Dear Foster Mama,
You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but both of us have been in love with the same boy for the last seven months.
The boy who you’ve raised since he was 4 months old.
The boy who tomorrow will become our son.
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Dear Foster Mama,
You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but both of us have been in love with the same boy for the last seven months.
The boy who you’ve raised since he was 4 months old.
The boy who tomorrow will become our son.
Read moreWhen we woke the boys up for our flight at 1:45 a.m. on Thursday morning, we thought we were going to face snarls, tears and a whole lotta grumpiness from the superheroes who dig their sleep as much as they dig their food.
But as Super-Spouse gently nudged them awake one by one while I finished gathering all the last-minute items from around the house at the time our night owl friends were just considering hitting the sack, each boy sprang to his feet with a smile and more pep in his step than we’ve seen on any other morning all school year long.
Superhero 2, who shows his excitement by talking the ears off of any person within a 10-mile radius (I really don’t know where he observed this skill), skipped to the hallway, where he flashed me his biggest 2 a.m. smile with bright but sleepy eyes.
“Mom, I keep telling myself, ‘Self, today you are going to China!’ But myself just can’t believe it!”
And neither could we.
After waiting seven long months to meet the boy whose black-brown eyes filled more than one recent dream, it was almost surreal that we were now heading to the airport to board a plane to fly to the country to meet our SON.
Read moreWe submitted our Letter of Intent to be his parents on January 25.
We received our Letter Seeking Confirmation/Letter of Approval officially approving us to be his parents on June 2.
And on Monday, we received the official Travel Approval from China to go pick up our SON!
We’ll be flying to China on August 10, meeting our boy for an Adoption Day/Family Day on August 14, and then spending two weeks together as a family touring his country and becoming students of this superhero we have been dying to meet for seven entire months! We’ll return on August 25.
Yes, ALL FIVE OF US!
We adopt as a team, we love as a team, we travel as a team. <3
Read moreLast Wednesday, countless adoptive families around the world were still dreaming about and preparing for their future children.
They were completing homestudy visits.
Applying for background checks.
Hosting fundraisers.
Praying for their Chinese-born superheroes.
And in a split second last Thursday, everything changed.
I spent what I thought was any other summer day at the lake with my superheroes and my friends, and by the time I dried off and picked up my phone that afternoon, my iPhone screen was overflowing with notifications.
Missed calls. A never-ending log of unopened texts. Facebook messages.
Contacts from devastated families.
Totally unaware of what had thrown countless families we know and love into total chaos, I went to our agency’s website … and found this.
A notice that on Thursday morning, the CCCWA in China had sent an announcement to all international adoption agencies that work inside China notifying them of new eligibility rules for adopting families.
Effective immediately.
Read moreThis post is the fourth in a month-long series on the Miracle of Dunkirk, a call to all-in, bring-your-boat, daring and courageous orphan care inspired by the But If Not campaign of Sage Harvest Gourmet Jerky. Join the cause to stage the NEW greatest rescue mission in modern history — the Miracle in China.
Nine days.
That’s how long the Allied Forces and merchant marines and British boat-owning citizens and every kind of volunteer vessel captain took to evacuate more than 338,000 troops from the beaches of Dunkirk before German forces captured the beach port.
They didn’t have weeks. They didn’t have months. With advancing German forces, they didn’t have the luxury of time on their side.
The more than 700 to 800 British boat owners who mounted a flotilla of unconventional maritime vessels to SPEED to the beaches of Dunkirk had nine days before the more than 350,000 Allied Forces surrounded on that famous beach in France became casualties in what could have been one of the deadliest battles in World War II history.
But because these brave boat owners understood the urgency of the situation — because they saw the dire circumstances and said yes despite the danger — they changed the story ending for 338,000 troops who had no hope without their participation in these service members’ lives.
Like the British Admiralty who stared out onto the soldier-saturated beaches of Dunkirk and called for back-up and for help, we, too, are sounding the alert, because we, too, have a dire situation on our hands.
There are more than 600,000 orphan superheroes whose special needs are just superpowers in disguise now stranded on the beaches of China.
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