It Finally Came!

Hallelujah! We can't believe it! Just last Thursday (right before we left for Louisville) a surprise showed up in our mailbox! We received the APPROVAL LETTER for our orphan petition! This is the document from the Chicago Immigration Office that we thought we wouldn't get for at least 4 more months. It's the oddest thing because their website still says they're processing orphan petitions from November 24 (ours was March). It literally showed up out of the blue! This was the piece of our dossier that we had to have before we sent it into Poland. (Dossier-papers that tell Poland all about us and our intentions to adopt children from their country.)

So what does this all mean for us? It means that whenever we're ready, we can send everything into Poland so that we can be matched with our child(ren)! We still have a few things left to do however. We thought we had 4 months to go so we weren't in a big hurry with anything. We have all the documents we need, but now they all have to be made official by sending them into the state to be apostilled. We're not sure how long this will take but are fairly confident that it won't be more than a few weeks.

We are hoping to have our dossier turned into Poland by late September or early October. Once that is turned in, we could wait anywhere from 4 months to 12 months to be matched with our child(ren). Because we are not being "to picky" about the ages or sex of our child(ren), we're expecting it to go much faster than 12 months. We're hoping to travel in early spring of 09, but we'll just have to wait and see!

Thanks again for all your love, prayers, and friendship! We would be lost without you! God's Blessings!

Still Waiting!

Hello Everyone!

First off, we are setting a search party out for "Polishmom." She left us such a sweet comment, but we have no way of contacting her! Polishmom, if you're out there, we would love to get in contact with you! We have lots of questions! Please e-mail Melanie at mkochersperger@galesburg205.org.

On another note, we just have to say that this summer is going by fast. But nonetheless, we are having a lot of fun! We are really working on fixing up our house (painting, new landscaping, etc.) because we know once our children arrive, we'll have a lot less time. Things are going relatively smoothly, but there is still so much more to do before school start up again! God has also blessed us with some great friends. New friends and old friends alike have been making our wait so much easier! Praise God for friends!

Not much new news on the adoption front, we are still waiting on Chicago Immigration Services and currently it looks like they're about 4 months behind. We are taking advantage of this time and are currently working on turning in some grant applications. The money is perhaps the scariest part of this entire adoption process. However, it wouldn't be called having "faith" if God didn't give us a reason to use it! We have also been working on our dossier for Poland. It is coming together well and should be ready to go once we get approval from CIS!

Once again, thank you for all your support, friendships and prayers! We love you!

Some Progress!

We never realized how hard this would be to keep updated! It's hard to do when not a lot changes. We do have some progress however! Just a few days ago I checked the USCIS website to see how they were progressing on our Orphan Petition. Good News! They are now processing applications from Nov. 25. Ours is a March processing date, so they are finally getting closer. Hopefully they can keep up this momentum so that we can get our dossier turned in this fall.

During the wait we're trying to keep up the excitement, so Melanie is reading none stop. We just received a devotional from Shoahannah's Hope and are really enjoying it! There is an article in it from some parents who adopted overseas and they wrote a neat little phrase.
"You're not waiting on man, you're waiting on God!" It helps put things in prospective!

Also, we found another couple adopting from Poland! Like our friends the Baxter's , this couple is getting close to the end as well! We feel so blessed to have found them! It has been neat sharing experiences. To check out Jeff's and Debbie's blog click on the link!

www.adoptingfrompoland.blogspot.com

Thank you again for your love and support! We appreciate you! God's Blessings!