We'll be heading to China!!!

We got a call from America World Adoption today and we received our referral acceptance...which means we will be going to China in the middle of September to get Mary Elisabeth!!!

We found out on June 5 that we had been matched up with a little girl named An Qingshu. Her nickname is Yin Ping in the orphanage. The following is an email that we sent out to people back in June.

Linda wrote this email earlier this week! Her mom is feeling better now!

Today we received a message from America World referring to our position with the adoption. The Chinese Government has pre-approved our adoption. This means that we are closer to referral approval. Referral approval is the final step before travel authorization. Once we reach the RA stage, we can send care packages, etc. to our Mary Elisabeth. The time line for the next step is that we can receive our RA anywhere from 1 month to 3 months from our request to adopt (June 5). Of course this time line is not engraved in stone, but it is definitely cause to praise

As you can see, it will be a wild time for the next month and a half. Please say a prayer for us. We've got a lot left to do in a short amount of time.

Mark and Linda

First Update of 2009

Well, our family got through Christmas, spending time with our family. Dec. 25 would have been Mark's mother's 62nd birthday. It was very hard for everyone but we were there for each other and we know that Mom is watching out for us and we firmly believe that Mark's mom and Linda's dad are watching what is going on in China and looking out for Mary Elisabeth.

Has she been born yet? We don't know but since our parents are in Heaven, they have a look in to things that we don't have here. We just hope that 2009 is our year to get our little girl. We want her to grow up with her cousins Devon and Heather. They are the closest to her age as her other first cousins are so much older but will love her just the same. We know that. On the Linda's side of the family, Emmy will have Deanna, Kortney, Jay, Kaycee and Orion. Orion is the youngest and is in the 10th grade this year. Deanna is older than Mark :) Emmy will have one second cousin whom she will be close to, Victoria Rivers, she is Deanna's 11-year-old girl.

So, please continue to pray for us. This is continues to be a struggle in patience for us. We know it will all pay off for us, we can feel it.

Mark and Linda

Update

I saw that it has been since May since we updated our blog.

Mark's mom died of cancer on July 28. It has been a tough time for our family but we're getting through as best we can. It is especially tough on Mark because he and his mom worked together at the newspaper for 13 years. They were especially close.

We got fingerprinted again at USCIS on Sept. 17 in Fort Smith, AR as our I-171H expired on Sept. 25. Our social worker took care of sending our home study there and we should be getting our new paperwork soon! At least it wasn't as stressful as meeting the deadline back in April 2007.

We continue to think about how our lives will change when we get Mary Elisabeth. We've lost two parents -- Linda's father and Mark's mom. In fact, Linda's dad only knew one of his grandchildren as he died in the early 1980s when Linda was in college. We are going to make sure that Emmy knows her grandparents inside and out!

We've both got birthdays coming up. I guess we'll enjoy them!

Thanks for checking us out.

Mark and Linda

Update

It has been a while...a really long time...since we posted but a lot has been going on in our lives and not so much with the adoption.

Mark's mother, Rose Mary, is still having health issues with a new occurrence coming up this past week. Work for both Mark and Linda is steady but we're both looking forward to school being out!

A couple of weeks ago, we attended an America World seminar in Branson, Mo., and really enjoyed it. We've also decided to join the Waiting Child Program. We're not committed to it but we are looking at all options so that Mary Elisabeth will join our family sooner, rather than later.

Thanks for all the continued prayers.

Mark and Linda

Hello

We are Mark and Linda B and we are adopting a little girl from China. Her name will be Mary Elisabeth. We're so excited this opportunity to be parents. I work as a sports editor/photographer for a newspaper while Linda is a 7th-grade teacher.