One Year Closer

Welcome 2015!

Happy New Year to all our readers! I hope the last few weeks have been a happy time for you and your families.

We are looking forward to what this year holds for our family, while at the same time recognizing that there will be changes ahead.  We are one year closer to completing this part of our journey and beginning the next chapter and are excited about sharing this with you in the coming months.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Another Christmas Closer: A second Christmas letter to our future daughter

Last Christmas I wrote an open letter to our future adopted daughter. (Read it here) Currently, we are enjoying another Christmas, and yet we are still waiting for her to come home.  Our hope and prayer is that she will be with us by next Christmas.  This letter is in honor of all the families who are waiting for their little one to come home.  The pain of waiting, and the agony of another holiday passing without being able to be with them is, at times, overwhelming.  This is what I wish to say to our little Polish girl.

"My dear little girl,

I wrote you a letter last Christmas, with all of the hope that you would be with us by this year.  The months have come and gone, and you are still not home.  In some ways this year is easier, since we have at least learned your name, and seen your picture.  Funny, but the same things that make this year a little easier also make this year infinitely harder to bear.  I can't help but imagine what life will be like with you here.

I know that you are being taken care of, but I wish we were the ones giving you that care.  Truly, the only gift I wished for this Christmas was to have you here.  God has seen fit to postpone that gift; and so we must wait.

I would want you to know that we are doing everything we can to get to you.  We are working extra jobs.  We are begging people for money. We are saving, and dreaming, and preparing.  It won't be long now.  This year our church gave us a new set of luggage for our trip!  I can't wait to use it.

Be well, my little girl, and know that we love you.  I love you.  Soon we will be together.  Perhaps you will be here with us by next Christmas, and then it will be the best Christmas ever!

Love,

Your Dad


If you are an adoptive family who is waiting and missing your child this Christmas, I am praying for you. Our family understands the heartache as the second year passes since we began this process.  I know the wait will be worth it.  

Merry Christmas

Christmas is such a fun time of year, isn't it?! We think about carols, Christmas lights, decorations, cookies, time with family and/or friends, parties, Christmas programs, and so much more. At one time, I would have included snow on my list of "Christmasy" things, but we don't get much of that here.  There is just something about snow falling silently against a backdrop of Christmas lights and carols playing.... Unfortunately, today it is pouring rain. *sigh* Oh well, we still have the Christmas lights on and the carols playing.

A Reason to celebrate

This year as we celebrate Christmas,  the emotions are mixed in our house.  As we sat at the table eating lunch a little while ago, we looked at the clock and determined the time in Poland.  It was about 6:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve there, and we asked the question, "Will (she) be getting any presents this year?"  I don't know.  I do know she is being cared for, and I am grateful for that but still await the day that she will be here with us instead of thousands of miles away. We look forward to sharing all that is special about Christmas with her and the meaning behind the celebration.

Since our last post, we are another step closer to bringing her home.  Our immigration paperwork (I-800A supplement 3) was sent out on December 9th, and we received the immigration notice that says they are processing our request to update it.  This should take two to three weeks, so taking the holiday time into consideration,  we are looking for it to come back by the beginning of January.

We also got all of the documents together and sent in to our agency for our dossier.  Some of them have to be notarized and apostilled before being mailed overseas.  (Apostilling was not a requirement for our dossier to Hungary, but it is a requirement for Poland.)  The only thing we are waiting for to send our documents overseas is our immigration approval, and we can move on to the next step. :D

At the County Courthouse getting Background Checks done for the dossier

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving

Yesterday marked two months since we saw the first videos and photos of our daughter.  Though we were hoping to have it done already, we are still working on the immigration update.  Our home study update has taken longer to finish that we hoped, and it has put us further behind in the projected schedule we had for getting to actually travel.  Though time frames in the adoption world are often fluid, it is frustrating to know that things are taking longer than we thought they would.  In spite of this, we are still very thankful to finally have a name and a face that we can see while we continue to complete the necessary steps to bring her home.

Today was spent with my brother who came in town for a few days, and some friends.  We spent several hours cooking, fellowshipping, and of course, eating.  It was my responsibility to bring desserts and rolls for our get together today: I made the desserts yesterday and Harris Teeter and Walmart made the rolls.  :-)  It has become a tradition in our family to allow each person to choose a pie or dessert that he/she would like.  We ended up with fudge, pumpkin, chocolate, sweet potato, blueberry, and Boston Cream (which is more like  a cake) pies, as well as a cheesecake with strawberry glaze to go on the top.  We still have quite a bit of dessert left, even after sharing it around with the others with whom we had Thanksgiving dinner.  I think I will be having pumpkin pie for breakfast tomorrow.  Mmmm! Before you judge me too harshly, it has to be bettter for me than some of the other things that are sometimes eaten for breakfast - donuts, sugared cereals, Poptarts, and coffee cakes, right?!

Pumpkin Pie with Whipped Cream...Mmmm!

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!

Home Study Update

It has been a little over a month since we saw our daughter for the first time.  In that time we have been collecting everything we need for our home study update.  A home study update is exactly what it sounds like: anything that has changed since our home study was originally written is updated with the new information.  This could include anything from changing jobs or moving, to something simpler such as updating that we have all become another year older.  :D Other things that are updated include all child abuse clearances, criminal clearances, and general medical health for all members of the family.  Since our original home study, our state has also begun requiring FBI clearances.  We were fingerprinted on Monday at the local police department, and we mailed the fingerprints and the official form that is required to the company that will process it to the FBI.  (We are using a third party company to process our request to the FBI: it is much faster than going directly through them.  A third party can get results for us in about two weeks, but it can take up to four months to get results directly from the FBI.)

We also needed to have a face to face visit with our social worker, which we had today.  It lasted about twenty minutes,  and it was done. Our social worker will rewrite and update our information for us to send in with our immigration paperwork.  We have done this before...just about exactly a year ago.  We received our first immigration approval a few days before Thanksgiving, 2013.  We hope to have our second approval before Thanksgiving this year.  Once our FBI clearances show up (they should be here late next week), we can get our information out to USCIS for approval to adopt from Poland (instead of Hungary like our original paper states).

One round down, a few more to go!  See this post under "When Will We Travel" for more information about what still needs to happen for us to be ready to travel.

This is how we have felt for the last month.  :-)

Orphan Advocate - Lifesong

"Orphan Sunday isn't about charity; it's about the mission of Christ. I pray that every Gospel-transformed congregation will observe Orphan Sunday, calling all Christians to our mandate to image Christ by caring for his little brothers and sisters, the fatherless of the world." -- Dr. Russell Moore, author Adopted for Life

On November 2nd, Christians around the globe will stand together with one goal: to rouse believers with God's call to care for the orphan and what our role is in response.

Does your family, small group or church have plans for Orphan Sunday? There are so many ways that we can honor orphans collectively as the Body of Christ on Orphan Sunday. If you don't have plans or haven't heard of an event near you, here are 4 ways you can engage in this year's Orphan Sunday:

1. Advent for Orphans Calendar -- see explanation below.
2. Orphan's Table -- share a meal eaten by orphans around the world. Gather with family, small group or church for the meal, discussion and prayer.
3. Plan an Orphan Sunday event with a Partnership Package -- easy-to-follow Orphan Sunday event plan, enabling you to partner with an organization to create a simple event!
4. Contact your Regional Orphan Sunday Coordinator with questions, to seek ideas as you plan, or to let them know that you will be holding an event.

Be sure to also check out their other resources which include videos, prayer guides, sermon notes, t-shirts & more! Together, let's stand for the orphan!

To learn more about Orphan Sunday or find an event near you visit OrphanSunday.org.

Get your FREE Advent Calendar & celebrate with purpose! 

See how your family, small group or church can celebrate the anticipate the birth of our Savior in a special way that also shows love to orphans.

Limited supply of Advent for Orphans calendars available! Learn more & order your calendar today at www.lifesongfororphans.org/advent.

(Unofficial) Match!!

Yes! We have an unofficial match for a two year old little girl.  :D  The twist we did not anticipate...she is from Poland, not Hungary.  We are very excited about this and look forward to traveling to Poland to make her a part of our family early next year.  Here are the answers to some common questions we have heard. :)

Poland?!  Why did you not get a referral from Hungary?

Our agency works in four different countries in Eastern Europe.  We got a call from from them a little more than a week ago, September 26th, and with it came the question, "Would you consider switching to the Poland program? We have someone we would like you to consider for your family."  My initial reaction was that people are going to think we. are. crazy. (We really are not. :D ), but that weekend we decided that this is the direction we should go, and on Monday (9/29), we started the ball rolling to bring her home.  There was no pressure from our agency to switch, and had we desired to do so, we could have stayed in the Hungary program.

When will you travel?

Though we are not changing agencies, we are changing to a different program within our agency.  This means paperwork updates to reflect Poland (instead of Hungary) in our home study and immigration paperwork. Then our dossier will be sent to Poland for translation, and we will get an official referral.  One more round of paperwork needs to be sent in to U.S. immigration, and this one is child specific, meaning that we are getting permission to bring our daughter home.  At this point, it will be up to the local judge in Poland to give us a court date, so it will be approximately four to five months before we can travel.  

How can we pray?

1)  You can pray for the preparation and transition time for our family and the daughter we have yet to meet.  Though we are not new parents, we are new to parenting this child.  Please pray for our other  children who are excited about their new sister: pray that all four children will bond together quickly as a family.  We hope to complete this part of the process soon, but it is the beginning, not the end of this journey.

2)  Please pray for as little delay as possible with all the paperwork.  We are working on getting all of our paperwork updated (The home-study and immigration approval has an expiration date.  Even if we had stayed in the Hungary program, we would have to have these updates done early in the new year.) and would like to get it overseas as soon as possible.


Feel free to ask any questions that we have not answered, but please be aware that there is some information that, for privacy reasons, we will politely decline to answer.

Watching videos of their soon-to-be-sister for the first time!  Do you think they are excited?