Where we are now!

We've made a big step since the last "where we are." Our home study visit was this past Saturday morning! It was a great experience, and we continue to be thankful for our assigned adoption social worker. The girls were excited about meeting her, and this definitely helped them realize what the process is about and where we are with everything.

While having that behind us (meaning all of the cleaning and organizing and decluttering in preparation for the visit) has brought relief, we did not take long to catch our breath before planning the next steps. We have a bit more paperwork to finish, and we also knew that our attention would turn to raising the funds we need to complete our home study.

So, here's the deal ... we set the clock ticking back when we had our fingerprints done at the end of the summer. The clock is running because everything we turn in to Ethiopia has to be current within 6 months. To be honest, we had somewhat been taking our time with things until after the home study visit. We only learned last week about this requirement with time. We have the option of passing that deadline and redoing some of our initial paperwork, which primarily includes those fingerprints. The option we have decided to go for, however, is the one where we finish everything within 3 weeks. Yep, 3 weeks!

We prayed about this over the weekend. We are going to do our very best to finish the required paperwork and raise the necessary funds and trust God to let us know what the right timing is for us. If we get it all done, we know we are on the right track ... His track. If we get delayed, we are not going to stress about it because we will know that our little one in Africa wouldn't be ready for us when our paperwork got turned in to Ethiopia. This is the weird part of this entire process ... God knows who our son is and when he is coming home, and we are fumbling around with all of this paperwork as if we are somehow the ones who know what is best!

Here's what this means for us ... we are finishing up gathering things such as birth and marriage certificates, applying for passports, getting a letter from the county to show approval for our septic tank, getting documentation from our vet that our dogs are current on vaccinations, etc. A prayer request for these is simply that we don't hit any major snags in getting our documents together. We feel good about getting everything together, though.

The other piece to the completion of our home study is the funding. We have to turn in a payment with these documents, and we need to get $7000 more to have that funded. We have some fund raising ideas, and we have had some family and friends share their support and ideas as well. A few things we are thinking about is a yard sale (be thinking if you have any "junk" you have that you'd be willing to donate,) selling coffee online through an organization that supports adoptive families, and simply asking close family and friends for any financial gifts they are able to contribute at this time. Let me say here that we have already researched grants and interest free loans out there. We have several we will apply for, but those applications do not get turned in until after the home study. We are simply trying to get this first part funded so we can get our paperwork on its way to Ethiopia. It can be somewhat daunting when you look at the total figure as a whole. Trust me, we have been daunted! We have been more overwhelmed, though, by the thought that God has even allowed us to be a part of this journey in the first place. He has given us this privilege, and we know that He will provide for every step.

So, these next 3 weeks will be interesting to say the least. Please pray that our timing is aligned with the plan God has already made. Oh, to just get a tiny little peek at those blueprints!