Ready for matching :)

I can hardly believe how quickly this stage has taken place.  Below is the e-mail I received earlier today:

This email is to let you know that the above family’s Dossier has been authenticated, translated, and registered with MOWA. The next time you will likely hear from me is when this family is presented with a referral.  Thanks and of course, let me know if you or the family has any questions in the meantime.


Oh wow.....while I know this much has taken time, the idea that the next step is our first introduction to our child is exciting, overwhelming, I'm not even sure I can find a word to describe it.  Real might be it.  It's real now.  It's no longer just paperwork and signatures, seals and notaries, now it's a child.  A child that God is preparing to bring into our lives.  Now, I am supposed to sleep????  Guess I should've read my e-mail earlier!

And the Journey in Africa begins.....

Good things happen when you are away from your e-mail for a few days!  Kevin and I had the DEEP Retreat this past weekend with our youth group, which was AWESOME, and also meant that I didn't check my e-mail for 3 days.  Sifting through it all this morning, I see an e-mail from Ann, our social worker - YAY!!!!!  Our paperwork was cleared in Washington D.C., came back to Grand Rapids, and was shipped out to Ethiopia on Friday 11/12.  So.....we're going to Ethiopia!  And by we I do mean our paperwork, but it is so exciting!  Our next update will be sent when our paperwork has been authenticated in country, translated, and approved by MOWA (the Ministry of Women's Affairs).

We had lunch with Mary and Charlie yesterday and we were talking about the adoption.  If we receive a referral on the short end of the waiting period, (5-6 months) that means that an amazing Ethiopian woman is pregnant with our future child at this very moment!!!!  What an amazing thing!  Please pray for her, the father, and the baby.  I cannot imagine what they will go through in choosing to give the baby up for adoption.  I pray that they will be comforted by the grace of God and know that he is always watching over them.  I pray that they will know Him and live their lives for Him.  I pray for their safety and well being.  I pray that they will know what a blessing this child will be to us and the amazing love we already feel for him/her.

More to come.... :)

Dossier complete and sent for authentication

Hi Everyone!

Just wanted to post another update to let you know where we're at now.  After we got our approval, we got our last few documents notarized and state sealed (which involved Kevin sitting at the Secretary of State for almost 3 hours because they did not have power) and dropped it off to Bethany.  They verified that everything was complete and then the paperwork was sent yesterday to Washington D.C. to be authenticated.  From there, it will be sent back to Bethany for finalization and then off to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  Once in country, it will be translated into Amharic, which is the most commonly spoken language in Ethiopia, and then we will be in the pool to be matched to a child.  So, start the countdown!!!!! :)

WE'VE BEEN APPROVED!!!!!

I can hardly sit still I am so EXCITED!!!!!  I got home from having lunch with Kevin this afternoon and when I looked in the mailbox...there it was!!!!!  By "it" I am referring to our approval for Advanced Processing of Orphan Petition from the United States Customs and Immigration Services Office.  This means that, after a few more notaries and seals, we will be sending our paperwork to Ethiopia and will begin the waiting process for a referral!!!!

Can I just say that God is SO GOOD!!!!!  We had an amazing weekend last weekend at the Ignited Youth Ministry Conference where we could feel God working.  And may I just say that Kari Jobe (look her up if you don't know who she is.....A-MAZING!) is an absolutely phenomenal Christian artist and Worship leader!  We then followed that up with an amazing Sunday filled with great messages, worship, and incredible time with out Octane small groups.  Kevin is diving into some very exciting media ministry work that will definitely "bring the heat"!!  It is amazing to see God working in our lives and the lives of those around us.  I just want to thank you all again for all your thoughts and prayers.  I can't wait to see what He has in store for us!!!

Next step.....sending the paperwork off to Addis!!!! :) :)

Appointments, appointments, APPOINTMENTS!!!! :)

We received our fingerprinting appointments today!!  Wooo hoooooo!!!  Sept. 27th is the day.  Not sure how much time will fall between the appts and being cleared by the USCIS, but hopefully things will keep moving along.  Thank you so much for all of your prayers and encouragement!!

Right now, our focus is on our friends Derek and Jesi Blaskowski who are expecting their first little baby girl this month.  So excited to meet her!  In addition, we are getting ready to kick off the school year with Crossroads, the high school ministry at our church.  Kevin and I are going to be small group leaders.  My group will be freshman girls and Kevin's will be sophomore boys.  We are really looking forward to the opportunity to be involved in this ministry.

"Greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done here!"

Progress!!! :)

Yay for movement!!!! :)  We are officially done with the home study!  It has been approved and is signed, notarized, and ready to go.  In addition, Kevin and I did some running around yesterday to get about two-thirds of our dossier paperwork ready to send.  Today we completed our immigrations paperwork and it is IN THE MAIL!  So....now we have to wait about 4-6 weeks for a fingerprinting appointment.  Once we get fingerprinted, it will take approximately 4-6 for immigrations to process and approve our file.  We will then finish all of the notaries and state seals for the rest of the dossier paperwork and our referral wait time will begin.

While we were waiting for our home study to be completed, I traveled to Shipshewana with my Mother-In-Law and crew.  Let me say WOW!  They have a LOT of stuff, and a lot of the same stuff!  As we were wandering around, I found myself gravitating toward kids books.  I found some really adorable books that I think will be great for our child! :)  I might be a little ahead of myself here, but you can never have enough books - especially ones that focus on diversity and God's love.  So, our baby book collection is started :)

Please pray for our immigrations process to move along smoothly and also for the millions of orphans in Africa who are waiting for a forever family.

As always, thank you for your prayers and support! :)

Kevin and Laura

Nothing super exciting, but an update nonetheless :)

Hi Everyone!!  Just wanted to leave a quick note about what's going on with us and the adoption process.  We are waiting for our home study to be finalized, which should hopefully be any time now.  We have both completed our 8-hour online training, which is a requirement for the process, and have a long list of suggested books and articles to keep up busy!  Our social worker has given us quite a list of names of other families who are currently in the adoption process or have completed adoptions through Ethiopia, so our resource bank keeps growing, thank you Lord!!!  All of the people that have reached out to us have been amazing!!
In addition to our own process, we are also getting involved with the Adoption and Orphan Care Ministry at our church which I am really excited about.

That's all I have for now.....more to come :)

Our first baby gift!!!!

Yay!!  We had an awesome time with my parents, my sister and her husband, and my nieces this weekend at Double JJ and we received our first baby gift!!!  My parents got us an adoption baby book!  The book allows us to track both pre- and post-adoption information and all the milestones in between.  Such a cool book to have, I am so excited to start filling it in!!!! :)

Update on the home study

We are just about finished with the home study.  We had our fourth and final meeting with Ann last Tuesday.  Now, Ann uses all the information from our visits and our formal application to write up a report to send to immigrations and Ethiopia.  Ethiopia will then use the home study as the primary tool to match us with our child.

The next step, which we will take in the next few weeks, is to finalize the home study and begin filling out all the immigrations paperwork.  In addition, we are currently completing a training series that is required for all intercountry adoption families by the Hague Organization which regulates most intercountry adoptions.

It feels more and more real every day and we are so excited to keep moving with the process!  Hopefully, we will have more information soon!!

Laura and Kevin

Our Adoption Letter

Below is the letter we sent out to family and friends:

Dear Family and Friends:

As many of you may already know, we are going to be adopting a child from Ethiopia. We are so excited about this next step in our journey together in growing our family. We have felt the calling to adopt for about 2 years now, but were waiting to hear God’s plan and timing. This past January, we discussed starting the process in 2011, then excitement pushed it to the end of this year. We attended a Discovering Adoption meeting in March, which only increased our excitement. In the beginning of May, we received an e-mail from Bethany Christian Services outlining an increase in intercountry adoption fees. We took it as a sign from God to have faith in his plans and started the process. At this point, we have requested a child under 2 years of age, with a preference of 0-12 months. We did not specify a gender, but in my heart it’s a girl. Until we receive a referral for a specific child, that’s all the detail we will have.

So, you may be wondering, why adoption? There are a few reasons we decided to adopt and also why we chose to adopt from another country. Our decision to adopt in general came as a result of a desire to help children in need. God calls us to: ‘Give justice to the poor and the orphan; uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destitute. Rescue the poor and helpless; deliver them from the grasp of evil people.’ Psalms 82:3-4 We feel that we have personally received that call. We are passionate about the opportunity to provide a safe and loving home to a child without a family. We decided to adopt from another country because we are excited and intrigued about building a cross-cultural family, and also learning about and embracing a culture different from what we know.  We have felt called to Ethiopia for these reasons and also because we will have such a tremendous support group through our family, friends, church, and our adoption agency.

As we already mentioned, we will be processing our adoption through Bethany Christian Services. They are the largest adoption agency in the United States, based out of Grand Rapids, MI. There are many steps in the process, but here’s a quick overview:

*Complete preliminary application

*Complete formal application

*Complete home study – this is where they learn all about our family

*Complete Dossier paperwork (this is translated into the native language and accompanied by the paper which describes us to the country so they may match us with a child)

*Complete immigration paperwork

*Receive a referral – this is when we know which child we will receive!!!

*Travel to Ethiopia to complete the court process to release the child

*Travel back to bring our baby home!!

Currently, we are in the home study process, which should take 6-8 weeks. From there it will take approximately 3 months to process the dossier and immigration paperwork. Our paperwork will be submitted and it will take 6-8 months to receive our referral. We will travel for the first time approximately 2 months after our referral for 2-5 days for the court process, and then a second time approximately 2 months later to bring our child home permanently. Therefore, we are looking at bringing home our child in the fall of 2011. A little longer than the typical gestation period, but well worth the wait!!

As you can imagine, we are extremely excited to share this process with you! We would love to have your support through prayers and encouragement throughout the process. We do plan to keep everyone updated as we move through the process through a blog that we have set up - http://longstreetadoption.blogspot.com. Also, here are some ways you can help:

Prayers:

*For our family and the child we will adopt

*For guidance from God in the process

*For God’s faithfulness in providing throughout and after the adoption

*For the workers in the orphanage

*For the government in Ethiopia to continue to allow intercountry adoptions

*For safe travel to and from Ethiopia

*For a “smooth” transition period for our child to the US. It will be quite a shock.

Words of Encouragement:

*During the process

*To help us through the waiting periods

*As we travel

*Once we are home with our child in the transition period

Below are some verses that we have come across and pray through:

‘And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.’ Philippians 4:19

“For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

We would like to thank each one of you for the support you have shown us already. Words cannot express how much it means to us. We are so excited to share this journey with you and are anxiously looking forward to the day we can bring our baby home to join the family!

With Love,

Kevin and Laura

Our first blog post!!

Hello and welcome to our adoption blog!!!! We have set up the blog to keep everyone posted on the process and the timeline. As we move through the steps of the adoption, you'll be the first to know!

The quick version: We are adopting through Bethany Christian Services and from Ethiopia. We have requested a child under 2 with a preference of 0-12 months. We did not specify a gender, but in my heart it's a girl :)

Here's where we are at in the process:

Today was our first home study visit. We met Ann, our case worker, and discussed the timeline for the process. It's all approximate based on each situation, but here are the guidelines:

*Home study: 6-8 weeks

*Dossier and immigration process: 3 months

*From submission of dossier to referral: 6-8 months

*From referral to travel for court date: 2 months

*Time until 2nd travel to bring baby home: 2 months

Approximate arrival of our baby: Fall 2011

We have 3 more home study visits, then Ann will write up the documentation to send along with our dossier paperwork. The documentation basically tells Ethiopia all about us so that they can match a child to us. The next 2 visits will be with Kevin and I individually, then the last visit will be together.

We are so excited to share this journey with you!!! :) Thank you all so much for your love and support!!

More to come!!!!