New Hope Foundation

NEW HOPE FOUNDATION

New Hope Foundation is sponsored by SHOW HOPE, Steven Curtis Chapman charities.  We are blessed in that for some of Levi's time, we dont know the specifics yet, he was in new Hope Foundation's care.  He would have received much needed medical care.  We hope to learn more after we are home from Show Hope and already have a contact for that information.  They are not allowed to give us information until the adoption is final though.  Through networking with other adoptive families that have traveled before us, I found out we can help New Hope Foundation by bringing luggage filled with medical supplies, diapers, bottles, clothes, formula, etc for the orphanage.  We have three bags we will bring one with each adult. and deliver it to their staff when we arrive in Beijing.  What an awesome opportunity to give the tiniest bit back to the organization who loved on Levi and cared for his every need!  

SO hard to believe he's going to be in our arms in less than one weeks time!!!!  Thankful for God's provision.

The COUNTDOWN

So many details have been gone over and gone over again.  We have our itinerary, bags are getting packed, family is arranged to care for the kids as we leave (SO GRATEFUL FOR THEM).  Here is what happens next:

Our Itinerary:

4-30 (Wednesday)  We head to the airport for 8:55 flight to Chicago and then have a 10 hour layover there.  We will get to meet up with another family in the afternoon and travel to Beijing together, so cool.  We leave Chicago at 7:15 p.m. and arrive in Beijing 9:45 5-1-14.
5-1-14 thru  5-3-13 Beijing: we'll get to see The Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City and tour Hutong.
5-4-14 thru 5-9-14 We will be in Zhengzhou, Henan Provice
*We receive Elizabeth and Levi on 5-5-14! And on 5-6-14 we have ADOPTION DAY. We will get to go to Levi's orphanage (Social Welfare Institute) and we weill take a 2 hour drive to Elizabeth's city to apply for her passport, but her orphanage does not allow us to come in.  The kids are with us the entire trip after we receive them 5-5-14.
5-10-14 thru 5-15-14 We will be in Guangzhou, where the US Consulate is (Southern China).  We will have a clinic appointment, medical check ups, Consulate appointments and receive their passports, etc.
5-16-14 Leave for Beijeing and stay over night there before heading home.
5-14-14 HEAD HOME  (Beijing-Tokyo-Chicago-Louisville)

UPDATE

UPDATE:

We are so excited to announce that we received Travel Approval (TA) last Thursday 4-17-14 and Confirmation of our Consulate Appointment 4-18-14.  I was able to secure our flights by the end of 4-18-14.  Friends, WE ARE HEADED TO CHINA!!!   

We will leave in less than 2 weeks:  Our flights leave Louisville 4-30-14.  We will have a layover in Chicago then straight on to Beijing.  I will include an itinerary of our trip as it is confirmed.  We will stay a few days in Beijing and then head to the Henan Province where we will receive both kids the same day, even though their orphanages (Social Welfare Institutes) are over 2 hours apart.  

I am finishing the plans for family who is coming to stay with the kids while we are gone.  I have revised and will continue to revise packing lists, get meds, pack Drew and I as well as the kids, organize the house, contact doctors to make apointments for our return and a million other things:)  I am excited and nervous and anxious and peaceful all at the same time.  We plan to blog each day, or as much as we can while we are gone, so please stay tuned.   

Please continue to pray for Elizabeth and Levi as they prepare to leave everything they've ever known, for their health and ability to trust us as we graft them into our family.  Please pray for Evan, Anna and Rebecca (and those staying with them) while we are gone, that they would stay healthy, distracted and prepare for our return.  And for our travel plans, connections, timing, health, details of the trip to come together.  

Another beard fundraiser Complete

Chris Perkins..... Beard be Gone :)

Last week Drew lost his beard to our "De-Bearding Fundraiser".  When we were able to meet our goal, our friend, Chris Perkins, fondly known as Perk, volunteered to auction off his beard he's been sporting for 13 years.  His children have never seen him without it, and I think his wife did, but only one time:)  

Perk has been a good sport and in one weeks time helped us raise over $2000 for our adoption.  AMAZING!!!!

Perk, thanks for sacrificing!   And all those who donated, we all agree it was worth it to see face :)  Thank you for helping us to bring our babies home!  We are so grateful!

They both look good don't they?

WE HAVE TA

We were contacted today that our Travel Approval arrived and we were offered two travel options.  We submitted our requests and will wait for our Consulate appointments to be confirmed and then can announce our travel dates :)  We will be working on booking flights, finalizing plans and preparing in evey way we can think of.  It's a great day :)

MUFFINS AND MEATLOAF

Muffins and Meatloaf????

Yup, that's how I'm spending my day.  I get to flit around the house from one thing to that packing, editing pakcing lists, preparing food for while we are gone, continuing to finish laundry (yup, never done*** (yes, I know that's going to get worse), cleaning and "nesting" as it were. 

Having the time of my life, reallly, I love this preparation time!  I have a little quiet time around the house as I do these things, and I KNOW that's going to be something I won't have for a very, very long time :)

Blessed!
Aimee

Waiting for TA

We are waiting for Travel Approval.  We just finished the second week of our wait.  We feel pretty strongly that the beginning of this next week will bring the anticipated phone call.  When we get the call, we will discuss travel options and put in our request and then wait a day or two to hear back our official travel and pick up dates.  That is when we will purchase our airline tickets and finish packing!  In the meantime, we have had some very thoughtful gifts sent to us.  I wanted to share

This is a really cool wall hanging that our good friends Christa and Jo sent us.   We love it and have it in the kitchen.  What a beautiful  way to express our adoption!

And then just yesterday I received in the mail a huge package with these two beautiful afghans one each for Elizabeth and Levi.  The girls were trying them out they are a big hit.  So soft and so pretty!  Melissa Bare, thank you for the love you put into making them for the kids!!!!

Thank you friends for your continued support.  Your words of encouragement and offers to help are so appreciated.  Our life is about to be transformed in a major way.  We are preparing as best we can. We continue to received financial donations as well that are helping us meet the last leg of our expenses as we prepare for travel and the expenses we will incur in China with medical apppointments, notaries, and related adoption expenses.   Thank you for blessing this journey to bring home Elizabeth and Levi in such tangible ways.  As I have written in many of my thank you notes, we have often wondered "How" but have never questioned the "WHO" that has called us to this journey and the One who sustains us through it.  We are grateful for those who have felt called to help change the specific lives of these two children:  Once called orphans, now called our children.  

Lastly, our good friends Chris and Melissa Perkins have joined our fundraising... after we did Drew's DE-Bearding, Chris, who has had is facial hair for 13 years and his children have NEVER seen him without it, has also agreed to raise funds by offering to shave his beard, if the goal of $2000.00 is met by April 18th.  If you would like to donate to our adoption (100% of funds goes directly to our adoption) thru this fundraiser, please find the donate button on the left side of the page at this website (copy and paste into browser): 

http://www.bothhandsfoundation.org/drew-and-aimee-ryan

We will keep you posted this week as we receive our TA (Travel Approval)!!!!!!!!

So blessed,

Drew and Aimee

Happy THIRD Birthday Elizabeth!

Our sweet girl.  We are waiting for you!  But for today, this celebration of your life, we will celebrate from here, until we can hold you close.  But we are coming.  It won't be long now.  Today, we will honor your day by what you will come to know as "Birthday Breakfast in Bed"  We will wake you up too early and feed you too much sugar and let you blow out your candles as we sing with our bad morning voices "Happy Birthday".  All of your siblings, who don't like to wake up early, will jump out of bed before their alarms go off so they can join us in walking your breakfast to you while you are still asleep so we can watch you as you rub your eyes and wake up and realize this is the day we celebrate YOU and our thankfulness for you. You've had three years of not knowing this, but no more.  Today we wait and we celebrate, knowing we have a future of Birthdays with you to look forward to. Today, even though you are not here with us, we still celebrate!  We celebrate you Elizabeth.  Happy Third Birthday!!!!!

It's GONE!

Drew was such a good sport!  Thanks to the generousity of our friends, we were able to raise more than $3000 to complete the Orphanage Fee for both Elizabeth and Levi which was due April 9th (Elizabeth's Birthday).  We are moving on to the last $10,000.00 of adoption expense needs.  We have been encouraged and supported by so many of you that have joined our journey, we are so blessed.  A special thanks To Children's Therapy Center (http://childrenstherapy.org/) who generously gave a matching grant for this particular Fundraiser!  And thanks to each of you who contributed to make it possible to meet the matching grant!  We are walking closer and closer to the finish line of this side of the adoption process.  Would you continue to lift our family up in prayer: for details to continue to  fall into place, for safety in traveling, for continued good health for us all as we travel, funding/resources and for Elizabeth and Levi as they leave everything they've ever know and become part of our family.