Estimating.... traveling....

A family from Bethany who was logged in on July 26, 2005 reported that their case worker estimates that they will travel anywhere from mid to late November. We didn't get logged in until December of 2005. There's a possibility it could be next spring before we go... We'll just have to wait and see. Depending on how things go, we'll likely have to re-apply for our I171 immigration form (filing cost is $545). Like I said, guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Highlights (newsletter part 4)

- Forming relationships with Christians in China

- Worshipping with our students in Chinese and English

- Having delicious Chinese food for almost every meal (Henry ate a duck foot!)

- Climbing the Great Wall

- Learning “Jesus Loves Me” in Chinese

- Developing strong relationships with our teaching team

- Singing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” really fast and erupting in laugher with our morning group

- Leading worship before and after English lessons each day

- Witnessing the passion that Chinese Christians have for God

- Hearing familiar hymns like Amazing Grace sung in Chinese

- Learning more about the history and culture of China (and of our future daughter)

- Being treated to Peking Duck

- Buying cute squeaky shoes and traditional Chinese dresses for our future daughter

- Squattie potties & split pants

- Getting even better with chopsticks

- Seeing Pekingese dogs all over the place!

- Being immersed in a different culture

- Hearing Chinese spoken everywhere

After Christmas?

Many people are trying to make predictions about how long families are going to be waiting for their referrals (to be matched with a child). There's really no way to tell how long or short things will go. Apparently one large agency is predicting the time frame listed below. LID stands for the date your application was logged in at the Chinese agency. (Our LID is December 5). If things go like this agency is predicting, we would not be matched until around March or April. We can't say for sure, things could pick up a bit. Either way, it's not very likely that we will get a referral before Christmas.

LID 7/14/05 to 7/28/05: August referral (13 month wait)
LID 7/29/05 to 8/12/05: September referral (13-14 month wait)
LID 8/13/05 to 8/29/05: October referral (14 month wait)
LID 8/30/05 to 9/13/05: November referral (14-15 month wait)
LID 9/14/05 to 9/28/05: December referral (15 month wait)
LID 9/29/05 to 10/13/05: January referral (15-16 month wait)

A Typical Day in Beijing (newsletter part 3)

7:30 A.M. delicious Chinese breakfast in the guesthouse restaurant

8:10 On the bus to Kuanjie Church

9:00 - 11:00 Whole group time (learning Scripture and worshipping together) and Small group time (English lessons)

11:15 Walk to a local restaurant for lunch

12:30 On the bus back to the guesthouse

1:30 – 5:30 Lesson Planning, Free Time and Supper

5:30 On the bus to Gangwashi Church

6:30 - 8:30 Whole group time (learning scripture and worshipping together) Small group time (English lessons)

8:45 On the bus to our guesthouse

9:45 Free time – often bedtime!

Sightseeing and Free Time (newsletter part 2)

Although we spent a lot of time teaching and preparing our lessons, we did have a nice amount of free time each day. Our group was quite adventurous and had a big list of all the things we wanted to do during our stay. We came up with a master plan/schedule so that we wouldn’t miss a thing. This kept us pretty busy but it was worth it!

During the first weekend in Beijing we spent time at the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City, The Summer Palace and The Temple of Heaven. We also had an orientation session that weekend. It was all great but we were SO tired!

We took the first two teaching afternoons off and then jumped into our own busy plans. We spent free afternoons and evenings doing a variety of activities like: bowling, shopping at the Pearl and the Silk Market, foot massages (OW!), the Beijing Zoo, Hou Hai Park, Full Body Massages, the Night Market, a Hutong rickshaw tour, and some more shopping.

On the weekend, between our two weeks of teaching, we took a train to Chengde which was a mountain resort for some Chinese emperors. The architecture there is beautiful and quite different from buildings in Beijing. It was fun to have a weekend adventure!

Teaching (newsletter part 1)

This is part of a newsletter we wrote about our work in China. This article is about our teaching experience. The two pictures are of our evening and morning classes.

The stated purpose of our trip was to teach English but it was much more than that. In fact, the relationships we formed with our students were more important than any English lessons we taught. While teaching English made it possible for us to come, worshipping together was what really reinforced our unity as members of the worldwide church of God. We were blessed by the love and warmth we were shown by our students.

The two groups we taught were quite different. Our morning group was a group of mostly older people who spoke no English and were very eager to learn. We taught them Psalm 23, the Beattitudes, many worship songs, and basic English vocabulary. The students were very appreciative and encouraging to us and loved teaching us “Jesus Loves Me” in Chinese.

Our evening group was made up of high school and college students who all spoke English quite fluently. They wanted help with pronunciation and new vocabulary. We enjoyed teaching them, and especially liked playing Uno and just sitting around and talking with them.

stuff for our daughter

We spent some time shopping while in Beijing and found a few cute things for our daughter. The first thing we got was squeaky shoes. They have something in the bottom of the shoe that squeaks when the kid wearing them steps on them. We saw a few kids wearing them in China and they were so cute! We also bought two traditional Chinese dresses for her - the red one is for her baptism.

a few pictures...

These are most of the regulars from our morning group. They came to our class not knowing any English and really wanting to learn. They were so enthusiastic and appreciative. It's hard to explain the wonderful relationships we were able to develop with them! We taught them Psalm 23, the Beattitudes, basic vocabulary words and songs like Father I Adore You, God is so Good, etc. which have repetitious phrases and words.

At the Temple of Heaven

to China... and back again

Well, we've been to China and back. We had quite limited internet access so I was not able to post updates like I had hoped. Right now I'm waiting for all of our pictures to load onto the computer so I can see how they turned out. We've been traveling for 22 hours to get home and we're feeling a bit yucky - I don't think our bodies know what's going on. Beijing is exactly 12 hours later than Grand Rapids time. In our traveling today, we actually gained 12 hours. We left at 9:05 this morning (Beijing time) and were in Grand Rapids today at 7:00 P.M. (GR time). It was hard to do all that sitting. I hope to post some pictures later this week once I get them loaded and resized. More later...

babysitting...

We're taking care of our nieces until we leave for China (in 7 days!!!). Here are some pictures of them at the children's museum yesterday.

going to China...

We're leaving for teaching in China in two and a half weeks. Here's a very basic outline of our schedule:
- Leave June 28 (Grand Rapids, Detroit, Tokyo, Beijing)
- Arrive June 29 in Beijing
- Sightseeing June 30th, July 1, 2
- English Camp - July 3rd-July 7
- Weekend at Chengde - Qing Dynasty Summer Palace - July 8-9
- English Camp - July 10-14
- Final weekend - July 15-16
- Leave for USA - July 17 (Beijing, Tokyo, Minneapolis, Grand Rapids)
- Arrive in USA - July 17

We'll be working at the Gangwashi church (PM) and the Kuanjie church (AM) in Beijing for English camp. It's an outreach program that these churches provide free of charge to anyone who wants to attend. Our main job will be to help people with English pronunciation and conversation. We met today with a couple from our church who have lived and taught in China and had a phone conversation with a good friend who also lived and taught in China. They all had little tips for us - things not to do when we're there etc. All these little things make our trip seem more real. We're looking forward to it!

Something else to celebrate!

Although I'm not officially done (I have one class and a large paper to finish this summer) I walked at Calvin's graduation on Saturday. Check out my cool master's hood!

why so much waiting?

When we tell people that we don't know when we are going to China, that it will probably be later than we originally thought, they wonder why. Well, we wonder why too, although we're not stressed about it. We know it will happen at the right time. Here's some of the information we were given about why the adoption process in China has slowed down.

"Families from every agency and from every corner of the US are experiencing dramatic delays right now for referrals from China.This has been occurring, and the wait times have been steadily increasing, for the last 4 months which has resulted in wait times from the log in dates of 10-11 months with the very real likelihood of hovering between 10-12 months for some time to come.

As a bit of background, there are several things happening at CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) which have caused some delays:

1) The recent news coverage of baby trafficking in Hunan has forced the CCAA to scrutinize every file at length before making referrals. From our contacts it seems the CCAA has been very focused on this issue internally while saying very little publicly about it. As with any Chinese organization that is cast in a negative light by the international press, they tend to slow their processing to an almost glacial pace to show a strong resolve in remedying any dilemmas (look at the SARS aftermath at the Ministry of Health as a recent example)

2) There are, for the first time in CCAA's history, more adoptive applicants than there are children who are paper ready at CCAA. Basically, every year CCAA has to forecast how many adoptions they will have (based on years prior) and ask for that many files per month. They don't want to go over as they do not want files in the office that go unmatched. However, the past few months have seen such a dramatic influx of new applications that they have been caught totally unprepared. Last year there were 8,000 adoptions from China into the US with at least 1,000 applications hitting their offices per month. Late last year and into this year they were seeing as many as 2,000 applications (from all over the world) per month. This increase has been, and continues to be, dramatic at CCAA.

3) They are in the early stages of moving all their offices across town which hinders their efficiency dramatically. They have put this off for several months due to the above noted issues. However, our primary China rep has told us as of last Friday that they are just now in the beginning stages of transferring offices.

4) There are more domestic adoptions at present than at any other time CCAA has seen. A new push in China by the government to promote domestic adoption is still in its nascent stages, and coupled with the economic upswing in the cities this is a very real possibility for many Chinese families (almost 90% of all abandonments occur in the countryside and the majority of domestic adoptions occur in the cities). Certainly it is only starting to take hold yet more Chinese parents are adopting girls domestically than we have seen in the past. Last year there were as many as 25,000 domestic adoptions registered with the state, versus the 13,000 international adoptions from last year. This year there may be even more.

5) There are, on a whole, fewer abandonments than we have seen in years past. At present, official statistics suggest the total number of orphans from ages 0-18 living in China is right around 600,000; however, most of these "orphans" live with relatives and the number
of those living in orphanages throughout China, ages 0-18, is around 70,000-100,000, with 50% of those children deemed "special needs". This number is certainly lower than one would imagine, as are most statistics done in China concerning vexing social issues- but it has
been overseen by external parties and seems to be rather consistent with their findings as well. This is certainly a smaller number than what has been noted in the past which suggests a reduction in children entering the social welfare institutes in China.

These things combined have caused a sort of perfect storm which has really slowed things down considerably. Although each issue seems easily remedied or attended to by itself, combined they have caused one of the more dramatic slowdowns in recent history in China. The
CCAA has stated it hopes to move things to the 10 month time frame for referral and it is highly likely they will be able to do this. However, the timeframe until they can reach this is still unknown.

We recognize this impacts families on many levels. On an emotional level we understand how hard it can be to have a date in mind, no matter how flexible, and be told the wait for referral will almost double. It is a frustrating issue and we know the staff at CCAA are equally disappointed as well."

a special China opportunity...

We're going to China this summer! Not to pick up our daughter... we're still waiting on that. We have the opportunity to go to China for three weeks as part of a Christian Reformed World Missions Team. We'll be working on English pronunciation with a group of people in Beijing and will be able to do a small bit of traveling on weekends. We're really excited that we're going to be in China! We leave June 28 and returning July 18. What a blessing to have this opportunity to serve.

a longer wait, again...

It seems that the agency in China that processes all adoption applications is overwhelmed and slowing down. The last few sets of referrals they have sent out have only been for parts of a month's applications. What this potentially means is that our referral could take even longer to come. The agency's website was updated yesterday. Here's what is says:

The CCAA has finished the review of the adoption application documents registered with our office before September 30, 2005. (That means that those applications have been reviewed and will go to the matching room.)

The CCAA has finished the placement of children for the families whose adoption application documents were registered with our office before June 6, 2005. (That means people whose stuff was logged in by June 6 will have referrals arriving sometime in the next week.)

So maybe Christmas is a better estimate for our referral???

two nursery pictures

a longer wait?

The referral time listed on Bethany's website now says 9-10 months. We've been hearing that time frame from people using other agencies as well. We're not sure how that will affect us. Another thing is that there's a huge convention in October in China which is really busy and it makes traveling more expensive. It's likely that we will not travel in October because of that. Perhaps November is a more realistic time for when we will be going to China.

dossier counter

"the brown envelope"

Today we got "the brown envelope" in the mail. It comes from the US consulate in Guangzhou, China. The DHS (Department of Homeland Security - Immigration) forwarded our adoption approval to them. This envelope contains the forms that we'll need in China to complete the adoption of our daughter as well as our case number. The papers in here isn't particularly significant but it's nice to know that our paperwork was received at the consulate in China.

LID (Log in date)!

We received an email today with our official log in date - December 5, 2005. The current best estimate for referrals is 8-9 months so we'll be looking at August/September for our referral. In the meantime, we're keeping busy with work and doing fun stuff at home like hanging pictures in the baby's room. We have lots of waiting to do yet!