Finally Updating!

Sorry everyone! I confess I haven't done a good job keeping this blog updated. We've been very busy especially with the end of the school year approaching. We promise we'll do better. There really isn't much to add and that's what makes it so hard. However, I have done some reading and have found some good bits of information that I will share with you after this brief update.

We are currently still waiting on our Orphan Petition from the Immigration Office in Chicago. They are currently running about 4 months behind, but could jump up a few months at any time. Until we recieve this document, we are pretty much on hold. Once this document is returned we can move forward and send all of our papers to Poland. In the mean time, we are getting our finances in order and are applying for some grants and financial aid now that our home study is completed.

Applying for grants is a lot more difficult than we thought it would be. The forms are so comprehensive and they all want some type of testimonial or biography and require just enough "different" information that we really can't use the same one. However, we won't complain because these grants are the reason we felt we could take this big step called "adoption." Please continue to pray for us in the areas of faith, trust, and finances. There have been many moments when we have questioned ourselves wondering if we made the right choice. But we know that this is what God wants us to do and are trying to remember everyday to let it go and let God!

In the mean time, we've been reading the devotional book called "Couples Who Long For Children" by Ginger Garrett. One particular entry gave us a new out look on adoption. It said

"God has the right to give us children through any number of ways, and all are equally His and equally gifts from Him. We do not 'own' a child because he or she developed in our womb. Each child is a gift from God."

Thank you again for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. It means so much!

Home Study Complete!

We can finally say that our "Paper Chase" phase of the this process is almost over! Our home study is almost finished! We are waiting for our completed documents! This means that we can finally start applying for some grants and really get this process going. Our next step is to await the return of our Citizen Immigration document. The propsed time for this is approximately 5 months. Once we receive this back, we can turn in our dossier to Poland. Then we begin our "official" wait time for a child. Thank you again to all of you who have been so positive and who are praying for us! We appreciate it and love you all! We will do better in keeping this updated! It's been a very busy month!

Our New Look!

We hope you like our new design! We saw it on "Final Sense" and fell in love with it! How precious is this beautiful child?! We are still trying to make all our fun little elements fit onto this new template.

On the other hand, I want to bring you up to date on our new "developments!" We are still plugging away on paper work and other specifics. However, we did receive our notices in the mail last week to go for our fingerprinting in Naperville (@ the Immigration Office) this week! So we're making a nice little trip out of it and will spend the night with my brother and sister-n-law in Bourbonnais! We're excited about seeing our 4 year old niece (Kalyne) and 4 month old nephew (Caleb) again!

As we mentioned before, Immigration Services are behind by 7 months, but we did get our request for fingerprints rather quickly! Wouldn't it be nice if their moving a little quicker?!

A positive twist is that we are feeling pretty good about everything despite the long time frame. We had such a great morning at church with our church family asking us how things are going and giving us a plethora of encouragement! Thank you so much! You can't imagine how your comments make such a difference in our attitudes towards the situation. Thank you also for all your prayers. They are making a difference!

God Bless!

Latest Update!

Since our last update, we have had several more developments in our "adoption saga." To begin with, we want to thank all of our friends and family who are supporting and encouraging us. We feel so blessed! God has also provided us with new friends, whom we've had the privilege of getting to together with, who are traveling down a journey similar to our own! We have also had contact with other couples adopting internationally, which has also been extremely helpful! God is good!

As far as our updates go, we are still very pleased with our social worker and adoption agency. Our home study meetings are continuing and will probably be completed sometime in April. We are thankful for our home study agency Lutheran Social Services in that they are providing us with a very thorough training/counseling/supportive experience.

Our agency has moved us along the process as fast as possible, but I do feel we have hit a wall. We have turned our CIS document (Orphan Petition) into Immigration Services, which is great! Usually this document takes about 3-4 months to process. However, Immigration Services is behind by 7 months and unless they speed up, we won't be able turn our dossier into Poland until September. This part isn't so great. We were hoping to have our dossier in by June so as you can tell, this is much later then we were originally expecting. Our dossier needs to be turned into the country before our wait time begins for a child referral. Our referral time can take anywhere from 4-12 months.

If it really does take Immigration 7 months, then our time frame now (best scenario) is as follows:
March (08)-Turn in CIS document
September (08)-Receive CIS approval and turn in dossier
January (09)-Receive child referral
February (09)-Travel to Poland

It will undoubtedly go faster if our document is processed faster!

Please continue to keep us in your prayers and thank you for your continued support! We love you all!

The First Waiting Game

Not much has happened in the past several weeks, but we did send in our 38 page agreement a week ago. We are waiting to here back from agency about what our next step will be. I'm hoping it will be to send in our CIS document (Citizens Immigration Services) and begin work on our Dossier (our papers that will go over to Poland). We are itching to get the CIS turned in because it can take 3 months or more to process. In other words our adoption is pretty much on hold until that document gets returned to us!

We have started our home study and are excited that we are at least doing something substantial as far as getting this adoption underway. We really like our social worker and are currently working on some more adoption training which we find to be very beneficial.

We cherish each one of your prayers and praise God everyday for his never ending love and support. God's Blessings!