Hello All,

I just found out that I am kind of a bone head. I was sooooo excited to get all of my paperwork done and turned in. Well, I just found out that the new birth certificates and marriage certificate that I had to order to be turned in with the dossier came with a state seal on them, but they were still supposed to be sent in to the state to get another state seal stapled to them. Well, the local Bethany office didn't catch it, so they sent everything to the national office. Now the national office is sending them back to us to get the other state seal. It will put us about two weeks behind where I hoped to be. I guess that this has been the only glitch so far, so I should just be thankful.

What do I do now?

Getting all of our paperwork turned in was soooo exciting, but what do I do now? When we were doing all of the paperwork, I was at least sort of in control of that timeline. I could decorate the new bedroom, but I don't know if we will have an infant, toddler or a four year old. I guess I'd better just find a new hobby:o)

Blessing

I can't seem to keep myself from wondering why our paperwork process has gone so smoothly. So many people going through this process seem to have hold up after hold up during the dossier preparation phase of the adoption. We haven't have any major hold ups or problems. We are about 2 months ahead of schedule with our dossier completion. I have decided to just take it for the blessing that it is, and hope that things continue to go smoothly. I think that that will be easier than waiting to see what goes wrong:o). Thanks so much to all of you who have been praying for us and our future child. It must be working. I am definitely feeling closer to God than I ever have before. Thanks to everyone for your support.

It's a good day!!!!

Hello all,

We got our approval from the USCIS Department of Homeland Security today. That means that the government has officially approved us for international adoption. This is the last piece of paperwork we needed for our dossier to be complete. We hurried and got the form signed and notarized and down to fedex. It should be in Cheyenne Monday to get the Great State Seal, then off to our adoption agency immediately after that. These papers will be going on quite a journey. I believe after Rapid City, they go to the agency headquarters in Grand Rapids Michigan, then to Washington DC for translation, then to Addis Ababa Ethiopia. The whole process should take 3-4 weeks. Now we just wait.

Hello All,

We got some disappointing news today. There was a three year old girl in Ethiopia who was available for adoption. Our social worker asked us if we wanted to be considered for that child and of course we said yes. We knew that it was a long shot because we don't have all of our paperwork in to Ethiopia yet (still waiting for our paperwork to come back from our finger prints.) This little girl was placed with another family today. They had all of their paperwork in Ethiopia. It is hard when you are shown a picture of a child, then you have to wait several day to find out if she will be ours. Even though we are disappointed, we know that God already has our child picked out for us, and we will just have to wait until he is ready to give her to us. Also, what a fabulous day for this little girl. She went from being an orphan to having a family today. If you are the praying type, please pray for this little girls to have a smooth transition into her new family.

All fingerprinted.

Duane and I went to Rapid City yesterday and got our fingerprints taken. It should only be two or three weeks now until we send our dossier in. We need everybody to pray that we find the child that we are meant to have. Also, if you could all pray that it happens quickly, that would be great:o). It is a little selfish on my part, I know I am not good at waiting for things.

Well, we finished up all our our required travel shots last Thursday. Duane will need a couple of booster in October, but we have everything we need to travel. We head off to Rapid City in the morning for our biometric fingerprints for the US government. Baby steps :o)

This is a link to an article that I thought was kind of interesting.

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/05/ethiopian_orphans_need_families.html