Hanging Around…and Praying for God’s Provision…

This week, we mailed three sets of applications, profiles and copies of our home study.  We mailed one matching grant application and mailed two  sets of profiles and copies of home study reports to adoption attorneys out of state.

I haven’t posted an update on our puzzle fundraiser in awhile.  We have not met our goal of having 20 puzzle pieces sponsored…I think this was my goal for the end of May and it is now my goal for the end of June…We only lack 6 more puzzle pieces to meet this goal.  Will you consider donating $10 to sponsor a puzzle piece?  You can make a donation through Paypal (see the right of our blog) or by check (let us know and we will email you our mailing address if you don’t have it).  We still lack the estimated $13,229 to $34,329 we will need to complete our adoption. 

The timeline once we are matched with a child or child yet to be born:  Usually 1/2 of the placing agency’s fees are due at this time.  This could be roughly $9,000 to $17,500.  Right now, we only have $8521.00 left in savings so we would have to either decline a match or ?? at this time.

At the birth of the child (who may have already been born) or a few weeks before her birth, we must pay the remaining 1/2 of the placing agency’s fees.  Again, this would be an estimated $9,000 to $17,500.  So if the child were already born, we would be looking at $18,000 to $25,000 due (which means we would need $9479 to $16,479 more than what we currently have available).

Since we don’t know where our child is, we are hoping that our estimate for travel expenses is way higher than it will end up being.  We have projected $3,000 to $4,000 for travel expenses (including the possibility of having to travel back to the state of our child’s birth for finalization).  We could hopefully use some frequent flyer miles for the expense of flying. 

Finalization of our child’s adoption plus post-placement reports will likely cost $1500 to $4000.  Hopefully, we will be able to save on these expenses by finalizing our child’s adoption in our home state but that may not be allowed….It really depends on the state where our child lives.

BOTTOM LINE:  We are in need of prayers for God to remove the financial obstacles between us and our child(ren).  We have been told that it could be a week or it could be months before we are matched with our child….Only God knows when this will happen…and right now, we do not have the money we would require for the expenses of adopting our daughter.  Please pray that God will be glorified through His provision for our adoption and that God would give us wisdom and discernment when we are asked to consider possible situations/matches in the near future.  We have faith that God will provide for our adoption.  Colin’s sweet face reminds us of how God has worked in our family before to provide for our needs….

Thanks for stopping by,

Heather & Alan & Colin

Homestudy Finalized…Finally!

We are relieved because it looks like our homestudy report is finally without major errors…We are officially paper ready to adopt!

Please pray for us as we start submitting our paperwork and homestudy to agencies and for consideration for adoption grants.  We’re excited to see how God provides for us as we continue on this journey towards our daughter!

Heather & Alan

Homestudy Woes

Please say a prayer that yet another error gets fixed in our homestudy report soon…It was one related to another error I did catch in the previous copy of the homestudy report.  They will not send a copy for us to review by email so we will have to drive into Louisville to pick it up or wait by mail….I feel like we paid them months ago and are working as copy editors for them. 

Thanks for stopping by,

Heather & Alan

Homestudy News and Update on Our Sweet Boy…

I found out when Colin and I returned from story time today that our corrected homestudy is ready for pick up. We weren’t able to pick it up before the homestudy agency’s office closed at 2:00 p.m.  (No, they are not going out of their way to help us get this study finalized quickly).  We are hoping and praying that there are no  more mistakes in it when I pick it up!  I never received confirmation that we can even pick it up tomorrow (Thursday) and the office is closed on Friday.  Please pray that our homestudy saga will end soon!

I had our first copy of the profile printed today at the UPS store because I’ve been prolonging getting it printed because of the homestudy delays…I know I could have been proactive and had the copies printed out but the thought of them lying around the house with no where to go kind of made me sad.

Colin has started asking “Why” so conversations can be pretty interesting around here.  It is amazing to think how far he has come with his language.  He still struggles with making the “f” sound at the beginning of words but otherwise we think he is doing a super job with his language.  Our beautiful boy loves to play outside but still hates sunscreen.  He also enjoys going on “adventures” (which he usually says in reference to going somewhere in the car). 

  We are still looking for folks to sponsor puzzle pieces.  We will post an update on this fundraiser soon. 

Advocating for Our Daughter…

We have been told that we must return the homestudy report to the agency before they will correct their mistakes…so another week will go by without us having our homestudy finalized.  We can’t apply for grants or apply to placing agencies until the homestudy is finalized.  We have also been told that if we require/request a homestudy update we will be required (by whom, we don’t know yet) to complete/show documentation of adoption parenting training. 

Yes, we believe that ultimately God will be glorified through our adoption of our daughter but, as Alan reminded me tonight, this is not necessarily “God’s timing.”  We know Colin was not better off waiting for us in Russia for 5 months before we could take him into our loving arms…it was out of our hand…and in many ways our adoption stories so far are very much spiritual warfare.  Satan (we believe) does not want these children to be adopted into Christian families and he does all he can sometimes to try to beat down families in the process of adopting…

So tonight we are asking for prayers for us as we continue to advocate for our daughter who haven’t met yet.  Please join us in praying for this homestudy to be released with its corrections soon and for God to remove the remaining obstacles between us and our daughter…to His glory. 

“Precious baby girl, we are praying for you as we wait for you….We don’t know if you are born yet or not but we know that we are longing for you tonight.  We are praying for your well-being as we wait for the obstacles to be removed that stand between us.  We are excited about welcoming you into our family someday and we pray it is soon!”

Homestudy Not Finalized…Yet

We have found 6 errors in the homestudy report…now we’re praying that the homestudy agency will be nice about correcting them (and that they will do it quickly!)

It did crack me up that they had a timeline of our homestudy on the first page of the report which does not refer to how the majority of our documentation was sent to them in January and February…It makes it sound like we didn’t send it to them until April…I’m tried to “let go” and not get hung up on that.  The most important thing is getting the errors corrected so our homestudy can be finalized and so we can apply to placing agencies and apply for grants for the adoption.

There is so much “letting go” involved in the adoption process…for Christian families who are adopting it can really be a way that God refines us if we are open to His working in our hearts and lives during the wait for our children.

Thanks for your prayers and encouragement,

Heather & Alan

Homestudy…Ready?

Our homestudy is ready to pick up tomorrow after almost 7 months of waiting…Please pray that it does not have lots of errors to correct.

 

Heather