Bumps in the Road

If you ever start the adoption process, one of the first things that you'll be told is to never expect a smooth road. Always be prepared for detours and difficult times. Well, we experienced a pretty large pot-hole last week.

As we informed you in the previous post, we have completed all of our dossier paperwork. However, before our dossier paperwork can be submitted to Ethiopia, our home study must first be processed and approved by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Our homestudy was completed in November 2008, and home studies must be submitted to USCIS before they are 6 months old. For some reason, our home study agency did not submit our home study to USCIS before this month, so USCIS sent our home study back to our agency to be updated.

This is not a huge deal, and our home study agency is in the process of making the necessary updates, but it has been a very frustrating time. We have always been under the impression that our home study agency sent our home study to USCIS in early February, but they just failed to do so. All this to say, the process goes on, and God will be faithful.

---

Tweet

I Retract Any Negative Statements Toward Missouri

After ripping on Missouri through most of our dating and marital relationship, the Missouri Secretary of State came through with a bang. As previously mentioned, we mailed Lins' birth certificate to Missouri to be state certified. We mailed her birth certificate to Missouri on Saturday, April 18th and received it back in the mail on Wednesday, April 22nd. That's a 3 business-day turn around, folks!

We also mailed the reference letter to Indiana SOS on Saturday, April 18th to be certified, but we still have not received it back yet. So, Missouri wins.

---

Tweet

Wham Bam Dossier Man

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.

---

Tweet

fresh...

Well, we started the international adoption process over a year ago. It's been a wonderful learning and growing experience. We have completed the bulk of our paperwork and are excited to begin the waiting phase of adopting from Ethiopia. We will most likely receive a referral letter for a baby within 6-10 months. After that we get to travel to the beautiful country of Ethiopia. We are so excited to further our family through adoption and look forward in giving Manning a little sibling to enjoy and grow up with. We plan on keeping you all informed as we countdown to the time we get to hold our little one. In the mean time, we ask for prayer. 1st, for health of our baby in Ethiopia and for the parents that are having to make the most difficult yet bravest decision of their lives. 2nd, for our patience and trust in Jesus as we wait.

---

Tweet