update on cost of Josiah's adoption

I have updated our cost for adoption post so I wanted to bump it back up to the front page of our blog so you can all see how far we have come and what we still need.
Break down of the cost of adoption

We already paid for
*commitment fee $1,275
*agency application fee $375
*homestudy application fee $300
*finger prints $40
*birth certificates $205
*Dr health check don't know yet.
*passports $230
*physiologist evaluation $250
*home study $1,625
*2nd set of finger prints $40
*FBI clearance for both of us $36
*CPA fees $65
*Family Picture for Dossier $170
*USCIS I600a form $830 plus $10 to ship it
*notary for our passports $20
*1st set documents apostilled $250 plus $10 to send them
*agency fee $2,500
*foreign fee of $1000
*apostilling docs that were left out $60 plus $10 to send it
*marriage certificates $35
*2nd set documents apostilled $350
*Dr for 6 kids $120 copay
Total $9,806




First trip
*visas $400
*airfare $2000
*foren fees $3700 includes coordination fees orphanage donation ,translation and notarization of dossier, country tax humanitarian aide and assistance fund
*services $900 transportation ect
*hotel and food $1000 
Total $8,000


2nd trip
* 2nd payment to our agency of $1,925
* $3,700 support and service fees includes coordination fees orphanage donation ,translation and notarization of dossier, country tax humanitarian aide and assistance fund
*our airfare $2000
*hotel and food $4000
*$200 for gifts for officials
*our visa $500
*parent medical exam $400
*transportation by car while in country $1,000
*train in country $400
*translator fee for court $100
*authentication of legal paperwork while in country $100
*child's medical exam $150
*child's passport $75
*child's visa $400
*child's airfare $1,000
Total $15,950


Total for all $33,856


Total already paid                       Total still needs to be paid
$9,336                                                 $24,520


3rd trip
If the judge does not wave the 10 wait (and I hear she is not for anyone right now) then we will have to make a 3rd trip and I'm not sure how much that will cost.
I know it would be
airfare $2000
hotel and food $1000


so far we have gotten $670 in donations.and made $80 in candy sales,$150 from parents night out,$80 in t-shirt sales and $150 from garage sale.so we have gotten a total of $1,162 from fundraising.

Fingerprints USCIS

We got our fingerprints done for USCIS today it was the 3rd time for us to get fingerprints done . 1st was for the state, 2nd was for the  FBI.    This time  they just scaned them in no black  mess that was nice. they were fast and we were in and out in 30 min. now we wait for our golden ticket from USCIS the I-171H.

I wonder

so tonight I find myself wondering,I wonder if Josiah is walking yet? our facilitator said when she went to visit him that he would walk with help. I'm guessing that means he was at the stage where he would hold someones hands and walk or walk around furniture. it has been 4 months since she told us that so I bet he is walking by himself now. I wonder how big he is? she said he seemed smaller then the average 2 year old but what does that mean? in his pictures he looks small but its hard to tell with nothing to reference his size by.I wonder if he is talking yet, and what his voice sounds like? I wonder if he is eating on his own now? she said they were teaching him to use a spoon, so I bet he is doing it pretty well by now.I wonder what he likes to eat,or at least what they feed him?I wonder if he sleeps well? I wonder what his favorite toys are? I wonder if he gets to play outside? I wonder if he is doing well as far as his health? all of these things and a lot more keep me busy thinking and wondering. .

4 months!

Today it has been 4 months! only 4 months and we have come so far. As I have said before we have gotten so much done in the last 4 months. I don't think anyone knows how much work it is to adopt. Only if you have done it or are doing it would you ever know.I have such a respect for those who have adopted.

When the Lord told us to do this we said, "ok Lord, lets do it," we didn't know it would be so much work. humm maybe we would have said no and if we had said no think of what we would have missed out on. Yes it has been hard work, it is stressful ,it is emotionally draining and it is  hard work. But we have gotten this far, something I would have never seen Mike and my self doing. All this paperwork and digging into our lives, keeping on top of everything, making sure its all done, and doing it all during baseball/softball season our busy time as a family. with all-stars and Mike coaching, me doing uniforms, people wanting this and that from us, needing to be in 5 places at once. But we have still managed to get all of this adoption stuff done. I have to say I am proud of us.But I want all of you my family my friends to know this is not easy for us. we need your support, talk to us about the adoption, ask us questions, make us know you are thinking about us if you are we need to know,we need your support.
No we don't know where the money for this is coming from. We don't know how we will get it or when. All we know is that so far we have had it .So far we have had every penny we needed for each thing. and all we can do is keep on trusting that it will continue to be that way. We will take it one thing at a time.If you feel like  donating some money to bring Josiah home then please do. Even if its $5 it all adds up. My friend the other day handed me $5 but was sorta embarrassed acting and apologetic that it was only $5. Well you know what we had just paid our agency fee that day and our adoption fund was down to $15 and that $5 made it $20. each and every dollar counts, my friend blessed me so much that day with that $5, it made me see that the jar was filling back up.
If you feel led to offer us a loan boy that would be a blessing as we have said all along we are willing to pay fully to bring Josiah home we just don't have that much money all at once so a loan would be fantastic. Anyone?
so as I look back at the last 4 months I think about how your life can change, your thinking can change and your heart can change in such a short time. and I wonder what the next 4 months will bring, what new lessons we will learn, what new people God will place in our path and how our love will grow? not only for Josiah but for eachother and for God as well.

travel packet

we got our travel packet yesterday and I'm trying not to get overwhelmed while looking at it. I just need to tell myself you will get thru this just like you have all of it up to now. Boy will the paperwork and paper/people chasing ever stop! I have been really good about not worrying dwelling or even thinking about the fact that we only have $250 in our adoption fund right now. that was until today when someone called me to se how it was going and asked me how are you going to do this? where are you going to get the money? and I really had no answer for her.the only one who knows that is the Lord we are just trusting in him.we will push on thru what ever papers need done, what ever letters need written, what ever needs to be notarized, aposilled or done over we will just keep on doing it because in the end we will have our boy.

update with regard to our first trip.

I wanted to update with regard to our first trip.  We expect it to be in September or October. the orphanage where Josiah lives is closed for the summer till September,and many officials  including orphanage Directors and Chief Physicians go on vacation in summer months. We are ok with this .it gives us a time to look at and know that at least by Oct we will get to see Josiah and hold him and we can stop thinking about when. It helps to sorta have a date .and now we don't need to rush things, we can also work on the funds for the trip.we know that this is all in Gods hands and it will work out how ever long it takes. we still would love to have him home by his 3rd birthday November 3rd but if not we sure will be thinking of him on that day.and maybe we will just have a big BIRTHDAY BASH in his name. thank you to all of you who have been praying for us please do not stop.

A bump

A bump, we hit a bump, ugg! don't you just hate it, you are going along fine and it looks like things are moving on and bump. well our social worker that did our homestudy didn't do 4 different documents that our agency asks for. not sure why she must not have understood that she needed to do them because she is good at her job. anyways now we have to wait for her to get them done notarized and sent to us. then we have to send them to be aposilled and it is going to cost us another $100 ugg and its going to put us at least a week behind uggg! maybe this is Gods way of giving us more time to get the money we need. what ever it is I know it is his timing and at some point I will be holding my baby in my arms.

25 apostilled documents

25 apostilled documents were delivered to our door yesterday 25 shiny authentic beautiful gold seals on each one. Then they were shipped priority mail to our agency. Now we wait to find out what the next step is. so exciting!

why

As things are moving forward and the time is getting close to get to go see Josiah I hear from the Lord "trust me" I have thought how are we going to do this, I have been asked by people why? or have been given looks that say why, or you are crazy, or you have gotten yourself into something you can't get out of. yes I can see that in a look or can feel it by the silence of people not saying anything at all. and to this all I can say is He is our son, even though we have never met him God has put a love in our hearts for him, and he is ours.God did not lead us to him just so we could have a 7th child if he wanted that or if we wanted another baby I could have easily gotten pregnant. and I tell you it would have been a lot less work. no God had this child already picked out for us and us for him and how can we not do what ever it takes for our child?

please go to this link and see what could happen to Josiah on his 4th birthday if we were to give up on him now because it seems too hard

http://gardenofeagan.blogspot.com/2007/11/imagine-different-life.html

or watch this this is not from his country but I have been told that when her turns 4 years old he will most likely be put into a mental institution and left in his crib other then to be fed and changed once a day. as far as the orphanage he is in now it is wonderful they take great care of the children they love them and the children are happy but the directors of the orphanage have no say as to what happens to the special needs children after their 4th birthday. please don't watch this if you have children watching with you as it is sad and disturbing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1kbayAdlgg

and maybe you will see why we have to do what ever it takes to get our baby home. we can't save them all, we can't change the lives of all the children that are in this situation. but we can change the world for one, we can give this one child loving parents, a loving family, a home. we can give this one child a life.so please before you ask us why or look at us with those looks think about and look at Josiah's little face, his sweet fuzzy head, his darling little hands and cute little ears, his smile. and think about him on his 4th birthday celebrating with a family and people who love him, a birthday cake, gifts, a happy birthday song .and then think about what his 4th birthday will be like if we give up and say this is too hard, we don't have the money, this is too much. we can't give up we won't give up! could you?

T-shirts are done

T-shirts are done look how cute they are I will be shipping them out on Tuesday, so if you have not paid yet please do and email me your address. I just love how they turned out, they are going to be so cute on the little ones. I hope that all of you that got one will take a picture for me once you get your baby home, I would love to see how they look in the shirts.

First Dossier was sent to be apostilled last night!

First Dossier was sent to be apostilled last night!

HOMESTUDY,USCIS,APOSTILLING AND AN UPDATE

Our notarized home study (7copies of it) arrived yesterday.,

we sent our USCIS I-600A application & packet of supporting documents to Texas.The I-600A is the "Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition". Getting an approval means that our government is giving permission for us to adopt a child they will send us a fingerprint appointment yes our 3rd set of fingerprints taken.then if  they see us fit they will send us the I-171A letter that goes into our court Dossier.
we are working on our application dossier and have hit a couple snags 4 of our documents have to be notarized again because something was forgotten or needs to be worded differently. we are taking this in stride and will just do it. we are waiting for 2 more things from our social worker that need to go in this part of the Dossier. as soon as we have these things notarized we will send them to Salem to the secretary of state to be apistilled. (A special sign established in 1961 for certifying foreign documents. Under the Hague Convention, signatory countries have agreed to recognize public documents issued by other signatory countries if those public documents are authenticated by the attachment of an internationally recognized form of authentication known as an "apostille." The apostille ensures that public documents issued in one signatory country will be recognized as valid in another signatory country. [) what they do is check that each document is notarized in the correct legal way by a legal notary and that the notary's license is not suspended or expired. then if it looks good they put a seal on the document, sorta like a sticker I think and I'm not sure yet if its gold or silver. but it is very official looking.(this first set has 24 documents in it at $10 each so it is costing us $240. the next set has 35 so that will be $350. so in all we will be spending $590 in apostilling documents. so when we say every penny helps us we are not kidding!) when we get all of the documents back and they have all been apostilled we can then send our application part of the dossier to our agency. they will look it over to make sure its all there and then send it to our facilitator, who will also look it over and translate it then take it to committee for approval. they then send us a date to receive our official referral for Josiah's SDA appointment. and then we'll know when we are going to travel for our first trip. before we travel we have to get our court part of our dossier done and mailed so the judge can look it over and send us a date for court after we get back from our first trip. there are many things we still need to get done for the court dossier one big thing is getting all 6 kids into the DR. for check ups. the Dr. has to sign a letter for each one saying they are healthy, and we have to get 6 copies of her license all notarized of course.we hope insurance will pay for this but we do have a $20 copy for each kid so it will cost at least $120 there are other things still to be done but I hope to have them done at least by the end of this month. my best guess is still that we go see him the end of July first of August. please pray everything goes smoothly and that we get the funds we need to go.

3 months today

3 months wow we are thru the first trimester so to speak. when I was pregnant all 6 times, I remember being so excited to get past the 3rd month, to be in the 2nd trimester. so much more exciting things happened in the 2nd trimester, you start feeling the baby kick, you are not sick anymore with morning sickness, you get to see the baby on ultrasound, you get to hear its heart beat at each dr visit, your tummy starts showing so people can tell you are pregnant. so I was thinking maybe the 2nd trimester of adoption will be like that. maybe now that we are almost done with the paperwork, maybe its time to experience some fun. it leaves me to wonder what the fun could be. I'm sure the Lord has some fun up his sleeve for us. I do expect that in this next 3 months during this 2nd trimester we will get to meet Josiah, hold him, kiss him, get to know him for a week. it will give us the kick we need to get thru and make it to the 3rd trimester. sorta like when you go in for that big ultra sound, you know the one where you really get to see the baby and see if its a boy or a girl. I just pray that we will take time to take in and remember all of the special things that are about to happen in our lives thru this adoption, thru this special little boy. we will do what ever it takes to get him home, give him a new birth so to speak.thank you Lord for putting this little boy in our hearts, for giving us love for this little boy we have never met, we are trusting for the finances and everything else to work out.Both Mike and I know that the Lord would not lead us to do this if it was not his will and we just need to trust! and do as God wants us to. we don't want to miss the blessings he has for us by not being obedient. when he says go you go! no matter if he's telling you to go to China on a missions trip , to Africa to open up a orphanage, to Ecuador to start children's ministries, to your friend down the street to tell him about Jesus, or in our case to go get Josiah. you do what he puts on your heart no matter how much work it is, no matter how much money it takes, you do it in faith or you may just miss the biggest blessing you could ever imagine.

Trusting God completely

I wanted to post this it was from a new friend on the Reeces rainbow yahoo group. Thank you Lori
Katrina, I felt compelled to share this... It's from The Purpose Driven Life.
"Trusting God completely means having faith that he knows what is best for your life. You expect him to keep his promises, help you with problems, and do the impossible when necessary.... Notice that Noah obeyed completely (no instruction was overlooked), and he obeyed exactly (in the way and time God wanted it done). That is wholeheartedness.... If God asked you to build a giant boat, don't you think you might have a few questions, objections, or reservations? Noah didn't. He obeyed God wholeheartedly. That means doing whatever God asks without reservation or hesitation. You don't procrastinate and say, "I'll pray about it." You do it without delay. Every parent knows that delayed obedience is really disobedience... Understanding can wait, but obedience can't."

we think we will be going to see Josiah July or Aug and we need at least $8,000 to go, this is just our first trip we hope to get a grant or a loan for the 2nd and 3rd trips about $12,000.But we need the $8,000 first and that is what we are praying for we trust that God has led us this far and... he will provide, we don't know how but we are trusting. please pray for us.