow it was beautiful and we learned so much about old Korean culture. We also got to see in the distance the Blue House which is equivalent to the White House where their president lives. All of this was in the middle of city.

After the palace tour it was time to shop! I was pretty excited to buy some gifts. The shopping area is called Insadong and it reminds me of a flea market but with small indoor stores instead of all being outside. Everything is pretty reasonably priced. It has a lot of souvenir items. Jason and I bought some gifts for people and then purchased come authentic Korean items for our home. We bought: a wall hanging that says in Korean: My Happy Home, a beautiful wooden chopstick set that serves six people, a small picture that has ducks flying home in it which symbolizes family finally coming together or returning home (we are hoping to display this in our home with our names written in Korean), and we bought some wonderful Korean sweets to bring home and have everyone try.

We wanted to buy a traditional hanbok for each of us and Gus. Insadong had some but they were very pricy. With the help of our tour guide we were able to find a place that sold them at a much cheaper price. We went over to a different market which was much more flea market style. This had everything from fresh fish, to bedding, to fabric and other souvenirs. We came across a little stand selling hanbok and between the owner of the shop and Jihyeon Oh we were able to pick one out for me, very feminine and colorful, one for Gus to fit him in a couple of years (we should get his from his first birthday party and we are hoping that will still fit him now), and one for Jason which matches both Gus' and mine. It was a great deal where we got it but still a splurge for something that we will not wear very often. We both felt it was well worth it and that we would treasure them forever, much like we do our dutch costumes :)

While out shopping we were able to eat another traditional Korean meal, it was very tasty and gave us a chance to warm up from being outside in the cold all day.

When we got back to the hotel around 4:00 we were both pretty tired and cold, we soaked in the hot tub, tried to learn a little Korean with a book we picked up, and took a little nap. We ended our day by going across the street to a little sandwich shop for dinner. Although we have been enjoying the Korean food it was nice to taste something a little more normal for our palettes. We took it back to our hotel room for a late dinner.

We are winding down and thinking about hitting the hay soon. Tomorrow morning we are going on a tour of the DMZ. We leave at 8:00am and return to our hotel around 2:30pm, it will be a lot of history, walking and being outside in the cold again. We also hope to get over to the world cup stadium. Can you guess who planned our day for tomorrow?

We are both ready for it to be Friday when we get to take Gus with us. We do have one prayer request: our plane tickets for the ride home do not have us sitting together on any of our flights, we are fairly close but not next to each other. Please pray that people will have compassion on us and be willing to switch seats to get us together and on an aisle so we can walk with Gus if we need to. God has been so great to us throughout this trip and we feel that has so much to do with all of prayer support we have back home. Thank you. You all have a wonderful Wednesday!

Best Day Ever!

We finally met Gus today. We started our day with a 6:30 wake-up call. We anxiously got ready, ate some breakfast, and rode the subway over to Holt. We met DJ the overseas social worker at Holt. We then traveled about an hour to Ilsan. The drive was very pretty, mountains surround the city. When we got to Ilsan we met the superviser and Molly Holt. Then we took a short walk across campus to where Gus lives. As soon as we entered the door, there he was in the arms of his house mother. She instantly handed him to me. He smiled and cuddled into my arms. Holding him and kissing was indescribable. I handed him to Jason and Jason lifted him high in the air and we saw an even bigger smile. His face just lights up when he smiles. After Jason hugged him he reached back out for me and I took him back in my arms and we embraced in a family hug, our new family felt complete. We then took him into the play room and showed him all of the fun toys we had brought him. He loved the bear puppet, elephant puppet and the touchy feel book. Whenever he gets a new toy he looks at it and then pulls it up over his head, its very cute. We were able to play and interact with him. He sat in both of our laps, cuddled with us and then started getting very tired. He sleeps on the floor so we started getting into his sleep position. Then he flipped onto his back and started crying, his whole face scrunched up. I quickly scooped him up. I held him to me kissed his face and patted his back. He was asleep in my arms within about five minutes. He was so comfortable he started snoring! What a sweetie. We layed him down on his blanket and said good bye it was so hard to leave him but at least we know that come Friday at 10:00 am we will be able to take him with us.

We got a chance to talk with his house mother for a while and get a lot of our questions answered. He eats three times a day a rice porridge. He also eats smashed bananas and yogurt. He has a sweet tooth and his favorite food is Strawberry yoplait yogurt. He is not feeding himself yet. He drinks soy milk and rice powder mixed in water, both out of a straw sippy cup during the day and out of bottle at night before bed and then around 2:00 am. He sleeps from 9:00pm-7:00am with the feeding at 2:00am. He is still taking two naps one from 9:00-10:30 and one from 2:00-4:00pm. He likes to sleep and would sleep more if they let him but they keep him on a strict schedule. He gets hot while he sleeps and will crawl around on the floor trying to find the coolest place. When he is tired he gets fussy and will hit head on the floor, the same when he gets hungry. We are assuming that is how he gets his bumps on his head. His favorite things are the taggy balnket I made for him, a toy drum, thomas the train dvd's and cars that you can pull back and watch go. He can manuever a little slide all by himself including crawling up the wrong way. He is an absolute joy everyone just adores him.

The rest of our day was full of meeting people and seeing places. We enjoyed a wonderful lunch with Molly Holt at a traditional Korean barbeque wow the food was fabulous. We sat on the floor, ate with chopsticks, and left our shoes in the entry way. Molly's parents were the original founders of Holt and now she lives on Ilsan's campus and helps run the ministry. She is very passionate about what she does and cares very much about Gus. After lunch we said good bye to Ilsan and headed to the Holt orphanage where Gus used to live. The entire staff was elated to see us, they miss Gus and just adore him. They gave us some pictures from when he was younger including one from his first birthday party. Everyone was so friendly. DJ was able to translate our conversations.

Later we went to bookstore to get a couple of kids books in Korean for Gus. We bought a Thomas the Train book for the airplane and then we bought the giving tree in Korean. The bookstore was a lot like a barnes and noble just filled with Korean books.

This evening DJ picked us up at our hotel and took us out to dinner. We had a wonderful time getting to know her better. She is a wonderful woman. She speaks wonderful English. She lived in Ada for a little while so it was fun to name places that she remembered from Michigan and tell her about where we live because she recognized so much of it. She then gave us a little car tour of Seoul.

We are now back at the Hotel, trying to wind down from our amazing day. Jason is in the living room watching Korean soccer and I am planning on trying to get some pictures up on facebook.

Tomorrow we will be going on city tour, then we have Thursday to ourselves and pick up Gus at Holt on Friday morning at 10:00 am. Things are going wonderful! Check out facebook for the pictures that is where I will hopefully be able to post them.

First full day in Korea

We have had a great day in Korea. We started out with an amazing breakfast at our hotel. The food was fantastic. Then we talked with DJ at Holt and found out that we would be meeting Gus at 10:30 on Tuesday morning at Ilsan. Since we had the whole day we decided to explore Seoul. Jason took the lead he is much better at maps than me especially when they are in Korean. Our first stop was the subway to get our passes for tomorrow morning, then we decided to go visit a palace right down the street, well that was a bust because it wasn't open. So we went back to the map and found a sunny spot to stand in. While doing that we met a very helpful couple who must have known we were tourists. They encouraged us to go see Cheonggyecheon river, this is a reclaimed natural area that has turned from pretty much a sewer into a beautiful stream that runs for about 3 km with a wonderful path all along it. It was so pretty, we could even stone hop across it. While exploring that we came across a tourism organization. One week a month they have traditional korean activities for free. We had our names, including Gus', written in Korean calligraphy and then we were able to try on the traditional hanbok. I was a princess and Jason was a military man. Very cool we hope we will have time to take Gus back there and have him try on an outfit. We went back to the hotel and got our gifts ready for tomorrow and relaxed a little before our dinner excursion. We went to a traditional Korean music and dance dinner theater tonight. It was in a different part of the city but they picked us up which was nice. We enjoyed a wonderful buffet of korean food including crab legs, octopus, mandarin oranges and duck. Some of the food was wonderful and some of it not quite what we are used to. We were very adventrous and tried many things we had never had before. I will say the desserts here are nothing like at home, I miss my chocolate. The show was fabulous. The costumes were beautiful, the instruments were unique, and the dancing was intricate and synchronized to perfection. All around the evening was a lot of fun.

We are both feeling the effects of a lot of travel, some dizziness and very tired. We decided to hit the hay a little early tonight in order to be our best for when we meet the Gus man tomorrow. We will have some time with him but we don't know how much and then we will get more information on other times we will either see him or be able to take him with us. As of right now we will not have complete custody until Friday at 2:30. Mamma and Daddy are struggling with that a little and hope that we can maybe change that if we are able to. We will keep you all updated. As you read this on Monday morning know that when I am writing it, it is Monday night. Have a great Monday! ours was wonderful.

Meeting Gus time

We just talked to Holt and we will be meeting Gus at 10:30 tomorrow morning at Ilsan. We are so excited. We still are not for sure as to when we get to take him with us. We will be going on the Holt City tour on Wednesday. Today we hope to get acclimated with the city, check out a museum and hopefully see a traditional Korean dinner show. Very exciting. We will fill you in on what we really did later.

Good Morning!

Everything is still going great. We slept about 6 hours and then were ready to get going with our day. The breakfast was fantastic, really yummy and lots of things to try. We are ready to face the day. Jason is on the phone with holt right now and it sounds like we will be meeting Gus tomorrow. Today we will hopefully do some sight seeing, the DMZ is closed today so we will not be going there. I would like to get going and explore. I guess Ilsan is having a good bye party for Gus tonight. We are not sure if we will be meeting him at Holt or Ilsan, we will call back in a couple of hours and get more info then. In the meantime we are going to check out the rest of the hotel and get some subway passes for the week. We will continue to keep you updated. This little momma can't stop smiling!

Arrived in Korea

We finally made it to Korea!! All the travels went super smooth. A big thank you to nana and papa for waking up early with us and bringing us to GR. We actually arrived in Korea at 930 pm (korean standard time), which was about 730 am (est) . The greatest thing about the long flight was meeting people who had been to Korea and are currently living there. They gave us great advice about getting taxis to our hotel, when and where to exchange money, etc. However, when we finally got through customs and immigration it was all for naught. Holt had hired a driver for us and was waiting with a sign with our name on it. AWESOME!!! We had been told it would be a miracle if there was going to be someone there. GOD IS AWESOME! MIRACLES ARE GREAT! MIRACLES IN KOREA ARE EVEN COOLER (from this perspective currently). A big thank you also to Belinda and all those at Bethany and Tempo Travel agency for getting us to this point! We got to the hotel at about 1030 or 11pm. unpacked (Emily did this) and Jason attempted to get computer up and running. Jason was semi-successful in this endeavor, the only set back was getting this here blog spot not to be in Korean. It finally worked after getting 6 hours of sleep and patience being restored. We are looking forward to the day, dawn is breaking currently. Emily is still sleeping and I am getting hungry. Perhaps its time to wander around Seoul and find some good food to prepare for the day.

Time to Sleep?

Well here we are the night before we leave. Our bags are packed, emotions are high, God's faithful words of knowing the plans he has for us keep ringing in my head, plans to prosper us and give us a future as a family. Wow, the lessons we have learned in the past ten almost eleven months. God's love has taken us through each bump, each waiting day and the craziness of today. Hopefully we will both be able to sleep a little tonight before we begin our journey tomorrow. We will be departing the house at 4:45 am if any of you are up say a quick prayer that I will be calm and hear God's voice loud and clear, I did not realize until today that I am a little scared to travel internationally. Tomorrow starts a new journey for the Perton family and we are ready, we think. We will keep this updated. Thanks for all of the loving comments and excitement, it is so appreciated.

travel day and times

So, we are leaving on a flight bright and early Saturday morning. First stop is Detroit then Tokyo then arrive in Seoul about 9:30 pm Sunday night, which is 8:30 am our time. Crazy! We are staying at the Frasier Palace in downtown Seoul. It is very nice, it is apartment style so we will be able to cook some of our own meals. Plus it has a kiddy pool and play area for the Jason(maybe Gus will like it too.) We will be back home on Saturday the 19th at 4:30 pm arriving in GR. All three sets of grandparents will be eagerly waiting for their new grandsons arrival. We are bringing the computer and will be updating the blog as frequently as we are able to. We are not yet sure when we will actually be meeting Gus.

Current prayer requests: safe travel, bonding with Gus, Emily's crazy emotions, Jason's lack of emotion, Morgan's good behavior, and a magic house cleaner to make the house just what Emily wants for Gus when we get home.

TRAVEL CALL!

Today at about 1:00 we received a call from Belinda inviting us to travel to get Gus!!!! We are elated, to say the least. We will for sure have him by Christmas. We are both in shock, we just keep wandering around with our cell phones thinking what do we do now. We are currently waiting to hear back from Tempo with some options of when we will travel. As soon as we hear anything we will update you more. We should meet our precious little son within four days, YEA!!!!

Please thank God with us for this wonderful news!

Embassy Medical Report

Here is the current scoop. Gus has had his embassy medical appointment. The paperwork was faxed to Bethany at GR today but it came in Fuzzy. The person who has to fax it will not be back in the office until Wednesday to refax it. Bethany in GR should get it on Wednesday. Jason and I will hopefully be able to travel to GR on Wednesday to sign it. They will then expedite it back to Korea. Then we will get a travel call. Let's pray this all goes quickly and that we get that invitation to travel right after they receieve the paperwork. We are so thankful for this news and so close to thanksgiving. We are also so thankful to hear how much Gus has grown, up to 22 lbs and 30 inches. That he is sitting on his own, standing on his own, walking with furniture, saying ummamama and dadadada, eating rice fruit and other mashed foods, and has six teeth. We are also thankful for all of your prayers and support. HAVE A WONDERFUL THANKSGIVNG!

Still Waiting

We just got an update on "operation get Gus home." Gus' Visa was issued on October 23 and his Visa apporval is at the embassy. The next step is for Gus to get a medical exam and interview at the embassy. Once he has that they will email us a class B Letter which we will have to sign off on saying that we understand the health concerns that Gus has. Then they will send that back to Korea and we will get an invitiation to travel shortly after that. So...how long? I ask, you ask, we all ask. There are never any clear cut answers with that question when it comes to adoption. They are hoping we travel within the next month and hopefully sooner. Please pray that we have something to be very thankful for for thanksgiving this year. Somehow, someway we would like Gus in our arms by Thanksgiving day. Also pray that they get him to get his medical exam ASAP! Thanks for your continued support and prayers.

Ministry Approval

We just got word from our case worker that we have officially received ministry approval. That means Korea has approved us and we are now just waiting to get the call to go and get our little Gus and bring him home for good. The current delay is the lovely H1N1 flu. There have been a few cases at Ilsan where Gus is living and that is causing a little bit of a hold up. At this time we do not know when we will be able to travel, we are hoping very soon. If you could please keep this process in your prayers and pray that Gus does not get the flu. If he gets the H1N1 it will be longer until we can go get him and it will more than likely cause him to get pnuemonia again. Thank you so much for your continued prayers. It is simply a matter of time before we all get to meet this little boy who has already touched our lives in so many ways.

We are so READY!

Gus' room is officially finished. It looks great, Jason drew an amazing tree on the wall and everything else fell in place around the tree. His clothes and dishes are washed, I had a shower and got lots of lovely gifts. All of his toys are broken in thanks to all of the kids at our house on Friday night. We are very ready to get that travel call. Waiting is hard. As we walk past his room and dream of rocking him in the chair, tucking him into to bed and playing with the toys with him; I have been given a great image of what God must feel. He has prepared a room for each of us and is waiting to have us home in heaven. The Bible talks about Christ adopting us, what a beautiful image. Through salvation we have been adopted into a new family. Although this waiting time has been difficult and continues to challenge our patience, the spiritual growth that has come through it has been amazing. God's Timing is Perfect! Please continue to pray that we will receive that call soon, that we will hear back from the many grants that we applied for with good news, and that Gus remains healthy. Thanks for your continued support and love.