How I'm feeling: peaceful
Gender: GIRL! It's official!!!
Total bills so far: $7962.89
Bills this week: 0
Ways God is working: Pre-approval came Monday morning. Sunday evening, I was getting something out of the nursery and thought, right now in China they are working on our PA... :) Obviously, I have no idea when they did it, but the fact is, we have it! But wow - what a wildly emotional week. We started preparing for Phil's grandma's funeral and learned on Monday morning (about an hour before getting PA) that my own grandpa woke up in Heaven. It was hard to have the emotions I wanted when we got news of the pre-approval, but the underlying feeling was - wow, what a precious girl she is. That was all that kept going through my head - so precious.
Then Phil found out that his boss is going to China this coming Monday. Since we have PA now, we can send Jemma a care package and Laura agreed to be our courier! :) Now we are trying to work out the details as it can't be shipped conventionally once it gets to China for multiple reasons. But, it is AMAZING timing for the Lord to allow us to get PA just in time to send a package to our daughter. We simply could not send it any other way than to have someone take it in their luggage to China and then mail it once it's there.
After finding that out, Phil got his bonus letter - and it is double what he was expecting! God is providing for this journey in quite amazing ways!!!
Tuesday evening, we went down to Build-a-bear and found the perfect Jemma Bunny. It so reminds us of her. We put our voices in the paws like we did with Sammy's monkey. And then we stopped at Grandma B's to share the good news with her and get her picture with Jemma's Bunny. We hope to collect as many pictures as we can with the bunny and people hugging it for Jemma before it leaves for China!!!
We got a flash drive and another set of picture cards on a ring made for Jemma to see our faces. And our friend, Jenny, translated a letter to Jemma and her nannies for us. She also wrote an explanation for the bunny so that it can get through security without a problem (hopefully!). After a little work, we were able (read - God was able) to get it all worked out so that Jemma's bunny gets to Jemma. It has to take a plane ride, and then go through a private shipping company to an orphanage courier, and THEN to Jemma. :)
We also got to say good-bye for now to Gigi. She went to Heaven in September and her memorial service was today (Sunday, November 30th). We were able to have great conversations about Gigi not needing her old body in Heaven. That her spirit is in Heaven with a new body because Heaven is perfect and so she needed a perfect body. It was such a wonderful service and a time to be joyful and cry. I'm so grateful!
Things learned: supposedly the USCIS is running at about a 30 day processing rate right now... so that would be wonderful if we could be through USCIS by the new year! Might make it possible to be DTC by Valentine's Day. :)
Stuff we've done for the adoption this week: Picked out Jemma's stuffed animal and sent the care package/letter. OHHH!!! I almost forgot - we bought Jemma's adoption day outfit and part of her coming home outfit!!!!!!!
What I am looking forward to: Home study getting sent to our agency and then off to USCIS for immigration approve;
Praying: That it would be possible for Jemma to get her Bunny in one piece with no difficulties and that she would be able to really have it and our pictures close to her often in the months to come.
Pictures of the week:
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