Moving slowly and tshirts

So, the lack of updating has been a combination of a few things...small steps in moving forward, computer issues, but really my own attitude in dealing with patience and good perspective. I had no idea how tedious and drawn out this process would be and it's been trying. The Lord, however, has been gracious in holding out our vision before us in different ways...our children talking about their baby brother, His working through others in providing funds along the way, and walking through this process with an old friend and seeing her come home with her precious one just a week ago...this was such a perfect reminder that all this, the tedious, the waiting...is worth it....at the end of all this paperwork and financial stuff...is our son, waiting for us.

As far as the completion of our dossier goes, we are still waiting on one last thing.  We are waiting on immigration to give us an appointment to get fingerprinted in Atlanta. We filed papers with them back in January and are just waiting for that appointment.

One of the things the adoption process has brought about is the need to be creative in fundraising. Back in the fall we had our very successful yardsale that brought in over $2,000 and we have since seen the Lord continue to provide as we have taken each step in this process. Our second fundraising project has been to sell t-shirts. Our goal is to see $1,000 come in from the sales of our shirts. We also hope that these shirts will also be a reminder of our son, who we are waiting and praying for as well as a reminder of the many other fatherless children. It's been encouraging to hear from others about conversations these shirts have prompted as well, from conversations random strangers to parents explaining to their children who these shirts represent.

Here are a couple of pictures of our "One Life, One Hope" t-shirts. We are selling them for $15. We started out with over 100 and we now have about 25 left. Let us know if you want one!

More paperwork and the Dossier

So now that the homestudy is complete...now what. Last week was a busy week, we officially started working with our agency, One World Adoption Services once we paid our first fee of $3,200. With that we got more paperwork to fill out as well as a better understanding of what our Dossier will consist of. Our Dossier is what our agency will send to the Congelese government. It consists of 10 things. For those interested I'll list those things for you.
1. Homestudy
2. State criminal clearances
3. Marriage license(certified copy)
4. Birth Certificates(again certified copies)
5. Tribunal letter(notarized)
6. 1717h or1797c (Immigration Pre Approval, notarized)
7. Copy of state adoption laws
8. Copies of passports
9. Passport size photos
10. Medical letter from doctor stating good health, free of HIV and TB
and $2,300 for the Dossier fee and translation fee

There you have it. Once we complete these things then we wait. Wait to be matched up with our little boy! Right now on paper it says the wait time from when the Dossier is turned in could be anywhere from 0 to 12 months. Last week was a little discouraging in that we were bombarded once again with things to do and papers to fill out. As well as the realization that the wait could be a lot longer than we had hoped for. And to add to that, Alyssa is now asking daily when her baby brother is coming =) I guess it's the Lords way of making me verbally claim the truth..."The Lord will bring our baby brother home when its time...He is in control."

Merry Christmas to us!!

We had several fun surprises during Christmas week. Our first surprise was receiving our FBI clearance (finally...after 2 1/2 months) and just days later having our actual Homestudy documents in hand! We are now past such a huge hurdle! Now that we are done with the homestudy we can start moving forward with our agency as well as apply for grants and loans. Our next Christmas surprise was seeing God continue to provide...our next agency fee is $3,500 which we were short on, we had just $1,000 in hand. Within 2 days at Christmas we received $2,500...which enables us to make that next payment! Kevin totaled up what we have received so far... $6,000!

Not really sure what the timeline will look like now. We should get a better picture after communicating more with the agency. We have been praying daily for our little guy. Praying specifically that he is being taken care of...fed, held and protected until we can bring him home.

Moving slowly

So I realize I haven't had an update in over a month. There really hasn't been much to update. Right now in order to finalize our Homestudy we are waiting on the FBI to clear us. We submitted our fingerprints at the beginning of October! So we are waiting on that as well as making our way through the required 10 hours of online adoption training. We have 2 hours left to do! It's actually been really helpful. And although it feels like it's taking forever to get through the required readings and videos, I'm glad that we are doing it. We are learning a lot about what the effects are on a child that has been in an orphanage and some expectations we should have in bringing our child home. It's been sobering but good.

Once we have our Homestudy completed we will then be able to start moving forward as fast as we are able to pay for things. We are unable to start applying for financial aid and grants without a completed Homestudy. So the plan is start applying for those things as soon as this Homestudy thing is done. Still not really sure what the timing will look like of when we get matched up with our child and when we get to bring him home. It's weird...to be expecting, but not know the due date. The planner and decorator in me is ready to work on the nursery...patience =)

Last Homestudy visit...check!

Yes, we can now check off the list our last homestudy visit! The visit went really well. This was the first visit that our kids were here and I am very thankful that they didn't do or say anything too crazy. She did have to "interview" Carter at one point. She said the requirement is to talk to children in the home that are older than 3. She asked Carter, "What do you think about adopting a brother?" I held my breath. Carter replied, "I am so excited that I will have brother to play Legos with and GI Joes with and play soccer with. And I am saving my clothes to give him." (Everytime I put away clothes he has grown out of he gets excited and says it will be good to have these clothes for his little brother.) He did good =) We continued with logistical things. I finally have a better understanding of what a homestudy actually is. She had a print out of about 9 pages, detailing everything we've talked about, things that were in our paperwork. A very detailed description of us, our upbringings, our health, our families, jobs, parenting...you name it. We went over that together and made corrections.
There are just a few lingering things to complete the homestudy process. Our social worker is waiting for our FBI background checks to clear, our tuberculosis results which we have to go back for tomorrow, we have to complete our online training, and get back references. After that she passes it onto her supervisor and our agency....and hopefully we pass =)
I feel so many steps closer now that we have gotten through this huge hurdle. It was sweet to talk to my dad tonight as we tried to picture the moment when I meet my little guy. It still feels forever away, but I do feel a tad bit closer to that moment.

Update

Today's visit with the social worker went really well. Kevin and I took turns talking with her. It was really laid back. She asked questions about our upbringing, our parents, siblings (yes Audrey I told her I have an amazing sis), college, jobs we've had since, our kids....you know pretty much all that could be summed up about our lives in a matter of 45 minutes each! We handed over documents and copies we worked on and talked about what we have left to do to complete the homestudy. We are down to 4 things on the list!! Her next scheduled appointment with us will be next Wednesday afternoon. We will wrap up loose ends and she will be around us with the kids for the first time...she hasn't met them yet.  At that point she passes things on to her superviser and then to our caseworker at our agency to look over everything....and then hopefully we will pass and be able to move onto the next step!!

The next step....after completing the homestudy we can then start applying for grants. We will also be working on putting together our dossier. What is a dossier? I'll just paste a definition from adoption.com to make it easier for me to explain... "a set of legal documents which are used in international adoption cases to process the adoption of a child in its own country by the adoptive parents, or for the adoptive parents to obtain the legal custody or guardianship of the child in the foreign court, so the child can be brought by the adoptive parents to the United States for adoption," I'll be able to be more specific as I get more of an idea of what this entails for us.


And pretty soon I plan on mapping out in a post exactly what this whole process looks like for us to financially go through. On our timeline, you'll notice that I am keeping track of expenses as well as when we raise money or receive money from people. We want to be transparent with every aspect of this process especially the money part...I know several people have mentioned interest in adopting one day but like us thought financially it's impossible. I'll quote a sweet friend..."The Lord has a heart for orphans...He will fund what He favors." 

2nd Homestudy Visit

Tomorrow we have our 2nd of 3 homestudy appointments. Our social worker will come to our house in the morning and individually interview Kevin and I. From what I understand she will be following up and questioning us based on the paperwork we filled out and turned in a few weeks ago. Please pray that this time goes well. Again it is a little nerve racking to be vulnerable about your background, upbringing, parenting and whatever else with someone who's job it is to assess your adequacy in adopting a child.

Other logistical things checked of the list this week...drug screening done (costing us $90), financial forms completed which include our family budget, assets and liabilities. Our plan for this weekend is to squeeze in a few hours of online adoption training, we need 10 hours total.