Yesterday we learned that our Home Study has been approved by the state! We were told, "it never happens this fast" and this wasn't the first time we've heard this! Many times paperwork has moved unusually quick. We are very encouraged at each step and even more excited!

At this point our whole packet will go to Washington DC for approval and then on to Ethiopia for translation and a court date. This is where we need your prayers. As we have said before, we hope to get in before the courts close for the rainy season. So far, they seem to be staying open longer than usual and we are hopeful that we will receive a court date before the end of July! Of course that could mean that we travel in early September, which means I should start packing immediately!

One more step this week is our appointment with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). We go to Denver on Thursday with more paperwork and need to get our special fingerprinting done for $80 per person! Thankfully, the charge is not per finger.
We are very grateful and humbled by the outpouring of support, both in prayer and in financial help. So far, we have raised and covered over one-third of the expenses towards this adoption. We are very encouraged by this. We have more to go, and we remain faithful that God will see this through. Please email us if you would like to receive a copy of our fund-raising letter and a picture of the children.

In case you noticed the name change on our blog today, do not be concerned! We took the names of the children off of the website because we learned that the Ethiopian government 'frowns' on their children's names used online to raise money. They also do not appreciate the photos online, that is why we mailed photos rather than posting them online. We are still anxiously waiting to bring the same two children home and they become more a part of our family every day.

Tags: adoption

When we started this website we intended to post regularly about all the exciting family/adoption news in our life. That was about three weeks ago and all we have done since is paperwork! Here are some updates on our process in adopting from Ethiopia.

The reason for the rush:

The simple answer is that we have the pictures of two adorable children on our refrigerator, in my purse, on Xavier’s desk, computer and telephone and basically always in front of us, and we want to go get them ASAP!

The other answer is that the rainy season in Ethiopia is fast approaching. This period in Ethiopia can be two to three months long and involves such heavy rain that the power is frequently out. With the power on and off much of the time the courts simply shut down. We don’t know when they will close or how long they will stay closed as it varies each year. If we can get our paperwork to Ethiopia before the courts close we have a good chance at traveling in September or October. If we don’t make it in before court closure we could wait until November or even longer. After this week the paperwork will be out of our hands and we will be praying that it moves quickly through Washington D.C and Immigration, arrives in Ethiopia to be translated and we get a court date before the courts close. We will not be in Ethiopia for the court date but that is the date that the kids could become officially part of our family! We are looking forward to that day!

Also in the last few weeks our wonderful social worker worked incredibly hard to get our home study done for us. She spent four and a half hours with us one Saturday! I don’t know how she felt but we were exhausted!! The big news is that our Home study is complete! We signed it today! Reading the fifteen pages was a little like reading a book about ourselves and a little strange. It was also kind of humorous to read another's perception of us!

Now that we are done with the paperwork we are focusing more attention on raising support. We have been overwhelmed by the kind encouragement we have received from friends and family. We are also incredibly grateful for the support that has come in through Kingdom Kids Ministry. We are truly blessed by the generosity of so many! We do not yet have a list of contributors so we cannot thank each of you personally – yet! Please know that we are extremely appreciative of your support! Now that our homestudy is complete, and the dossier is almost finished we are excited to be two really big steps closer to bringing these children home!

Tags:

• According to a 2004 survey, in the Southern region where our children came from, none of the inhabitants have access to potable water
• One in ten children in Ethiopia dies before their first birthday
• One in six children dies before their fifth birthday
• 44% of the population of Ethiopia is under 15 years old
• 60% of children in Ethiopia are stunted because of malnutrition
• The median age in Ethiopia is 17.8 years
• 1.5 million people are infected with AIDS (6th highest in the world)
• 720,000 children have been orphaned by AIDS alone, and there are 4.6 million orphans in Ethiopia
• Per capita, Ethiopia receives less aid than any country in Africa
• In the 90s the population (3%) grew faster than food production (2.2%)
• Drought struck the country from 2000-2002 (first year no crops, second year no seeds, third year no animals)
• Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school. 88% will never attend secondary school
• Coffee prices (Ethiopia’s only major export) fell 40-60% from 1998-2002
• Ethiopia’s doctor to children ratio is 1 to 24,000
• In 1993, after 30 long years of war, Eritrea broke from Ethiopia and became an independent nation leaving Ethiopia landlocked without any major seafaring ports

Tags: