Well, October is nearly gone and it has been a smidge over 2 months since we received our application approval from CCAI. We've finished with our home study visits and have pretty much all of our paperwork obtained for our dossier. What happens next? Well, our home study agency is busy writing our report, which we will get to look over to make sure things are correct. Our adoption agency will also get to comb through it to make sure it is up to the high standards set by China. Once that is complete, we can then apply for grants, and apply we will!! We thought the home study process was going to take much, much longer than it has, thus giving us more time to come up with the substantial amount of money needed for our second set of agency fees and China fees once our dossier is ready to go to China, which technically I figure should be about the end of December. However, things have gone so quickly that we haven't had much time to get a good fundraiser set up with all of our paperchasing for the home study, plus just normal life with work, kids, etc., so we may have a completed dossier sitting around until we are able to raise all of the fees we need. Our good friends who are also adopting from China and have done some fundraising in their time have offered to help us get something going. We did have a Pampered Chef fundraiser in September that raised $96 and I have been making what I call Mei-Zhen bracelets (Mei-Zhen meaning "beautiful pearl" in Chinese) to sell. David teases me about "beading," but we have to admit that God has really blessed those bracelets and the first good batch of them had sold like hotcakes, especially at David's workplace. Here is a sample of the pink collection:
Also with our home study done, we then need to send all of our Indiana-notarized paperwork down to the Secretary of State to be authenticated. After that, all of that goes to the Chinese Embassy in Chicago, hand-carried by a paid courier no less, for their approval. Because David was born in North Carolina, his birth certificate has to go to the State Department in Washington DC and DC Chinese Embassy for those last two steps. Once all of that is done, we can take all of that mountain of paperwork, plus lots of pictures (which we have been specifically told how many, who needs to be in them, etc.) and send it all to CCAI for them to translate into Chinese, get it all pretty and organized, and then send it away to China!!
This whole thing has been such a learning experience and so surreal at times, and honestly, sometimes a bit scary as this is "uncharted territory for our family" as my mom put it. However, we know that even in the midst of the paperchase and the daily grind, the brakes needing replaced, the bad grade on the test, the washing machine breaking, and, unfortunately, other family members hearing that dreaded bad word from the pathology report just today, God is always in control....He has never lost it, nor ever will. He has a purpose and a plan in everything. We just pray that He will be glorified in our lives through this, and I personally am humbled and so very thankful that He would ask us to be willing to be a part of His adventure. I'm also glad you're tagging along for the ride, too, because things are going to get interesting!
Kathie =)
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