Homestudy Headed Out

  Got the news from our social worker that she was sending out our home study to Holt (our international agency) today. They then review it and send it back to her. She sends it off to her supervisor in Milwaukee. Then, she sends us a finished copy and we send it off to be state certified. Then, we get it back and add it to our almost completed dossier! That's a lot of paper traveling all around the U.S., but it won't be in the U.S. much longer. Once it is added to our dossier - it gets translated and sent off to Ethiopia!!! Whew! That's a lot but it's a whole nother step!!! :)
  So, where are we at? The home study will probably take about 3 weeks for us to get back and then we'll send it out to be state certified and we will get fingerprinted by the FBI. It will probably take another 2 weeks (these time-frames are just estimates to the best of my knowledge) to get the documents state certified. By the time we get the two documents back from being state certified, we should have the rest of our dossier completed. That means we send off our dossier to Holt, it gets translated and sent off to Ethiopia!! Once the dossier is in Ethiopia, ultimately, we could get our referral (picture and medical info) at any time. They are estimating the wait time to be a year, but you never know.
  Financially, where are we at right now? Once we get the final copy of the homestudy, we can apply for grants. Once our dossier is completed and sent to Holt (I'm guessing in a month or so), we have to send in $3000.00 for that part. From then on, we are saving for travel expenses for our two trips to Ethiopia. Each trip is estimated to be (including flights for the two of us - and one flight with THREE of us(my favorite flight EVER)) is estimated to cost $8000ish. So, we are saving and scrimping (and fundraising) to cover travel costs. VERY EXCITING but I sure wish time would HURRY UP!!!! :)
  Anyway, if I get any more specific information or better estimates of time or cost, I will let you all know!!
  Prayer requests for us at this stage:
  1) Patience. I feel so very rushed to get more paper work done (passport pictures, letters, etc.). But, ultimately, I'm working on papers for the dossier. The dossier will not be complete without the state certification of 2 documents and our fingerprints. I can't do ANYTHING about how long it takes for these all to be processed. So, I've got time. Also, we are still saving for the dossier fee ($3000). They won't look at our dossier until we pay for it, so -- get what I'm saying. There is no rush -- yet I am finding PATIENCE very difficult to come by!! So, patience for me.
  2) That God will pick that perfect child to fit in to our little family. We know he will do this!
  3) The day-to-day busyness. Between being president of MOMS Club and those responsibilities, babysitting, work, my two current children, the adoption, balancing the checkbook, Drew's school, blah blah blah, I feel like I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off lately!!! I need to chill!! We'll take prayers for some opportunities for some relaxation and some time to 'be still' in the near future! :)

There are a ton more, but for now, we'll leave it with 3. Thank you all very, very much for your love and support. We really couldn't do it without you in our lives!!