Workshop complete

We traveled several hours this weekend to attend the 7 hour international workshop required to complete our home study. It was long but informative and mostly, we are just glad it is behind us. We can now get our final home study and hopefully that will arrive this week.

While the kids were in school Friday morning, J and I drove downtown to a satellite office for the secretary of state to get our documents certified before sending them off to the Chicago consulate to be authenticated. When dropping off the documents we realized we didn't have the 1 1/2 hours to wait so we would need to come back and pick them up this week. As the office attendant took the papers and paper clipped them together I had physical anxiety symptoms, which is rare for me. I felt my stomach flip-flop and my heart race as if I was on a high, very long bridge; one thing I despise. I am so worried one of those documents might fall from the paper clip and get lost. My inner being was screaming "You have no idea how long that has taken or just HOW important each of those papers are!" When leaving the office I told J that I felt as though I had just dropped my baby off with an unknown babysitter and he told me "well, you sort of did." Yes, I guess I did. I hope they have taken care of her this weekend and didn't lose her blanket or teddy bear our financial statement or medical forms.

Our GA paperwork made it home safely from the Houston consulate last Thursday but the US Secretary of State is taking their time with our TN paperwork and has not sent it onto the Chinese Embassy yet. I'm sure there are very critical national situations that might take precedence but I need our paperwork!

Off to the Races

After several years of the thought of adoption in both of our heads and several weeks of truly hashing out details and talking to the kids we have decided to go forth and make our first step in adopting a little girl from China! I have always felt a calling from God to adopt internationally and knew I would never be able to fulfill that calling on my own accord. We are truly relying on faith at this time to lead us in the direction that is the best for our family. This is not an inexpensive way to add to our family as well, so we pray daily that God will lead us on our journey in a way that we can remain true to our debt free principles.

This will be a long road; we are merely at the starting line of a marathon. I want to jump the gun and start sprinting but I know that will only cause us to tire early and grow frustrated in the middle of the wait. China has the most extensive list of requirements of any country, we are starting now to gather those documents before our move so we can finish our home study once we move to MO. They also require an $80,000 net worth and we are just a bit short of that number. We may have to delay our dossier (paperwork packet) until we are able to meet that net worth requirement or find creative things to count as value. :)