Kendall is born in a country halfway around the world. We are not even considering adopting from China at this point, but God has a special plan for this sweet baby to be a part of our family. Her Chinese parents cannot care for her for reasons we will probably never know. She is found abandoned by the authorities in Shanghai and is placed in an orphanage while attempts are made to find her parents. Later she is declared an orphan and is waiting for a family to adopt her. The orphanage gives her the Chinese name, Tian Ying.
At some point it is determined that Kendall has a heart problem and an echocardiogram is done to find the defect. The doctors in China determine that she has VSD (ventricular septal defect), which is a hole in her heart between the two ventricles. This makes her a special needs child and it may be harder to find a family for this child. Other than her heart defect, it appears Kendall is a healthy little girl.
Back in Oklahoma, the Jones family is making the decision to adopt a child from China. Sometime that spring Trish’s parents heard a man speak who runs an organization called China Mission (his name is Ron Brown). This mission effort takes medical teams to China several times a year to help children in orphanages and also local children who do not have access to the medical care they need. Ron mentioned that he hoped to begin helping Christian families adopt children from China, and that started our journey into investigating this possibility. We had been praying for some time that God would show us the path we should take to add to our family, and this seemed to be the answer we were looking for. So, we got in touch with the agency Ron recommended and began the long paperwork process.
First we filled out a long application to the agency and had physicals done. We also requested OSBI and DHS background checks (state level background and child abuse checks) as part of this process. Then we completed the home study in August (a little later than expected due to some surgery Trish had in July). After we got the home study back, we could file paperwork with the INS (now called the CIS) to get pre-approval to bring a child into the country. The CIS approval also involves FBI fingerprinting, which was done in September. After fingerprinting, you wait several weeks for final approval. Once you receive CIS approval, all the necessary paperwork (including birth certificates, marriage license, home study, financial statements, doctor’s statements, etc.) must go through an authentication process before being sent to China. Authentication must go through the county level (in Oklahoma), then to the Secretary of State, then to the Chinese Consulate. Once those steps are complete, everything is sent to China and you typically wait about 6 to 8 months for China to approve your application and send you a referral (information about a specific child they have approved for you to adopt). Our initial plan was to have everything complete by the end of this year and then hopefully adopt in Summer 2005. Little did we know what God had in store!
While we were waiting for our CIS approval form, we received a phone call from our adoption agency. They receive information about special needs children a few times a year and contact interested adoptive parents about those children. We indicated we would be willing to accept a child with a correctable medical condition on our application, and the agency had 2 children that were in the general age range we specified (although they were a bit older than we first planned). Accepting one of these children expedites the process, but usually parents have already submitted their paperwork to China at this point. We were told that since our paperwork was nearing completion that we could consider these children and would be recommended by the agency to adopt. This call came on a Thursday morning during our Fall Break right before we were planning to leave town to visit Trish’s relatives in Woodward, Oklahoma (western OK). Our caseworker had 2 little girls for us to consider. God’s timing was great, as always! We had a 3 to 4 hour drive ahead of us to pray and talk about these possibilities. After talking to Mitchell, he was insistent about one of the girls (she has a May birthday like Mitchell). We called our caseworker to get more information about this little girl. She was about 18 months old at the time and we were told that she has a congenital heart defect. We didn’t know much more than this because her records were all in Chinese. We were told the agency translator could give us some of the information, but we really needed a Chinese doctor to translate the technical medical information. We thought we would probably have to wait until sometime the following week to find a Chinese doctor in Tulsa who could translate the records, and then wait again to find a specialist to give us the treatment options and prognosis. We were wrong – God provided for our needs once again. Who would guess that there would be a Chinese doctor in Woodward that not only was Trish’s Uncle’s doctor but is also a Christian and attends church with our family? Not only is he a Christian, but Trish’s cousin Amy’s in-laws have a connection in this story also. The Scott family studied with this doctor (Dr. Jia) and his wife many years ago and they became Christians. The connections are truly amazing…only God could script a story like this! This doctor gladly gave us a verbal translation that afternoon and written translation to take with us. We were able to find a pediatric cardiologist in Tulsa and he was very happy to meet with us the following week and discuss Kendall’s prognosis. Dr. Kimberling looked over the records we had and said Kendall’s defect is the most common type he sees and is very correctable. He also indicated that there were some signs that her heart may be starting to heal itself and she may not even need surgery. We are excited by this news and decide to proceed with adopting this child. We are once again awed by God’s providence in our lives. After talking about names, we decided to name this little girl Kendall Grace Tian Ying Jones.
The paperwork trail continues. After receiving our CIS approval form, we start the authentication process for our documents. We expect this process to take several weeks, but it is complete much sooner than we expect. Some of the steps usually take 2 or more weeks, but our paperwork is processed in a matter of a few days. God was truly watching over us through this process! Our paperwork has flown through all the stages in record time. We hope our sweet daughter will be in our arms soon.
The paperwork arrived at our agency November 29. We are told it will be sent to China within the next two weeks, and then we wait anywhere from 1 to 3 months for approval from the Chinese adoption officials. We will be issued travel visas and will travel to China as soon as possible after approval. Kendall’s adoption will be finalized before we leave China.
We ask that you keep us in your prayers during this process that it will continue to move smoothly and quickly, and that we will have patience while we wait for the Chinese officials to approve our application and give us an invitation to come to China! God has blessed us richly through this process and we know his timing is perfect. We ask for the wisdom to see through His eyes while we wait for our sweet daughter to officially be a part of our family!
