there are no words

Wow. That is all I have to say. We have been so blessed by people's generosity and willingness to help bring our child home. We continue to get random checks and money, whether from friends or anonymous donors. I can't tell people enough how much we appreciate it. We have raised half of our funds! We feel like God is continually confirming our path, and using so many people to do so! We are so humbled and grateful.
We are continuing with our fundraisers. We are still selling our t shirts and Phil is working on his CD. Hopefully that will be done soon, I can't wait to hear it! Also, now that our homestudy is done, we can apply for some grants. I hate to talk "numbers", but people are constantly asking us how much more we need. The costs of an adoption are all estimated, so at this point we still need to raise about $10,000+ more.
Thank you all for your prayers through this process. God is so faithful, and is certainly our Provider!!!

YES!

Our homestudy was sent to USCIS yesterday!!! We are very excited since we weren't expecting that until next week. Just wanted to share!

a new plan

Well, today went much different than planned. The original plan was for Phil to go to work this morning, and then we would meet our social worker in the afternoon to sign the completed homestudy. She was going to be in the area for another meeting, and it worked perfectly for us so we didn't have to travel too far. Well, this morning Phil woke up sick. So sick he couldn't get out of bed. Oh no! We started praying of course because we wanted him to feel better, but also so we could somehow make our meeting. As the time inched closer, we knew it just wasn't going to happen. He was feeling awful. So I called up our social worker and shared my disappointing news. She felt bad that we wouldn't be able to get it done, since we are so close. She offered to call us later today after her other meeting in the area to see if Phil was feeling any better. Thankfully, he was! He is by no means at 100 percent, but at least he could be out of bed and sitting on the couch for the meeting. It was so sweet of her to come to our home so that we could get it done today and we are grateful that the Lord worked out each detail. She wasn't here long at all, and now we're done! AWAA is currently reviewing it and will let us know if it is O K to send off. We are hoping that it will be sent early next week to USCIS. (once it is at USCIS and processed, we will then wait for our I171H that you have heard me talk about) Also, our dossier is almost finished! Basically I have done everything, and I'm just waiting for a few things to come in the mail. The goal is to have all of that done by the time our I171H comes back, which will hopefully be soon. We have heard many families who wait a long time for it, and others that get it quickly. Please pray with us that we are one of the quick ones! I can't believe we are so close to being completed with our dossier. I just keep thinking how each of these things brings us one step closer to meeting our sweet baby!

a mixed bag

We got our USCIS fingerprints done today. Hooray! It was mostly painless, except for a few cranky outbursts from the kids. We were out quickly, and even ran into a couple that attend our church there getting fingerprinted too. So that was a fun little surprise. After that it was lunch time and we headed to IHOP because we figured that would be a kid-pleaser. Oh. My. Goodness. We had the worst experience we have ever had while out to eat with our children. There was much discipline and threat-whispering going on. I ended up taking them out to the van, leaving their half-eaten lunch still on the table. Yes, it was that bad. Our kids love to eat at restaurants, but we told them it is going to be a long time before they have that special treat again. I think my blood pressure is rising just thinking about it.
But then I came home to a good email from our social worker. She hopes to have a rough draft of our homestudy to us this week, and then meet on the 17th for our last visit and just to finalize it all. I am so glad to get this on the calendar, we are ready for this phase to be over.
I think that is all the adoption news we have for today, hopefully there will be more good news to come!

early is a good thing

We got our passports today!

another praise!

Our passports are another thing that we have been trying to get done and were wondering how long they would take. We were told 4-6 weeks. We sent them less than a week ago. I had been tracking them online, even though it said it could take 7-10 days to even show up in the system. As of Tuesday (yes we sent them Friday and I started checking on Monday...because I'm crazy like that), they weren't in the system. I couldn't check yesterday because something was wrong with their website. Well, I just pulled it up, and not only had they arrived, but they were done processing and had been sent out! They should be here by Monday! Wow. God is certainly in every detail's timing! Passports in a week, not bad!

praise praise praise

I am so overwhelmed right now...in a good way! God's grace and provision is so amazing. This process is making that even more real to me. Recently we received two very generous donations that will completely cover the costs that will be due at dossier submission. Praise the Lord! That is so huge. We will still have our very large chunk at the end, but God has provided every cent so far, and we know he is more than capable to do that! The other huge praise today was concerning our life insurance. I believe I mentioned that all we were waiting for was the verification so we could complete our financial info, and that we were told it could take 4-6 weeks, and the shortest they had seen was 2 weeks. Well I faxed our paper work just over a week ago. I called the underwriter today, and she still hadn't received it. She said that was not uncommon. So I told her about our adoption, and she gasped. She said she would just have to pull some strings for us! So she asked for my phone number to keep me updated. I am not kidding when I say, 15-20 minutes later I got a call. She said she called them, had them send it to her immediately, she worked on it, and it is done! Our coverage starts today. I thanked her profusely, hung up the phone, and then started crying and praising God! I just couldn't stop saying how good He is. So I was able to fill in that little line on our financial and that is the last piece of our homestudy paperwork, and also one more thing crossed off the dossier list. I have the biggest smile on my face right now! :)