Since being matched with Lilah-Kate, we have been anxiously awaiting the day that we could send a care package to her.  Our agency recommended that we wait "closer to travel" to do this, so we did.  We used a service from Ann Yang at RedThreadChina.com  to deliver a letter to the orphanage director, a stuffed panda for her, a cake to share with her friends, and a soft photo album of her new family for her to read!  They even left a disposable camera for the nannies to take photos for us until we get there to develop them.  We were sent the party pics below to enjoy!  Wow, have we been blessed to have so many photos of her!  Look at her little friends, we want to bring them home too!
Sean









The great wait for Lilah-Kate is a very appropriate title for our blog.  Months and months of paperwork led us to December 2010 when we saw the referral pictures and started pursuing Lilah-Kate.  Once we were matched with her, another several weeks worth of forms and applications started, part of which was obtaining travel visas.  Surprisingly, the agency was simultaneously coordinating Lilah-Kate's passport and visa for travel to the US.  We were delighted to see her passport photo.  It looks like the orphanage really wanted her to look pretty, here hair is neatly combed and she has on a pretty pink coat!  Look at that sweet face!

Laurel joined several forums to learn from other families adopting from China.  She found a very specific forum for families adopting from Lilah-Kate's orphanage in Wenzhou City.  After reading through pages and pages, she found the following pictures of Lilah-Kate enjoying a sucker!  How awesome to find her pictured in another families photos.  She is on the left in a yellow and white shirt!  I was so surprised that Laurel found these, I used the mac face recognition against her referral photos to prove it was really her!
Sean




These are additional pictures that we received as part of our referral documents. She is even cute when dressed like a boy!






On December 10, 2010 Sean and I received a referral for a 2 year old little girl.  At first, we did not see a photo, just the referral paperwork.  As we read her file, we became excited to find out more and quickly asked to see a photo of Li Xin Jing.  Interestingly, our case worker had already sent it to our email (I think she was very confident!) and all we had to do was find a wifi spot.  We were sitting in our car outside of Sean's office and were able to log in to webmail.  As soon as we opened the photo this is what we saw...

Wow!  I just gasped and sobbed and through tears said "that's my daughter!".  We cried and smiled and couldn't talk for several minutes.  How awesome is our God to bring us together with this precious little girl!

"Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the East and gather you from the West." Isaiah 43:5