Meet Mia Grace!

My wife and I are so thankful these two little ladies’ mommas chose life! Had they not, our family would not get the amazing privilege and blessing of having them be a part of our forever family! 

World...here’s a fun picture of our Ali girl (below) and let us introduce to you...Mia Grace (above)! We will be heading to China in just a few more weeks to get this precious little lady! We can’t wait!

“And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" Esther 4:14

1/2 Adoption Costs Covered!!

Wow!  God is so good to have provided for half of our adoption costs (our goal :) ) through generous friends and grants!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

p.s. more exciting adoption news coming very, very soon...

China Says Mia Is Ours - LOA & I-800 Submission!

 After 36 days of waiting...our dossier was approved and we received our Letter of Acceptance (or Referral Acceptance - LOA/RA).  This is China’s official declaration that we are approved to adopt Mia! Which means we get to share photos soon :)

Our I-800 application is our final big application for citizenship through the Department of Homeland  Security - USCIS and we are praying for this step to go quickly too!

Our New Adoption Video

We had fun putting this video together to share our adoption story :)

Overwhelmed - Amazing Bracelet Fundraiser :)

OVERWHELMED is an understatement for how we feel! Thank you to everyone who has already supported us with our adoption of our sweet girl! (We will share her name on here in just a few more weeks!) We started out thinking of ordering about 50 bracelets. I wasn’t sure with the holidays if there would be much interest. Jonathan suggested 100 and we went with it with the intent that all our family and friends would be receiving them as gifts from those we didn’t sale! 😂 We sold all 100 of those, then ordered 50 more and sold all of them. We just got another shipment in with 150 more and they are already flying out of the Carl home! Wow, just wow! From the bottom of our hearts, thank you! We feel all of the words on these bracelets because of your love and encouragement towards our family!

I always thanks God for you! 1 Corinthians 1:4

We have received about $3,375 so far. God is good and so faithful. Thank you for your continued prayers and support!

Here are the new bracelets we have available. If I have missed anyone who has placed an order please PM and let me know. I am trying to keep up with all the orders with the busyness of the season but may have missed someone unintentionally. Thank you! Much love to you all!

Adoption Timeline

Everyone's timeline seems to go slightly differently, but here is our journey's timeline towards adopting our Chinese daughters (to date) 

Alia Joy

1. Applied for American World AdoptionAssociation (AWAA): 4/29/13
2. Various Home Study & Dossier Compilation Dates thru Summer of 2013
3. Request Submitted to See Allie/An Fu Ju's (adoption file name/orphanage name) Referral File (8/17/13)
4. Acceptance of Alia Joy's Referral (us saying yes and committing to adopt her): 9/11/13
5. Preapproval by China for us to adopt Alia (PA): 10/2/13
6. Dossier to China (DTC - all of our paperwork in China): 1/17/14
7. Dossier Logged In Date (LID): 1/24/14
8. Chinese Referral Acceptance (RA): 6/25/14 (a long wait, 152 days! China says yes, Alia is definitely yours!)
9. I-800 Submitted 6/26/14
10. I-800 approval 7/10/14
11. Guz# 7/17/14
12. DS-260 7/18/14
13. Article 5 Dropoff 7/21/14
14. Article 5 Pickup: 8/5/14
15. Travel Approval: 8/8/14
16. Departure Date: 8/13/14
17. Gotcha Day: 8/17/14
18. Return Home: 8/29/14

Our New 11 year old Daughter

1. Applied for American World AdoptionAssociation (AWAA): 6/8/18
2. Various Home Study & Dossier Compilation Dates thru Summer of 2018
3. Request Submitted to See _________ (adoption file name/orphanage name) Referral File (6/11/18)
4. Acceptance of ______’s Referral (us saying yes and committing to adopt her): 8/24/18
5. Preapproval by China for us to adopt _______ (PA): 8/29/18

• Home Study Complete 10/1/18
• i-800a - 11/6/18
• Dossier to AWAA 11/18/18
• Dossier to State Dept 11/27/18
• Dossier to Ch Embassy 12/4/18

6. Dossier to China (DTC - all of our paperwork in China): 12/10/18
7. Dossier Logged In Date (LID): 12/13/18
8. Chinese Referral Acceptance (RA): 
9. I-800 Submitted: 
10. I-800 approval:
11. Guz#: 
12. DS-260: 
13. Article 5 Dropoff: 
14. Article 5 Pickup:
15. Travel Approval:
16. Departure Date:
17. Gotcha Day:
18. Return Home:

A side by side comparison may be a better help...

For More Updates on our adoption and for ways to help, check out this webpage from Lifesong: https://mystory.lifesongfororphans.org/stories/the-carls-adopt-again/

Log In Date - Our Dossier Officially Is In China!

So our paperwork made it to China on December 10th and was officially “logged in” a few days later on December 13th.  Since we have already “accepted a referal”, being pre-approved to adopt a specific 11 year old girl, our next step will give us full approval to adopt her.  Prayerfully we will recieve our “Letter of Acceptance” (LOA) in 6-8 weeks (end of January through mid-February).  Once we have our LOA we can share pictures of our daughter-to-be 🙂