William & Charis

We didn’t have to wait long!  Charis got a phone call Friday afternoon that we have received a referral!  This means, we now have a name and a face for the baby we are working to adopt!

Here’s how it went down . . .  Two weeks ago we turned in out dossier.  We knew it could happen fast, but we have been preparing ourselves for a long wait.  The dossier has since traveled to Washington DC, where it received another round of stamps and approvals.  Then it was couriered from DC to Germany to Addis Ababa (the capital of Ethiopia).  Within days of its arrival there, we received our phone call.

Or little girl is gorgeous, but we can’t post a picture here.  Sorry.  She is technically not ours yet, so we must respect privacy issues.  But we can tell you…

She was dropped off at an orphanage in early June of this year.  That date is assumed to be her birth date, though no one really knows. Her mother was a teenage prostitute and too poor to care for her.  Her father is totally unknown.  Tragically, this is an all too common story in Ethiopia.

We have a long way to go still.  We will wait now until our paperwork meets up with hers in the Ethiopian court system.  Then we will wait for a court date to be set when a judge will make the final decision and declare her our child.  After the court date, we will wait 6-8 weeks to travel and pick up our baby girl.

Please pray specifically that all the paperwork will move quickly and smoothly through this cumbersome system.  Pray that the court date will be set soon, and that the judge will grant us the joy of being her parents.

And, pray that God will protect and provide for our little girl.  Pray that she will be loved and cared for, protected and warm.  Pray that her health will improve and that her belly stays full.

Today was a big day for us.  For more than a month now, we have been tracking down documents, collecting references, and making copies to complete our dossier.  Every detail had to be consistent and number had to match.  And, then every document had to be notarized…three times!  It wasn’t that difficult, but it took quite a bit of time and was seriously tedious.  But, today, it is finished!  We have finally submitted our dossier to the adoption agency.  (Pic is of Charis with our adoption paperwork after getting the final stamp at Kentucky’s state capitol.)

What’s next?  Good question.  As far as we are concerned, now we wait.  The dossier has to be shipped to Washington DC to collect a few more stamps.  Then it will be shipped to Ethiopia where it will be translated.  Eventually, we will be matched with a child (and that child’s paperwork), and together we will work through the court process.  So, we wait.

We have no real idea how long any of this will take.  We could be matched with a child in as little as 3 months, but we could be waiting as long as a year.  It all depends on what children are “paperwork ready” on that side of the ocean.  Obviously, we are hoping for the shorter time, and we expect to know something in at least 4-6 months.  But, we wait.

Please, pray with us that this process will proceed smoothly and quickly.  There are literally millions of children in Ethiopia that need to be adopted, but the process has to run its course.  Please pray that unnecessary bureaucracy will not hold up our adoption.  Pray that  the courts and government agencies will work well together.  And, please pray with us that our child is kept safe and warm and loved until we can bring him/her home.

Check out these videos.  They are from Drawn from Water, a new ministry Charis discovered on the Reflections blog by LifeSong for Orphans.  They are powerful videos from what seems to be an incredible ministry.  The first video tells the story behind the ministry, and the second video tells a little about the progress they are making.  Check out the blog as well.  But, be careful…you will be challenged to have a greater heart for orphans around the world.

The past month has been an incredible one on the adoption front. We are moving ahead quickly, and really — for the first time — beginning to feel like this might actually happen! We have lots of exciting news and a couple of challenges to share below.

As we mentioned in our last post, we have moved ahead with preparing our dossier. We are working as quickly as we can to collect all the necessary documents. Most of the work is done. We are just waiting on a couple of key pieces to arrive. Then, we will begin the process of getting all those documents notarized on the county and state levels. It’s a mess, but it has to be done.

Also, we finally received our approval from US Immigration (hence the picture). This is huge! We submitted out paperwork back in June and were told it would only take a few weeks. Needless to say, we were a bit anxious as to what was taking so long. But, we have finally received our approval, another big step along the way.

On the financial front, God continues to bless abundantly. It has been so amazing to watch how He has worked all of this out! Initially, $23,000 seemed like an insurmountable total, but he has reminded us just how resourceful a God he really is. Within 2 months, he has provided just over $17,000 for the adoption of baby Brown!  Watching all of this happen has been such a wonderful blessing. We are truly overwhelmed by the grace of our God displayed in the generosity of friends. We are so thankful to you all for your prayers and support.

Our only challenge of late has been with our home study. Some of the financial information matches neither the records we provided nor the letters we have collected for our dossier. All of these numbers must match. So, working this out is important, and we want it to be done yesterday! We are working hard to get our dossier completed and turned in by the end of this month. We still have quite a bit to do, but we feel like this is a realistic goal. Please, pray with us that our paths will be made smooth!

All in all, we have had a great month. We have made real progress on the dossier and fundraising. And, we have finally received our Immigration approval. Please pray with us that everything will proceed smoothly and that the remaining funds will be provided.

Thank you all for your prayers and support!

Thanks to you all, Charis and I are moving along in this adoption process.  We have been stuck for several weeks now, trying to get the money together to begin the next step.  Because of your generous support, we are now making progress again!  Thank you!

The next step in the process is to assemble our dossier.  This is a collection of documents that will be translated and submitted to the Ethiopian courts after we are matched with a child.  It includes birth certificates, marriage license, financial information, pictures, our home study, and much more.  The kicker is that all of it has to be notarized several times.  This is a time consuming process, and we aren’t really sure how to go about the whole process yet.  But, we are doing the best we can!

Please continue to pray with us.  We are only about half-funded for this endeavor.  We still need to raise a large chunk of money.  We have applied for another grant and are waiting to hear back about that.  Please pray we receive that.

Please also pray for a yard sale this weekend in Gallatin.  The Gilmore clan (led by Michelle Gilmore) is holding a yard sale this Friday and Saturday to raise money for us.  Please pray for good weather and many generous customers!

And, please pray that this dossier process will move quickly and smoothly.  We have a lot of documents to collect and get notarized.  Pray we can figure this out and get it done quickly.  (And, if you know of anyone in Tennessee who has done this, please let us know.  We need a little advice on where to go on some things.)

Thanks again everyone!