From Charleston to China: The Clark Family's Adoption Journey

The past month has brought us many milestones in the China adoption process. Our I-800A was approved after a -gasp- eighty day wait. This is the preliminary approval from USCIS for our family to adopt from China. Once we received this approval, out agency could send our dossier to China (DTC), which was done on 12/18. On 12/29, our dossier was logged into the CCCWA in China (LID), and from here, we wait for our dossier to be translated and eventually matched with our son since we have pre-approval to adopt him. The letter we are waiting on is called the Letter Seeking Confirmation (LSC), also know as the Letter of Acceptance (LOA). This is an invitation from China for us to say Yes! We want to adopt this child. LOAs have been coming faster so we hope ours does, too! What does that mean for travel to bring home Bennett? Our agency is predicting travel in late spring/early summer, but that could change to earlier or later depending on the speed of receiving our LOA, and then the nex...

 Adventure Is Out There! We are excited to announce our adoption fundraising shirts, inspired by our love of the movie Up and our love of adventure! Help us bring home Bennett Kai from China and show off your own adventurous spirit. There are lots of color and style choices- crew neck tee, v neck tee, and sponge fleece sweatshirt (my personal favorite and the comfiest sweatshirt you will ever wear!) All are soft Canvas brand tees- see link below for sizing. How can you buy one of these fabulous shirts? Follow this link www.dreamsmagicadventure.com/apparel *If you will need your shirt shipped, complete the checkout process .  *If you are local to the Charleston area , browse the shirt options and email me your order and payment method to mackenzie@dreamsmagicadventure.com . I will send you a Paypal invoice if you choose to pay via PayPal, or you can pay by cash/check in person. Thank you for your support in bringing home Bennett Kai!

YES you heard it right, we're adopting again... We've kept this one a little quieter to start until we got to a certain point in the process, so we'll catch you up quickly...  We've applied... We've been pre-matched with a wonderful 2 year old boy named... Bennett Kai! We've completed much of our paperwork and processes and are have received initial approval of our I-800 A from US immigration.  Next steps once we get that approval: This will complete our Dossier files and that will be submitted for translation and then to China to be logged in and we'll await our LID (logged in date) You're caught up for now. Pray for us and check out our website  fromcharlestontochina.org  via our current jobs, t-shirt fundraiser or just praying for the process.  We appreciate your support and more to come...  

DFW- Landing in DFW we had some challenges with timing and weather. We ended up not being able to get on our flight that would be getting in Friday night. Mackenzie’s parents were watching our pets and house and would be there, but my extended family who were in Charleston had to head back on Saturday morning. So we missed them, but were able to get a flight in the morning to get back that Saturday afternoon/evening. That made for some challenges for sure, but we don’t know what God’s plan was for that day or how he might have been working on our behalf or through those challenges that day. Bailor did well on the final flight. And he only cried a little when we got him in his car seat for the ride home so we appreciated that for sure. We were finally home. Bailor took well to his new surroundings. He was concerned with the pets for a little while, but he loves his pets now. We had some weird sleep patterns the next few days, but it didn’t take too long to adjust. Such a blessing and ...

The next morning we planned to have breakfast at the Disneyland hotel where Bailor could meet Mickey, Minnie and some of their other character friends. We checked our luggage at the desk so it would be ready to go when we came back to take the shuttle to the airport. The buffet was delicious again with more Mickey shaped items and some great things you would never find in the American parks. We took turns feeding Bailor and getting our food. The characters all rotated and they came when Mackenzie was away so I asked if they could come back in moment and they were happy to while I got Mackenzie’s attention to come take the pictures. What I didn’t realize was how soon they would come back, but I knew as soon as they made it to our table. Bailor was standing in his chair screaming at the top of his lungs as he had just been in a little bit too close proximity to Mickey for his liking. I was comforted in the fact that he was comforted by my return though. Again they said they would come...