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

TA! Yes, you read that right, we have travel approval! After hearing so many stories of long TA waits, it is such a blessing to have ours within a few days of our Article 5 pickup. Unfortunately, with moving and having to update our home study, we still have to wait for USCIS approval before being able to book our travel. And as a travel agent, you know that is hard for me!But as always, we wait on God's perfect timing. We know China has said, come get your son!, but have to wait some more before plans can be made. That said, we are looking at a tentative timeline of traveling to China at the end of July. Pray our paperwork goes through quickly and there are no weird issues! Facebook Group I've made a group for you to join if you would like to follow along on our journey to China. Follow the link to request to join! We will be posting updates during the journey here. FACEBOOK GROUP Bonus Bailor video :) xo, mackenzie & scott

Whew! I feel like we've been running a marathon lately with everything that has been going on. Over Memorial Day weekend we moved from West Ashley to Summerville (a big thank you to everyone who helped, especially my mom & dad!) The school year came to a close, and bring with that grant deadlines, Oakie Spoleto (a big fine arts event that I am in charge of), and general craziness that comes with the end of the year. I've had weddings to shoot and edit, and Scott has been busy with real estate. And we just got back from celebrating Scott's sister Hillary's wedding, and I made the cake this time instead of taking pictures (thank you Lora & Albert for your kitchen!). But here are some pictures anyway! :) Congrats, Hillary & Caleb! Part of moving means we have to update our home study to reflect our new home, finances, etc., so we have been scrambling to get all the required forms and medical tests done to update this as fast as we can, so we don't...

Thank you! Did we say thank you for your support enough yet? If not, we need to say it some more. Thank you for your support. It was quite the feeling and blessing to see everyone coming to support us and Bailor at the Bring Bailor Home 5K a few weeks ago. We even had long distance support going on across the country and around the globe as we had folks do the 5K virtually where they were. The global part was Mackenzie's parents who were on a cruise in Europe and found time to get their 5K in on the deck of the ship as it was crossing the ocean. :-) It's been such a blessing to see everyone supporting us, but even more so when everyone's there in group fashion taking to the streets of Summerville/Ladson! Shower! Also this past weekend our sweet friends Sarah Ramsey, Hannah Coyne, and Janet Coyne threw us a China-themed shower for Bailor! We had a great time eating Chinese food and doing activities, not games! And opening special presents for Bailor! We are excited...

Thank you thank you thank you! A big thank you to everyone who came out for the Bring Home Bailor 5K! We had a beautiful morning and a good turnout. We are so thankful for everyone's support! A shout out to Sarah Hathcock for organizing the race, you were phenomenal! And to Monica O'Dea and Kim Boutin for being there to help setup and open up the school. Another shout out to our virtual run/walkers, Norman, Susie, Hillary, & Kelly Clark; Jessica Burton; and Barney & Pauline Morris (they did theirs on a cruise ship!) Beautiful photos by Jessica Smith of Smith Photos & Ink ! View all photos on the Facebook page .

Okay so this acronym may need explaining after explaining it. :-) LID = Log In Date = The official date that China has logged all our information into their systems = A step we have been somewhat anxious about completing as we had a deadline of March 20th to complete this after we were prematched and preapproved to adopt Bailor = All of the paperwork, home studies, donations, personal funds and prayers and support from everyone over the last 6 months was all pushing towards this date = YAY!!!! = Sigh of Relief = Yes still more to go, but meeting this deadline helps us not have to redo anything we have done in the last 6 months = Yes, there are many more things to do and pray for and funds to raise, but this checkpoint is like doing a Marathon and getting to the checkpoint before the designated time and knowing that you won't be picked up by the bus even though you still have a good chunk of the race to run. :-) = Thank you for your continued support and prayer...

We hit a big milestone in the adoption adventure checklist this week- DTC! No that doesn't mean we now control the stock exchange and we aren't able to repel mosquitos better (although that would come in handy here in Charleston). :-) If you aren't familiar with the acronyms of the Chinese adoption world, this means that our dossier has been sent to China. Here is a really good acronym explanation that we borrowed from another Lifeline adoptive family's blog ( teamsecrest.blogspot.com ) ( highlighted items already done!) : DTC- Dossier to China : large packet of paper work including legal and government documents, as well as your home study review with your social worker, pictures, fingerprints, etc. that is authenticated by a couple of government agencies and then sent to China. LID- Logged-in date : after you are DTC it takes a few weeks to be logged in to China's system  LOI- Letter of Intent : when you have received a file of a child you are ready ...

Mackenzie's school has been awesome to help put together this event to help us fundraise. Walking, Running, Skipping, Galloping, Fulfillment of a New Years resolution to be more active, whatever your motivation to get there, join us on April 16th @ 8 am at Oakbrook Elementary in Summerville/Ladson. S ign Up online and get more info at fromcharlestontochina.com . $5 or more suggested donation for walk/run only, $25 or more with awesome Bring Hone Bailor 5K race shirt which we think you'll really like! Think you can't do a 5K? Trust me you can! :-) I used to facilitate training people to do them so don't let that stop you. Think Summerville and think "that's far away"? Believe me it's just outside North Charleston. Here's a link:  Oakbrook Elementary School 306 Old Fort Dr, Ladson, SC 29456 Plus you'll be helping us bring this awesome kid home from China! Someone at our recent adoption training put it best: we have the bles...

I-800A Approval! No, we didn't get the IRS to allow us to use a special tax form although it sounds like it. :-) This is the very exciting. All of our documents have been approved on the US Immigration side (before heading to China). This is a big relief as this is the document we kept having weird things happen with. But now it is DONE! Does this mean Bailor's on his way? Not yet. This is the US approval. What's next is getting our Dossier (I-800A approval + Fancy Finger Prints taken at the covert government office next to Chuck E. Cheese + Homestudy + family pictures + original documents (where we never got a copy of our marriage certificate) + References ( I hope you all said good things) + Checks for random amounts like $3 to Shelby County Probate, $4 to Alabama Secretary of State and two random amount checks to someone name Cindy Marut (you're welcome Cindy if you're reading this) then subtract 15 and divide by the square root of 4 = Dossier) w...

We were excited to recently get our biometric finger print appointment mailed to us from the US Immigration office. This is one more piece in the puzzle of the elements that will be sent to China once all documents are approved and assembled on the US side. This is one of those things where the government tells you when it is and that is when you go. No phones or purses allowed, you jsu bring your appointment letter and your ID. :-) At our recent training we talked to couples who were done within an hour of their appointment to being there 5 or 6 hours. I'm blessed that with my recent change to 4 10 hour shifts I can take that full day without having to take vacation that I'll need later to travel to China. Pray for us on February 4th at 8:30am that all goes quickly (and if not quickly for patience) and also for the approval of our I800-A documents which have been having some odd unexpected technical hiccups along the way. In other recent news we received some new pictures of B...

We are so thankful for all of you and the support you have shown us Your donations and generosity continue to blow us away everyday. One challenge with adoption fundraising is a way to make your donation tax deductible. Challenge conquered! Enter AdoptTogether, a website that allows adoptive families to fundraise and the donations to be tax deductible. Here is a TedTalk from the founder of AdoptTogether that does a great job explaining what they do: Our next phase of fundraising will help fund our last! agency payment, our orphanage donation, and our travel expenses. If you feel led to donate, please visit our AdoptTogether page here. Thank you! https://www.adopttogether.org/clarkmiracle

This morning we got our fingerprints completed biometrically by US immigration. We had heard stories of it taking hours, but thanks to the friendly and efficient staff at the non descript strip mall building next to Chuck E. Cheese that we never knew was there we were done before our appt time. :-) yea! Our last pages of paperwork arrived at Immigration as well this morning. So we're very happy to have those there to continue processing. Once that processes in the US it will move on to translation and processing in China. We have a deadline for all that to be completed mid March so we're praying for its completion. If anything we've continued to realize everything is on Gods time and He is teaching us lessons of patience and grace along the way. :-) we continue to have and (when we feel like we don't have it, pray God will give it to us) faith that He is orchestrating every element of this process and He is always for us and faithful.  We also picked up an...

We recently got back from Atlanta where we got an opportunity to get trained up on what to potentially expect when bringing Bailor home. It was great training put on by our adoption agency Lifeline Children’s Services and the bonus was we got a chance to meet couples that were also adopting from China or other countries. One couple was even adopting from the same orphanage Bailor is at. Particularly great was the chance to hear from some children that had been adopted from China and other couples that had adopted from China too to hear their experiences, challenges and suggestions. While we came away with some great knowledge we ultimately found that every situation will be different, but we feel we have the support from God and the resources of others and are even more excited to get Bailor here to start this great adventure. And thank you to Atlanta for some delicious food while we were there and some free “Christian Chicken” from the birthplace of Chick-fil-a at the training....