For about a decade, Hanna was the baby of our family.
She has blossomed into the most awesome big sister ever!

Hanna is doing her very own adoption fundraiser to help bring home her
new little brother or sister!

Hanna’s Chocolate Chip Scones!

They are delicious…

I am not disclosing how many I have eaten today!
(#samplesfortheneighbors #testkitchen)

Not disclosing how many he has eaten today either!
(#helovesthemtoo)

Here are the details:

Made from scratch,
$10/baker’s dozen
(limited local delivery available)

Please leave your order in the comments below,
we will be in touch with you!

p.s.
Lucy is working on her very own fundraiser too…
stay tuned for more information!

We were hoping for next week, but we received a wonderful surprise
in the form of an email this morning!

Dear Jason and Kirstin,

We have received confirmation that your dossier was logged in to the CCCWA on 5/18/16. This is your LID (log-in date). Congratulations!

Families participating in the Waiting Child Program have unknown wait time for a referral.  Please refer to the Waiting Children Program FAQ’s to understand factors affecting referral wait times.  Once a referral is accepted and you submit the Letter of Intent (LOI), you will receive an email with the estimates of approval wait times.

In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice;
    in the morning I lay my requests before you
    and wait expectantly.
Psalm 5:3

WE

ARE

DTC!
(Dossier To China)

Wouldn’t you think that we would have this adoption process down?  Third times the charm, right?  Well, as it turns out, there is a big difference between domestic infant adoption and international adoption – and a lot of little differences in how different agencies handle international adoption, and we are working with a new agency this time.  A few times, these little changes or differences in the process have left us at a loss and needing some explanation when we felt like we should know just what to do.
We have even lost a few documents along the way –
and although we have our share of crazy around here, this is pretty uncharacteristic for us!
So, I am glad to share with you that we are done with our part of completing the dossier!

We recently sent this very precious package to our Family Coordinator and it has been confirmed that it made its journey safely to our agency, AWAA.  Hooray!!  Included inside were an application letter, birth certificates (Jason and Kirstin), General Physical Forms (Jason, Kirstin, and Becca), Marriage Certificate, Financial Statement, Employment Verification letter (Jason), Non-Employment Letter (Kirstin), Police Reports (Jason, Kirstin, and Becca), 3 reference letters, our homestudy, I800-a approval (US Immigration), family photo pages, photocopies of the signature page of passports (Jason and Kirstin), two passport photos each (Jason and Kirstin), homestudy agency’s COA accreditation certificate, license, and nonprofit letter…
and a few misc. things for AWAA, the placement agency.

Last week, we ask our Coordinator what she thought our timeline to the next few milestones might look like.  She had the following to say about
DTC (Dossier to China) and LID (Log In Date):

DTC will take around 3 weeks.  We are only allowed to take 15 documents to the State Department at one time, so your documents will go in two batches. (We have 18.)  We already have 15 documents going for another family tomorrow, so yours will go next week.  After that, they are taken to the Chinese Embassy the next Friday.  I will keep you posted on how things are going.  I try to be loose with the time because sometimes the Embassy doesn’t have documents ready on time.  Hopefully we’ll have you DTC on May 13^th, but I will keep you posted.  Congratulations on getting to this point!  You’re so close!

**We heard today that our documents are at the State Department and
we are still on track for this time line!**

After meeting these two milestones, we will be getting close to being matched with a precious child who waits in China for a family, for a home.

We share (some of) the details of this amazing process with you so you can get an idea of the scope of this undertaking and understand the miracle
that the completion of each and every adoption is!
Without God’s heart for the fatherless and his mighty hand,
this could never all come together.

We cannot wait to bring our “New Little Birdie” home to its nest.
Because this is what HOME is…

“…I think God meant the home to be one of the primary places into which His Kingdom comes afresh, His life made known again on the scale of the everyday… home is not only a refuge from evil but also a place for a new beginning after evil has done its worst, a place where hope breaks once more into human existence –
not just as an idea, but as a refuge.”
Sally and Sarah Clarkson
The Life Giving Home

Lucy loves to sing!
I love music…
and she and Michael bear with me when I sing!

We learned a little song last year at the library that we sing after lunch sometimes…
“Now it’s time for story time, story time, now it’s time for story time, welcome one and all.”

Some of our favorite books around here lately are The Jesus Storybook Bible,
Walt Disney’s Cinderella (a Little Golden Book), 
Richard Scarry’s: What Do People Do All Day?,
Give, Save, Spend with the Three Little Pigs and
One Morning in Maine.

We usually sit on the couch or maybe on Michael’s bed and read and then head to roomtime for some rest and quiet for mom everybody.
Michael sits on one side of me and Lucy on the other so I am sandwiched in the middle.  Then they both LEAN way in and rest on my arm so I cannot hardly even
turn the page of the book!
I wish I had a picture… it’s very cozy.
*smile*

This last week, I have been blessed with a new wonder at all that God has done in our family over the last 5 years.  I look at Michael and remember reading this:

Some of you will remember that I (Kirstin) am not very good
at making fingerprints…
Well…
We received a phone call tonight that was followed by cheering and happy dances!
We have been assigned an Immigration Officer AND she reports that
all 3 of our fingerprints cleared!
(Since Becca is over 18, she is also required to be fingerprinted by USCIS.)

As we wait to receive our I800a approval from Immigration by mail,
we are working away at grant applications from Show Hope and Lifesong for Orphans.

We are really looking forward to completing our Dossier and being
“DTC” (or Dossier To China).
In the meantime, we try to make a little progress every day while still being truly present to those who are already here at home, and
remember the big picture, taking heed of this reminder…

But be sure to fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart;
consider what great things he has done for you.
1 Samuel 12:24

“And of course, there are dumplings (known as 餃子 jiaozi when boiled or 鍋貼 guotie when panfried), which represent wealth and prosperity because they have the shape of gold nuggets, the ancient Chinese currency for money.”
from Meat Loves Salt: A Living Archive of Family Recipes

Last year, Lucy made sure that we knew to have red envelopes with a small gift of money inside (红包 hong bao) for our Chinese New Year Festivities.  This year, she asked if we could make Jiaozi.  She also shared with me that the spicy dipping sauce was very important.  I think we need some more practice on our assembly – but Lucy gave our efforts today a thumbs up saying, “We did a good job!  Save that recipe.  They taste right.  They taste like China.  It was fun cooking with you.”  And she was right… I think I would eat almost anything that I could dip in that spicy dipping sauce!

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years…”
Genesis 1:14

Each time a family adopts, they are required to have a new homestudy completed.  We began in October, and just received word today that our homestudy, done by a licensed Nebraska agency, has been approved by our placement agency, AWAA!  This is a big milestone in the adoption adventure.  The next step is to begin working with US Immigration. Our approval from them together with our homestudy will become part of our dossier that will precede us in making the trip to China before we can travel to bring home Rothfuss family member number 8.

After Michael came home, I wrote him a little story about a baby bird whose nest had been blown out of the tree by a storm and how the first mommy and daddy bird searched and searched for a new, safe nest to place the baby bird in as soon as it hatched.  Then, when we learned that Lucy Joy’s Chinese name meant sea bird or sea sparrow… we began to call her our Sparrow.  So, now when we talk with them about their new brother or sister, we talk about our new little birdie.

We have not yet been matched with a new little birdie, but are anxiously waiting on God to reveal this precious one’s identity to us!  Our hope, Lord willing, is that we would be able to travel to adopt one of the children in Lucy’s city, from the same orphanage where she was cared for. Would you pray with us that we would be able to travel to bring our new little birdie home to the nest in 2016?  We have much work left to do and we will need to depend on God to move mountains… of paperwork!  We know HE is able!

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together…
Colossians 1:17

As I write this, it is Friday, the day after Thanksgiving 2015.
We have had a wonderful morning of baking, painting, make believe and playing with siblings, studying, and even a mock debate round in our dining room to prep for the upcoming tournament season.  What a pleasure to share a day at home…

as a family.

After lunch, we all settled in for some quiet time, or as we call it “room time.”
Hanna, daughter #2, asked me to take a minute to read her most recent blog post before she posted it online.  Each day for the last week or so, she has been posting a little thought about our trip to China last fall in which our good God accomplished all that needed to be done to bring home our Sparrow – daughter #3.
I am undone by it.

Won’t you read it?
You can click here to go to her blog.