Dossier will be submitted on August 23rd

Found out that our preliminary dossier will be submitted on August 23rd. and that they will send us a date to go meet our boy after they look it over . I was told maybe 2 weeks.so I hope that by Sept 6th we will have our date.

we got the USCIS golden ticket

our uscis I-171H (notice of favorable determination concerning application for advanced process of orphan petition) came today!!!!!!!

the golden ticket!!!!! we have the golden ticket!!!!!! 
 It only took 19 days from the day we got our fingerprints taken, and that was also with a pink letter  sent to us with some things that needed to be added to our home study. 

Adoption changes lives!

Adoption changes lives!
please read what one Mother says about her little girl she adopted just 10 weeks ago.look at what love can do!!!
http://www.nogreaterjoymom.com/2010/08/can-you-believe.html

Waiting

Waiting hum maybe this is the hardest part of all. I have put off a few papers that need to be filled out and notarized for our court Dossier but after we get them done we are just waiting. Waiting for our date. Waiting for that email, phone call or letter telling us when we get to meet our son. Waiting to see his sweet face for the first time. Waiting!! yep this is the hardest part so far.

update

   We got a letter from the USCIS yesterday saying two things were missing from our homestudy, our social worker would need to add them and send in the new amended homestudy.The things that were left out were questions she had asked us. One have you ever been denied a homestudy in the past? NO! and two have you ever been involved in domestic,physical or sexual abuse? NO!. She did ask us these things I guess she just didn't add them to the homestudy. She says it is not a big deal and she will get it done. She is pretty fast about getting things done when they need fixed so I'm not worried. At least it shows that someone is actually working on our application and its not just sitting on a desk someplace.

  We also got an email from our facilitator in Josiah's country, she is translating our application Dossier and she found that my SS number is wrong on the first page of our homestudy. Our social worker had to fix it and send her the corrected page. We are so happy this was found while we still had time to fix it and not when we were sitting in front of the Judge.
We are almost done with our court Dossier we just need the USCIS approval letter a mortgage letter and the kids Dr check up letter, that one is tricky they have to be no earlier then three months before court or they expire. Since we don't know when court will be it makes it tricky.. If we end up having to redo them we will have to pay fully for each one because our insurance only pays for one well child check up per year.
  We applied for an adoption loan... Please pray that they have the funds to give it to us. I don't know what we will do if we don't get it, but I do know we will be OK because it is all in Gods hands.
  Right now we are thinking we will be going to meet Josiah sometime in Sept but we don't know when. That trip is 5 days, then hopefully we will get a court date no longer then 2 month after. and if the 10 days are not waved that trip should also be around 5 days, Then we would go back 2 weeks later to pick him up and that trip could be as long as two weeks.
  Well that's about it for now. We are not always ready for what comes are way for this adoption. But we deal with it and go on! We will bring him home no doubt about that! We just don't know when, but we do know that the Lord has planned this right down to that very second that we walk over our threshhold with him and ever after.

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.