Yahoo!!

If it seems I have been behind in life during the past couple of months--it's because my life has been this... preparing our dossier.

To give you some idea of what internationally adopting parents go through and what a dossier entails...

• Family Profile
  
• Notarized letter to Ministry of Women's Affairs in Ethiopia
  
• 2 passport size photos of ea. parent
  
• Home Study Report (notarized and state certified)


• Agency license


• Power of Attorney (notarized and state certified)


• Certified Birth Certificates and Marriage Certificate of parents


• 2 notarized letters of recommendation


• Notarized police clearance for each parent


• Notarized medical certificates from Physician for each parent


• Notarized employers letter


• Notarized Tax returns


• Notarized declaration of personal condition


• Notarized letter from bank


• Notarized post-placement agreement.

This is a picture of the evening we received our last state certification letter.

The next morning I headed to the post office to mail a certifide package. This is what I wanted to write on it...

It is a little unnerving to hand over something like this...I cannot imagine how devastating it would be to have to start over if it were lost in the mail, BUT, thanks to God, today I received an email that read this:

"I just wanted to let you know that I received your dossier here in the Eugene office today, had a chance to review it and everything looks complete."

Hence, the title of my post today....."Yahoo!!!!"

We will now wait for our dossier to make it's way to Ethiopia, wait for our immigration approval, wait for a court date, wait for a travel date and...pray for continuation of divine help in financing. Hopefully, this process will be around 4 months or less....."Yahoo!!!!"

Brown Like Me

Newsflash: We are adopting a black son.

Bigger Newsflash: We're not black.

Since this discovery, I have become extremely aware that if we are to have any black skinned toys or books with black characters in our house, I must become very intentional about it.

Julianna saved her money for several weeks in order to buy a t-shirt with the princess of the Princess and the Frog on it. She was excited because she loves the princess and I was excited because finally there is a black Disney princess! Isn't it about time?

For valentines day, we bought Julianna a black fairy (which she loves). We want her to have some diversity in the dolls that she plays with. We need diversity to be normal in our house! If you walk into the toy section in any given store in Sioux City there are 20 white figures for every black, if any at all. I suppose this is just due to the demographic in this area, but it makes it hard to prepare toys that our son will relate to.

How terrible would it be to live somewhere where you never saw anyone that looked like you? Would you feel like an outsider? Would you have a hard time feeling that you were beautiful and accepted?

Here is our current doll census:


Two is progress right?

We are also expanding our book library.

I am extremely excited to add to our family in this way. I'll admit I am nervous about how we are going to handle the trials our son will face because of his color. I will also admit that I am confident in God's guidance and will be asking him for help along the way. God is an artist and the mixture of the tones of our skin is a beautiful thing, especially within a family.

"Pardon me, your epidermis is showing, sir....

A piece of canvas is only the beginning

It takes on character with every loving stroke.

This thing of beauty is the passion of an artists heart"

--Colored People, Dc Talk

Moving Forward

Well, our home-study is complete today. It is being sent for a final once over and then we will wait for our copy. Here is our social worker, Nikki, who was so efficient in getting this done quickly...she is also in a hurry to get our little guy home.

Once we receive our completed, notarized copies of the home study we will send one to the State of Iowa to be certified and one to Immigration Services to go along with the application for adoption of an international orphan we sent this week. After they receive this, we will be fingerprinted...AGAIN, and then receive our approval. Our next immigration paperwork will be done while we are in Ethiopia! After our homestudy is certified by the State of Iowa, it will be the final piece in our Dossier (a stack of papers and documents all about us sent to Ehtiopian gov't). When our Dossier makes it's way to Ethiopia we will be waiting for a court date... I will blog about this later.

What else are we doing in the mean time?






Jesus, please lift up our little boy today. Make his heart happy and ready to be loved. Make the space between us small as you give us favor in the courts, as you provide for this adoption financially, and as our love for him and our faith in You grows.