One Sought Me

We are ever so grateful and blessed for the support of friends, family, and new friends who have joined us in this adoption journey!  New to the blog?  Visit here to read all about us and thanks for stopping in! Adopting Internationally (read here ) - A journey it truly is as there are many steps to the process and in turn, many fees along the way.  God has touched our lives in a deep way when He has faithfully provided for our needs over and over again.  Through His people and the kindness of strangers we have been coming closer and closer to our financial goal of $45,000!!  This costs includes costs to the U.S. for their requirements for adopting families, costs to Ethiopia foreign fees, and costs for travel.  It is a requirement for us to both travel twice to Ethiopia so flight costs are nearing 1/3 of our total expenses. To view past months fundraising reports visit here .  And to read more about the adoption costs visit here . June's Dona...

If you have been following our adoption journey, thank you!! And thank you for praying for us!! I hope that you have seen that our dossier (all the required papers) has finally been completed, county approved, and state certified too with the fancy golden stickers and all! We mailed our lovely dossier to our agency and I didn't realize the relief that would come along with completing that phase.  Letting that paper work go was so freeing in that all that responsibility was now completed and moving along to someone-else's plate. We called the agency to confirm that everything was in order and looking good to get the news that it was "a beautiful dossier" and one of  the best she's seen!  Presented organized and professional, we packed that baby up right.  Good news!  Then our agent said that now the dossier gets mailed to the agency that does the referrals/child match and gets registered there.  The dossier isn't finished traveling yet as it will travel t...

Our oldest daughter, Quinn, who is nearly 10 years old, will be (Lord willing) traveling to Ethiopia with us when we have our visit to pick up the children and bring them home with us!  Quinn is very excited about this and feels blessed to be able to visit another country, especially the birth country of her new brother and sister!  Her passport has arrived!  One more thing that is lining up into place and another step ready to go! Visit here to read more about Quinn's interview for traveling to Africa!  Thank you for your continued prayers and encouragement as we continue to press forward and gain ground in meeting with our adopted children!!  Ephesians 6:18 " praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints" Philippians 1:3-4 " I thank   my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you al...

 We are so thrilled to have the dossier completed!  Copied and compiled we took it to the local Mail Room to have it packed up Fed-Ex style.  Here it is before taking off to our agency!!  What a blessing to have this stage of the adoption process behind us and looking forward to all the wonderful stages waiting ahead! What better way to enjoy this special day than to enjoy it with our family and friends?  A little fireworks to top off the excitement! Praising God for His goodness and mercies. I Thess. 5:24 God will make this happen, for He who calls you is faithful. (NLT)

The last piece of paperwork arrived to us on Monday and on Wednesday my dad and I traveled the 3 hour drive to the Secretary of State Department to have the documents all certified and official.  Thankfully my dad was able to come along and thankfully my mother-in-law had the great idea for her to keep the four kids with her all day! Thank you family!! The Lord was with us and we felt your prayers as we had no problems whatsoever traveling and getting to the necessary places.  The weather was gorgeous and dad and I enjoyed the stroll around beautiful Annapolis, MD. Home again home again and time to copy and prepare the dossier for mailing! Two copies for the agency and one digital copy, then one copy for us to keep, and of course the originals all in order. *                   *                     *                    * ...

I always liked getting mail as a kid, but who knew getting mail would be so fun now? Today we got our USCIS Homeland Security approval!! This is our "golden ticket" for the paper work trail to adopt! The last, last, last, last....bit o' paper work! Yipee! So excited that we are this major paper step closer to meeting our kiddos! Now what?  Next we take the full collection of paperwork (the dossier) to be certified by the county court, which is a hop, skip, and jump down the road.  All the notaries signatures will be verified by the court.  No biggie, just a walk in appointment and it will be done.  Then, there is another road trip to the Secretary of State for the dossier to be certified by the state level.  Now this location isn't a hop, skip, and a jump away for us.  It's more like a 3 hour drive with kids watching videos, tossing snacks in the back of the car, and frequent potty breaks along the way from our country location to the big city.  It...

On Tuesday (June 4) we loaded the family wagon and took the couple hour drive to the big city of Pittsburgh PA for our fingerprinting appointment for the US Immigration Services and Department of Homeland Security.  After the fingerprints are cleared and processed then we will be receiving our approval letter.  This little special letter is the last bit of paperwork that we need for our dossier! So very exciting!   Found our way through the big city, found parking, found our destination with no lines, and after the 5 minutes that it took for the fingerprinting we were off for a stroll through the city. Well, the kids had a blast just walking around in the beautiful and friendly city.  They were especially excited to see a building that had....get this...are you ready?....excited to see a building that had revolving doors!! Whoooohooo! Yah, we live in the sticks, so this was ever so fun!  Did some site seeing and toured the lovely and inspirin...

My sister made this video for us and our adoption process! Lovin' it! Thanks sis! Take a look! Click play, then click the lower right square icon to enlarge, then the Esc key to minimize when you are through.  Thanks!!

I have to say that I am really looking forward to this week as we will be nearing the end of the paper trail for the adoption process!  "Nearing" being the key word there as there are still some things to do, but the list is dwindling and that's worth blogging about!! See, the paper trail is a long one- for reasons that I do understand and agree with completely.  We all want to be sure that the children being adopted are going into stable and loving homes with families that are safe and secure as possible.  I do get that.  But I also see the time span, inefficiencies, and minor unrelated details that take place during this period of preparing to adopt that can really drive adoptive families nuts.   We started our paper processes in January with the first step, having our home study completed.  This sounds easier than it is.  If I pull out my file folder labeled "Home Study Process" it is literally a 1/2" thick of papers.  Here are most of the...