Sto lat

Sto lat - in Polish it means "100 years" and is sung for birthdays, weddings, and celebrations where best wishes, happiness, or long life are being given.  The general meaning behind the song is that you wish for the person, couple, etc. to live for 100 years because they are an important part of your life.  Equivalent songs in English would be "Happy Birthday To You" or perhaps "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow".

To view a translation of the song, see here and here.

Fully Funded

Yes, we are!!  Fully. Funded.

A couple of months back we decided to send out two more applications to grant agencies.  We decided that they would be the last two we would fill out, partially because we are running out of time to send out applications before travel and also because they are time consuming, and we may or may not be given a grant.  

One of the agencies that we sent a grant application to had a deadline of March 15th.  We only had about two weeks to get our information to the agency for the (then) current grant quarter.  It seemed that everything that could go wrong to get that application in on time, did go wrong.  We needed three personal references but had trouble with getting all of them - one of the folks willing to write one happened to be out of the country during the time we needed the reference.  Mark had problems with his email account, we sent the wrong tax forms the first time, and some of the information I was supposed to send to them, I sent to Mark instead of the agency (long story, but I hit "reply" to a forwarded message from Mark  instead of emailing the information to the agency).  We came very close to giving up instead of pushing to get everything done on time. Two days before the deadline, we got everything finished, and then...we were back to waiting to see if we were given a grant.

Today we got an email from JSC that stated that we have been given a grant!!!!  The grant amount is what we need to be fully funded for our adoption.  Have you ever just said, "Wow!"?   Thank you, thank you, thank you, JSC sponsors for your support.

Two and a half years ago we wondered where the money would come from for this adoption.  We did not have it.  When we asked our Lifeline representative about money, she simply said that we are not the only family who does not have the money we need, but she had never had a family not be able to complete an adoption because they did not have the money.  Through this process we have learned that it is true: if you know you are doing what God wants, when you need it, the money will be there. 

This is our house tonight:

Gulasz (Goulash)

Goulash is a dish that originated in Hungary but is popular in many areas of Europe, including Poland.   Gulasz  (Polish word for goulash) is a stew made from beef with green pepper, onion, tomato (paste), caraway seeds, and paprika as common base ingredients.

While we were in the program to adopt from Hungary, I came across this recipe for Hungarian Goulash that we really like.  I have made it many times over the last several months and love that it is made in my slow cooker. Some of the reviews state that it is too bland, but I think it has a great flavor.  It is not spicy, so if you are hoping for something with a kick you will need to add something else for extra spice.

Because it serves twelve,  I usually half the recipe for our family (for now - that may change as our kiddos get older :D).  I put four carrots in for half a recipe and do not always put in as much bell pepper as is called for because my kiddos are not crazy about green pepper.  Served over egg noodles it is delicious and leftovers mesh the flavors together even more the next day.

Yummy Goulash

Pierogies

A friend bought us some food items (imported from Poland) from a local store for us to try.   We have not tasted everything yet (the cabbage and beat salad sounds um, interesting), but I can tell you that the chocolate was delicious!  I think the Strawberry Cream Filled Chocolate and the Hazelnut bars were the favorites here, but they were all pretty good.  All of these items came from Big Lots, so if you have a store near you, maybe you can try them too.

Chocolate Bars...yum!

I also tried my hand at making home made pierogies this week.  Store bought pierogies are not my favorite dish, and I was not thrilled with the flavor of eating even the home made ones after I boiled them.  The filling is delicious though, and as recommended in the recipe, I did try frying them in a little olive oil and dipping them in sour cream. They are definitely good that way - isn't everything better fried?  And since I used olive oil for frying them, you know they are healthy, right?!   :-) 

(I know these are not the prettiest pictures: I was trying to get dinner on the table and just snapped a couple quickly, 

without spending a lot of time on getting the right angle, lighting, etc.)

Home made pierogies before boiling

After boiling and frying in olive oil

Fund Facts

We have had some folks ask how they can help with our adoption expenses.  Here is the answer to that questions, along with where we are on the financial end of things.
Please feel free to share this post with others via email or your social media account(s).

We are currently working and saving towards the rest of the overseas fees and travel expenses and are in need of a little over $3,000 to be completely funded.  (For a general listing of expenses related to our adoption, you may visit our Financial Goals page.)

If you would like to donate towards our adoption expenses, you can do so through Lifesong for Orphans where we have a fundraising page.  There are two ways to give.  Funds can be donated online or via check sent through the mail, and donations will be accepted until the adoption is complete or she is in our home.

1)  Checks can be made payable to "Lifesong for Orphans".  In the memo section of the check, you must note the family account number and our family name to assure that it goes to the correct account.  Our family account number is 4122 and the family name is Foster.  Checks can be mailed to Lifesong For Orphans, PO Box 40, Gridley, IL 61744.  100% of the money that is donated via mail will go directly to our adoption. 

2) You may also give online.  Go to www.lifesongfororphans.org/give/donate.  Under "gift preference", select "adoption funding", and under "adoption gift preference", select "family specific".  Our family account number is 4122 and the family name is Foster.  Please note that if you choose to donate online, Paypal does charge an administrative fee that will be taken our of the total donation amount.

(In following IRS guidelines, your donation is to the named non-profit organization.  The organization retains full discretion over its use, but intends to honor the donor's suggested use.  Individuals donation of $250 or more or yearly donations totaling $250 or more will receive a tax-deductible receipt.  Receipts for donations less than $250 can be requested.  Lifesong is a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization.)


If you have not given, would you consider it?

Every Dollar Makes A Difference!

If you have given already, thank you. Please know that we are grateful for your sacrifice.

Article 5

I mentioned in the previous post that we should get our Article 5 this week.  We have it, and our advocate in Poland filed it with the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy today.

Now we are waiting for the final approval from the Ministry (which is our final approval from the Polish government).

Provisional Approval

There is a story behind this.

On March 3rd, we received a pink paper from immigration.  This made me nervous because to date, no approval notices had been on pink paper.  Sure enough, I opened it to find that it was a request for more information regarding our case. :(  I was frustrated by this, feeling like this was going to be another delay in the adoption process.  I emailed our agency and patiently impatiently waited for a response.

Back track to earlier in my day... 

Something which really stuck out to me in my morning devotions that day (March 3rd) was that I needed to trust God in all areas.  Faith/ trust is necessary for pleasing Him.   When I received the "pink slip" from immigration, I could hear the echo of my devotions with the question, "Do you trust me?"  I confess that I struggled with this and argued with God about why having the approval now is how this should work.  After several minutes, I let go and chose to trust Him with the timing of this approval.

One hour later...

To my surprise, the email I received back said that it was already taken care of : Jana had been in communication with the immigration officer during the previous week to clarify some confusion regarding some of the referral information, and we were told to disregard the notice.  She was not even sure why they bothered to mail it.  Yay! (There is a big "thank you" to Jana who was working for us behind the scenes before we even knew there was a need for it.)  It is interesting, isn't it?  It is  like God knew already how it would turn out and only had that "request for information" sent to us to test me and show me that I needed to remember Who is in control here.

Six days later...

I am happy to say that we have our provisional approval!  It came in the mail today, and guess what the approval date was.  March 3rd!! Really?!  While I was stressing out over getting a seeming delay with the information request, God knew that was the very date the approval was given.  Again...maybe He wanted to see if I would trust Him?  We were told to expect this to take four to six weeks, and we received it in four weeks.  

With the exception of the week we received our official referral and worked on I-800 forms, we have spent the last three months waiting for approvals from immigration.  Now we can move on to the Article 5, which we are told we should have next week.


An update on our prayer requests from this post...

The rest of this process goes as follows:  we get the Article 5, then the final approval from the Polish government, then everything goes to the local court.   We mentioned last month that the judges may or may not issue travel dates quickly, and we were told today that it seems that lately the judges have really not been in any hurry to move forward.  Once our information gets to the local judge, we could be given travel dates in a couple weeks...or six months.  We are praying specifically for early May travel dates, and we would appreciate you joining us in specific prayer concerning this. (Our original desire was to travel by our daughter's birthday which is is a few weeks.  As often happens in the adoption process, things took longer than we hoped, so that is unlikely.) We do not have control over the timing, but we know Someone Who does! :-)