Still Working on it

Well, we did have to redo some forms for our dossier... I guess everything has to be less than 5 months old when we turn it in to the agency, so we have 5 docs that have expired. Unfortunately two were our FBI clearance letters. We had to get re-fingerprinted and everything! But Phil was awesome this week. He got on the phone and called everybody that could possibly help us get through the process faster. It turns out the detention center in our area does fingerprinting for free 24/7! We just had to find fingerprint cards... Luckily our homestudy agency had some, which they gave us for free too! They also allowed us to send our completed cards through their agency. Since they have a process already worked out, we should get them back much faster than if we had sent them on our own. Yay!

The other forms are easy, so we should be back on track soon...

Many Blessings,
Amy

It's Out of Our Hands....

I dropped the dossier off at UPS today. Yikes! It's such a crazy feeling. It's scheduled to arrive at OAA Tuesday afternoon. Please pray that all of our forms look good and that they can send it off to be translated immediatley!!

I also wanted to share an email that we received from our agency this week... could mean a delay in the process....

------
Dear Kazakhstan Families,

I have received word from one of our contacts in Kazakhstan that currently the Ministry of Education has requested from all regional Department of Education’s an accounting of post placement reports. The facilitator staff in the regions has heard from the regional Department of Education staff that there are many post placement reports missing from each of the regions we have heard from. The review is still in process, so this is preliminary information. Many of the missing post placement reports are reportedly from independent adoptions. Since the government of Kazakhstan does not officially recognize agencies through a registration or accreditation process, tracking post placement reports is difficult. In the past, there was less accountability through agencies then there is now.

At this point, the above information is confirmed through the staff in Kazakhstan. What we do not know, but there are rumors regarding, is the consequences of missing post placement reports. At this point, the rumor is that the regions will stop providing referrals until the missing post placements are received. This would be done regionally. They would still be processing dossiers through the process, but dossiers would be waiting in their assigned region. Again, these are rumors. There has been no official information on the consequences of missing post placement reports
----

We're praying this doesn't cause any delays, but it very well could... For those who don't know what "Post-Placement Reports" are, they're the updates adoptive parents are required to send back to Kaz once they return home with their children... Currently, adoptive families are required to send reports written by their social worker 6, 12, 24, and 36 months post adoption and yearly parent written reports after that until the child turns 18! So the paperwork really doesn't end til the child is in college :) Unfortunately, some families don't follow through with their duties once they get the child home and it affects everyone else who comes along after them.

Please continue to pray for our patience. And more importantly, please pray that our daughter is loved and protected while her parents are on the other side of the globe.

Many Blessings,
Amy

We're submitting our dossier!

Well, Phil took our last few documents down to Atlanta today to have them apostilled and everything looks good!!! Tomorrow morning I'm shipping the dossier off to OAA. Yay!! It seems like we've been saying we're "almost done" with paperwork for so long now... it's so hard to believe this actually might be it for a while!

I'm sure some of you are wondering what the next steps look like... Well, if all of our paperwork looks good to OAA, they'll get it all translated. Then they'll submit it to the Kazakhstan Consulate in NY, who will then send it to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kazakhstan, who will then send it on to a region. Then the region issues an invitation and we travel! I think that's how it goes, at least :) Of course, it's looking like our invitiation to travel will probably be late summer at the earliest...

Please pray for patience for both me and Phil as we begin the next leg of this journey...

Love to all,
Amy

Update!!

Hey everyone!

I am so sorry we haven't updated this in a while, but things have been moving along!

This period of the process has definitely been a trial and we have been praying for patience, wisdom, and guidance all along the way. Somehow, the paperwork has taken much longer than we expected. But...we *think* we have all of it ready to submit to our agency. We've used about 5 notaries and visited doctor's offices about 5 times, but we're finally there. Of course, the agency could send it back to us and need more updates, so we'll see. We should definitely know within a week or so.

The main focus for us right now is the money. In the big picture, I'm not worried. God has confirmed His support of this adoption multiple times and we know that He will provide if something is in His will. However, the reality is that we are still about $20,000 short. We have been looking at various methods for raising this last portion (the adoption will cost about $43,000 overall). Unfortunately, we aren't having success with grants or funds. Still, we are looking around. My job is a blessing and I'll be getting two unexpected bonuses over the next year; this will help us to pay off any balances or loans by next year.

In the meantime, we've been undertaking another fundraising effort - we've done about 5 different things now :) . We are selling used books, CDs, and DVDs on half.com. It's going great! We have raised about $750 so far! It's a lot of work, actually, but we love doing this. We have asked our friends and family to help by donating any books or music they aren't attached to. We post the stuff online and just wait for a buyer to come along. Please let us know if you have any books or CDs to donate to help us pay for this adoption!

So, overall, things are moving along again. We should have an update for you about the submission of the paperwork in about one week.

God bless!
Phil