Craig started this Blog for me about one month ago and my intention has been to back log all of the events that have brought us to the point of adoption. Now that we have been in the car for ten hours on the way to a family vacation in Colorado, I have finally been able to do just that. We only have to add the photos to the different entries and we will be able to be current in our correspondences.
It was wonderful to reminisce through Craig’s Haiti trip, my own trip and the events that have occurred since our return. We have continued to work locally with Lutheran Social Services in the adoption process. We have now been through two of the three home study visits and have attended a two day adoption seminar to begin working toward the required 24 hours of adoption education.
We met a man when we were in Haiti named Kiki who works at an orphanage in Port-au-Prince called For His Glory/Maison des Enfants and were so impressed by his love for Christ and his mission for children. We knew immediately that our adoption would involve his orphanage. We began to look for international agencies that adopted out from For His Glory/Maison des Enfants. We had the list narrowed down to three agencies. It was a difficult time because we were given different information from each agency. One of them said that the waiting period was 18-24 months; another 36 months; and still another 42 months. One of the agencies said that they had never done the Presidential Dispensation and another said that they had been working on their first one. We prayed that we would choose the right agency for us.
After much consideration and prayer, we decided to use Children of All Nations (CAN) for our international agency and they have been wonderful. We filled out all of the preliminary paperwork and feel as though we have shared every possible bit of information about our past, present, and future plans. We think that we are about half way through the paperwork chase. Yesterday we sent the most recent mailer back to CAN and we will be instructed when to move forward with preparing our Dossier. The Dossier is the largest part of the paperwork chase. There are about 30 pieces of information that need to be gathered, notarized and verified by the government. It will be a long and tedious process but it will be so wonderful to see the items being checked off the list. We know that each step will bring our Haitian children closer to their forever family.
Our next step will be to complete the final home study visit on June 27th. Then the local agency will prepare their report on whether they feel we are qualified. There hasn’t been any indication of problems with our paperwork or qualifications.
We will also be requesting certified birth certificates and a marriage certificate as the first portion of our Dossier. We are looking forward to this being complete.
We have some further adoption education that we need to complete. We have online computer education to complete in the next couple of months and this will complete that portion of the requirements to adopt from Haiti.
In the meantime, we have been frequently visiting the website for CAN. There is a list of available children and I have been frequently praying for these beautiful children that might come to be a part of our family…or at the very least are likely friends to the children that will become a part of our family.
Most people have heard that we are looking to adopt a sibling set with two children. I think that most people can’t believe that we are going to adopt two children at once. After much prayer, we knew that if we only adopted one child, we would likely be returning to Haiti to adopt another shortly after. We made the decision to do two at once in the hope that we will be able to keep a sibling group together. We are excited to see how this journey unfolds and are looking forward to the twists and turns along the way! It is amazing to watch God at work!
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