Finding Notice

In China, it is illegal to give a child up for adoption. These children cannot be legally turned over to anyone, so they are left to be found by others to be given to the ophanages. Starting in 1999, the orphanages are required to place a "Finding Notice" in the local paper with information about the child including a photo. Brian Stuy is a father with 3 adopted daughters from China. He helps adopting families find their child's Finding Notice.

Yesterday, we received Elijah ZuBin's Finding Notice with the English translation. This first picture is the close up of the ad:


This second picture is the newspaper page the ad was on:

His ad is the second from the right on the bottom row. The English translation reads:

Ad #0574

Qing Zu Bin

A boy. On 1/23/05 he was found near the Wushi Village Committee office, Longping Town, Lianzhou City. He was about 9 days old when found.

Claim unit: Qingyuan City Orphanage

That same day we received his certificate of abandonment from All God's Children International (AGCI, our adoption agency.) This document further explained the Finding Notice. It stated that:

On 1/23/05 an infant boy was found outside the government office of Long Xiang Township Wu Shi Village. The case was reported to the local police. Since we were unable to locate his birth parents and relatives, he is certified as abandoned. I recommend placing him into Qing Yuan City Social Welfare Institute.

It further states that he was healthy and found by Huang Ji Dai.

Oh, how this causes a mother's heart to clench. I am thankful that we have a newborn picture of him. I am so sad for his family, especially his mother. They held this child for 9 days before leaving him at the government office building. What guts that took to leave him there! They could have been caught!

While we are in China, we plan to take a day to visit his orphanage, and then go to his town and finding place. We want to give him as much of his history as we can.

Please pray with us for Elijah ZuBin. That God will be preparing him for our family. Please pray for his birth family. This must have been a terribly hard decision to make. I have nothing but compassion for them. Thank you for your prayers.

Fund Raiser

We have felt led by the Lord to initiate a fundraiser to help pull together the next chunk of money needed to complete the adoption of Elijah ZuBin. Here is what we have going on:

We are selling necklaces of two basic designs. We wish to thank the owner of Ohio Beads and Gems in Mason, Ohio for their guidance, teaching, and patience in working with us for quite a few hours as we labored over these creations.

Some details about the necklaces:
1. Each necklace was designed and handmade by Maren and Greg.

2. The first necklace (pictured on the left) has a sterling silver plated chain, semi-precious stones (sodalite), sterling silver beads, and a heart charm at the back. It is 16 1/2" long. We only have 2 more of these left in blue, but can use other colored stones in a similar pattern if you are interested.

3. The second necklace (pictured on below) has a 17" sterling silver plated chain, Swarovski crystals, freshwater pearls, and a heart charm at the back. The crystals can be pretty much any color you want them to be. It is shown with a silver washed crystal.



4. The necklaces sell for $25

5. Gentlemen, just because you won't be wearing them, don't forget to think of them in terms of gifts!

6. Please contact us if you have any questions or would be interested in supporting the final push to bring Elijah ZuBin home. We can be reached at mrausch@fuse.net.

7. Please feel free to pass this on to anyone you think might be interested in such a necklace.

8. Every penny of the proceeds will go towards the cost of creating the necklaces and bringing our boy home. Not one penny will go into the general family fund.

Thank you so much for all your help and prayers. We are looking forward to having our son safely in our home.

Waiting to Go

We are establishing this blog to make it easy to record our experience as we complete our first adoption. The name of the blog, "Aliens Enroute," has a couple of different meanings. The most obvious one is that we are working on completing an international adoption, thus we have an alien enroute to our home. The other meaning, maybe less obvious, is that as followers of Jesus Christ, we are aliens here in this world. We are enroute to our eternal home in heaven.

We also know that many people will want to follow our trip to China as we bring home our son, Elijah ZuBin. This blog will make it easy for us to post updates and pictures during our trip. To the left is his referral photo. We do not know how old he is in this picture, but guess him to be about 6-7 months old.

We began this journey over 10 years ago with general conversations that after our youngest birth child was 5 years old, we would pursue adoption. After many twists and turns, we began the paper chase for a child from China in January 2005. We accepted the referral for a little boy named Qing ZuBin in May 2006. He was born with a birth defect within days of us beginning our paperwork. It has been amazing to see God working throughout this process from the timing of everything, to the financial provisions, to the opportunities to be obedient to Him and His calling in our lives.

Elijah ZuBin is now almost 20 months old. To the right is a picture of him at 18 months old. He lives in the Qingyuan City SWI in Qingyuan City, Guandong Province, China. When we received this picture, he was 31 inches tall and weighed 22 pounds.

We have received our Travel Authorization and should be leaving October 27 to bring him home. We are currently waiting for our Consulate Appointments before we make our official travel plans. We had hoped that they would come last week but are continuing to trust God and His perfect timing. We will be traveling with Kailey and Justin, as well as Maren's parents, Carl and Carol.

Please continue to pray for us as we follow God's path to this alien.