We finished the documents that we needed to submit before our homestudy interviews can be conducted. Dasha and I Fed-Exed them yesterday. We had to submit a fire evacuation plan, autobiographies, medical forms and lab work, fingerprints for a criminal background check, an application for a background check from Child Protective Services and several other forms. Now we wait for our personal, employer and pastor references to be returned and them we can schedule our interviews and home visit.
I have starting reading the required reading books that the agency said we need to read. Two of them are really good (Successful Adoption: A Guide for Christian Families and Adopted for Life), but one is awful (Inside Transracial Adoption). I hope I can make it through that one, it is one of the most negative and poorly written books I have ever read. If anyone has any good suggestions for other books about transracial adoption, I'd love to hear your ideas.
Dasha and I have been busy cleaning out the room that the baby will be in, I think we've had at least a dozen bags of stuff go to Goodwill and almost as many bags of trash. And we're still working on it. Slow, but steady.
We've had a few more people order coffee, we are so appreciative of your help! Thank you!
Lilypie Waiting to Adopt tickers
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Friday, July 9, 2010
Photographer of our Lives
So I have been working on putting together our portfolio for birth families to look at to see if we are the family that they want to place their child with. The portfolio consists of a cover page that gives information about our family, a letter to the birthparents, and then 8-10 pages of family photos. I've finished the cover page and the letter, but in looking through our photos to try to pick the best ones to put into the portfolio I have realized that I have almost no family photos that have me in them. I am always behind the camera, I feel like I am the photographer of our lives together. How do I remedy this photo dilemma? Maybe we need to start taking someone along with us when we go places...
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Stretching
God is constantly stretching my faith, which even though I know it is a good thing it still stings a bit. Our meeting today went great with the agency. We got more paperwork to complete (and, ugh, I have already messed up one of the forms!) and got to know our caseworker, who I really love. I know without a doubt that we are being called to adopt again and that it is with this agency.
But this afternoon, when we stopped at our bank to inquire about borrowing for the adoption from our home equity, they were not able to help us. Because of the economy, they are only allowing customers to borrow 85% of their home value minus what is still owed on the mortgage and once we paid closing costs to refinance the loan, it would not even be $5000. The woman who helped us said that since we could not borrow the full amount, it would probably not be wise to refinance and then still need to borrow from multiple other sources to get the full amount that we need since it would negatively affect our credit. She recommended trying our 401(K) company. Well, we called them and right now the maximum we could borrow is only $15,000.
Oh, my, where is the money going to come from God? Please pray for us as we try to come up with the money that we will need. We wrote a check today for $1000.00 which we had saved up, and we have to write another check for $7000.00 in about 3 weeks and we just don't have that right now. Then we'll owe another $17,000 when we receive a placement.
Lord, I pray for your provision and that we would trust You to complete what you have started. Lord, give us wisdom to know what to do and where to go to find the resources that we will need to complete this adoption. May everything we do Lord glorify You. Thank You Jesus, Amen.
But this afternoon, when we stopped at our bank to inquire about borrowing for the adoption from our home equity, they were not able to help us. Because of the economy, they are only allowing customers to borrow 85% of their home value minus what is still owed on the mortgage and once we paid closing costs to refinance the loan, it would not even be $5000. The woman who helped us said that since we could not borrow the full amount, it would probably not be wise to refinance and then still need to borrow from multiple other sources to get the full amount that we need since it would negatively affect our credit. She recommended trying our 401(K) company. Well, we called them and right now the maximum we could borrow is only $15,000.
Oh, my, where is the money going to come from God? Please pray for us as we try to come up with the money that we will need. We wrote a check today for $1000.00 which we had saved up, and we have to write another check for $7000.00 in about 3 weeks and we just don't have that right now. Then we'll owe another $17,000 when we receive a placement.
Lord, I pray for your provision and that we would trust You to complete what you have started. Lord, give us wisdom to know what to do and where to go to find the resources that we will need to complete this adoption. May everything we do Lord glorify You. Thank You Jesus, Amen.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Just Love Coffee Fundraiser
We are raising funds for our adoption using Just Love Coffee Roasters. They are a company that supports adoptive families through fundraising with coffee sales. They are adoptive parents themselves and they not only use the coffee sales to support other adoptive families, but they also support their childrens' orphanage with the coffee sales. So by supporting us through buying coffee, you are not only helping us but orphans in Ethiopia as well.
To purchase coffee, you go to our storefront and make a purchase. Your products will be delivered to your home and the company will send us a portion of each sale to use for our adoption expenses. We need to raise $25, 000 to cover all of our adoption expenses and though we know that this will provide only a small part, it will certainly help us get started.
Our storefront is http://www.justlovecoffee.com/bancherofamily
Thank you for your support and prayers as we trust God to provide for our adoption!
To purchase coffee, you go to our storefront and make a purchase. Your products will be delivered to your home and the company will send us a portion of each sale to use for our adoption expenses. We need to raise $25, 000 to cover all of our adoption expenses and though we know that this will provide only a small part, it will certainly help us get started.
Our storefront is http://www.justlovecoffee.com/bancherofamily
Thank you for your support and prayers as we trust God to provide for our adoption!
We're Adopting Again!
Well, we've been getting little nudges from God again to enlarge our family. After lots of prayer, we have decided to adopt an infant from the US this time. So exciting, yet a little scary at the same time. We know what to expect from an international adoption, so stepping into a domestic adoption will be a new experience for us. So far, it has not been quite as difficult as our Russian adoption experience, but I guess that could change. We are praying and hoping for the best!
Our process this time should go like this:
-Adoption orientation (done!)
-Pre-application (done!)
Dasha is so excited that she is going to be a big sister, she has been telling people for months, even before we decided to adopt again, that she is going to be a big sister (resulting in a lot of strange looks at me, especially from people who know we have infertility issues!). She has been saying that "it might take a long time, but Jesus will tell us when our baby is coming." So we are following her example of faith and waiting for Jesus to send our baby.
Our process this time should go like this:
-Adoption orientation (done!)
-Pre-application (done!)
-Submit Statement of Faith- this is a Christian agency, something that is very important to us and they require a statement of faith to adopt with them (done!)
-Formal Application (done!)
- Homestudy (consists of an intake interview, a joint interview, separate interviews, and a home visit and inspection)
-Parent Training
-Homestudy Approval
-Placement (this is where we wait for a birthmother to choose us based on a profile scrapbook that we create)
-Post-Placement Supervision (this is where the social worker visits us and makes sure the placement is going well- we still have one more of these to do for Dasha's adoption in December! We will only have three months of post placement visits for this adoption, not three years like for Russia!)
-Finalization- After about 6 months, we can apply to the court to finalize our adoption
Dasha is so excited that she is going to be a big sister, she has been telling people for months, even before we decided to adopt again, that she is going to be a big sister (resulting in a lot of strange looks at me, especially from people who know we have infertility issues!). She has been saying that "it might take a long time, but Jesus will tell us when our baby is coming." So we are following her example of faith and waiting for Jesus to send our baby.
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