Christmas Picture

Merry Christmas a few days late, everyone! We took this on Christmas morning at my parent's house. Ali was feeling a little under the weather, but we managed to get a smiling picture. Christmas was a fun day for us, and crazy. Two other families with young toddlers joined my parents and my brother and sister-in-law for a wild day. I love celebrating with a crowd, though!

I've been dreaming a lot lately about what it will be like when we are a family of four...who knows, maybe next year our Christmas picture will have another child in it! I am content, though, in the waiting. It's been so much work just to get to this point, but I'm so grateful to God that He has given me peace in the waiting. I'm sure a lot of that has to do with your prayers for us. I know He will provide the resources to complete this adoption, the wisdom we need to raise our two kids (maybe more in the future), and His never-ending presence. I was reminded again this Christmas that Jesus is Emmanuel: God-with-us. I know that's "old news" to so many of us, myself included, but wow...I mean, Jesus is with me all the time, wherever I go. So I remind myself to praise Him, and to make my praise glorious for Him, dancing, singing, leaping, praising all day long!

URGH...Revisions Necessary

Hello All who are patiently waiting with us in this adoption process. I went out to check the mail this afternoon on this blissfully warm day in December and saw an envelope from none other than USCIS. Unfortunately, I saw yellow paper peeking at me from the clear little slot in the envelope where our address was. Surely, I thought to myself, they do not put our approval on such paper. I was right. We have officially been told by USCIS that our homestudy lacks one thing: our homestudy preparer's signature with a declaration that she wrote all the information in our homestudy "under penalty of perjury under United States law that..." and then it lists a bunch of fancy language that has to be written verbatim into our homestudy (which, by the way, is already in our homestudy, just not all fancy and at the end with the signature). Craziness.

But the good news is that our file is actually in the process of being reviewed by USCIS. This change shouldn't take too long, and we'll hopefully get our US approval very soon!

Big Big News

So...we're still waiting to receive our USCIS approval (hopefully sometime next month), but our file was finished being translated, and yesterday, after I called our case worker with an update, she told us our file was finished being translated and was at an orphanage. First, I was surprised because originally we were going to adopt through the central authority in Colombia (their child welfare equivalent), but now it looks like it's a better fit for us to adopt from a private orphanage in Cali, Colombia called Chiquitines. Well...our case worker told us that once our USCIS approval was in our file, the board of directors at the orphanage would review the file. To our great surprise and delight, the board reviewed our file before that approval. We were contacted by our agency today and sent a letter TODAY notifying us that we are officially accepted...we're just going to fax our USCIS approval once we receive it! How cool is that? So, we are "officially waiting." I cannot tell you how excited we are. It's still a long journey of waiting, but we're approved. Now, to pray for patience some more...I'm off! Check out the link...on the word Chiquitines above...if you want to see the orphanage where we will meet our child for the first time!

Heroes Commentary

So...in my blog reading, I came across this interesting take on Heroes. Read and comment if you want to!

http://www.racialicious.com/2008/11/03/the-racialicious-roundtable-for-heroes-37/

For myself...I am constantly reminded of how much I take for granted...I, as a white girl, am always represented in the TV shows I watch, movies I see, books I read, etc. and I don't need to worry about whether or not I will be portrayed favorably--there are enough of my demographic represented that even if there is a villainous white chick, there are plenty of white "heroes" to make up for it. It makes me again dedicated to more critical viewing. It's my job to be a catalyst for change; I know I'm not anywhere near the positive agent for change that I would like to be, but I'm learning (hopefully)...and I want our home to be a place where we discuss these issues.

I Couldn't Help Myself...

...I just called USCIS (Citizenship and Immigration Services) to find out about the status of our application. People keep asking where we are in the process: We have all of our paperwork in Colombia as of October 3rd. It is being translated and should be finished soon...but an official in Colombia cannot look at our file and approve us until the US Government approves us to adopt internationally. So we're waiting. We're going to be doing a lot of waiting during this process. I was hoping USCIS would be quicker, but they are telling us 90 days at this point to process our application...90 days from the receipt date: September 17th...90 days is December 16th. That is so far away...and is it 90 work days or 90 days. I counted 90 days. It better be 90 days. After 90 days, I'll call USCIS again, at which point they probably won't be done, but at least then they will assign us a case worker to review our homestudy. Hopefully they will not need any more information...then they will mail us our approval letter, titled the 797C, which I will fax to our country director. She will send it to Colombia, just in time for the holidays....so our file will most likely not even begin the review process in Colombia until after Christmas (and by that I mean mid-January), where it is estimated to take another 90 days to review and hopefully approve. Aaahhh. I am so glad I didn't know all this BEFORE we started. It's a LOT harder than I thought and a LOT harder than being pregnant...but no one knows except other adoptive parents. They all have a lot of sympathy for us at the moment b/c they understand the struggles of doing this paperwork stuff and then just waiting for governments. Imagine waiting for the government to tell you when you could deliver your baby and not knowing how much longer it would be until you give birth. That's about what it feels like. I know we haven't even really begun the official "waiting" period. God knows how much He'll be teaching me about patience. Aaahhh. Not doing so hot now.

Adoption Updates

Several praises:
1. Our dossier was sent to Colombia on October 3rd for translations. It is not complete yet as we are still waiting for US Government approval. Once it is complete, the Colombian government will review it and either approve us or ask us for more information. (You can start praying now that our file will be acceptable!!!)
2. We have been assigned a fingerprint appointment at USCIS (Citizen and Immigration Services) for October 14th...a necessary step for government approval.

Several prayer requests:
1. Please pray that we will receive our US approval in a timely manner.
2. We are in the process of applying for grants.
3. Pray for the families in Colombia now, as the court system is on strike and all adoptions have halted at the moment...keep some families in limbo in Colombia with their children. I'm sure they are stressed out wondering when they will be able to finalize their adoptions and return home and wondering how long their finances will hold out as they are in Colombia indefinitely.

Fun Picture of Aliana

First Birthday Pictures

So here are some pictures of Ali enjoying her presents and cupcake at her birthday party!

On the adoption front...guess what I'm mailing today? Our completed dossier documents (with the exception of our US government approval). Our program coordinator is going to send our documents to Colombia to be translated (after she looks them over...please let them all be correct!!!), and then we'll just fax our approval from the US when it comes. So, we are really close to being done with the majority of the work we have to do...next steps: waiting, reading, praying, enjoying Ali and our family and friends, waiting, applying for grants, saving money...lots to do while we settle in for the long wait for our second child!

Birthdays & Coffee Trucks

There is an ice cream truck that drives by our house every late afternoon. Our next door neighbor buys one for her and her dog, and on nice days they sit in the yard to enjoy the treat together. Very sweet. I just think in my head I would never spend money buying ice cream for a dog, and then I wish the ice cream truck were a coffee truck. I would wait everyday and spend a whole lot of money on a nice hazelnut latte. How awesome would that be?

Well...I can't get that wish, but I do get to enjoy my beautiful daughter all day long on her first birthday. Can you believe it? I am so grateful to God for her and for the joy she brings us. I am remembering back to trying to get pregnant a lot these days and comparing it in my mind to our adoption. Both have required so much trust, more than I can come up with on my own. I am praying so much that God will help me remember that He is in control of everything. As I pray, I am remembering my disappointment at not being able to get pregnant on our own and then going through fertility treatments and wondering if we'd ever get to hold a baby and call her our own. God didn't have to, but in His mercy He allowed us to get pregnant. I vividly remember the joy of finally holding Ali in our arms one year ago; I know I will experience joy again when we hold our next child in our arms. I am praising God for so much today...for His son, Jesus, for helping us have faith, for being sovereign, even over our small lives, for His faithfulness to us, for our daughter, Aliana, and for the child we do not know yet! I can't wait to meet him. (or her.) :)

Well-dressed, Appropriate, and Pleasant?

So our dossier instructions say that in the photos we submit, we do not need to be in formal attire, but we should be "well dressed, appropriate and pleasant-looking." What do you all think...is this an okay photo to send. I keep trying to get a good one when we're (semi) dressed up for church, but I'm making the mistake of having our teens take the picture...so we've got a bunch of fuzzy, head cut-off, eyes-closed, Ali crying pictures. This is the best picture we have so far of us looking "pleasant," but do you think we're "well dressed" enough?

Done (With One Stage)

We are officially done with our homestudy and our psych evaluation and all of our other paperwork...we've sent everything to various states to be apostilled/authenticated (a necessary step to make our papers "legal" overseas). We've had some bumps on the road, but we're done with one huge step. Our social worker mentioned that we have 3 hoops to jump through: the homestudy, the US government, and then Colombia. After that, we'll be waiting, and waiting, and waiting. (Can you tell which part I'm dreading?) We applied with USCIS (the government) on Friday, so who knows when we'll hear from them, but our Colombia program director said that once everything else in our dossier is done, she'll send it to Colombia to begin translations and we'll just send the 171H (approval from US) when it gets done. It makes me feel better that at least our paperwork can get to Colombia even if the US takes a while...which hopefully it won't.

Fun with Friends

I wanted to practice adding pictures...so here is one of Ali with some friends from our neighborhood! Yay...it worked. (For those of you who don't know, I would normally have to ask Pete to help me, but tonight I did this all by myself.) We'll post more pics from our summer later.

Tuesday, Pete and I have the last step (hopefully) to being done with our psych profile. We have to take a personality inventory to make sure we're normal people. We met with the psychologist again on Friday, and he's adding to our report. We still haven't heard about our homestudy yet. We're hoping that will be done by the end of this new week, as well.

I'll Probably Laugh Later...

...when we encounter a bigger setback, which I'm sure we will, and I look back on our setbacks of the past 2 days and think how small they were. But right now I'm stressed and worried. It's so hard to remember that we really don't have control of our families (even if we feel like we do!). Thank goodness for my friends this afternoon for being an encouragement and a listening ear. Hanging out with them really made my day.

Our setbacks so that you can pray with us: Our homestudy needs a lot more detailed information and our psychological evaluation needs MOUNTAINS more information, including assessments. We submitted those two things to our placement agency, and they have informed us that Colombia is getting very particular and wants TONS of information on these two documents (more so than in the past). So, off to meet again with social worker and psychologist for the same information. Craziness and stress, especially since we thought we were good to go yesterday so we notarized all our other paperwork to be sent to be authenticated. I think we might just do that anyway and just wait for the homestudy and pysch eval to come later. We're at this point just hoping that none of our paperwork is 6 months old by the time it gets to Colombia b/c then we'll have to turn right and around and renew everything. Aaahhh.

Reluctance

So, I have been putting off posting because I REALLY wanted my next post to be titled "Done with our Homestudy." But, some good friends of mine threatened to kick me off their links on their blogs (horror of horror) if I didn't post soon. So here it is. We are NOT done with our homestudy, yet....but it is very close. Maybe by the end of this week we'll be able to put something up with the title I really want to see. By the way, my friends were just kidding about kicking me off their sites. They would never do that! :)

In reality, our homestudy rough draft is done and we are approved. We are just waiting to have the official copy in our hands. After that it is on to approval from the US & Colombia. We are almost done paper-chasing.

For prayer...after we have our official homestudy in our hands, we will be applying for various grants. Please pray that God provides for this adoption financially. We are trusting him and know beyond a doubt that he will provide, but it's still a little bit staggering to look at what we will need!

Paper Chasing

For those who want to know....here's where we are in the paper chasing stage. (To explain a little bit, there are three "hoops" to jump through: the local agency homestudy, the Colombian government dossier requirements, and US Citizen and Immigration Services requirements.)

Right now: To complete our homestudy--
*Pete's autobiography (it will probably be written on our vacation!)
*Still have to take a current family photo
*Finish up one last education course
*Our medical forms (Pete & Em)...waiting for our doctors to finish them
***We should be done with our homestudy very soon!!!

Right now: To complete our Colombian dossier--
*Too much to put down, really, there's a list of about 20 documents, all of which have to be notarized and appostilled (which is basically a notary of a notary that costs $10 a page! I've read they justify that exorbitant cost by saying that is what it takes to make our documents legal documents in another country.)

To complete our filing with USCIS--
*Waiting on our homestudy to submit our initial application.
*Then we wait to receive fingerprint appointments and clearance.
*Then we wait for our piece of paper: titled 171H (fancy, huh?) which we have to send with everything else to be appostilled!

So, the theme of this post is insanity and waiting. I think the two are going to go hand in hand for a long time. I was talking to the program director today for Colombia and, for the millionth time verifying that we will probably be waiting 2 years after all our papers are in. I really, really, really don't know how I'll cope. That's a LONG time. I keep going back to prayer and faith in God. I can't doubt now what I know He is calling us to do.

During that wait time, my newest scheme is to audition for Deal or No Deal and win 1 million dollars. I think I have a chance. :) Think of the great human interest appeal for ratings...what would you do with a million dollars, Emily? Oh, adopt our child and I think we'd give the rest to re-model the Lighthouse. I'm actually fairly serious about this idea. I can act ditzy so I can get on the show!!!

Give Me Your Eyes

Why am I always so tempted to be selfish all the time? I am in constant need of reminders about where I should focus my thoughts, energies, dreams, and goals...this song reminded me of it tonight
http://youtube.com/watch?v=VWIpQuGwSyQ&feature=related
and this verse reminded me this morning:
Matthew 16:24-26
Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?"

The Home Visit

Our social worker came to our house Friday. I actually didn't go crazy with cleaning. We just made sure the house was normally clean and pick-upped...not crazily clean. :) I was actually really proud of how "chill" I was. Good thing, too, because it's not like our social worker did a white glove test or anything. She just walked through the house and then we talked about how our days normally went. It was a good meeting. We just have one more in two weeks and then we're done...except for making sure all our paperwork is in our file. We're just waiting on Pete's birth certificate and our letters of recommendation! Amazing how quickly it went. I'm just praying that assembling our dossier is the same b/c I know our referral wait time probably will seem like FOREVER.

One quick praise...we turned in our passport applications/renewals last week and we got them TODAY. Can you believe it? 2 weeks for our renewals and Ali's brand new passport.

Fears

Psalm 34:4
I sought the LORD, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.

I've heard people say that the paper-chase of adoption can be considered the 1st trimester of an adoption...I remember being scared and nervous that something would happen to Ali during my first trimester of pregnancy, and strangely, I'm nervous again now for our second child. But there are so many more unknowns. It is taking, by far, more prayer, more trust, more EVERYTHING to keep my eyes on God and trust His will and timing over the entire adoption process. I'm scared about how long we'll have to wait for our child--I wonder how I'll cope during the wait, I'm nervous about being approved by the Colombian government, I'm anxious about all the paperwork that has to come back from a million different places before we can even say we're done paper-chasing, I worry about the finances of the adoption...aahhh. The reason I post all of this is to ask you to pray for us (for me mostly...Pete is amazingly level headed about all of life, thank goodness!) Will you ask God to keep me dedicated to Him and seeking His face through this entire process? I desperately need to trust Him. I KNOW I can't do this without Him.

In other news...our home visit is tomorrow. I'll post about how that goes.

Our Homestudy

We're currently in the midst of our homestudy! We have had two meetings with our social worker, and we have three more to go, plus a LOT of papers to gather. On our fridge right now I have a to do list: medical appointments/forms, application & personal bios, financial statement, life insurance (yeah, we should get some...kind of required for this), take family photo (in nice clothes...which for those who know me...it'll have to be a Sunday), get driving records, insurance affadavit, continue with our education courses (one down, 5 to go).

And that's only for the homestudy...wait'll you see the list for our dossier for Colombia! :)

The Beginning

Lamentaciones 3:22-24

El gran amor del Señor nunca se acaba, y su compasión jamás se agota. Cada mañana se renuevan sus bondades ¡muy grande es su fidelidad ! Por tanto, digo : «El Señor ese todo lo que tengo. ¡En él esperaré ! »

Pete and I have decided to begin an adoption. We couldn't be more excited about growing our family! We want to be able to keep those who want to updated, and we also want to be able to have something to share with our son or daughter someday when they ask to hear their story. We can't wait to share it over and over with him or her!

God's faithfulness is great...even in the midst of sorrow, he brings joy. The sorrow a mommy and daddy must feel when they cannot raise their child, the sorrow a child must feel while they wait in an orphanage for a forever family, the way they miss their mommy or daddy, our sorrow that we won't be able to be there for every single minute of our child's early life...but we truly believe that God can redeem every situation. Out of sorrow, he can create joy. We enter into our adoption process praising God for miracles, but also praying for the day when He will wipe every tear from our eyes and we will rejoice in His physical presence with us.

So, be excited with us...pray with us...we love you all and most of all...to our baby...we love you so much already, even before we know your name, and we can't wait to hold you in our arms. We're praying for you! Love, your Mommy and Daddy and big sister, Ali!