Dossier on its Way!

Our paperwork left for Ethiopia two weeks ago! We now wait until we get matched with our baby girl. It still seems very unreal to me. On Monday we purchased her crib and finally felt as though this could really happen. Adoption is a long process and it starts to feel like it is never going to end. How amazing it will be to finally receive her picture and know who this little girl is that we already love and care for so much!
We did have to get a loan which will not cover all expenses but did cover the fee to send our dossier and most of the referral fee we will need to pay as soon as we get her picture. We have had friends and family donate recently and our so grateful. I cannot believe how loving and gracious people have been.
Our second trip I was going to go alone so Chris could use his time off when our daughter arrives. My lovely sister-in-law is going to travel with me! I decided I needed help in case I became ill or even wanted to go to the restroom alone on the 24 hour flight.:) I recently went to see my friends bring home their beautiful baby girl home from Ethiopia and there was a man in a wheelchair who had gotten very sick while bringing his baby home
and was alone! I now feel more comfortable about my second trip knowing someone will be there if I need them. It will be nice to share the experience and for our baby girl to meet her new aunt Jamie!!
Now we wait! We wait for the picture of this little girl who is in need of so much. We will do everything we can to provide it! I know in the end we will be the blessed ones. Actually, I am positive of it!
Please continue to pray for our family and every child that is in need of a loving home.

Paperwork is Done!

In February of this year we decided to start looking into adoption. The earthquake in Haiti was the real motivator in our decision. Here we are 9 months later and we finally are done with our paperwork and received our immigration form(171H). We waited for this form for 2 months!! Our paperwork is being authenticated here and then will be sent to Washington D.C. and off to Ethiopia! Once our paperwork is received in Ethiopia it will only be 4-6 months until we are matched with our daughter. We are almost there!!! This has been a total life change for Chris and I. We had all our boys in school and I was only cleaning two homes for extra money and working in the kids classrooms. Now I am babysitting a baby,working pt at our church, and cleaning homes everyday I have off. Chris is working full-time as a  police officer, working off duty, and doing photography. Adoption is very expensive and we are doing everything possible to make this possible.

We thought we had another couple of months to raise funds for our dossier payment. We just found out to get our paperwork to Ethiopia it is due now!! We just did a garage sale and are doing another in a couple weeks. We are selling Chris’ car and selling jewelry on line but this will take time. We know this was our decision and are responsible for getting our baby girl home! We have come to the realization that we cannot do it alone. We have a paypal account on this blog , if you could donate even 5 or 10 dollars it would help us so much. If you could post to your friends and family also! Every bit of money will go directly into “her” account!! We are truly grateful and so many have already donated to our garage sales and referred me for house cleaning and Chris for his photography.We are truly blessed to have great friends and family. If you cannot donate please continue to pray for our baby girl in Ethiopia and our family here. Prayer changes things!

With Love,

Chris and Carrie

Terrible Blogger….

Yes, I am a terrible blogger!! Wanted to finally write about what has been happening with our adoption. We are done with paperwork and just waiting on a immigration form, hopefully we will have it next week!! Once we get this we send our dossier to Ethiopia and wait to be matched.
Chris and I have been staying busy to raise funds, the big payment will be due when we are matched and then of course travel expenses. Chris has been doing photography between work and kids. I will be putting a link on here if your interested in his photos or need pictures taken. I am cleaning houses, babysitting and working in childrens ministry at our church. I can fit in one or two more houses if you or you know anyone who is in need of a house cleaner. We will be having another garage sale September 3rd and 4th. I have had several donations and continue to get more. Half of the things have been donated by people we don’t even know! We also will be selling some jewelry and sports memorabilia Chris has had since he was a boy!
We go meet with other families once a month who our adopting or have all ready adopted from Ethiopia. It is great to be able to know what to expect when we go. It is awesome seeing all these kids who fit in these families so perfectly. Many of the familes are going in the next couple months to pick up or meet their new sons or daughters. It makes me realize this too will actually happen for us. It is a process and wonder if it will ever truly happen!
The first trip Chris and I will go together.The second trip I will have to travel alone. I would love someone to travel with me, I know the cost is incredible but if anyone is interested let me know!
We will be trying to blog more often. I don’t know about anyone else but for me to sit in front of a computer to check facebook or for any other reason is pure torture. Maybe I have ADD? I cannot sit still for very long! It is probably a good thing when you have four kids and one on the way!
We want to say thank you to everyone who has donated and been praying for our family. Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers! We have great family and friends and our so thankful for your support!!!

Just Checking In

I haven’t written for quite awhile! We are still busy doing paperwork. Our homestudy was just approved.We should be done and ready to send everything to Ethiopia within 2-3 weeks.Then we wait to be matched with our daughter.We have two families in our Ethiopian group traveling very soon to meet their children.It is nice to see how everything works before you experience it yourself.
We are starting to apply for grants now that our homestudy is approved.Yes…more paperwork.Lots of hoops to jump through but all worth it.
We our truly blessed to have great family and friends supporting our family in our journey.Thank you for all your prayers!

Some New Changes

We have been so busy with all of our paperwork,we are almost done! We  have completed our home study and getting our dossier ready to send. Once the paperwork is done it will be a relief. 

We had a garage sale a few weeks ago and are having another this weekend. We raised $642! I thought it was pretty good as we only ran it for two days and were rained out our last day. Thanks to everyone who donated!! We still have a garage full!

We will be excepting old cell phones for our main fundraiser. If anyone has any or can spread the word we would greatly appreciate it! We are able to pick them up. You can support our adoption while helping the environment!!

Adoption is very expensive and of course we would love to do it all ourselves but cannot. We have just found out about some huge changes.It looks as if we may have to travel twice,once to except our referral and meet our daughter and then again to pick her up. Each time we go it is about $5000! Ethiopia has always required only one visit. The change is to protect the children. They have had issues with trafficking of children and adoptive parents leaving their children in Ethiopia! I can’t even imagine! The hardest part of this will be leaving her for 2 months after bonding with our daughter! We will have to do what they require and hopefully time will go quickly!

We are excited for the future and know God is in the lead.

Where are we at now?

Well, we’ve been moving at warp speed since our last post.  We have been gathering all of the necessary documents for our dossier and getting ready for our big garage sale next week.  This past weekend we had the pleasure of meeting other Ethiopian adoption families.  We are part of an Ethiopian Adoption Families Group here in the valley.  The families were great and the kids were awesome!  We look forward to meeting with them again soon. 

We continue to study about Ethiopia and its culture.  We learned some interesting facts about Addis Ababa the capital city of Ethiopia and we can’t wait to go there. 

We have had a huge response from family and friends regarding our upcoming garage sale and we thank all of you for that.  Without you this would not be possible for us.

We hit a bit of a snag this morning when Carrie was involved in a traffic collision.  Carrie is alright, just a bit shaken up and a sore neck.  Our vehicle was not driveable and had to be towed from the scene.  We won’t let it get in the way of what we are doing, so we push on.

Our first homestudy session

Today was a good day, very productive as far as the adoption goes.  We had our first homestudy session today.  We went over tons of paperwork with our Social Worker Angela and our home was thoroughly inspected.  Having researched just how much is involved with international adoption, we were not suprised with the amount of work that lies ahead.

We continue to study the country of Ethiopia and its diverse culture.  We are learning some of the language, however there are many dialects.  The main dialect is Amharic.  I know that I haven’t really learned about other cultures in detail since college, so this has been an awesome learning experience for me.  I look forward to learning about other countries and cultures. 

We decided to take our two oldest with us to Ethiopia.  Dorin (16) and Marcos (14).  They are excited to go and we feel that it will be a once in a lifetime opportunity to see just how different things are in other countries. 

Our next homestudy session will be a month from now.  We have so much paperwork to complete prior to then, so stand by.  We decided to possibly add a bake sale to our garage sale at the end of this month.  If anyone has any ideas or would like to donate some baked goods please let us know.  We appreciate everyone who has offered to help us and those of you who have prayed for our family.  All of you are in our prayers as well.

(Just a little side note…..we will try and let you know who is authoring each of these posts.  The author of this post is Chris)