PAIR Process Continued

I have been trying to keep this blog as updated as possible to let everyone know what progress is being made on our case and how to pray specifically. In my last post I told you that we submitted to the PAIR process on April 9th and that we received RFE's on April 30th. We were then waiting for documents to get back to us from Ethiopia to respond to the RFE's. We were able to finally do that on May 20th. Our case was then forwarded on to the Embassy portion of PAIR, just 7 days later, on May 27th. On May 29th our I-604 investigation was opened. This is an investigation by the embassy to verify all the details in Nati's file. We were so excited to see things moving so quickly in the right direction and at this point we were still praying for a lightening fast Embassy portion that would allow us to travel before rainy season to be with our little guy.

However, on June 2nd we received an email from our adoption agency reminding us that it was time for us to update our fingerprints for our immigration paperwork. I thought we had more time because they do not expire until August 5th but our agency said that it is required to submit 2 months early to give USCIS time to process. As I read her response I immediately felt tears running down my face and called Brandon. The reason for the tears was that I knew if we applied for our fingerprint appointment USCIS would not issue us our PAIR letter until after our fingerprint appointment which would likely still be a month or two away. This would force us to face what we had been trying to ignore. Nati might be spending an additional 2 months in Ethiopia without us during rainy season closure. 

I don't think I have mentioned this here and I need to. While we were waiting for our PAIR documents to be collected the first time we asked you to begin praying for our immigration officer. We didn't know at the time who that was but we were trusting that God did. All I can say is your prayers have been felt and God has provided. Our immigration officer ROCKS!!! Both times she has had our documents she has reviewed them within one week. She has talked with me on the phone and always responds to my emails within 30 minutes. She is friendly, patient and very helpful. We have been so blessed by her and are grateful that God allowed us to cross paths during this part of our process.

So of course I contacted her immediately to see what we could do to prevent this from being more of a mess then it already was. She said that she would not be able to act on our behalf until she had received the forms we needed to fill out. I had already done the math and even with paying overnight fees to get it to her quickly it would have taken an additional week to reach her desk. Thankfully she encouraged us to just attach them to an email so that she could get started as soon as possible. She also said since it was our free reprint she could attempt to just refresh them in the database which would only take 2-3 weeks instead of 1-2 months! I was so thankful for her willingness to work with us to try to race against the deadline we were facing. 

Today we woke up to an email from the the embassy in Addis. Instead of reading that our I-604 investigation was completed it said that they had determined the need to schedule a birth parent/finder interview to finish the investigation. This happens a lot. It is not a big deal in itself. 

This will just take time, more time...time that will cost us not weeks but months. 

At this point we feel like we can share with you in full confidence that it will be later this year before we travel to Ethiopia. These are hard words to type out to you and to admit to ourselves. We so desperately wanted those extra months with our boy. We have prayed hard for that everyday. We want to be clear that this is not a lack of faith in what God can do. If God chooses we completely believe that He could move mountains and make a way for us to go. It seems at this time like that is not in God's plan and we are trusting His timing. Many times during this process God has allowed circumstances to remain the same and has instead changed us. It looks like this time will be no different and rather then fighting it we are choosing to embrace it as His good and perfect will. At this point we would like to ask that you would pray that everything in our process would continue to move forward and that we would be able to travel as early as possible this Fall. 

This brings me to my final part of this post. I have saved it for last for a reason. If you do not remember anything about timetables, deadlines or anything else I wrote in this post that is ok. Above all that we would like for you to remember this...

There is a little boy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A little boy that is fearfully and wonderfully made. 

He will turn 4 next Monday. 

There will likely be no celebration or indication that it is a special day for him. He doesn't know that he has a family half way around the world that loves him like crazy and that is fighting to bring him home. To him it will be just another day. But to us it will not just be another day. It will be the second birthday we have watched pass without him home. It will mark another year of his childhood that we have missed out on. It will mark another year where he had a family but he didn't know it. On days like this the injustice of it all can be overwhelming but we know we serve a God who will not allow justice to be delayed forever and we are thankful for that.

 So on Sunday night before you go to bed we are asking you to say an extra prayer for Nati Solomon. Pray that he gets extra cuddles and kisses from his nannies. Pray that year 4 will be the year this boy comes home to his forever family. Pray that he will continue to get stronger and remain healthy. 

Pray that somehow he will know just how loved he is.

Birthday number 5 is going to be the biggest celebration you have ever seen!!! 

We have some catching up to do!!! ;)

A New Kind of Waiting

It has been a month since I updated everyone last so I thought I would write a quick post to let you know what has been going on during that time.

As I stated in the last post we were submitted to PAIR on April 9th. What this actually means is that our I-600 packet was received at the Lock Box in Texas after being overnighted. This is where we send all of our immigration paperwork to be forwarded to the adoption unit (NBC) in Lee's Summit, MO. We were told to expect 10-14 business days for it to be received at NBC. This is obviously a very frustrating wait for us as I could literally take off driving and have the paperwork to the office in a couple hours. While we overnight EVERYTHING the U.S. government uses regular mail which seems to lengthen every step of the process. With this time-frame in mind we prepared ourselves to hear nothing until the last week in April. It is also worth noting that just because your packet is received at NBC does not mean your case is being reviewed because you still have to be assigned an officer and added to their stack of cases.

On April 30th I opened the mailbox to find an envelope from USCIS. I could have cried as soon as I saw that little pink paper packet through the opening. If everything is going fine in the PAIR process you receive an email when your case is forwarded to Embassy. Getting physical documents in the mail is a sign that there is something wrong with your application that needs correction to move forward. I opened it to find that we were issued RFE's (Request For Evidence) on 9 of our documents. At first I panicked as 9 is a big number to need corrected but after reading further I was relieved to see that at least it was a simple fix for the most part. 8 of our documents were issued rejected by USCIS because they have a line down the middle from the scanner/copier at the translation office being in poor condition. This is frustrating because you can still read the documents but is fairly easy to fix it just costs us time. Remember how we waited over a year for one piece of paper (Nati's regional clearance stating he is a candidate for intercountry adoption). That was the 9th document to be rejected. USCIS was requesting that we send the original document issued in Oromiffa. The problem being that the original document was issued in Amharic. This is always how the regional clearances are issued because they are for Federal MOWA's use. The third translation is a new requirement but is essentially useless as no one at USCIS or Federal MOWA uses these translations. After talking with our agency and some friends with similar RFE's in their cases I feel like all will be fine once we submit our documents again. We do not really have a timeline for this as we once again are waiting for documents to get here from Ethiopia. While we should be pros at waiting and hitting roadblocks by now it is still hard. Each day that passes makes it more likely that we will not be able to travel for court until the rainy season is over in Ethiopia. What is costing us weeks now could cost us months of waiting later.

So, here are some specific ways you can pray for our family....

1.) Pray that the documents will be received from Ethiopia and submitted to USCIS for review as quickly as possible. Pray that ALL of the documents will be accepted and that Nati's case will be forwarded on to the embassy without further delay.

2.) Pray that if it would be God's will we would be able to travel for court before rainy season and that if it is not He would give us His strength and comfort while we wait those additional months to be with our son.

3.) Pray that if we travel before rainy season God would provide financially for the airfare. While it would be super amazing to travel for court before rainy season closure we know that airfare often skyrockets in July. Last year the tickets, which are normally $2,000, went up to over $6,000 roundtrip in July. we know that if God allows us to travel at that time He will provide but trying to budget for it is a little bit stressful at the moment.

4.) As always please pray for Nati daily. Pray that he receives kisses and cuddles and love from his caregivers. Pray that his health will remain stable and that he will continue to grow. Pray that God would be preparing his heart for the transitions he will need to make in the coming months/year.

Thank you so much for praying us through this journey.

PAIR Process

It has been almost a month since I updated you guys last so I wanted to write a quick blog post to explain what has happened during that month. 

First, it has been a good month in the way of updates on Nati. Yesterday we received our monthly update from our agency which included a video of our little man walking around with good balance and even climbing into a little kids chair. In addition, we also received several videos and photos from a friend that was traveling for court for her daughter as well as updates on Nati's development and health. I should say that I am very thankful for the monthly updates that we receive from our agency but after a while they can seem like the same information each month. We still get excited and treasure them but it is different to get an update from a fellow mom. A fellow mom knows that more than I want to know if Nati's hair and skin are clean, I want to know about his heart. This is the fourth mom that has visited Nati and reported back to us and for that we are eternally grateful. Each and every person that has visited him has talked about how affectionate, sweet, smiley and loving he is. We are so thankful for this as sometime institutionalized kids are not comfortable with hugs, kisses and touch from an adult. We pray that this is God preparing Nati's heart for the love he will receive in our family. 

So, on to the updates on our little guy. His balance is SO much better and amazing. He is not only walking but even jogging a little bit. He is also now able to walk up and down the stairs. These are big milestones for him as he has not always been able to do this due to balance and vision issues. He can hold a crayon in a PERFECT pencil grasp with his left hand. He can even feed himself a few bites of food and clean his precious little face with a spoon. For a little man that has struggled with gross and fine motor skills he is doing really great...can you tell we are really PROUD of these accomplishments! :)

So, as you can tell it has been a great month of learning new things about our boy. However, that is not all that has been happening. At the end of my last blog post I explained that it would probably take at least a month (4-6 weeks) to receive the needed documents for PAIR. Our in country staff would then have to have them translated TWICE. This is a new requirement from USCIS for kids from Nati's region. The documents must be translated from Oromian to Amharic and then from Amharic to English. We were also concerned that this would cost us a little extra time. With that in mind I decided to start praying that we would be submitted to PAIR no later than Mother's Day. But yesterday we received an email from our agency that they had ALL of the needed documents in hand needed to submit to PAIR and that they were overnighting it to USCIS.  Our documents arrived at the facility early this morning so we are officially submitted to PAIR a WHOLE month early!!!!!

With as long and hard as our process has been we are very thankful any time anything happens "ahead of schedule". The fact that we were able to submit a whole month early has just magnified that. Please join us in praising God for His ability to move mountains on behalf of His children. We are so thankful for each of you that have joined us in praying that we could submit to PAIR early.

Ok, so now some of you are wondering what PAIR is. I will try my best to explain it simply. Ethiopia is not a part of the Hague Convention because of that they must use the PAIR (Pre-Adoption Immigration Review) process to ensure that children being placed for adoption are legitimate orphans. We have all heard the horror stories of children being placed for adoption when the birth parents didn't fully understand that it was a life long decision or of children being kidnapped and trafficked to feed the requests for healthy infants in many programs. The PAIR process is working hard to ensure that does not happen to one more child in Ethiopia. Like any program it has its flaws and you will hear many adoptive parents voice frustrations with the inefficiency of how it is ran.  However, we are thankful for the security and protection it adds for first families, adoptees and adoptive parents. Even though we already knew much about Nati's story and had no doubt that he needed to be placed for international adoption we are still thankful for the PAIR process. This week our agency received 100 pages of documentation that give us a glimpse into Nati's story. We have read over them again and again gaining new insight into the struggle that his first three and half years have been. We have learned new details that brought us to tears and we have learned new details that have brought us relief. All of this is Nati's story to share one day when and if he chooses so we will not be sharing any details. Let me just say what a treasure it is to have so much of his background story for him one day when he has hard questions. We will have some of the answers and we are very thankful for that. Our agency has submitted this packet of documents along with our I-600 to USCIS. We will be assigned an officer that will look at our family's information and Nati's information and make a determination of whether or not he would be eligible to immigrate to the US after the adoption is complete. Then all of this will be forwarded to the embassy portion of PAIR. During this portion there will be an investigation and court testimonies confirming that all of the documents in the packet are true. Will you be in prayer that this process would go as quickly as possible. Each step that we get through quicker gets us one step closer to having Nati home. We are praying that we will have our PAIR letter in hand no later than the beginning of June. 

We know that ultimately God is in control of this timeline and we trust Him with it. We ask that you would pray for our USCIS officer. We do not have a name yet but we know that God already knows. Pray that this officers heart would not be hardened by the never ending cases on their desk. Pray that Nati's case would find favor and that hearts would be softened to move his case as quickly as possible. As always continue to pray for Nati. Pray that he is being loved on daily with hugs, kisses and cuddles and that his most basic needs are being met. Thank you for praying us through this journey! 

Exciting News!!!!!

We have been anxiously waiting for the day we could write this blog post and share a little more of our adoption story with you. I have been privately journaling this last year and today I will try my best to give you the short version but I have to be honest it will probably be pretty long. :)

January 9th, 2014-  We applied to work with our home study agency, All Blessings International.

January 13th, 2014- Our family was accepted to work with All Blessings.

January 29th, 2014- Our family had completed all the paperwork and meetings needed for our home study.

February 3rd, 2014- We were accepted into the Ethiopia Program with our placement agency (Illien Adoptions)

February 11th, 2014- We received an email from our placement agency with information on 2 boys that were orphans but not yet available for adoption because of paperwork. 

They want to know if we would consider hosting them for medical treatment. We agree to get in touch with doctors to share the boys information, find out what they would need and to pray about if this would be something we would be willing to do.

Over the next several weeks we would be told countless times that the first boy was not a candidate to come for medical treatment because of his severe diagnosis. God allowed a time of brokenness in our lives over the injustice of this world and broke our hearts for the way special needs somehow changes a child's worthiness of time, effort and love. 

Looking back we know this was God closing one door to open another. The door that would eventually lead us to our son (boy #2) but we still believe God used this other precious boy to break our hearts and shape our view of Christ's love for special needs children. 

April 2nd, 2014- Unfortunately, it would be April before our home study would be finalized. Little did we know this would be the first of many times God would teach us patience in the coming year. :)

April 10, 2014- Our I-600A would be officially filed with USCIS

May 4, 2014-  My Birthday!!! We would drive to St. Louis to be fingerprinted and eat at an amazing authentic Ethiopian restaurant. My wimpiness with Ethnic food would be confirmed yet again and my wonderful husband would go through the Steak and Shake drive through to get me chicken tenders. :)

May 6, 2014- Our I-600A would be approved just 2 days after we were fingerprinted. 
This would be the only part of our process that went smoothly, quickly or "ahead of schedule". Yay!!! :)

We would spend the next couple months in the "paper chase" stage working to complete our dossier. 

June 30, 2014- We FedExed off our signed, notarized and authenticated dossier to our placement agency. From there is was sent to Washington D.C. to be authenticated at the federal level and translated. It would then be sent to Ethiopia. 

July 4th, 2014- I would get to speak on the phone, for almost 2 hours, with someone who had just spent the last week at the orphanage with our little guy. She had pictures and stories to tell me about him. She would become a big blessing and dear friend as the days moved forward and we pursued a medical visa for him. 

*** She had actually met our little guy in October of 2013 and her family had been praying that God would bring him a family.***

July 18th, 2014- At 4 pm on a Friday I would receive the news that our little guy had been taken to the hospital for a brain MRI because he was experiencing full body weakness and loss of appetite. It was the longest weekend of my life!!!

July 22nd, 2014- A dear friend that was traveling for court for her adoption would be gracious enough to go visit our little guy. She would take a care package to him and bring back videos and photos that are so precious to us. 

After receiving the news that he was declining and not doing well at all we would refocus our energy on the pursuit of a medical visa. We spent the next several months recruiting a neurosurgeon who would donate spinal surgery if needed, a hospital that would donate all additional care, an airfare donor that would pay for his and his escorts airfare here and back to Ethiopia and collecting the needed documents to apply.

October 22, 2014- The long awaited day had finally arrived. He would finally be seen at the Embassy to request a medical visa to come to the U.S. for medical treatment he desperately needed. We were confident, our agency was confident and our Ethiopia staff was confident that he would be granted the visa. We set up his bed, bought some clothes and toys and prepared our family. 

However, he would not receive the visa. In fact the official at the Embassy would not even look at his packet of letters we had fought to get for months...we were devastated.

October 26, 2014- Brandon and I would have the opportunity to speak in front of our church about God's sovereignty in adoption and what He was teaching us through this process. It was hard to stand in front of so many others and share in such a raw way just four days after hearing that he did not get the visa. At the end of each service our pastor had our whole church congregation circle around us and pray for our family and that God would move any obstacles preventing our child from coming home. It was such a beautiful reminder of all the people praying, supporting, fighting with us and loving us. I am not sure there was a dry eye in the place.

Our agency would reapply but would need to get additional documentation which would take time.

January 2015- We would end one year and begin the next discouraged and weary. There was still no progress on the adoption or the medical visa. We would began to talk with our home study agency about updating our home study.

While there was not much progress being made in our process we decided to host a fundraising event, on February 28th, 2015, with friends that had started the process to adopt from Uganda. It would allow us to be financially ready when our process did move forward and would be a welcome distraction. We threw ourselves into planning the event and joked that based off of past experience God would probably choose to have the Embassy appointment fall right in the middle of the event week. 

January 30th, 2014- We would receive an email that little man had finally been granted another appointment at the embassy to apply for the medical visa. Just as we had assumed God would choose to put it right in the middle of event week. He would be seen at the embassy at 8:30 AM on February 23rd, 2015.

February 23rd, 2015- We received an email that his visa appointment had been canceled and pushed back. We were discouraged we did not know sooner but chose to look at the good side...at least it would not fall during event week. It was rescheduled for March 4th, 2015.

February 27th, 2015- We would receive an email from our agency that they had received the last needed document ( Regional Letter) to move forward in the adoption process for little man. I cannot event tell you how exciting this day was for us!!!

February 28th, 2015- Our event, Two Families...One Call, would be snowed out and rescheduled for the following Saturday, March 4th, 2015. Guess what that means?!?! Visa appointment date is now during event week for the 3rd time!!! Do you think maybe God is trying to teach us something? ;)

March 4th, 2015- We would receive a conference call letting us know that the visa appointment went the same as last time...He did not get the visa. We were discouraged but thankful to at least know that there is some progress being made on the adoption side this time. 

The super exciting news that also came on March 4th, after 13 months of waiting, was that we would officially be offered little man's referral!!!!!!

I would LOVE to share his picture all over this blog but unfortunately we are not allowed to do that just yet. There are a few things I can tell you about him though. :) :) :)

1.)This one will be obvious if you have been paying attention but...IT'S A BOY!!!

2.) He is 3.5 years old

3.)We will call him Nati Solomon

4.)He has the most gorgeous curls, the most amazing eyes and the most beautiful smile. 

5.) He is absolutely PERFECT to us!!! :)


Thank you so much for praying for our family and supporting us up to this point. We could not have done it without your giving, praying and fighting along with us. We are so thankful that God has surrounded us with so many that are praying for our boy daily. Please continue to pray for us as we still have a long way to go. Pray that God would receive all the glory through Nati's story. God is good. 

*** The next step in our process will be to submit to the PAIR process. We are still waiting on 2 documents from Ethiopia to be able to submit. Our agency is estimating that it will take a month to obtain them. Pray that if it would be God's will we would be able to obtain them QUICKER. We believe that God already knows the USCIS officer that we will be assigned. Please join us in already praying for the officer that will specifically handle Nati's case. Pray that we will move through PAIR as smoothly and quickly as possible. Pray that this part of our process will move along better than the first part and that if it would be God's plan we could travel for court before rainy season in Ethiopia.***

Your Will, Not Mine

I know it has been a while since we have updated this blog. Honestly, there has not been much progress to report. I have been privately journaling about our journey and cannot wait until the day I can share the whole hard, messy, beautiful story with you all. The last four months have been HARD emotionally, mentally and spiritually. We have watched dates come and go that we thought would produce progress in this process. We have celebrated a holiday all about thankfulness and wrestled with feeling ungrateful at times. We have celebrated Christmas knowing our whole family was not here. I can't even describe the ache of that knowledge. It is something we struggle with everyday, feeling like even though our house is so full and loud and busy and blessed it is not complete. I am not sure how to explain that with words it is just something we feel. And here we are over a year into the journey and people ask "Where we are in the process" and it will almost always make tears spring to my eyes. Because it feels like we are in the exact same place as we were this time last year. We are doing the home study paperwork again. After that we will likely be updating our immigration information. Our calendars look almost identical to this time last year. We are still waiting.

But to say we were in the exact same place would be a lie from the Enemy. There have been tangible things happening to get us closer to bringing our child home. Some things we know about and some things we don't. We trust that God is always working even when we cannot see it. Even without those tangible reminders of progress we know we are one year closer to the day when God will finish what He started. 

Our faith is certainly not the same. This past year God has stretched our faith in ways we could have never imagined. He has allowed us the privelege to wrestle with injustice and brokenness and has allowed us to be broken in the process. He has taught us to trust in His sovereignty more than our desires. He has taught us to be joyful and thankful in ALL circumstances. He has taught us that Praising Him always reminds us of His perfect character. He is teaching us to pray His will and what He wants, not just what we want. He is teaching us to pray that above all our desires He would bring glory to Himself through this story. 

He is good. He is faithful. He is able.

This past Sunday night in our discipleship class we studied Mark 14: 32-36. In verses 33 and 34 we see that Jesus is deeply distressed and His soul is overwhelmed. Any adoptive family can relate to these feelings. But as I look at verse 36 I cannot even speak around the lump in my throat. I can barely see the words for the tears in my eyes. 

Abba. Father. Daddy. 

A desperate plea for help when we realize we cannot handle this on our own. When we realize that our souls are overwhelmed by the brokenness of this world. The verse goes on to say "Everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me.". How many times in this past year have I prayed 

"God, I know you can make this process move." 

"I know you can do anything you want."

"You can make anything happen."

"I don't want to wait anymore."

"I don't want this hard part anymore."

"I want you to get the glory by intervening now."

"Why is your justice delayed?"

But read just a little bit farther and you get to the real heart of the passage. 

"Yet not what I will, but what you will." 

The bending of our Saviors will. His willingness to be beaten, battered and broken for us. 

For this child we already love and pray for so much. 

He Loves Him More. 

So why am I so afraid to trust his plan? His timing? His will? Why am I ever afraid to pray not what I want, but what you want God.

So as we enter this season of Lent ,where we give up something to gain more of Him. To be more like Him. 

I give up 

My heart. My rights. My will.

 After all, that is what this season is about. Remembering that He gave up all of those things for us.

He Will Provide

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

1 John 5:14

When Brandon and I started this journey we knew we were being asked to take a big step out in faith and believe God for the outcome.

We knew we were supposed to be adopting a child but we did not know how we would pay for the process. One of the most common responses we get when we tell people we are adopting internationally is that they could never afford to do the same.

My response is always...Neither can we.

International adoption is expensive. I plan to further break down what each dollar is going to in another post. There are a couple reasons I plan to do that. One, we are asking others to help us bring our child home and when we are fundraising I feel like it is very important to be transparent. Also, it might just be my Type A personality but I like to see things getting crossed of a list and goals met so it will also help you see what we have already paid for and what costs we still have coming up. Two, it will help to dispel the myth that one person is receiving all that money. It seems to me that people envision that we are giving our agency $40,000 in exchange for a child and that is simply not the case. The money is going to many different agencies, government offices, institutions, and people for their services.

Anyway, back to this blog post. We started this process back in January with the money for our home study and our first set of agency fees needed. We did not however have the second agency fees or travel money on hand. Brandon and I had waited and prayed for God to lead when we started the process. We felt God calling us to adopt back when I was pregnant with Benjamin but because many agencies require your youngest child to be at least a year old we waited for that milestone. We waited because all the money wasn't there. We waited because there was talk of Ethiopia shutting down to international adoptions.

We finally realized God was asking us to step out in spite of all those things. He was asking us to trust Him for the finances. He was asking us to trust that Ethiopia would remain open and that if it didn't that He would still be in control. For two people who like to plan and have safety nets this was a little scary. 

What if we submitted our paperwork and Ethiopia shut down? What if we got to the end of our money and we didn't have the amount needed to finish? What if we were not prepared enough?

You know the great thing? God isn't asking us to do this in our own strength, wisdom, or financial ability.

He is simply asking us to trust Him to be everything we need. Throughout this process we have had Godly friends encourage us when we were at our weakest. Fellow adoptive parents share words of wisdom when needed. So many others share in the financial burden of this process. 

We have had people we don't even talk to on a regular basis tell us "for some reason" they wanted to give to help us bring our child home. We know it is not just some reason. We know when God calls us to do something

HE. WILL. PROVIDE.

With that being said we had a dear and generous friend contact us today with the offer of a matching donation. Here is how it will work...

Any donation you make over the next 3 weeks(by July 24th) will be matched dollar for dollar up to $1,500!!!!!!!

You can private message me or comment below with the amount you would like to donate

or just use our Paypal button on this blog and put ***MATCH***

in the comment section.

Any amount that has been given small or large has been a blessing to us on this journey.

However if you would like your donation to go twice as far now is the time to give!!!!

We are trusting God to provide the remaining money needed through our friends. We are so thankful for friends that are obedient to what the Lord asks them to do.

God is Good!!!

The Dossier is done!!!

Those of you that have asked how the adoption process is going lately have likely received one of three responses from us. 

1) a huge rant on how much easier the adoption process would be if people could fill out a form right the first time. 

2) A big sigh followed up by a generic answer about how we are STILL working on the paperwork part of the process. 

3) Tears... because I cannot put into words that we are not any closer than the last time you asked.

But all of that changed today...

Today, we mailed our dossier to our agency which means that the mounds of paperwork and forms we have been working on are behind us. Of course we will still have some more paperwork to fill out but the months of filling out form after form and being consumed by our dossier checklist are over. 

It was a feeling of relief to be done and a feeling of nervousness to be letting go of something that we have been working on for so long. 

(I may or may not have had a mini panic attack when the lady behind the FedEx counter asked me how much I wanted to insure the package for in case it was lost or damaged in transit.)

The bottom line is we are excited to be entering this next phase of our journey. The next step is to officially accept a referral!!!

We do not know how long this part of our process will take but we know God does. We are looking forward to the day He reveals that part of His plan to us. 

We are asking that you would join us in praying over our dossier. Please pray that all the forms will include everything needed and that we will not need revisions. Pray that it will find favor in the hands of those processing it. Ultimately, pray that it will find its way to Ethiopia in God's timing. We know He has been providing for us this far into the journey and we know He will continue to do so. 

As always please continue to pray for the child that God intends to bring into our family. 

We are thankful to know that God has created this child and is more than able to provide care and protection for him.

God is Good!!!