We completed our first homestudy visit last night. We had individual interviews about our childhood relationships and how we feel we will be with our children in comparison. Then she had to inspect the house to make sure we had all of our toxic material and medicines locked away. The only safety issues we have to fix before she is returns is removing my lovely knife rack on the wall in the kitchen. I have to put the knives in a drawer. They apparently can't be in plain view to the children. Although, it will be easier for them to get them out of a drawer then off that rack!! This is a minor fix and certainly no big deal. She told me about one family who had an open circular stairway and they had to put up a railing on the entire thing. That would be a costly fix. Praise the Lord for small favors.
Speaking of favors from the Lord, we had to pay the first half of our homestudy fee on this visit and I had almost the entire amount...just a little bit short. Anyway, Wednesday night a dear friend donated money toward our adoption. Soo..I had enough money to completely cover this visit. Thank you to our dear precious friend ( you know who you are!!) and to the Lord.
Our next visit will be February 15th and the final visit February 18th (our 4th anniversary). In the meantime, we have 10 hours of parent training to complete. We are going today to get our police clearance and apply for our passports. Next week, we have to go get all of our blood tests run, checking for every sickness you can think of!!!! There are numerous other papers and details to get so I won't bore you with those details. Soon as we have the homestudy complete, I think it will be a bunch of hurry up and wait.
Please continue to pray for God's guidance in our lives! I keep reading other blogs from families adopting in Ukraine and they are having quite a time with a new rule about needing Interpol clearance before getting to bring home their children! Please pray for the families over there as some of them have some hard choices to make about waiting it out in Ukraine for 40 days or returning home for work and waiting. I can't imagine how heartbreaking it would be to have to tell my children I have to leave for awhile and can't take them with me. Anyway, please pray!
Friday, January 29, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Update
Our first home study visit is coming up this Thursday. The meeting is suppose to last 3 to 4 hours. Our caseworker, Amanda, will interview both Jeff and me separately and then together. She gave us a checklist of safety issues we have to make sure we have in our home. I am trying to figure out why I need to put plug covers into my electrical outlets when I am adopting children that will be able to take them out. I also need to put safety locks on our cabinets. Can't a 6 to 11 year old open those?
Hopefully we can be completed with the home study by the end of February or mid-March. After our Thursday visit, we will have two more meetings. If we can get all the paperwork completed and all the information they need gathered, then we should be on target.
During the home study, we have to complete 10 hours of parenting classes, gather lots of document related to our lives, get our passports and apply for clearance through immigration to bring the children into America. To meet our intended timeline, we need to have all of that completed by May at the latest.
Please keep us in your prayers. It is always nerve wrecking when you have your life inspected!
Hopefully we can be completed with the home study by the end of February or mid-March. After our Thursday visit, we will have two more meetings. If we can get all the paperwork completed and all the information they need gathered, then we should be on target.
During the home study, we have to complete 10 hours of parenting classes, gather lots of document related to our lives, get our passports and apply for clearance through immigration to bring the children into America. To meet our intended timeline, we need to have all of that completed by May at the latest.
Please keep us in your prayers. It is always nerve wrecking when you have your life inspected!
Monday, January 11, 2010
Encouragement
God is so good to send us encouragement through our friends. After I sent our emails letting our friends know what we are doing and asking for their help in spreading the word on our fundraisers, we receive several precious emails. One email in particular touched our hearts so much that even my husband was almost in tears. Our friend, Sophia in Kansas City, wrote us to tell us that she was taking our email to her ladies group and bought something through our online mall. She also showed our email to her teenage son. After reading our email he reached in his pocket and handed her money to give us for our adoption. My eyes are welling up with tears as I type this post. When I read her email, I could not contain the tears. I feel so encouraged that we are doing the right thing and that God is going to provide exactly what we need through precious people like Sophia and her son as well as the other wonderful people who have emailed us. God loves my future children more than I ever will and I know He is going to take care of the details in ways I can never imagine.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
The Next Step!
First, let me share that we have decided that we want to adopt 2 siblings. Our hope is to get a sister and brother between the ages of 6 to 11. Individual children are sometimes available in Ukraine, but most often the children have siblings.
We finally have found the agency that is going to complete our homestudy. I am so excited. They are local to us in Murfreesboro, and we met with them today. Our first home visit is scheduled for February 11th. Apparently this first visit will last 3 hours!!! They will meet with each of us seperately for a personal interview as well as check our house for certain safety issues such as fire alarms and carbon monoxide detectors. The quicker we complete all our paperwork ,parent training and lots of fingerprinting the sooner the home study is completed.
After speaking with our placing agency, Lifeline, we found out that we could and probably will have our children home by or before Christmas of this year!! This is much sooner than I anticipated, but we are very excited about it. What does this mean? The fundraising has to be our main priority. Some of the fees we ,kind of, pay as we go at certain parts of the process, but by the time we get our appointment to go to Ukraine, we have to have the full amount of monies raised.
The most urgent need right now is the money we need for the homestudy. We need $1950 by our February 11th home visit. We have a little over half of that right now. We are trusting God that the rest of this money will come in before that time.
We have multiple fundraisers on the schedule. We signed up with Global Re-Source Funding. If we collect empty ink cartridges, cell phones, gps, digital cameras and laptops and send them in to be recycled, they will give us money to go toward our adoption. We are planning a donation only bbq dinner in February or March, we will invite people to come to a free dinner with the hopes of collecting donations. Jeff is scheduling at least one cooking class in February or March. All of the catering jobs we get between now and the adoption will go toward the adoption fund. In early April, we will have a yard sale and will be accepting donations of items that people would normally send to Goodwill. We are also posting items on Amazon to sell. We will also be sending letters to our family and others to let them know what we are doing and how they can help if they feel led by God to do so. Once our homestudy is completed, we will apply for grants. As a last option, we can apply for no or low interest loans. Our total need is 36,000 dollars.
If you have a desire to help us, you can do this by collecting ink cartridges and cell phones from people you know. If you have sellable items for our yard sale that you would like to donate, we would appreciate those items as well. We can arrange to pick up any items you want to donate or arrange for shipping of recyclable items. Of course, monetary donations are welcome. We have an account set up under Chip-In...look at one of our previous posts to find the link.
Thank you for reading! We will keep you posted!
We finally have found the agency that is going to complete our homestudy. I am so excited. They are local to us in Murfreesboro, and we met with them today. Our first home visit is scheduled for February 11th. Apparently this first visit will last 3 hours!!! They will meet with each of us seperately for a personal interview as well as check our house for certain safety issues such as fire alarms and carbon monoxide detectors. The quicker we complete all our paperwork ,parent training and lots of fingerprinting the sooner the home study is completed.
After speaking with our placing agency, Lifeline, we found out that we could and probably will have our children home by or before Christmas of this year!! This is much sooner than I anticipated, but we are very excited about it. What does this mean? The fundraising has to be our main priority. Some of the fees we ,kind of, pay as we go at certain parts of the process, but by the time we get our appointment to go to Ukraine, we have to have the full amount of monies raised.
The most urgent need right now is the money we need for the homestudy. We need $1950 by our February 11th home visit. We have a little over half of that right now. We are trusting God that the rest of this money will come in before that time.
We have multiple fundraisers on the schedule. We signed up with Global Re-Source Funding. If we collect empty ink cartridges, cell phones, gps, digital cameras and laptops and send them in to be recycled, they will give us money to go toward our adoption. We are planning a donation only bbq dinner in February or March, we will invite people to come to a free dinner with the hopes of collecting donations. Jeff is scheduling at least one cooking class in February or March. All of the catering jobs we get between now and the adoption will go toward the adoption fund. In early April, we will have a yard sale and will be accepting donations of items that people would normally send to Goodwill. We are also posting items on Amazon to sell. We will also be sending letters to our family and others to let them know what we are doing and how they can help if they feel led by God to do so. Once our homestudy is completed, we will apply for grants. As a last option, we can apply for no or low interest loans. Our total need is 36,000 dollars.
If you have a desire to help us, you can do this by collecting ink cartridges and cell phones from people you know. If you have sellable items for our yard sale that you would like to donate, we would appreciate those items as well. We can arrange to pick up any items you want to donate or arrange for shipping of recyclable items. Of course, monetary donations are welcome. We have an account set up under Chip-In...look at one of our previous posts to find the link.
Thank you for reading! We will keep you posted!
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