After dinner language lessons taught by Becca.
And… be still my heart… Michael can say “Sparrow” and if you ask him,
“Where is Sparrow?”
He runs to the refrigerator and points to her picture!
Language Lessons
4
Pre-Approval Received!
We heard today from our caseworker at Lifeline that we have received our
Pre-Approval to adopt Sparrow!
We are so excited!
We will continue on through the process now, hoping to be able to travel during 2014.
We were first drawn to this precious 8 year old little girl in November, but at that time we were told her file was spoken for. Our caseworker called us in December to let us know that her file was available and after praying together as a family, we believed we were supposed to pursue adopting her.
Did I mention that we are all quite excited?
*Smile*
Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name, make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted. Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things, let this be known to all the world.
Isaiah 12:4-5
His Eye is on the Sparrow
We are learning as we go how the process to adopt a child from China works.
So many details to attend to…
Sometimes people ask me questions about what is next,
or how something works,
and I have to admit that I just don’t know yet!
We have prepared our I800A to go to US Immigration,
and now this week have some exciting news to share!
We are also planning to submit to China our Letter of Intent,
asking permission to be matched with a particular little girl.
We are not able to share anything else with you at this time,
but I am thinking of her as
“Sparrow.”
Do you know the song?
I sing because I’m happy,
I sing because I’m free,
His eye is on the sparrow,
and I know He watches me
It is so obvious that his hand is on this whole process of adoption and that he truly does watch over these little ones. Some good friends of ours recently shared with us, just as I have shared with you today, that they were so excited because they believed that they knew which precious child they were supposed to adopt from China. Just like today, they were not able to share any other information with us at that time. She hoped that they would be able to get back to us in a few weeks. Well, we prayed for them and waited and did not hear anything. Then came all the business of Christmas and we still did not hear anything. As we progressed in our own journey through this process, we sat down a little over a week ago to look over the lists of precious children available for adoption from China. We asked the “big” kids to join us and we hoped that the Lord would speak to us if one of the faces we saw was the little brother or sister to join our family. We made a short list of names to pray over. This last week, I checked back on each of these children and we were so happy to see that one little girl had been matched with a family! We had been drawn to her and prayed for her, but felt no disappointment – only happiness for her. Today as I reviewed some emails, I realized that our friends had emailed us 11 days ago and I had missed it! The email shared more information about the little girl that they are now pre-approved to adopt, including a picture – and it was the same little one who we had been so happy for when we saw that she now had a family! Isn’t that special that the Lord would lead us to pray for our friends’ new daughter?
A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families…
Psalm 68:5-6
End of the Beginning – In Sight
We are nearing the end of our Home Study (the first step in our adoption journey). Actually it is a lot of steps. I have attached a list of our Home Study steps below.
Check list:
- Application
- Fee Agreement
- Statement of Understanding
- Duty to Disclose Agreement
- Release of Information
- Client Information Form
- Consent for Services
- Self Study Questionnaire
- Release of Information/Child and Adult Protective Service Requests
- Fingerprinting/Criminal Checks
- Criminal History Release for Local Criminal Checks
- 1040 Tax Return
- Financial Statement
- Monthly Budget
- Mortgage or Rental Letter Confirming Good Standing
- Verification of Life Insurance
- Employer Reference Request
- General Physical Examination Form (each Potential Adoptive Parent)
- Child’s Health Form (each child)
- Verification of Health Insurance
- Marriage License
- Birth Certificate (each Potential Adoptive Parent and all children in home)
- Three Personal Reference Requests
- Firearms and /or Weapons Statement
- Verification of Training attended
- Prior Home Study Information
- Statement of Guardianship
It could be done as soon as next week. As soon as we have that done, we will begin applying for grants. (Just a note for those considering adoption, people survive this process all the time.) More to come, thank you for praying.
Did you know…
November is National Adoption Awareness Month!
As a church family at Waypoint, we want to know God’s heart for the orphan, his Father heart for all of us,
and we are pursuing adoption.
Each November, a Sunday is designated as Orphan Sunday.
In honor of that, Spencer made this short movie to be used
in our service last Sunday.
It highlights some of the families at Waypoint that are adding to their families through the blessing of adoption…
though there are others who we missed including and those that have prayed mightily for these very adoptions and who have
given generously
to our church adoption fund.
Enjoy!
http://youtu.be/2bBfsaBwQdQ
Prayer and Channeling
Thank you for your thoughts and prayers about our fingerprints. We ended up using a channeler.
It turns out the FBI allows some private companies to send fingerprints directly to them for background checks. They really call them channelers.
In the old days (before September 2013) the Nebraska State Patrol would run background checks at the state level, and then run background checks against the national FBI database, this process would take about 8 weeks.
I was the guinea pig for our agency using a private channeler and the process took a total of 1 day.
In our last home study this was one of the most time consuming parts, this time it was one of the quickest.
Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Chinese Food!
We are so interested in learning all about China,
it’s always on our mind these days!
We have found a Chinese documentary about food in China called:
A Bite of China
It is fascinating!
We cannot recommend this wonderful series enough.
You can watch all 7 episodes here:
http://english.cntv.cn/special/a_bite_of_china/homepage/index.shtml
Background Checks and Fingerprints (Continued)
Stick with me, this might be confusing to you if you have never adopted.
The state of Nebraska requires finger prints to be taken and background checks to be run in order for a family to be approved to adopt a child.
Fingerprints are put on a card by law enforcement and sent to the State Patrol in Lincoln.
The State Patrol uses the fingerprints and does a state and FBI criminal check.
There are 3 places you can get your fingerprints put on a paper card (Douglas County Sheriff’s office, State Patrol Office, Omaha Police Department).
Only the State Patrol did free fingerprints so we went to them.
But they don’t do fingerprinting for adoption anymore so we went to the Omaha Police Department and paid $40.
We sent the cards with our fingerprints and $64 to the Lincoln State Patrol office and waited several weeks.
We just received them back today!
No, not our background checks, our fingerprints and check. It turns out the State Patrol has decided to only do background checks for government agencies now.
SO
The state requires background checks, is the only place we can get them, and doesn’t do them anymore. This means that there is no way for anyone to complete or update their home-study in Nebraska right now.
We’ll be calling some elected officials tomorrow….
Background Checks and Fingerprints
Today we spent over $100 to procure documentation that we are not criminals at the local or national level. I am ok with that ~ we want these precious children that are eligible for adoption going to safe homes and families!
Here is what I am worried about…
I apparently have “difficult” fingerprints.
After visiting the Douglas County Sheriff to get (blank) copies of our local criminal histories, the officer downtown at the Omaha Police Department had to roll some of my prints 4 and 5 times, and the computer still said that they were not good enough! They have been submitted along with Jason’s to the State Patrol in Lincoln to have a National Criminal/FBI History Check done ~ but they could be deemed unreadable or rejected.
Will pray with us that God will smooth over this potential bump in our adoption process? If they are rejected and have to be rerolled, it could add weeks to our home study process.
Thank you!!
The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord;
He turns it wherever He wishes.
Proverbs 21:1
First Home Study Visit Done – Check!
Only 12-18 months left to go!
This would have us traveling to China sometime late 2014, or hopefully by early 2015. We have learned from our adoption journey with Michael, that often these “suggested timelines” are not always an accurate description of what will really happen, but this is what Lifeline Children’s Services says is reasonable to expect. This next year to year and a half will involve some reading, education on international adoption and attachment issues, physicals for the whole family, fingerprints and background checks, coordinating 2 different adoption agencies, and lots and lots of forms. I know that some of you reading know much better than we do what lies ahead, but for some of you, this may be a helpful description of the future.
We appreciate you walking along side of us in this new adventure…we are excited to see what God has in store!
We have been quite encouraged by this verse shared on a blog by the name of There’s No Place Like Home …
Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west.
Isaiah 43:5
