Hi friends! So sorry for the long delay in posting. Our days and weeks are flying by in a whirlwind of adoption paperwork, VBS planning, homeschooling, 3 busy little ones, and traveling! We are in what is referred to as the "paper chase" portion of the adoption process. This feels most days like I am swimming in papers to fill, forms to notarize, phone calls to make and documents to gather. I thought I would take a minute to break down this phase and give you a glimpse of what we are doing these days toward the end goal of bringing home our children!
The paper chase is broken down into essentially three areas. We are working to compile/accomplish these things:
1. Ethiopian Dossier
2. USCIS
3. Home Study
Those three things look so small and simple sitting there in a neat little numbered group on this screen. That little list is terribly deceptive I am sorry to say! :-)
Ethiopian Dossier
This is the largest and most detailed task before us. It overlaps with the other two as well. This is a packet of compiled documents that will be translated and sent to the Ethiopian government. This is a packet the things that are required by the Ethiopian government for intercountry adoption. The list of things that must be included in this packet is LONG and PARTICULAR. We are gathering certified birth certificates, health exams, criminal clearances, and many many more of the like. Most of these things have to be worded in a very specific way and most of them notarized and on particular official paper.
USCIS
This is another packet of documents. These documents are what the United States government requires of us to adopt from Ethiopia. It is not quite as long as our list for our dossier. It has specific timing for completing some of the tasks and, like most of this process, involves financial cost and tedious work.
Home Study
This is a process we go through with a local, licensed adoption agency here in Minnesota. This portion involves gathering documents and completing tasks in order to meet federal, state, and Ethiopian country requirements. We work one on one with a social worker. We will have 3 face to face interviews with her. She will look over our home and meet with our children. We also have a list of paperwork (some overlapping with other paperwork from dossier and USCIS) and education requirements that we must complete and compile before our 3rd and final visit with our social worker. She will then take all of the paper work and what she has gathered from our interviews and write up our "Home Study". This is 15-20 paper document detailing her assessment of us as a family and her recommendations for us concerning adoption. This document will be a part of our Dossier and our USCIS packet.
So where are we in the process?
We have been working daily to gather these documents and complete these tasks. We have already had our first 2 home study visits and have scheduled our final visit. We probably have 70% of our documents gathered for the home study and dossier. We still have to get our paperwork notarized and we are still waiting on some documents to come in the mail. We are working to complete our home study required education/training. We are reading a few books and listening to a few online workshops relating to adoption more specifically attachment/bonding after adoption and becoming a multiracial family. (I will post in more detail about what we are learning about attachment, adoption in general, and multiracial parenting in another post.)
I am also directing our Vacation Bible School. I have been directing VBS for almost all of the past 10 summers in multiple places around the country. I have directing VBS while having other very big life challenges going on simultaneously and this year our adoption work is bringing with it a new level of challenge for me while attempting to direct this large outreach of our church.
I have directed VBS while:
- planning my wedding (that was taking place in another state)
-VERY PREGNANT two times (with both Levi and Caleb)
-after loss
-with very young children in tow (3 under 6/7 yrs old 2 times)
-while simultaneously homeschooling (those same little ones both years)
-after recent moves cross country
This year has been a new kind of challenge. My mind and time is torn is two very different directions with very long lists of tasks in both of those directions. I have had to rely on the Lord for grace to "let go" where I must and for the energy and focus to complete what is front of me daily. I am seeing in new ways God's strength being made perfect in my weakness and his daily carrying of my burdens. I don't feel as "in control" as I normally would (my mind is in so many places now and normally I am living and breathing VBS for the weeks prior) walking into VBS week but I am at peace knowing God's purpose will stand and that he is capable far beyond anything I can contribute to this!
We are slowing seeing a light at the end of this tunnel and slowing seeing the crazy jumble of tasks and paperwork start to become sorted and organized before us. We have hope that we just might be nearing the top of this paperwork mountain.
We truly desire and need your prayers. Please pray for the details of the paper work and tasks. That they would be done correctly the first time and that we would not see any major delays in getting those things submitted. Please pray that God would supply all of our needs, both financial and otherwise. Pray that we have His perspective in each and every step of the way. Pray that this time would not be in vain but that even the checklists and trials of paperwork would serve to show us more of him, to make us more like him, and to prepare our hearts and lives for the adoption of our little ones to come.
I do not plan to let this much time go by in updating the blog again! I hope to update weekly. Please feel free to hold me to this! :-)
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