Tracking our dossier :)

I know it's silly, but if you would like to join me in tracking our dossier:
Fedex # 874638674035

It's currently on schedule and in transit... sorta fun!

We sent off our dossier...

We got it all in the mail today, everything that we have been working on since May. Aaron was able to get the last few documents authenticated in Chicago. He had a bit of a hiccup (they weren't notarized correctly) but he was able to get it all worked out and finished. He then went and had everything overnighted to Portland! We are hoping snow delays don't affect it, it should be to Portland around 10:30 tomorrow morning. We are so relieved that this part of the process is done. Hopefully all our paperwork will be accepted the first time around and everything will go quickly and smoothly. I am so thankful to Aaron for his help today!

I keep praying all along this journey... Lately though I feel silly asking God to help with every tiny step, because He has been in control this whole time and I trust He will continue to be in control. Over and over it's like He's saying "don't worry, I got this one!" It was, after all, His plan in the first place. Even still, I will continue to lift every detail to Him as we continue down this path because we are called to pray!

More to come!

Biggest rejoicing day yet!!!!

"Oh my dear!" As my nephew would say! Today has been so crazy! We were waiting to hear if we could use the old license from Lutheran Social Services in order to get our dossier sent out tomorrow.... I called Radu (our placement agency contact person) to see if we could, and he said no. They actually needed both the expired license AND the new one. He then asked me if I could get our dossier to him before the end of the week, as he was leaving for Ethiopia and wanted to start getting it processed. I was bummed to tell him that I didn't think it would be possible.

I got off the phone and called our social worker right away to see if by some miracle the license had come. She answered and asked if I had received her emails. I said no, and she said "well I sent you one this morning letting you know that the license hasn't come, but then I sent you one a few minutes ago saying that we just got it!!!" You can imagine my joy... So I hung up with her and called Radu back. I told him we'd over night it Tuesday after we get the last few things authenticated, and he would have it Wednesday (Lord willing). I asked if that would be enough time to get things started before he left. His response? "Oh ya, that's not really what I'm concerned about. It needs to go to the Oregon senate first which takes a few days, but I really want it in order to take photocopies of the dossier with me to Ethiopia." Translation: identify a child for us while he's there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wanted to scream and cry and who knows what else. But I played it cool and then burst into tears as soon as I got of the phone! WOW!

I spoke with my social worker about it later today and she said that even if they do match a child to us next week (NEXT WEEK!!!!) we still may not hear or know anything until all our paperwork has jumped through the hoops and it's an official referral. But still, wow! PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please Pray:
-Tomorrow goes smoothly for Aaron
-Our paperwork gets to Oregon on Wednesday
-God's hand is in Radu's trip next week and the possible match!
-Our paperwork goes through OR, DC, and Ethiopian embassy quickly and smoothly

US Immigration done!

Wow! So we got our US immigration clearance about 3 weeks ahead of schedule (thanks to our local Congressman's office)! We are so excited! Actually, I am still in a bit of shock... We had a nice evening last night, we went out to eat, registered at Babies R Us and then came home to find our clearance in the mail! I thought Aaron was pulling my leg when we he told me there was an envelope from US immigration.

So here's the scoop. In order to finish our dossier we need a copy of our home study agencies license (Lutheran Social Services). Sounds easy right? Of course not! They have a license of course, but it expired in December. Don't worry, they submitted their paper work for renewal back in November, but guess who has to renew it.... DUN DUN DOOOOOON:   DCFS!!! The bane of our adoption process. They are the local child services org. that can't get ANYTHING done in timely manner (or take seriously child abuse notifications, but that's a whole separate teacher issue that I won't go into). So it's January and Lutheran Social Services still doesn't have their new license.

I've emailed our placement agency to find out if we can use the expired one in our dossier, since it was still valid when they were doing and completed our home study. We shall see. If that works then here is the timeline of what's to come:

-Monday 1/10: get expired license from Lutheran Social Services
-Tuesday 1/11: Aaron takes off work to go to Chicago to get license apostilled
-Tuesday afternoon: finish photocopying our dossier and overnight it to Portland OR
-Wednesday 1/12: Agency in Portland receives and reviews our dossier
-Fingers crossed they send it ASAP to Washington D.C. to get authenticated
-A courier hand delivers it in D.C. to get it authenticated and then hand carries it to the Ethiopian Embassy
-Ethiopian government accepts it and we become a waiting family
-Some unknown amount of months later we get a referral of a child (could be anywhere from 2-9 months)
-4-6 weeks later we travel to Ethiopia for court
-4-6 weeks after that we can bring Sophie home!

Please continue to pray for each little step. Especially this license hiccup we are dealing with currently!

Christmas Time!!!

Every year at Christmas I tend to reflect on how fast life is flying by. I think about my childhood Christmases, the magic and wonder, how perfect those days were. They remain untouched in my memory, nothing can compare to those Seasons. Then, I tend to fast forward through my teen year Christmases, preferring not to dwell on them. They were so full of un-met longings and dashed hope, those days when I so desperately wanted Christmas to be what it was for me as a child. And it just wasn't, because it couldn't be. But, its when I get to the recent Christmas memories that it always strikes me: time is truly flying! Was it really 9 years ago that I was heading to Sweden after Christmas for Bible School? Or 6 years ago that I was in college? It's been 3 years since Aaron and I shared our first Christmas as a married couple. These years just come and go, and the seasons go faster and get more full. This Christmas, I can't help but think on the changes this upcoming year holds. Is it even possible that next Christmas, just a short year from now, we will be parents? After this Christmas, for every Christmas throughout our lives we will play the sacred role our parents hold in our lives to some child. Some child we don't even know yet, some child who is already out there, somewhere. Some child that already has a name, a face, ten fingers and toes, a smile, a laugh, and a future... With us.

Some Pictures of Christmas 2010:

Fingerprinting Date!

Just a quick update. Once we got our endorsement letter, all our info went to US immigration for clearance from them. This can take a long time, so we got out congressman involved right away. On Monday we received our fingerprinting date for US immigration clearance! This is a unique process, they simply give you a time and day that you have to show up for fingerprinting. If you don't show up you forfeit your application. We were blessed to receive a fingerprint appointment over Christmas break so we don't have to miss work to go! We are so excited and shocked to get to this step so quickly after being held up for sooooo long! Thank you to our congressman Don Manzullo and his wonderful staff.... We will keep you all posted!

ENDORSEMENT LETTER!!!!!

Ok, so.... Our state clearances came very quickly, but we were still waiting on DCFS clearance (Department of child/foster services). They had already cleared us before, but since we were for-going the foster licence we needed the clearance in writing from them again. They have been the ones holding us up this entire time! Our social worker (whom we adore) decided to call the one lady in the state of IL who writes the endorsement letters for every adoptive family in IL to tell her the situation. She agreed to write our endorsement letter without the DCFS clearance in writing!!! YAY! This process usually takes over a month since it's just one lady who does these. But ours only took 2 weeks from the time we sent in all the stuff.

Here's the crazy part: the day our endorsement letter came, I got up and thought to myself "once our endorsement letter does get here I will need a few things photocopied so we can send all of the paperwork directly to US immigration" (which is the next step in the process). Even though I knew our endorsement letter wasn't expected for at least another 2 weeks, I decided to bring that paperwork to my school with me and photocopy it that day. Later that afternoon I got a call from our social worker saying the endorsement letter was here (she was SHOCKED it was there so soon), and could I possibly get that paperwork to her ASAP so she could send everything to immigration? I already had the paperwork copied and in my car as I was talking to her and was able to drive directly to her office! WOW GOD MOMENT!!!

So our next step is US immigration, which I hear is taking 2-3 months to clear. My plan is to get our local congressman on it asap, he has helped me before with government processing that is oh so slow! We are also finishing up our dossier, which will be complete very soon!

Please pray:
For immigration to clear as quickly as possible
For my nerves, I fret about the tiniest details, like broken staples which I will write about in my next blog!

Much Love!!!