One Down, One To Go

I got an exciting email on Friday from our caseworker letting me know that she received our DCFS foster care approval and would be mailing out our packet that day for us to send to USCIS. I was suprised to find our packet in our mail the next day. I plan to mail this today and hopefully we will just be waiting a couple of weeks to get our updated I171-H from the immigration department and once we receive this we can send everything off to Ethiopia. It is so exciting to be feeling this close again to having everything finished and out of our hands!!

Lots of Referrals!!

Three families in the Ethiopia program received referrals on March 26th. The ages of the children referred ranged from 6 months to 9 years old. The DTE (dossier to Ethiopia) dates for the new referrals were: Infant girl: 8/1/07 Sibling group of 5 & 7: 10/26/07 Sibling group of 6 & 9: 12/7/07 A total of nine children ranging from 1 month to 9 years were referred to families. This is such exciting news. Based on these referrals once we submit our paperwork we will be waiting around 7 to 9 months for our referral.

Another Family Traveling to Ethiopia

We are still busily working on paperwork. We are waiting for our agency to approve our homestudy and then this will be forwarded to DCFS for our foster care license and to the state dept. Once all of this is done we will be ready to send everything to Ethiopia. What a relief this will be when we get all of the paperwork completed. AWAA has another family traveling to Ethiopia today to pick up their little girl. She is just absolutely adorable and has tons of hair!!! Click on the link below to follow their journey:

1. The Steiger Clan

I ask that you pray for this family that is traveling to Ethiopia and also pray for all of the families that are so close to a referral that God will give them peace until they get "The Call."

Families Traveling Home From Ethiopia

I know that many of you wonder what it will be like when we travel to Ethiopia to get our precious little one. There are several famlies that have been in Ethiopia all week and are making their way home. I have attached links to their blogs so that you can view the wonderful pictures that they have posted of their journey. The Harpolds The McIlraths The Treadwells The Wegners It is so neat to see all these pictures and read about the journeys realizing that someday that would be us. We ask that you pray for these families as they are traveling home.

My Daily Devotion

I wanted to share with you this awesome story out of my daily devotional Bible that I read last night. I have to thank my dear husband who bought this for me a few years ago. It is talking about the walled city of Jericho and as soon as I started reading the explanation of the verse I instantly thought of our adoption. The verse is Joshua 6:1-20 The Lord said "You shall march around the city, all you men of war; you shall go all around the city once. This you shall do six days... But the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets... All the people shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat..." This is how my devotion reads: "Sometimes God asks us to have that same faith. We face walls circumstances we can't conquer and God tells us that we will be victorious. But then all He asks us to do is walk just trust Him with the details, and keep on walking. Even when we don't understand God's purposes. Even when we can't see the point. Even when we'd rather discuss the matter or file a few grievances first. God just asks us to have enough faith to keep on walking. The victory will be his." This spoke straight to my heart regarding the road we are traveling on to bring our dear Olivia home.

Finally Our Paperwork Packet Has Arrived

Finally on Saturday our packet from AWAA that we have been waiting for arrived in the mail. The "paper pregnancy" has officially begun. We are now busily trying to gather all of our needed documents to send to Ethiopia. For those of you who are not familiar with the adoption process I thought I would post a list of everything that we have to gather so that it would give you a better idea of what this involves. Ethiopia's paperwork does not include as many documents as what El Salvador's did so hopefully it will be easier the second time around!!! What our dossier will include:

• application letter to the Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs
• original birth certificates for each of us
• original copy of our marriage certificate
• physical exam, blood work and urine test for each of us
• proof of medical insurance
• proof of life insurance
• financial information
• proof of income
• home study including a foster care license
• 3 letters of reference
• police department record
• I-171H
• power of attorney
• agency recommendation
• agency post-placement agreement
• 2 passport-sized photos
• photocopies of passport
• photo pages-including 2 formal photos,4 of family life,1 of front and back of house and 1 photo of each main room in the house

Each of these documents have to be notarized and then appostilled with the State of Illinois. Isn't it hard to believe that this is less than El Salvador. We will keep you posted on our progress. We also ask that you continue to pray for the families that are in Ethiopia right now.

A Purchase for Olivia

I have been seeing lots of the (product) red items at the Gap and have really been wanting some but I was waiting to see if they would go on sale. (for those of you that know me you know I have to find a deal before I can buy something) Well when I went to their website the other day I found they were having a great sale so I decided I just had to have a couple of them. Half of the proceeds from this purchase go to help fund Aids research in Africa. I bought this adorable onesie and also a shirt for our little girl once she comes home. I thought it would be really neat for her to have these outfits. One thing that I have learned throughout this adoption process is PATIENCE. We are still patiently waiting for our packet to arrive that contains all of the details that we need to re-do our paperwork for our dossier. We did find out from our caseworker that we are now in the DCFS computer system which is good to know that our fingerprints did not get lost!! However, she has not received our DCFS foster care license yet but hopefully soon she will. We have families from AWAA that are getting ready to travel to Ethiopia and I just ask that you would pray for these families as they prepare to leave and for their safety while they are gone and to have wonderful reunions with their children!!