Welcome to Our Blog!

Welcome family and friends to our new blog! We're glad you have joined us on the last leg of our adoption journey. We'll try to keep you informed of our upcoming trip to China and the happenings while we are in China.

The past month and a half has been a whirlwind of activity for our family, with most of the activity falling on John's shoulders. He has been working tirelessly on all the paperwork. Before he left for work this morning, I asked him if he had any paperwork or forms he needed to take with him to mail off or fill out, and for once, he did not. Our plane tickets have been purchased and we will get our Visas next week. One of the last remaining hoops to jump through is fingerprinting, which will be done next Monday, December 22. At the time of this post, Madison does not know that there is a family in Iowa working feverishly to adopt her and provide a forever family for her. Most likely, she has not even heard of Iowa.

Madison's Chinese name is Hua Ji. Hua is her "family" name (pronounced hwah), and Ji is her first name (pronounced Gee). She is 13 years old and will be turning 14 on February 4, 2009; two days before John's birthday. We hope to make it the best birthday she has ever had.

Many of you know that we started the paperwork for this adoption at the end of 2005 while we lived in Japan. Had we known that it would take over three years to get a child from China, we probably would not have gone through with it. But God had a plan. We would not have opted for an older child three years ago or perhaps even a year ago, so the wait has been a part of His plan. We did not think we wanted a "special needs" child (Madison has a deformed left leg), but God knew we would love whoever He presented as our Chinese born child. Madison Ji has been living in our hearts since the day we decided to adopt from China, we just didn't know her name, what she looked like, or when we would be united. Fortunately, God knew. It was and continues to be His plan.

There is so much more to write, but we will keep this first post relatively short. We hope this helps to answer questions you may have about the adoption and that you feel a part of our adoption journey.

John and Lori