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

Things are starting to move more quickly around here, after that long, long wait for our I-800a! We received our Letter Seeking Confirmation (LSC or "Soft LOA") on January 22nd, after only 24 days (we were anticipating closer to two months). We received our official LOA on February 1st, and signed and mailed it back to say YES to China on February 8th.  Our I-800 form to USCIS, which is asking for approval to adopt this specific child, Bennett, made it to the lockbox on February 8th. It will take a few weeks for I800 Approval, then we will move into applying for our son's visa  and then getting travel approval! We are so thankful for receiving a $3000 grant from our church, Journey Church, from their J1:27 Ministry, called The Chosen Project grant! We are really thankful to be partners in a church that puts such a high value on Jesus's call to care for orphans (James 1:27).  Estimated travel to China now looks like April at the earliest, sooner than expected!...

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...