Summer

Summer is in full swing! We are loving being out of school, enjoying the warmer weather, spending more time outside, planting and tending our little garden, and did I mention being out of school?!  As I type, you can hear the typical (for our area) summer sound of thunder in the distance.  It is common for us to get a thunderstorm or two at least once a week.

A few weeks ago, I spoke with our social worker just to touch base.  We have been asked if the unrest in Ukraine has caused a problem with adoptions in other parts of Europe and have been assured that things are still moving forward in Hungary.  The Hungarian program is still going strong and there are not any causes for concern regarding that program at this point.  There are families recieving referrals and traveling to get their child(ren), and we look forward to our turn. 

 Though I may have mentioned it before, many countries keep a "waiting child" list, meaning that the children on that list are available for adoption and can be matched with families looking to adopt from their country.  Hungary does not keep a waiting child list: instead, we have a facilitaor whose job it is to search through the files of adoptable children in that country, keep up with new children who become available for adoption, and match them with families.  Please continue to pray for God's timing for our referral, for safety and protection for our child during this time, wisdom for George, our overseas facilitator, as he works on behalf of the children, our family, and other families seeking to adopt from the country of Hungary, and the coming transition (whenever that is) time for our family.

Mark and I are actively working on our Crossings training which helps us to prepare for the coming changes in our family.  If you are thinking about adoption or are currently in the adoption process, I encourage you to look into it.

Tomorrow is  Flag Day. Though this day has not ever been a big celebration for us, I do love our flag and the nation it represents. We look forward to teaching our new child about it. You can read some poetry about our flag here. (Disclaimer:  Linking to these sites does not mean that I endorse everything on these sites. )  

Spring

It is hard to believe that tomorrow begins the month of May!  We only have eight more school days!!!! We are all excited and ready for the longer summer break.  

We are still waiting for a referral.  Though we knew it would be unusual, we really hoped to already have a referral by now.  As much as we wanted to be ready to go shortly after school is out, we have learned some patience and are ok with knowing that it will be mid to late summer or later before it happens.

We will be taking the last of our required (adoption) training in the next few weeks.  This is does not have to be done until 'sometime' before travel, but we are going to complete it soon-one less thing to worry about when we are actively making travel plans. We are also using this waiting time to get helpful information from others who have already completed their adoptions. We very much appreciate the willingness of the families who have been open with us about their adoptions, freely answering the many questions we have asked, and giving us suggestions and advice that will be needed in the months ahead. 

Spring is has sprung out in full force here.  Here are a few photos from our area.  Enjoy!

Spring Break!

It has been several weeks since we posted an update.  Our laptop kicked the bucket a few weeks ago, so finding a way to post an update with photos on a mobile device has been a challenge. :)

 We are praying, working, and saving towards the day when we get the phone call to tell us that we have been matched with our daughter and begin our travel preparations.  Three of us have passports and we have sent in the applications for the other two, so we hope to have everyone's passport in hand very soon.  You can read about our current prayer requests here.

This past week has been Spring Break for us, so we took a short trip to Kentucky and went to the  Creation Museum.  (For those who don't know, admission for children, ages 12 and under is free in 2014! Tickets are also good for two consecutive days.) It was a fun visit, and we had a great time with the dinosaurs! Can't you tell? :D

While We Wait

The last month or so has been seemingly slow progress on the adoption.  I say "seemingly" because once our dossier was sent overseas, we were back to the waiting game.  There are others working overseas on our paperwork so we can get a referral and be matched with a child.

While we wait, we have enjoyed the snow our area has seen.  Snow is not an every year occurrence here (this was the second snow we have seen this year), so we have had great fun with it.  I say snow...really in the following photos, it is about two inches of ice and a dusting of snow that shut everything down for three days, but we made a "sled" from an old wheelbarrow and pulled it with a mountain bike.  The kiddos had a wonderful time, but daddy was worn out: it is a lot of work to pull them like that!

 We saw snow for a third time this year a couple nights ago, but it melted by the end of the day.  The winter isn't over yet, so maybe there will be more to come!

While we wait, will you pray with us about some things?  I know that many of you have been/are praying about the financial aspect of this, but here are three additional specific requests that we have at this time:

1)  Please pray that God will prepare us and our child(ren) for the transition time that is coming for us and the child(ren) who will be joining our family - a family she has never met before now. She is will be leaving all 

that is familiar and asked to embrace everything that is unfamiliar.  Please pray for protection for our child while she waits for us to come and get her.

2)  Please pray that we will know when we are matched with the child(ren) that is to be a part of our family. We do have the ability to say "no" if we feel that a proposed referral will not work, but we do not want to have to say no to anyone: please pray specifically that the first child(ren) that are brought to our attention will be the ones we are to add to our family.

3)  Please pray for God's timing regarding our travel dates.  For several reasons, it is our desire to have travel dates (leave for our six week stay in Hungary) between May 1st and June 9th.  Will you pray with us that God will allow us to travel in that time frame?  

Thanks for walking with us while we wait.

Final Puzzle Update

We have completed our puzzle!!! Thanks to Becky, Dell and Tara, and Families Outreach, we were able to put the rest of the pieces together.  :)  A $500 grant from Families Outreach this week allowed us to meet and even exceed our goal.  Thank you, thank you , thank you again to everyone who donated funds in the last two months to help Cole and became a piece of our adoption puzzle.  We will get some puzzle saver in the next few days so we can hang it up!

Organizing All Those Papers!

While we are once again in one of the many waiting phases of the adoption process, I thought I would share how I am keeping track of all the papers that come with adoption.  As those who are "there" or have been through adoption know that the application you fill out to get a placement agency is just the beginning of what has been accurately referred to as the paper pregnancy.  If, like us, you have a placement agency that is not licensed in your state for the home study (well, they are now, so Yay! for those who will come after us but not so helpful for us :D ), there is the paperwork for your placement agency, your home study agency, grant applications (which can be a ton if you fill this out for several places), dossier paperwork, referral papers, and of course, all that goes into the final adoption before, during, and after travel.  Add to that what is needed to obtain Social Security cards after the adoption, birth certificates, and the re-adoption process and by the end of the whole  process, you begin to feel like you need a signature stamp and new fingers, hands, and wrists because yours are so exhausted from staying in the same position for hours to get it all done.  Most of this cannot be done via computer, so it is done by hand.

Early in this process, I made a notebook to keep track of everything in one place.  The only adoption information that is not kept there is our final home study and anything we held on to for our dossier that is certified (marriage license, birth certificates). We keep these things locked up and put away for safe keeping.
I took a regular 1-1/2" (maybe 2") notebook, printed a few things from the internet regarding the country we are adopting from, and inserted them into the side, front, and back of the notebook.  The front of the notebook actually has a paper with Hungary's information on it from our placement agency.  Since I do not have permission to use their photos/information, I substituted the map photo (below, right) to give you an idea what could go on your notebook.  The back photo is the Hungarian calendar year and includes the names and dates of this years holiday celebrations in Hungary.

 

  

The inside of our adoption notebook has tabs for each part of the adoption that we have either already completed or are in the middle of going through now.  I will add more tabs as we progress or need another place for specific information. I thought I had it set up in alphabetical order until I began taking photos of it.  Ha ha!  It is not alphabetized, but that is a good idea too. :)

 Each section has a tab

 Following is a brief explanation for each tab.  I use page protectors for each section and often keep more than one page of information in each page protector.  For example, if there are ten pages that are all about the same thing in one section, I use one page protector for all those pages and pull it out if I need to look at it.  It saves space in the notebook, while still keeping everything together, and saves money (for all those page protectors).

The first tab has information for CAS, our home-study agency. It includes their fee sheet, contact information with name, address, email address, etc. and any other papers they game us.  

 The second tab is our dossier information.  This included the list of things I needed to gather for our dossier and this is where I put each piece of information or form as I collected it.  When we got ready to send our dossier to Lifeline, everything I needed was in one place, and I gathered it all up and put it in the envelope to mail.  

The third tab is for Lifeline, our placement agency.  This is the same as the CAS tab, except is has all fees and information we have been given for Lifeline.  Since our dossier went to Lifeline, it could have been included with Lifeline's information, but it was just easier for me to make a separate tab for that.

The fourth tab is exactly what it sounds like. In it I keep any information I need regarding past or current fundraisers for this adoption.  One of our fundraisers was written up in a local paper, so I have a copy of the newspaper in a sheet protector in that tab.

 2013 and 2014 have different page protectors

The fifth tab is used to collect receipts for adoption related expenses to be used for tax purposes after the adoption is completed.  As seen below, one page protector is being used for 2013 receipts and a second one is set up for 2014.  We hope to not have one for 2015. :D

The sixth tab contains Grant Application information.  When I come across an application/site from where we can apply for a grant, I print the application and file it there until we can get it filled out and mailed.  We sent out a half a dozen applications last fall, and I have a few more applications that are printed and waiting to be filled out.  In my opinion, it saves time to do one thing at a time.  Focus for a few days (hours, weeks, etc.) on finding grants that you can apply for, then print and/or save the application(s) in one place, and then spend the time filling them out all at once.  I keep a sticky note on applications that have specific deadlines for getting an application out, and I also have one or two right now that have a note on them stating that they cannot be sent out until we have a referral.  This saves me from looking that up every time I see the application because I already know when I can mail it.

The seventh (and last, so far) tab USCIS information we received in it.  Our fingerprinting appointment notices are kept in there and anything else we may receive before the completed adoption will go there.  We do not keep our official immigration approval here.  It is kept with our original home study in a safer place than a notebook on a baking rack. :)

I hope this idea will help you keep track of everything.  If you have another idea to add, please comment so that others can benefit from it too!

Exciting News

This is our first post in 2014, and I am excited to begin the year with some great news!  We have been approved for an adoption grant from Show Hope. 

 I was in our church kitchen this morning with some of the other ladies from our church, cleaning things up and reorganizing, when Mark came running into the room and just pointed to a dollar amount on the page.  We have been awarded  $7000!!!!  This will go a long way towards the next big fee we have coming up - the $12,500  due before travel and is a true answer to prayer.  Thank you again to everyone who has prayed and is praying, for we believe that your prayers are making a difference!  God has been so good to us and is even providing for some of our upcoming needs before they are due! With the exception of a few hundred dollars, all of the money we are earning or raising right now for adoption expenses is going to cover overseas expenses.  (You can see a list of some of these fees on our ways you can help page.) We are very grateful to the donors at Show Hope who are investing in the life the child we have yet to meet.  We are also grateful for all the information provided to us by Show Hope regarding parenting and understanding the child that will soon be joining our family (this was given to us for just applying through them and was not at all related to receiving a grant).


And a dossier update...

The facilitator for Hungary was out of town over the holidays and is back now, so our dossier was to be sent out this past week to him for translation.  We will keep you posted on how this progresses!