An introduction to our bull"dozier"

We had the 2nd of our home study visits tonight, which went very well. We basically went over some educational materials and talked about how to began to prepare our dossier. What is a dossier, you ask? Let me educate you...Well, for starters, it is pronounced DOSS-ee-ay, and NOT at all like the tail end of "bulldozier", which is how I prefer to pronounce it, much to Kenny's dismay. The dossier is "a collection of specific documents that are sent to another country [Ethiopia, in our case] in order to process the adoption in court. In most cases these documents must be legalized, notarized, state certified or apostilled and authenticated by the appropriate Consulate or Embassy. The documents needed for a dossier vary country by country and many must be dated within a specific time frame."

So, just when we thought the paperwork was winding up, we will now take all this paperwork we have collected and have them "authenticated" at the county, state and national levels...which to my understanding, means a seal from the corresponding level will be put on each piece of paper to declare their authenticity. This is, of course, after each paper has been notarized. Then, it will be sent on to Ethiopia. We are getting dangerously close to the "waiting zone", so I'm definitely pumped to have something else to work on to help the time pass faster.

I'll update you on our status as I run around the state with our bull"dossier"...


EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm not sure my humor is totally appreciated in "blog" form, because it dawned on me as I read over this before posting, that you can't actually HEAR me saying "dossier", therefore thinking that my references to a bulldozier are actually fairly lame. I may be, in fact, fairly lame, but please humor me in my desperate attempts to create interesting and captivating titles for each of my posts in order to keep your attention... feel free to laugh with me; if you insist on laughing at me, please do it behind my back. :)

When Love Takes You In

Listen to the words......

He knows.

I am the LORD your God,
who teaches you what is best for you,
who directs you in the way you should go.

Isaiah 48:17

Domestic vs. International? And the winner is...

...The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised. Job 1:21

Today has been interesting...

From the beginning of this adventure, we have pursued international adoption and all along the way, we have had different people ask, "Are you interested in domestic adoption?". Our answer has always been the same, that we just felt that God was leading us towards international adoption. An explanation of sorts, if I may, international adoption is almost an extension of the passion and desire that we have for the mission field.

We had an opportunity presented to us earlier today by our adoption agency to be matched with a child from South Carolina that hadn't even been born yet. I'll be honest, we were totally caught off guard and not really sure what to think. After the initial shock, lots of questions...Is this God's way of changing our path? Can we do this with only 2 months notice? We have NOTHING for a baby! What? How? When? Ahhhhhh..........This was a loop we definitely hadn't planned for. But two facts I had to keep reminding myself: We have prayed for a child to be added to our family for some time...and God doesn't always answer our prayers the way we expect Him to. (Shouldn't I know this by now...?)

Long story short, I received an email late this evening and God has found a match for this little girl and totally shut the door for us on this opportunity. That was our prayer, to make this decision very clear to us...shut and open the right doors! I'm not sure exactly what the lesson learned is going to be yet...possibly to TOTALLY and COMPLETELY trust God with all even when it catches us off guard, or is He preparing us for another domestic adoption opportunity and all the talk and conversations and prayers over this are just a taste of what's to come? Only God knows...

I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. Job 42:2


On a side note, I shared coffee and a time of fellowship at Starbucks this evening with several ladies from our church who are in the process of adopting or have already completed adoptions. It was awesome to see how God is working in each family's life to make adoption happen for them. Thanks to each of you for your encouraging words as we talked through this opportunity tonight...And who let me order the caramel frappacino? I'm wired. And up for at least 2-3 more hours!!

CSI: Louisville

Good news...Kenny & I are not criminals! As if there was actually any concern........ We had a totally and completely uneventful trip to the Gene Snyder U.S. Courthouse in downtown Louisville yesterday morning. We were the first people in the office...handed over our completed I-600a paperwork, sent downstairs to be fingerprinted...had to wait in line behind a nice fellow from the Ukraine...they fingerprinted each of us using their super-cool CSI-like digital fingerprint scanner and we were on our way. Whole process took less than 45 minutes! Our biggest problem was that neither of us thought to bring change for the parking meter, but the nice security guard gave me change for a dollar and took care of that problem pretty fast! And I was really pumped and hoped that this would be like my own little CSI adventure getting fingerprinted and all, but it was surprisingly boring. God was watching out for us... : )

And props to Tera, who heads up the adoption ministry at our church, for coming to the rescue Monday night and helping me fill out our I-600a! They ask these crazy questions and apparently whatever your gut tells you to answer, you should just go the opposite way! That's the government for ya!

Next...our second visit with our adoption social worker next Tuesday, July 22nd.

Alabama...and my dad...ROCKS!!

So really, God ROCKS...I'll fill you in. If you remember a couple of days ago , I asked you guys to pray that we would receive a copy of our Alabama state tax papers in a timely manner... We were told that it would be 8-10 weeks, but today when I checked the mail, to my most giddy surprise, there sat a certified copy of our 2005 Alabama state tax return!! I think I cried a little...I really wasn't expecting to see these papers for quite a while! "O ye of little faith", God reminded me...I'm sure he was smiling down on me as I opened that mailbox!

And on to my dad rocking, turns out our home study agency wanted me to have an additional background check run, by the state instead of by an independent agency, which is how it was done the first time around. So, I called the Alabama Department of Public Safety (fancy name for the police) and they directed me to an online form that needed to be submitted by mail and would take 4-6 weeks to process! 4-6 weeks?!? Dad to the rescue! The form can be submitted in person, which takes all of about 15 minutes (so why does it take 4-6 weeks to mail it to me?!?) in the lovely state capital of Montgomery, Alabama. And since Dad is a world traveler of sorts and he passes through Montgomery about once a week, he is going to take the form down there for me!! Thanks Dad!! Next hurdle...the form needs to notarized. After a quick call to Nicole (who obviously knew I was going to need a notary), she informed me that she had already set up a notary to be at church on Sunday to sign kid's camp forms! Problem solved! How lucky are we?!?

I'm not gonna attribute it to luck, but that God is really a step ahead of us all through out this process. These may be little things, but it's the little things that grow our faith BIG! We serve an awesome God and He never fails us! I can't stop smiling! Doesn't take much to make me happy...wonder how I'll respond when we actually get to the point of receiving a referral... :)

The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Deuturonomy 31:8 (NIV)

God ROCKS. 'Nuf said.

I will call him Wonka!

(...not to be confused with Willie Wonka from The Chocolate Factory, because he was a little creepy...)

I know it's been quite a while since y'all have experienced Jana's Nature Segment, so I'll indulge you. We have a new friend "living" with us. I have named him Willie Wonka (yes, I'm silly!) and he is brown with a little white fluffy tail and floppy ears! We often see Willie Wonka in the morning or afternoon nibbling on our grass in the yard or hopping around in the field behind our house. He likes to hop around the rocks in the backyard. He usually visits us daily, but has yet to let us get too close...believe me, I tried to pet him! My plan is to offer him a carrot and see what happens...(Katie, he looks like Spencer!)





And to add some excitement and spice to the Nature Segment, we were chased...yes, chased...by a possum on Friday night. Before you fall over laughing, let me explain. So, we are hanging out with our good friends, the Jolly's, on the 4th and we are sitting outside on their porch watching fireworks. It was raining, so we were sitting on the steps. Nicole mentioned she smelled "wet animal"...still not sure what that smells like, Nicole...about the time we see this fat possum run across the bottom stair. In the next few seconds, there is a clap of thunder or a firework or something that spooked the little critter and it headed straight up the steps after us!! I don't think we've moved that fast in long time and I'm pretty sure I knocked somebody over trying to get inside! And unlike the cute bunny, the possum didn't get a name...I'm hoping not to see him again!

He proceeded to wander around the outside of the house the rest of the evening, but we managed to avoid any other direct contact! Yuck...makes me shudder just think about it!

"That does NOT look good!" said Dr. Gaba...

So, on Tuesday, we started with our physicals, which ended up really being more of just a little chat with the doctor, because the forms that we needed to have filled out required very little input from the doctor. Good news...he declared us healthy and happily signed our forms. And now we have a doctor should we get sick because we both really liked the guy. (Thanks for the referral, Dwayne!) Bad news...My finger is infected from a freak laundry accident. I'm probably about the only person in the world to have an accident doing laundry and end up on antibiotics with an infected finger! (I slammed my finger in the dryer door.....don't ask!)

Then we met our adoption social worker at a local pizza place where she proceeded to ask us every possible question about our childhood all the way up to the present. We described how we grew up, our families, where we went to school, what we did for fun, our jobs, our house, how we met, etc. We feel like it went really well and we are excited to finish up the actual home study process. We will do the 2nd half of our home study on July 22nd, where she will actually come to our house. In the mean time, we will basically be "kid-proofing" the house before she comes, per her request. My friend Dara did home studies as part of her internship for her Master's and she told me people always had just made cookies or baked a cake right before she showed up to make the house smell great and seem homely and kid- friendly...I'm already trying to decide...chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin? Any suggestions, Dara?

We also have our appointment scheduled with USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services) to submit our I-600a and get fingerprinted on July 15th. The I-600a is the "Application for Advanced Processing of Orphan Petition" and "is how the government identifies prospective parents as qualified to continue in the adoption process". In a nutshell...more paperwork. :)

Two specifics you can pray for: This may seem trivial, but could potentially cause us some delays...First, we have had to apply for a copy of our 2005 Alabama State tax refund. Somehow, we have either misplaced it or didn't make a copy of it way back when. It could potentially take 8-10 weeks for them to get it to us. It's been about 4 weeks, so I'm hoping to see it sooner, rather than later! And second, when my background check was run for the state of Alabama, another chap's name showed up on MY background check. Which means, this guy is using my social security number, either on purpose or by accident. Regardless, the government may not be too keen on this and may think it is an alias of mine or something weird like that. And it concerns me just because of all the identity theft that goes on these days and I have reported it to the social security office. We aren't sure right now how this will be handled or if it will cause a problem, but I'm praying that it is remedied easily!!

We march on, filling out this and that, praying for our little one(s), who is out there somewhere...