Our dossier paperwork is now 100% completed. The dossier is all of the paperwork that will be sent to the Ethiopian government for review and confirmation. These papers include financial information, reference letters, family photos, employment info., passports, medical records, criminal records, etc. All of the papers had to be notarized, and they are now in the process of being "state-sealed." Basically, the state sealing means that the state's Secretary of State's office has to affirm that the notaries that were used on the documents were actually state certified notaries and not just jag-mos with a fancy stamp.
This has been a pretty smooth process so far. One of our reference letters was from Indiana, so we had to mail the letter to Indiana's Secretary of State to get it state certified. They told us this would only take a week, but we've learned to be a little more realistic than that. Also, for some reason, Lindsey was born in Missouri, so we had to send her birth certificate to be state certified in Missouri. Yep, you would never know now, but Lindsey was born in Missouri. Missouri.
The next step will be for the paperwork to be sent to Washington D.C. for review. It will then be translated and sent to Ethiopia. Oh yeah, we also have to pay a nice chunk of cha ching when we send in the Dossier paperwork.
Please be praying that the process continues to be smooth and that we will be diligent and wise in raising and saving money for this adventure.
