Orphan no more

This is the beautiful and heartbreaking and redemptive story of a little girl abandoned as a tiny baby in a bus station. For 5 long years she lived without the love and sweet care of a mother or father. No kisses on owies, no bedtime stories, no celebrations of her birthdays. No soothing during thunderstorms, no long warm bubblebaths. No girly pedicures, no riding bikes. No toys or clothes to call her own. But....on Monday in China, her father and mother,who labored so long and hard, a whole year almost, SET HER FREE. Welcomed her into their hearts FOREVER. She is no longer a 'foundling' but a daughter, a sister, a grandaughter, a niece, a cousin. And do you want to see what that looks like?? This....

This is freedom . This is love. This is hope realized. This is God. During this family's meeting with their new daughter, they had to all leave and take an official photo for paperwork purposes. Their new daughter, quite happy up to this moment, suddenly started crying and being stubborn. She misunderstood what was happening and was frightened because she thought she was going back to the orphanage...She would rather stay with these white strangers that she had known for less than an hour than to go back to the only place she has ever lived. Just sit with that for a moment. Orphanages are no place for children. Even the 'nicer' ones are no match for a family. And even though she had friends there, Elsie for one, she was going to fight to not go back. And she and Elsie ARE friends. Here they are together on Elsie's birthday party we sent to her....

The orphanage director, at the Family Day (or Gotcha Day) meeting told my friend that the girls are friends. My friend's new daughter has watched the birthday video taken with this photo above 20 times a day. Our poor Elsie's friend has left, and we won't be there for over 2 more months. It is enough to make a mother's heart cry. My friend gave me permission to tell their story and share their pictures with you. Please pray for their travel and their transition. They are still in China, I talk to her every evening,( morning for her). She is my trailblazer! What a precious gift she has given me, letting me walk alongside and be a witness to a most beautiful and delicate moment in their life. Their holy ground. And that gift I give to you. Let it break your heart for these orphans. Prayer request: please cover this beautiful family in prayer!

" I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. ". John 14:18

So this happened today

We received the hard copy of our LOA all the way from China! We had to sign the letter of acceptance, and check the box for accept (there was a box to decline...). It was so....huge...beautiful...holy. Her name and birthdate were on it, and a line that read 'Identity' and in the space provided was the word 'Foundling'. Elsie is a foundling, meaning that she was found. That word pierced my heart. It is such a lonely word. A lost word. It speaks to her profound loss...7 years a foundling. I wept. I weep. It just cracks my heart wide open. Way back in Sept when I was talking to the adoption agency about her, I asked them if there has ever been anyone else that asked for her file or inquired about her. They said no one, ever. The weight of this is nothing short of tragic. BUT! Today she has a mommy and papa that are scrambling as fast as God allows us to get to her, she has an army of prayer warriors (you!) praying her swiftly home! HOME. Forever home. Hallelujah, Praise to our good good Father!!! It is nothing short of a miracle that He has chosen a little girl all the way around the world, her, out of billions of children, to be our daughter!! I have another blog post that I am excited to share. My good friend is in China now and she picked up her new daughter (Elsie's friend!) on Monday. She gave me permission to share her story and pictures, it is redemption in a little girl's smile. But I just ask that we sit in deep gratitude for His mercy and grace and love in this day of days. This beautiful, wonderful day that brought to us paperwork that will bring her home. Thank you for your prayers and love. This LOA is on its way as I write this blog back to our agency in MD via FedEx,and will be Fedex'd tomorrow to US Immigration office. This is the I800 paperwork phase. It is asking our government if we can adopt Elsie specifically. Previous immigration said yes to our request to adopt *a* child,and this paperwork is for their ok to adopt *this* child, now that China said yes to *this* child (!). This should hit the USCIS lockbox on Thursday (!) And then we wait 3 ish weeks for the approval. Prayer request is, of course, for safe handling of our LOA all the way to USCIS, and prayers of immense gratitude that we are so blessed to be on this journey and we got to sign papers saying yes! we want Shi Qing, (Elsie).

A Mountain Crumbles

Hallelujah! Praise be to God! A Mountain begins to crumble! We were informed that we have moved into *matching*!!! This is the last step before we are issued LOA! Typically people wait 1-3 days *in matching* and then are issued the LOA. The most recent families waited 2 weeks from matching to LOA, so we will hopefully have it in the next week or two! We are over the moon!! Please keep praying that LOA arrives soon soon soon! To God be the glory!!

Mountains

Deep within the earth tectonic plates shift and collide in a constant struggle of might and braun. Powerful opposing forces war against themselves,shoving,grinding,lurching toward the sky in chaotic upheaval. Mountains are born and mountains climb ever closer to the heavens above.

Mountains divide countries, peoples, cultures for millennia. Only the foolhardy dream of what may lay on the other side. They know not the true cost of crossing those mountains. Reaching the summit of one mountain reveals an entire range, as far as the eye can see. The moment all at once exhilarating and discouraging. 'Look how far we've come!'.....'Oh. Look how far to go.' And quiet whispers of 'I don't see the end, do you?' There are earthquakes and rumblings of new mountains in this adoption journey. 'Look how far we've come!' We are so close to having that golden ticket, the letter from China saying YES to our request to adopt Elsie. We have battled the horror story of the home study agency, US immigration, State Dept, Chinese consulate. We have come so far! 'Oh. Look how far we have to go.' Our timeline has sadly shifted to instead of traveling to pick up Elsie in June, then July, then Aug...to now Sept AT BEST, but realistically October. October. This will be over a year. And leaves much time for those in power to change rules again. Whispers 'I don't see an end, do you?' The full explanation follows for those who are interested in the mechanics of this marathon. Feel free to skip to the prayer request at the bottom. LOA (the golden ticket letter) has been taking about 50-53 days from the date a dossier is logged in. They have done LOA in 18 days, so it doesn't NEED to take that long, but that is how they have been trending for the past few months. We are currently on day 63, but....We need to be moved into the *matching* phase first. Matching has always taken 1-8 days. Until this last batch, the batch ahead of us. They languished in *matching* for 14 days. Big deal, you may say. But as you will see, these extra weeks here and there add up to months of delay. Typically China waits 2-3 weeks in between batches, so we likely won't move to *matching* for at least 7-14 days. Then we may spend a couple weeks waiting for LOA after matching. At that point we are told 10-12 weeks until travel. But....now there are several serious mountains in that 10-12 week paperchase that have arisen. First is our immigration here in US. There are two immigration officers that, rather than approve the paperwork in the expected 2 weeks, these officers take 3-4 weeks, inexplicably. Once we get past this, we move to some weird steps that include an *Article 5 drop off and pickup*. That is where the new mountain has arisen this last week. Out of nowhere, our US Consulate in China is flagging about 1/2 of dossiers to provide more information. This includes requests for orphanages to provide newer medical reports (this adds 2 weeks) to requests for home study updates....this adds 2 months. The article 5 has ALWAYS taken exactly 10 days, they even schedule the pickup date(!), but now if you are flagged, it can take 2 weeks to 2 months longer. These are all brand new mountains. Most of them are United States bureaucracy-sponsored mountains. We are the privileged explorers of this new terrain. I am not adventurous. I prefer to follow in a well worn path. Neil said "Its a miracle it works at all." Yes. If Elsie ever comes home, it will be a miracle . If my sanity remains intact...that will be a miracle. Neil also said these words, a balm to my weary heart, " She is worth it. Darkness wants to keep us in the dark and discourage us, but we must continually move towards the Light. " Our hearts are aching to hold our daughter. Here's where I sing my theme song when we were in process with Zinny...Marvin Gaye's "Ain't no mountain high enough, ain't no valley low enough, ain't no river wide enough, to keep me from you (Elsie June)" Prayer request. Please please pray for our endurance. Pray for Elsie. Pray for a miraculously fast end to the LOA wait. " Truly I say to you, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself in the sea,' and does not doubt their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. ". Mark 11:23 " I lift my eyes to the mountains --where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. ". Psalm 121:1-2

To God be the Glory

What a day, oh my what a day Sunday was. Words cannot contain or express Neil's and my gratitude for all the lovely, beautiful people that came out to support our fundraiser. We have just the best friends anyone could ever have, and they would not like to be named here, because not only are they spectacularly generous, they are incredibly humble. But I will mention that they put this whole affair together. The crafts were lovingly made over many months, the baked goods tediously baked and assembled into the wee hours of Sunday morning before the sale. Everything was made to a high standard, all this for our daughter's orphanage. Our dear friend and pastor not only helped get this thing up and running, he blessed our fundraiser with prayer early Sunday with those of us setting up. We had an army of friends and their kids help run the whole affair, you could hear some cheeky upwelling happening! "Ok, that will be $6 out of $20...would you like your change?" It was all very sweet and in good humor. Everyone was smiling and laughing, the room was filled with joy, pure joy. Joy only felt when doing God's work, taking care of the orphan. And then the good and faithful, the loving people who came out to support, who came to eat Kaiserschmarrn, even though they didn't know what it was ( it was a huge success! Way to go Neil, your Grandma Elsie would be so proud!). People stayed long and just enjoyed the music and food and conversation. It was remarkable. And my new friends I now can claim, the adoptive families that came to give us words of encouragement on this hard road, sharing their own stories, cheering us on. Humbling. Such a gift. I'm welling up with tears of joy as I write. May I never stop working for God, may all my deeds, mundane and all be to His Glory! Thank you everyone. Thank you. The latest development in our adoption is my conversation with our agency. They believe that our dossier will move from *in review* to *in matching* this Saturday or next Monday, and since we have already been matched, we should get, at long last, our Letter Of Acceptance....this will be amazing. From the day we receive the LOA it is 10 weeks of finishing up the paperwork and we will get our Travel Call! This works out to be the first half of August if we get LOA next week. So that leads me to our.... Prayer request: please pray that China moves our dossier to *in matching* at the end of this week. Please continue to pray that Elsie's heart is prepared for all the changes coming for her.

Fundraiser!!!

So it's just 3 days until our fundraiser, whew have we been busy. Who knew these things just don't happen! So much work, my friends and family have helped so much. this literally could not be done without them. This is just a small sampling of what will be available, note cards (look closely and you'll see Zinnia's contribution), handmade, locally sourced beeswax candles, tons of flowers lovingly started in the winter and tenderly cared for just for this fundraiser! And this is just a small sample of all the amazing gifts and goodies people have donated, it is truly humbling! In addition to the craft/plant/bake sale (wait till you see the fancy baked goods people are donating) Neil will be heading up the Kaiserschmarrn feed. Oh it's going to be so delicious, I feel pretty sorry for all of you out-of-towners! German scrambled pancakes with all the fun toppings! And a cool glass of organic lemonade finish it off. I will be posting all the post fundraiser photos next week. Remember, all you out-of-towners need not miss out altogether, we are taking donations and can mail anything to you excluding the plants and baked goods....And the Kaiserschmarrn! The donations from this fundraiser are going to our mandatory Orphanage Donation. Every adopting family is required to make a donation in the amount $5,500- 6,000, depending on exchange rate. This is part of the total $35,000 cost of adopting from China. And frankly, it's the most useful part in my opinion. This money goes directly to the orphanage where it can actually help the orphan, whereas a big chunk of the cost goes to bureaucracy,ugh. The lions share goes to our own government and the adoption agencies. China really gets just a small fraction. Here's another fun fact: adopting families have to carry that donation in cash, in crisp brand new bills....good times. I'm getting a money belt for my birthday! I will leave you with this story that just unfolded as I was writing this post. I'm in a lot of fb adoption grouos. One is a private group for our particular orphanage. Tonight someone posted an older photo of Elsie and some other kids around an ayi (a care worker). I posted "that's my girl!" and another woman posted that one of the boys was her son, home last October. She said that her son recognized Elsie and was very happy to see her picture and he kept singing a little Chinese song. I asked her to ask him what he remembered about Elsie and he said. .. "she wake up, she no sleep." Oh boy..... I'm going to bed...while I still can! Donations can be sent to Opitz Family 2522 N 66th Ave Omaha ME 68104 Prayer request: We are STILL waiting for that golden ticket, the LOA. Prayers for it to come soon. Please pray for the fundraiser to run smoothly. And please pray that Elsie likes sleep very much...! Good bless you all!

Waiting with good cheer

Great news. We have a new computer and it's up and running. The men in the family are so relieved, they missed a week of the baseball season! I am relieved as we head into the final weeks of our orphanage donation fundraiser. Very dear friends of ours are hosting a fundraiser for us to raise money for Elsie's orphanage. 100% of the proceeds will be donated directly to the Lanzhou Orphanage in China. We will donate $6000, and this fundraiser will help meet that goal. Orphanage donations directly impact an orphanage's ability to prepare orphans' files for adoption, in addition to their medical and physical needs. It is because of previous adoptive families' donations that allowed Elsie's file to be prepared. To these families we are forever grateful, and we will do what we can for the hundreds of children left behind. See below some of the work being one to prepare for the fundraiser! So much hard work is being done by so many lovely people! My dear friend has also generously put together 2 darling quilts to donate! They are absolutely charming. We will have flowers for the garden, handmade note card sets, homemade beeswax candles, wonderful baked goodies, and so much more! Neil and his friends are also running a Kaiserschmarrn-fest. This is his grandmother's (whom Elsie is named after!) famous Austrian recipe for a scrambled pancake delicacy. Neil makes this for Zinnia every Saturday morning. We are putting the *fun* in fundraiser, har har. I will post pictures for all of you out-of-towners. And if you happen to BE an out-of-towner, please don't think you cannot be a part of our donation! 100% of the proceeds will be donated to the orphanage. We are all called to care for the widow and orphan, and this is an easy way to do that. If you wish to donate you can mail your donation to the address listed at the bottom of this post. And for those of you who wish to donate with a tax deduction, please contact us as we do have a tax deductible option. Asking for money is not easy, but asking on behalf of orphans is an honor! In other news, we are still in our wait for our *golden ticket* Letter Of Acceptance from China. I don't think there are too many remaining ahead of us in line for LOA, but China doesn't always work in a logical way. There seems very little rhyme or reason to the way they hand out LOA's,some people get them in as little as 17 days, and some wait more than 70! So we truly do not know when we could get it. We are on day 36 right now. The best we can go by is the average right now is running 45 days, so we are hopeful to get it in the next few weeks. After that our paperwork chase is back on as we rush to our travel call which we are hopeful will be in July. So travel would be late July at best. Prayers concerning this are welcomed!! Prayer request: For our paperwork to move swiftly and smoothly. That our preparations for our fundraiser are fruitful. And continued prayers for Elsie, that she is well and that her heart is being prepared for a family. Blessings to you all!

Opitz Family
2522 N 66th Ave
Omaha NE 68104