A day long awaited...

Evan called me today and said, "Guess what arrived?" I knew. The I-171H. Thank you so much to my prayer warriors for your faithful prayers that the letter would come this week. It has arrived at last!

The letter is so formal. It comes from the Department of Homeland Security, and it grants us permission to adopt an orphan and bring he/she into the United States. Even in its formality, I was still moved to tears, "It has been determined that you are able to furnish proper care to an orphan(s)..."

Since I got home from work, we have been feverishly working to check and double check our Dossier documents so that we can head to Fed Ex for it to head to our agency, America World, first thing tomorrow. Thank you to my amazing friend, Stacie, who has notarized countless documents for us and put up with me blubbering as she notarized the last document today.

Our child is one step closer. In just 3 weeks all of the work of 6.5 months will arrive in Ethiopia and will lead us to our child (or children). Please join us in prayer for the paper work to be processed smoothly, for the Dossier to arrive in Ethiopia and be processed efficiently, and most importantly for our child (children) that this stack of paper will lead us to.

We have our fingerprinting appointment!!!

Happy New Year!

The holidays have been wonderful, and it has been great having a nearly 2 week break from teaching. However, it feels good to be in a routine again starting a new year. We got wonderful news last week- we got our federal fingerprinting appointment!!! We'll be heading to West Virginia on Wednesday to get our fingerprints taken. We are praying that our I-171H will come within 2-4 weeks. Please joining us in praying for this. It is possible it will take longer. The wait time for the Ethiopia program is looking like 24-30 months from Dossier submission, so the sooner we get the Dossier submitted the sooner we can  hurry up and wait. I look forward to posting about receiving the "golden ticket" soon!

Sweet sacrifice

I love what I do. I teach enthusiastic 10 year-olds each day. I love that my day never looks the same as the last. Mostly, I adore that I can make an impact on a young person's life. Every once in a while, one of my former students stops by to pay me a visit. I'm always floored by how grown up they look!

At the beginning of the school day today, I had a sweet surprise. A younger sibling of a former student stopped by and handed me an envelope. Sydney heard that Evan and I are adopting from Ethiopia, and she and her sister decided to help. Riley, Sydney's younger sister, hands me an envelope and said, "We've been earning money for your adoption." They had a lemonade stand and saved all the funds for us. I hugged this sweet girl up and told her how much that meant to me. Later on, I opened the envelope and found this:

$28 in one dollar bills.  The generosity of the two young girls reminds me of the story of the widow's offering. 

Luke 21

New International Version (NIV)

The Widow’s Offering

21 As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. ² He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. ³ “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. ⁴ All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

Thank you Sydney and Riley for your faith!

It begins....

We are at an exciting and overwhelming stage in our adoption process. We have just been contacted by our family coordinator and social worker, and we must now begin getting things together for our home studies and Dossier. Evan was kind enough to print all of the directions out while I was visiting family and NJ, and I came home to 2 big stacks of paper. This is intimidating.

While Evan's school district is already under way, I still have 2 weeks before my teacher work days. I have a feeling that I won't be lounging around though. I have a lot of paper work to do.

Two years ago I worked on something called National Board Certification for teaching, and it was a busy and overwhelming year. I wrote and researched constantly, and when I sent in my portfolio in March of 2011, I felt both relief and fear over the results. It all ended up worth it when I found out that I passed. Why do I have a feeling that the Dossier will be the same? I have a feeling that National Boards prepared me for this.

Please pray for Evan and I as we start this daunting task!