Resting

Well, all the required paperwork for now is completed and now we are just resting until the next round. We have our education classes scheduled for March 17th and 22nd. Once they are completed we will have our home visit from our social worker, then I believe another round of paperwork. Yippee! I have been talking with Beth (our social worker) and she said she is 95% confident that our home study will be completed mid-April. Praise the Lord! I already have pretty much everything I can do for the dossier done, it's just waiting for the home study. So our deadline to have everything completed is April 30th. This is the date we are striving for to have our dossier sent off for acceptance...then more waiting :)

It is fun to log into CCI's client page and see a bunch of red check marks of things completed and see our "adoption meter" plane move from 0 to 1...it's a long way to 10, but 10 means we have our little girl in our arms...oh how my heart longs for that day.

"I will be glad and rejoice in you;
I will sing the praises of your name, O Most High" Psalm 9:2

Accepted!

Yay! We are officially accepted at Celebrate Children International Adoption Agency. Not that we really had any doubts, but to finally see those words..."Congratulations, your application has been accepted!" was AWESOME!

So you all might be wondering what this means and where we are at. Our next step is to send in Celebrate Children's (CCI)contract with their fee. Once they receive that then we are official clients of CCI. Our homestudy is underway...we have completed and collected the necessary documents for our social worker at Lutheran Social Services. We now have to complete education classes (2 full days); visit from Beth (our social worker); then receive the completed homestudy for our dossier. In this first "waiting" period I have collected the documents for our dossier (i.e. birth certificates, marriage license, medical clearance letters, etc.) Now the rest is stuff I have to do on a personal level (i.e. cover letter, photo page, passport pic's, etc). At this point I am feeling pretty good about our progress...I don't think it should take too long after completion of our homestudy to complete the dossier.

I have to keep reminding myself to treat this like a pregnancy. One step at a time, one month at a time...in the end a child does come home. Patience, patience, patience! For of those of you who know me well, this is a huge struggle for me, I very much lack patience and usually want things done yesterday. BUT, God is good and with complete surrender to HIM each day, keeps me focused and patient. Now I am sure that I will have many more impatient, testing days, but we will continue to walk in obedience...we will walk by faith, not by sight!

Waiting!

We are still waiting to get the official acceptance of your application from the adoption agency. BUT in the meantime, I have been busy pulling the documents together for our home study and dossier...AND have managed to keep them all straight...amazing!

More later!