Movin' On Up...

Lots of people got belated Christmas gifts today. It seems as though a lot of people got calls today with their referrals! Wow! That puts us at #56 on "The List" (remember, it represents only about 1/3 to 1/2 of the people waiting. We are just about to hit the 3 month mark as "officially waiting". They are currently estimating a 6-9 month wait for a referral.) . This is the most activity we've seen since we've been on The List. Hopefully, there might even be a few more referrals made that haven't made it to The List yet, and we might even hop a few more spaces over the weekend.

I can't tell you the emotion that wells up in my heart, balls up in my throat, and escapes a bit through my tear ducts as I read the posts from the elated parents that have finally been matched with a child that they have been holding in their hearts for months or years. To finally put a face on that little one you've longed for...oh, I just can't imagine. We rejoice with each orphan that has been set in a family. We dance with each parent longing for a child...one step closer to fulfilling a dream. We long for the day when we will hold our next daughter in our arms...

All in God's timing. All in His perfect timing. He is so good.

Dossier Sent to Ethiopia

We found out yesterday that our Dossier has been forwarded to Ethiopia for translation, etc. It doesn't change our wait at all, but it is good to see continual movement with our file!

Longer Wait Expected

We just heard today that things have slowed down enough in Ethiopia that we should now expect a longer wait time until we receive a referral. We are now being quoted 6 - 9 months rather than 5 -7. This would put our window for a referral between April and July. Its a bit disappointing, however things could also pick up at any point. Our agency has had 100 referrals for children since September...so things are still moving.

God's Timing

It has been so great seeing how God provides. We have a $3,000 bill due to our agency which we have had for a couple of months, but have waited to pay...trying to make it until after the beginning of the new year. Our agency graciously gave us time to do so. Yesterday we found out that Life International (the agency giving us the matching grant) is going to pay that bill for us. That means we are paid in full with our adoption agency. We'll still have a lot to pay for: airfare, stay in Ethiopia, visas, as well as legal stuff and post adoption reports, but it is SO AMAZING to have paid all of our adoption fees by this time in the process.

On The Radio

Had an interesting day...We were interviewed on a Radio Show called Prime Time Chicago which is on a Moody Radio Station - WMBI. They were doing a spot on Life International - the organization providing us with a matching grant. It was a great time. They interviewed Andy Lehman, VP of Life Intl and the two of us about financing adoption and our personal story. It was a great experience...being able to help highlight adoption as well as Life International which we have found to be an awesome organization. If the audio file of the show becomes available, we'll post it here. They also said they hope to have us on again after we bring our little girl home. In 2008 they are highlighting adoption on Moody Broadcasting.

A Unique Christmas Gift for Us and Them

We received a card in the mail from a name I did not recognize. I opened it up to find a note and a check. It was indeed from someone that we do not know. She explained in the note that she is a friend of a friend of ours who somehow heard about what we are doing. So she decided to give us money in honor of several of her friends, and that will be their Christmas gift. In their Christmas card, they will get a little note that says she gave money to our One Less Orphan fund in their name. We were blown away!

God does indeed work in mysterious ways! He has continued to surprise us from the places we least expect it. He continues to show us that He is indeed in control, that this is His plan, and that He's going to make it happen. We are left with our socks blown off, speechless and grateful!

Video about AIDS Orphans in Ethiopia

Here's a video which talks about the plight of AIDS orphans in Ethiopia. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXLkcFzJZ4Y

An Early Christmas Gift!

Yesterday we received great news! We heard from an agency named Life International that they are going to be providing us with a $3,000 matching grant toward our adoption expenses. These guys are a great organization that helps people like us in funding adoptions. This is great news because once again every $1 we raise equals $2 toward adoption expenses. 100% of anything donated will go toward our adoption and it also is tax deductible for you. Thank you to many of you who have responded by providing prayer support and financial support so far on this journey. We feel truly loved by you.

If you are on our email list, you will be receiving a letter from us and from Life International in the next day or so. Thank you for considering it.

If you are not on our email list and would like to be added, please drop an email to onelessorphan@gmail.com.

You can check out Life International's website at www.lifeintl.org

This is great news for us this Christmas time!! Thank you for sharing in it!

The List Continued

Just checked the list...we were sitting at #64. On the new and improved updated version, we are at #66. Welcome to this journey.

(I know. I know. Someone probably joined the forum that was one of the "uncounted" half in line before us. I know. I know.)

The List

Let me let you in on a little piece of our waiting journey... our agency hosts a forum. It's not "official", and the views expressed on it are not necessarily the views of the agency....you get the point. It's full of disclaimers ~ only run by volunteers...not part of the agency...only as accurate as the people reporting the info...and on and on the disclaimers go. Not everyone using the agency registers on the forums. They figure about half the people do. But in the waiting stage, it's all we've got. All that to tell you about "The List".

Every week, a dear woman (only known to us as "carrieoutwest") compiles all the names of every registered person, when their dossier was accepted, how long they've been waiting for, and what age and sex they are waiting for. Then, when you accept a referral, you move to the next List, which tells how long you've been waiting to travel (notice a theme on these lists...?). And then, the glorious day arrives, and you finally get to permanently move all your information to the final list that shows your whole journey (in wait time increments), including how long you've been home with your child.

So, every week, sometimes more than once (yes, we get anal), we check "The List" to see if there have been any changes. I actually just checked it right now. We started out at #78 on the list. We have moved down the list in tiny increments. Once we even moved back up the list. But for today, we are sitting at #64. That means there are approximately 128 people in front of us waiting for a referral and picture of their child. On the surface, that feels like we might actually get her home before Caia graduates from college. But, then you consider that they've already placed 287 children this year, and you feel like it might actually happen sometime in this decade.

So in a time of no action, no news, and nothing new to tell you about, we turn to "The List". We'll keep you posted.

Thumbs Up from Immigration!!!

Thanks to all of you that kept our Immigration paperwork in your prayers. If you remember, this was a possible hurdle, as we were told there were 2 income formulas they used to determine eligibility - one we passed, and one we did not. But today, we received our "Notice of Favorable Disposition Concerning Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition". After wading through all the lingo, we are pretty sure this means we are approved :)!!! One step closer...

Hoping for a picture in March or April...

Officially Waiting!!!!!!!!!!

We just received an email from our worker at the adoption agency. She received all our paperwork and said it looked perfect and that we are now, OFFICALLY WAITING!!!! Such great news! We weren't sure when that time frame actually started, and thought it could be a month or more away! So, in 5-7 month (or longer...as is always the case with international adoption...), we should have a picture and medical report on a 0-12 month old girl!!! YAHOOO!!!!

Double Your Money

Its not everyday that an opportunity comes along to double your money. We just found out that we have received a matching grant from God's Grace Adoption Fund. They will match any gift we receive up to a total of $2500. The catch is that the deadline for gifts is November 1st! If you would be interested in receiving more information please email us at jerry@lancastervineyard.com.

Our Dossier is Completed!!

Our Dossier went out in the mail yesterday!! We have done all of our paperwork and now we are just writing grant applications and waiting. Our dossier involved getting all kinds of paperwork together - employer letter, references, letter from our bank, powers of attorney, our homestudy, our 1040, statement of our financial position, etc. It all had to be notarized and then we had to hand deliver 3 documents to Harrisburg to have them certified by the Department of State.

So...now our dossier (and about $9,000 in checks) is in the mail so that we can begin waiting. After our agency reviews it, they'll send it off to Ethiopia for them to approve it.

Fundraiser...A Huge Success!

Last night we had an amazing fundraiser put on for us by a number of great people from our small group. Karen, Darice, Stacey, Heidi and Donna threw a fundraiser that was a huge success. Thanks to them as well as everyone who attended, donated items and took part in the silent auction and raffles! We raised over $3100!!! That is huge! We found out on Friday that our country and dossier fees are going to be due soon (approximately $9,000), so this is definitely God's provision in action!!

Thank you to everyone who joined us, donated, and served! You are awesome!

Home Study Approved

We just found out this afternoon that our Home Study has been approved by our agency and we are officially accepted into the Ethiopia Program. We have to wait for a couple of details in getting a final copy of the Home Study and then its on to preparing our dossier (more paperwork and like 20 notarized documents!) and getting it submitted. Its great to see progress and to be moving one step closer to bringing home our little girl.

Another Baby Step

We got the official email today from our placement agency that they have received all the necessary preliminary paperwork, and therefore our file has officially been transferred over to our Ethiopian specialist! Now she is waiting for the draft of our home study. Every step is a good one!
Caia informed me tonight that I will be the baby's mommy until she gets a little older, then SHE is going to be the baby's mommy. She is so excited! She insists that it is HER baby that we are adopting. She is such a little mother! She is already making plans of how she's going to help feed her, and push her in the stroller, and which stuffed animals she's going to give her, and on and on.

Home Study Completed!! (at least our part)

We completed our Home Study interview today...just one month to the day after we applied to our agency (they usually say it takes 3-4 months!) We had an excellent social worker named Sandi Bornman who we met with. She was great. The kids also got to be part of the interview, too. So, she'll complete her writeup and then email it to our agency for their approval over the next week or two. Once it's been approved, then it gets sent off to USCIS (Immigration) for their approval. So...over the next few weeks we'll be turning our attention to applying for grants and compiling our documents for our dossier (the paperwork that gets sent to the Ethiopian government). We are looking forward to the fundraiser on September 8th too. Everything keeps moving forward!!

Thanks for your prayers and support!

FUNDRAISER ON SEPTEMBER 8th

There are some great people from our church (Karen, Heidi, Donna, Darice & Stacey) who are throwing a fundraiser for the adoption on September 8th. The event will be a Baked Ziti Dinner. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for children and it will be held at Mountville Mennonite Church, Mountville, PA. There also will be a raffle and silent auction. We are so thankful for these folks and all the work they are putting into helping us make this dream a reality. If you would like to join us for dinner on this evening, please drop us an email at onelessorphan@gmail.com and we can see that you get tickets.

Everything Keeps Moving Forward!

It's been an exciting week around here. We were able to get our Home Study paperwork completed early in the week (30+ documents mailed Aug. 1) and now meet with our Social Worker on Monday, August 13th for our Home Study interview. If all goes well, our homestudy should be written and ready for submission to our agency and immigration by the 21st or so. We also received a super fast response from Immigration (less than a week) and now we need to report to have our finger prints taken. We have to wait until Jerry's SS card arrives (he lost his...another story in and of itself) and then that will be taken care of. We also started applying for some grants and began our education requirements. It's been a busy week, but a good one, as we keep doing whatever we can on this end to get our paperwork submitted.

I600A Off To Immigration!!!!

Well, Jerry stepped off the plane from Bolivia today (Saturday) and signed the paperwork (form I600A - Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition) to send off to Immigration so they can grant us permission to adopt an orphan. We were waiting for the approval from our social worker to go ahead and send it in, and of course, that came while Jerry was in Bolivia. The catch was that the fees for the process go up on Monday...it's only a couple of hundred dollars, but any little bit helps! So we wisked Jerry away from the airport and drove to the nearest post office that had late Saturday afternoon hours, and made it with about 15 minutes to spare.

Please pray that our paperwork goes through Immigration without any hitches, and that they grant us permission to adopt. Without it, we go no further.

We've Got an Agency

So, we've picked our agency!!! We've decided to go with Childrens Home Society from Minnesota. They are very impressive and have a great Ethiopia Program. So, now it's paperwork time! We sent our police background checks and child abuse clearances off today, sent in our app yesterday for the agency, sent in our homestudy application yesterday, will mail a longer home study application today, go to the dr for a physical next week, and start writing our autobiographies. It is a time of great anticipation! We know we've got a long road ahead of us as we tackle the mountain of paperwork, apply for grants, raise $, etc, but we also know it is going to be so worth it once we get there!

Time of Decision

We are going to be picking the agency we are working with over the next couple of days. There is so much to decide!! As we have begun looking at agencies we have become more and more excited at this adventure.

We are finding out some encouraging things along the way: that we will be able to adopt a very young infant girl (possibly only 6 months old...or even younger!), that the potential is that the whole process will be much shorter than we first thought (could be 7 - 12 months) and that that cost of the adoption will be approximately $10,000 less than we first thought.

We are excited to start the process and begin getting our paperwork together. In some ways it feels like stepping out onto a branch that we've been testing to make sure it was strong enough for awhile now, but we know its time to step out and take the risk!

Say What????

So, maybe its been awhile since we last talked...For a few months now we have been saying that we are going to adopt from Vietnam. Let's just say that over the past week we have had a change in direction. Last week, Christy was talking with someone at the agency we were thinking of using and found out that we will not be able to choose whether we get a girl or not. This threw us for a bit of a loop, because we have been so sure that God was leading us to adopt a little girl. So, we started to pray...In the midst of praying, we got the impression that God was leading us to change direction and look to Ethiopia instead of Vietnam.

As we started to pray about this, there were some confirmations that came along the way and it really seemed to be right. It is quite a change in direction for us, but we both think it is the right decision. As we have done more research on Ethiopia and adoption there, it lines up with what we have been longing for...to adopt a daughter from a place where the chances of her having a life without help would not look feasible. Ethiopia is a prime candidate.

While it is one of the oldest nations, it also is one of the poorest in the world. It has been ravaged by war, famine, drought, corrupt leadership, and now the AIDS crisis. Ethiopia ranks 177th out of 194 nations in its GDP, making it one of the most impoverished nations in the world. The GDP is $1,000 per capita compared to $44,000 per capita in the US and it is estimated that this year 14 million Ethiopians will face severe food shortages and possible starvation without outside intervention. AIDS has also ravaged the land. Some estimates say there have been upwards of 130,000 AIDS related deaths to date which have resulted in over 800,000 AIDS orphans. The crisis continues.

It is fascinating to consider adopting from Ethiopia. We both remember growing up watching children on TV who were starving to death in Ethiopia during the horrible droughts and famines of the 70s and 80s. It was so surreal...millions perishing around the world while we watched them from the comfort of our living rooms. Of course it seems like such a drop in the bucket to merely help one young girl have hope and life, but that is the starting place that it seems as if God has put in front of us. We are honored, humbled and challenged all at the same time!

The Waiting Continues

The waiting has been hard. We really want to get the ball rolling to bring our little girl home. But we know God's timing is best...

It's amazing to me how much the kids think about her. The boys talk about "when the baby comes home". At least one of them prays for her most nights. They occasionally slip me coins from their piggy banks to put in the "adoption fund." Their hearts are so soft towards her!

Caia is the one that surprises me the most. She's only 2 1/2. But SHE thinks about the baby too! Out of the blue, she'll look at me and say, "When baby comes, you hold her and I push her in the stroller, ok?" Or on several occasions, she's offered suggestions of what we could name the baby. One night she even prayed on her own "God, you bring our baby home safe. Men. (short for A-men)" I am amazed at how much she talks about her. She's usually not arround much of our conversations or even the boys' prayers about the adoption. It amazes me. She is going to be such a nurturing big sister!

In the mean time, we are doing what we can do early. The agency application is filled out and sitting in my desk waiting to be mailed. All our references have given us the green light to use them. We have done the paper work to get official copies of our birth certificates and marriage liscense. There's not a whole lot else we can do because so much of the paperwork expires (and if it expires, then you have to pay to have it redone!).

So for now we wait and save....

A Country and an Agency - Right in our own back yard!

When we knew we needed to raise money first, we decided to begin again and re-look at all our options for countries and agencies. Again, we were drawn to Vietnam. And that choice was made.

As we continued to look at agencies, we came back to an agency we had been talking with since the beginning. There was one aspect of thier program we weren't totally pleased with, but out of all the agencies we had talked to, they seemed to be the best option.

Then a friend asked if we had looked into an agency here in town. I had talked to them about doing our home study, but had never considered them for the adoption. So we looked into them. Their program matched every single thing that was on our list of hopes and desires - from the way they do business, to having the shortest time line around, to bringing the youngest babies home (Christy is really desiring a baby!), to having wonderful interactions with the staff - including the local social worker we'd be working with, who happens to be the agency's Vietnam rep! Even the couple that you travel with as your guide through the adoption process lives in Lancaster County and has adopted 3 kids from Vietnam!

We are very excited at the prospect of working with Adoptions from the Heart!

The journey so far...

Well, the very beginning of our journey...moving from adoption being a "someday" thing to a "now" thing...is explained in our Adoption Announcement letter. Check it out if you don't know the story.

Since that time, we've researched countries to adopt from, placing agencies and what countries they work in, and the process of adoption. The process usually runs as follows: pick a country to adopt from, then an agency to work with. Apply to that agency. If accepted, sign a contract. Begin your home study ( a report by a social worker that includes interviews, a home visit, health statements, financial statements, background checks, autobiographical statements, and references). File proper paperwork for Immigration clearance. Compile and authenticate all paperwork for your dossier (paperwork required by the governement of the country you're adopting from). Wait, and wait some more for a referral (the name and description of an adoptable child). Accept the referral. Wait, and wait some more for the foreign government to process all the necessary paperwork. Travel to the country to pick up your child. Finally, bring your child home!!!

We had it narrowed down to 3 countries between 2 agencies. We decided to move forward with an adoption from El Salvador. We were ready to apply when we found out that a previous social worker (who no longer works at that agency) gave us incorrect information, and the agency was not willing to work with us because of our income. That was a hard blow.

So we began talking with the 2nd agency about Guatemala and Vietnam. They are willing to work with us. But they strongly suggested we have all our money up front. Ouch. We thought we'd have 1 1/2 - 2 years to raise all the money. But that is now not the case. As we talked further, they suggested we do our home study first since we don't own a home to make sure we pass the financial viability piece. Ok...another backwards step! We began researching home study agencies in our area. After talking to a very helpful home study social worker, she figured we'd pass the home study, but suggested we should do our Immigration clearance first to make sure we pass that.

So, we have chucked everything we've learned out the window and are starting over. We need to raise all of the money up front before we can even begin to take a step forward. Then we need to complete a home study so that we can send it off to Immigration for their clearance. After that's all done, we can sign on with an agency and begin the 14-22 month long journey of completing our dossier, waiting for a referral, and waiting to travel.

I knew we'd need to trust God during this journey, but it has been turned so topsy-turvey that without Him, there is absolutely no way we can do this thing that so burns so deeply in our hearts. But our hearts are hooked. There's no turning back. We have to step out. And so here we are, stepping out...and beginning to raise $30,000.