How Long is the Wait? Part 3

Well just a quick update. We are now 9 months into the process and about 6.5 cm.  We are still waiting to get the last of the More Information over to the Philippines.  Hopefully that will happen later this week.  Here at home we are prepping for Thanksgiving and definitely appreciate all the blessings we have.

Lost

The news reports are still coming in.  ABC reported that there are estimates of 10,000 dead in one city alone.  Other reports mentions 10,000 total.  Either way that is a HUGE number.  I can't fathom that amount of loss.

Image from foxnews.com

To put it into some type of perspective, the town that we live in is around 43,000 people.  What would it mean to have 1 out 4 people die from our town alone?  It would mean that one person from our family was dead... and the same from all of our friends in town.  One report says that the storm has destroyed 70-80% of structures in its path.  What does that mean for those left behind?

It is so hard to read about the devastation. I cannot get through an article without tears streaming down my face.

Here are a couple of articles that I read.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/10/us-philippines-typhoon-idUSBRE9A603Q20131110

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/11/10/strongest-typhoon-year-hits-philippines/

More Information

That has been the theme of our days earlier this week.  On Wednesday we got an email from ICAB (the Philippine government adoption board) asking us to provide 8 additional pieces of information.  At first this sounded a little disheartening.  We spent the last 6 months pulling together paperwork and now they ask for more.  In the end we viewed this as a good thing.  It means somebody has actually looked at our paperwork and it isn't just sitting in a pile.  Also, the things they were asking were not too hard to gather.  A couple of them were very easy and handled by Chrysalis House, our placement agency.  A few were things that we could easily take care of like getting a paper notarized and taking pictures of some bedrooms.  Three others needed to be answered by the social worker who did our home study but not really anything major.  Lastly was the request for the raw data from some psychological tests we had taken previously.  This one worried us a bit.  We had asked for this information previously and our psychologist would not give it to us.  Instead she wrote a letter explaining why she would not release it.  Well, we should have remembered that God has been in control of the whole process.  When I emailed the psychologist to ask for the info, she said all she needed was a letter from us acknowledging that the info was going to somebody who was not a trained psychologist.  That was a pretty easy letter to write.

As Jenn and I sat at the bank waiting for our paperwork to be notarized, the lady helping us was having some trouble deciphering what was being asked for.  The wording was a little funny so I said it was understandable since it had been written by a foreign government.  This prompted her to mention that she and her husband were thinking about adopting and it was a very overwhelming process.  We agreed with her and she then asked us for more information.  We were happy to share our experience so far and had a good conversation.  As these things go, she attends Reston Bible Church and has been to at least one HOPE event.  I hope that we will be able stay in contact with her and be a support for her during this journey.  We have felt blessed by so many who have gone before us that it would be nice to be able to do the same for others.

Super Typhoon Hits the Philippines

Photo Credit: www.nbcnews.com

You may have heard that super typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines on Frday morning.  This storm is said to be the strongest storm in at least 30 years.  It had estimated sustained winds of 195 mph and gusts up to 235 mph.  I remember some of the devastation that Katrina and Sandy have caused here in the States.  I can only imagine how much damage would be caused by a stronger storm in an island country where many people's homes are made of scrap metal and wood.  

Please be praying for the country.  It is reported that at this point at least 10,000 people are in shelters and it is unknown how many causlaties there might be.  As you know, we are hoping to adopt from the Philippines but we also have family and friends who live there.

A Newsletter

At this point we have not heard anything new.  Our dossier have been in country for about a month and a half now.  We were originally told that the Philippines usually takes 1-2 months to approve a dossier.  So we eagerly are waiting to hear.  Hopefully we will be able to add it to the list of things we are thankful for at Thanksgiving.  

Our placement agency publishes a newsletter twice a year.  This release features a story about a couple who adopted from the Philippines to read it click here.  If you are interested in reading some of the previous newsletters you can click here.

Hope

Image from: www.restonbible.org 

Hope can come in many different forms.  We definitely have a lot of hope right now.  We are hoping for two girls.  We are hoping that we won't have to wait too long.  We are hoping that the finances will work out.

HOPE is also the name of an adoption and orphan care ministry at a local church.  The group is made up of people who have a heart for adoption.  There are people who work in adoption, people who have adopted, people who are in the process and people who are just thinking about adopting.  About a year ago, soon after I had finally agreed to adopt, we attended a fellowship meeting HOPE was having.   Since then we have attended an information session and recently another fellowship.  It is very encouraging to be with others who have had or are having the same experiences.

At this last fellowship we met the Wicklines, you can read about their story here.  As it turns out, we had actually met the Wicklines before.  We have been walking a parallel path.  Some months back, the Wicklines attended the same Home Study orientation that we did.  At the time as they told their story, I now remember Jenn commenting about how it sounded like they attended a church near us and had heard the adoption story presented by one of Jenn's friends.  We didn't think much of it and left the meeting figuring we wouldn't see any of those people again.

In June you probably remember that we had a garage sale.  When we had it, we contacted a friend from the Hope ministry and she mentioned there was another person who was also having an adoption garage sale on the same day.  I thought "that is nice" and moved on as we were pretty overwhelmed with what we had ahead of us.

Now it is October and we walk into the Hope fellowship.  The first people we see are the Wicklines. When we introduced ourselves, Becky Wickline said "I think you were at the same Home Study orientation as we were."  After a double take we agree they do look familiar and that probably is the case.  Then the host walks over and says "You guys both had your garage sales on the same day."

As we talk to them throughout the rest of the evening, we find out they submitted their dossier around the same time we did.  They have a similar wait time as we do.  We are hoping that we will be able to establish a friendship with them through this process.  As my wife tells me, it is fun to have somebody to be pregnant with and adoption is just a really long and complicated pregnancy.

It's in the Mail

image credit: http://www.dhl.com/en/express.html

It's in the mail.  Well, that is what we were told last Monday.  The psychologist was able to deliver the letter to our placement agency.  Our placement agency promptly assembled the dossier and put it into the mail to the Philippines.  According to the DHL website, delivery to the Philippines should take 3 days.  We have not heard officially yet but, hopefully, the dossier has arrived.  Now it is a wait and see game.  The next thing is to wait for approval by ICAB (the Philippine government) of our dossier.  The approval process usually takes one to two months.  Once we are approved, we wait for our referral.  The referral is the information about the children ICAB thinks are a good fit for our family.  Currently we are hearing that the wait for the referral could be up to three years.

Thank you to all those who have supported us through this process so far.  Now we could really use everybody's prayers.  This can be one of the harder parts of the process as it is totally out of our control.  We just have to wait and see.

UPDATE: We just got word that ICAB has acknowledged receiving the dossier on September 18th. 

The hills and valleys keep coming

So much has been going on I hope I can tell it all without boring you.  

Let's start with last week.  Early in the week we found out that our psychologist had not provided the raw data to our placement agency as requested by the Philippines.  This was frustrating but not a major issue as we are still waiting on our immigration approval.  We also found out that the Philippines has been in contact with our placement agency in CA asking to see if we are still interested and will be sending the paper work anytime soon.  This made things a little more urgent.  Next we found out the psychologist was unwilling to release the raw data due to copyright laws and ethical concerns.  On top of that she would not be able to write the explanatory letter until the following week because she was to busy.  Disappointing to say the least.

 Friday of last week we went to the top of the hill.  We got the immigration approval.  This was huge for us.  It meant there was just one piece missing before we could submit to the Philippines.  Every step of the way this becomes even more real.  It may even be like being pregnant.  The guy is often slow to come to the realization of what is happening.  It isn't until the baby bump starts to show that he really realizes this is for real.  I think that is how I am feeling right now.  

A quick call to the psychologist that same day yielded an email response letting us know the letter had been written but wouldn't be mailed until Tuesday as she was out of town for the long weekend.  Progress.

Tuesday morning came and the great anticipation of school starting.  Both boys were over excited.  Ever since backpack supply shopping on August 5 they ask daily "when is school starting?"  Definitely a hilltop experience.  

While we were taking the obligatory first day pictures, Jenn gets a call.  She finds out her grandfather had passed away the night before.  Talk about a pull of emotions.

Wednesday was another good day though.  G received his passport in the mail.  Since the boys don't get a lot of mail, I had let them open up the envelope.  J had gotten his a couple weeks ago and G was disappointed he didn't have anything to open.  So he was very excited that day.  During the process of getting pictures taken and applying for the passports the boys had asked what they were for.  We had told them they were papers that would let us go to another country.  Specifically so that we could bring home our new brothers or sisters.  When G got his passport, he immediately said "Now we can all go pick up our brothers or sisters."  Both boys are ready to go now.  This could be a long wait.

Wednesday we also were informed that the psychologist's letter was on its way to CA.  It looks like by the start of next week our dossier will be headed to the Philippines. 

This weekend we are torn though.  Jenn is off to GA for the funeral of her grandfather.  The boys and I are home and will have a party tomorrow to celebrate J's birthday.

How long is the wait? Part 2

You can find part 1 of this series here.  Well, it has now been 6 months since we officially started this journey.  The goatee continues to grow.  It is about 4 cm now. We are continuing to plug along.  Actually this was a very exciting week for us.  We have officially completed everything that we can do for now.  At this point, the process is entirely in God's hands.

This is when the true waiting game begins. First, we are waiting on USCIS to give us approval to bring adopted children into the states.  This, hopefully, will take less than a month.  Once we have approval from USCIS, our dossier will be complete.  Having the dossier done will really take everything out of our hands and the country's.

The dossier will be sent off to the Philippines and at that point we will have a one to two month wait for approval from ICAB (the Philippine government.)  Then more waiting, possibly as long as three years. When I recently asked our agency if the wait was still three years, she said "ICAB hasn't said differently but I think the things they are doing to shorten the wait time are working."  So, just like the rest of this process it is all God's timing.

What does this road look like? The dossier

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mannaz/6993752921/

Now that the home study is complete, what is next?  The dossier.  The dossier is the official packet that gets sent to the Philippine government.  It will consist of about 16 documents once it is done.  Many of these things we already have but a few are new or we need official copies of them.  For instance, we have birth certificates and marriage certificates but since we need to send originals with the dossier we had to order more.  Other things like the I-800a, (official immigration approval from the US government,) need to be applied for.  This one takes the most work but not the most thought.

With the dossier it does sometimes feel like "we've done this before."  For the home study we had to submit copies of birth certificates, marriage certificates and had to be fingerprinted for an FBI background check. Well, all of that needs to be done again for the dossier.  Luckily, if you plan well, you already have most of it done except for the fingerprints.  For this set of fingerprints you have to go to an official USCIS office to get it done again.

Then there is the form that asks about acceptable conditions.  This is probably the hardest form we have had to fill out so far.  It is very hard to not feel selfish as you decide what conditions and background history you are willing to accept.  Some examples are: skin pigmentation issues, just about any birth defect, and motor skill delays that are likely related to their care environment.

It is on to more paper gathering.  We hope that this time things will go a little more quickly than for the Home Study.  At this point we are waiting on the US government to take our fingerprints and finish processing our I-800a.

Keeping Busy

Anybody who thinks summer is for slowing down and relaxing must not have kids or a new house.  I thought we were going to cruise through summer after the garage sale was done.  We would do the normal stuff, visit the library and pool, do the grocery shopping, and maybe see a movie or two.  Boy, that was only the tip of the iceberg!

We have continued to see God's blessing at every turn.  This past weekend my Dad was kind enough to lend us his strength and truck.  First, we needed to pick up some furniture from a couple that is moving.  We now have a great room for a girl or two.

We also can have house guests

and the boys have a craft table for their Legos and painting.

After all of the furniture moving was done, it was time to pick up the parts to a play set new to us.  The boys and I had already spent a few hours dismantling it to make the move go a little more quickly.  The temperatures were in the 90's all day so all that extra prep work really helped out.

Over the next few days, all I heard from the boys was "can we go build the play set?"  As we were finishing it up, G wanted to tighten some screws.  I could not put up the next piece for him because I needed to work on dinner.  As I am at the kitchen sink, I look out and see him grab his hand and head for the house.  I asked what happened.  He responds "I scraped my hand because I couldn't put up the board myself.  Daddy can you help me?  I need to put in more screws."  I decided it was probably best to put dinner on hold for a minute to avoid any more major injuries.  Obviously, this was important because if you know the boys, food usually doesn't get put as a second priority.

Later that night Jenn and I were able to finish the play set and there was no delay the next morning in its use. I think there will be years of use ahead.

Part One Complete

Not too long before the garage sale, we heard from our home study agency that the home study was complete.  We had been approved.  There had been a couple of papers that they had been waiting on and we weren't sure how long those papers would take to get here.  This was a great surprise in the middle of a crazy time.  Now it is on to the paperwork for the Dossier: Part 2.

Humbled and in Awe: The Garage Sale

We are greatly humbled by the outpouring of support that we saw during the garage sale.  We saw more treasures than we could handle by ourselves, people spending hours with us to get things priced and sorted, friends and family spending the day at our house to make sure things got sold and hundreds of people coming by to make purchases or to donate more.

Awed by the weather and timing of everything, the week leading up to the garage sale was a bit of a blur. Most of the week people were dropping things off at the house.  Thankfully, Jenn was able to get a lot of pricing and sorting done beforehand so all we needed to do was keep up with what came in.  Due to the generosity of so many, even that was a challenge but a welcomed one.

Again, thanks to many friends we were able to get pretty much everything priced and moved upstairs to the main level.  Yes, we had so many treasures that at least half of it was in the basement.

God provided everything we needed that day.  On Friday, a friend made multiple trips out to houses to bring back donations but also much needed tables.  At the same time as we planned our day of staffing, at the last minute a couple people stepped up to fill crucial time slots, specifically set up.  That morning Jenn and I woke up around 5 am and before we could finish breakfast our first volunteer had arrived.  We started moving boxes and furniture out of the house and garage.

As we set up for the day, more helpers continued to arrive.  As we brought the last piece of furniture out of the garage, I looked at my watch and it was 8 am exactly.  Time to open up.  Another blessing.

We had surrounded the yard in caution tape and that worked really well.  All of the people ready to shop waited patiently outside of the tape for us to open up.

When we did finally cut the tape, one shopper commented it was like the running of the bulls.  The rest of the day was a wonderful experience.  We met many people who had an adoption story of their own. The sun shown all day and it did get a little warm but the only casualties were a few cupcakes and candles.  

All told, we took in around $3200 -- a major blessing.  Early on one of us talked about doing another sale with anything that remained.  That wont be happening. :) Purple Heart has already picked up the leftovers and we have our house back.  

There are many things about the day that I won't soon forget but this one touched me more than others.  We had created a couple donation jars for the sale.  One of the jars was on the counter in our kitchen.  Before leaving, a friend who was helping sort dropped some money in.  J saw this and quickly ran upstairs to get his bank.  He took all the money he had and put it in the jar.  I asked him about it and he said "I want to make sure we can bring our sisters home."

Here are a couple more pictures from the day.  

Yard Sale Tomorrow

Well it is almost here.  The yard sale is tomorrow from 8 am to 2 pm.  Please spread the word and plan to stop by.  We have gathered many a treasure from very generous donors.  The house is almost busting at the seams.  There is plenty of furniture, clothes, holiday decorations and more to choose from.

Out of the BLUE

As I was getting G in bed he asked "When will my sisters be home?"  (For those who don't know, the boys have both continued to say that they want sisters... We will wait and see.)  This is a hard place to be.  I want to say soon, but all I could say is "It will be awhile." I've already explained that they could be much older when their siblings come home.

Thank you for all those who have donated items for the yard sale.  It has been absolutely amazing to see so many people share so much.  One day recently a friend was dropping off a few items.  J said "That is so good.  It will help my sisters or brothers come home." (I didn't cry... but almost.)

The gathering has commenced

The gathering of your treasures has commenced.  Many of you have already graciously donated stuff for the garage sale and we thank you for that.  Jenn has been working hard to organize it all for quick sale.  We are filling up the living room, dining room and basement rapidly.  Thanks to some friends we were able to find some more room in the garage the other night.  We continue to collect treasures and have started the pricing process.  

How long is the wait?

We are often asked "How long will it be until the children come home?"  The answer to that question is we just don't know.  But we can tell you how long it has been since we started the process.  The answer to that is 2 cm.  As some of you know I sometimes like to be a little gimmicky so I have decided that I am not going to trim my goatee until our kids come home.  My original idea was that I would grow a beard during the wait time and then shave when we headed to pick up our kids.  That idea was quickly nixed by my wife.  She is shaking her head at the idea of this as well but is willing to go with it.  My plan is to post a picture every three months or so with an update of how long the wait has been.  So above is a picture of me at Christmas time which was about a month and a half before we first heard our agency had a spot for us.  

Above it a picture I took on May 31st, about 3 months after we started.  As you can see my goatee is about 2 cm right now. 

As I am typing this up G comes in and asks "Why is there a picture of you on the computer?"  So I explain to him what it is all about.  He informs me that it will be down at my feet when we bring the kids home.  Does anybody else have a prediction?  Feel free to leave it in the comments and we will see what happens.

More Patience

It would appear that we are going to be learning a lot about patience through this process. On Wednesday, May 8 we had our third of three home visits as part of the home study. This was the final step that we needed to complete for the home study.  We had hoped that by the end of that week everything would be done and we could move on to the dossier.  Well, as it turned out, there was one report that was out of our control that had not been finished.  We finally got the draft of that report on May 20th.  Now the only thing left for the home study process is approval by the agency.  Barring any major issues this should be done in the next 2-3 weeks.

Did I mention we were going to be learning a lot about patience through this process? Well, the two weeks that we had to wait for the last part of the home study will be nothing compared to the potential three years we might have to wait to bring home our children. Yes, you read that correctly -- right now the Philippines has a three year wait after your dossier is approved. Now we are 3-4 months away from that clock starting to tick since the Philippine government approval will take some time.

This will be a long road but we are in it for the long haul. We have already seen that truly it will be God's timing and not ours. Originally we did not think we would be able to start the entire adoption process until April 1st but we were allowed to put things in motion on February 15th. I guess we can say we are a month and a half ahead of schedule!

Garage Sale Part 2

                                           http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3056/4050881930_95fff4c7f9.jpg

Here is an email we recently sent out.  

Friends and Family,                                                                                           May 16, 2013

Hi All!!

Most of you know that we are in the process of adopting two kids from the Philippines. We began the process in February. Our home study is nearly complete and we are working on getting our dossier together to send off to the Philippine government.  The wait is currently three years for a placement after all of the paperwork has been approved.  We are confident that God has called us to build our family in this way and we are excited to be a part of His plan.

While we are very excited about the process of adopting, we have at times been a bit overwhelmed at the steep cost of adoption.  We know that God will provide where he is guiding and with that knowledge we have peace.  To help with the financial needs, we are planning a yard sale.  The yard sale is set for Saturday, June 22nd from 8 am - 1 pm.  

Here’s where you come in.  To start off we need "treasures"!!  We will be collecting ANY donations over the next several weeks leading up to the yard sale. Now is your chance to get rid of all those things you don't use and are tired of having around your house and bring them to our house!  You can e-mail us to set up a time to drop your things off!  Please feel free to pass this on to friends, families, and communities with which you are involved.  In addition, all kinds of support are welcomed including thoughts and prayers.

So let us know if you have stuff you don’t need or want anymore and help us bring our kiddos home!  You can leave a comment or use the contact form on the right.

Thank you so much for your support!  It means so much to us!!

Moving Out and In and In Some More

Well, April was a busy month for our family.  We started out celebrating G's birthday a week late but that was because of a conflict with Easter.  We followed that promptly with our Home Study Orientation.  It was good to get that out of the way and we were able to hand in 98% of our Home Study paperwork which was very exciting.

The weekend of April 20th was move number 1.  This was when we moved out of our townhouse and into the garage of the house we were going to buy.  Because of the way things worked out on the sale of our townhouse and the subsequent purchase of the single family home, we had four days where we were homeless.  The sellers of the single family home were kind enough to allow us to move all of our belongings into the garage on Saturday before we closed on that house.  When I say ALL of our stuff I mean, ALL of our stuff.

Thanks to the fantastic Five Franciscans and a few awesome friends, we were able to fit our entire 3 bedroom townhouse into the garage of the single family home.  I was astonished and, in fact, I had a total of 5 more garages lined up just in case we needed additional space for storage.  

After moving out we spent a week being homeless but living in luxury with my parents.  They were gracious enough to allow the four of us to invade their quiet tranquility for the entire week and feed us on top of it.  On April 27th we were able to move out of the garage and into our NEW home.

We have been in the house for just a week now and constantly feel so blessed.  It is definitely more space than we need right now but, hopefully, soon God will bring new family members into our home to fill it up.  

The Garage Sale part 1

In an earlier post I eluded to the fact that we would be having a garage sale some time in the future.  Well, that time is fast approaching.  We have set the date for June 22nd.  We are currently taking donations of anything you want to get out of your house.  We can come pick it up or you are welcome to drop it off at the house.  Then, in June, we will have a big sale and all the proceeds will help to finance the adoption.  So, as you are doing your spring cleaning, please think of us.

What does this Road look like? The Home Study

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mannaz/6993752921/

I am hoping this will be the first in a series of posts that outline how our adoption process will proceed. Overall the process for us is likely to take 2-3 years.The clock started on February of 2013.There are four major parts to the process and a bunch of smaller ones within those.

The major parts as best we can tell at this point are:

1. The home study

2. The dossier

3. Child placement

4. Travel to bring the child home

We are currently in the home study phase. This is the part that many people refer to as the paper chase. During the paper chase we are asked to assemble about 30 different documents.  Some of them are easy to do such as signing an agreement stating we shall not use corporal punishment.  Others take a little more time time and effort like scheduling physicals for every member of the family or getting fingerprinted.

One of the more interesting ones is asking for the list of all the places you have lived during the last 28 years.  Now, for both Jenn and myself that is almost our entire lives.  This includes our time in college and Jenn's study abroad in Switzerland.  You need to submit a background check request to child protective services in every state and country you have listed.  Luckily for us, Switzerland does not have a central registry so we did not need to worry about that.

Other required documents are ones that I had never thought about like having an evacuation plan in case of an emergency.  This plan needs to include information about where you would go if your entire community was evacuated.  At this point we have about 26 of the documents completed not including the financial ones that I repeatedly make addition errors on (and I used to teach mathematics).

Once the majority of the paper work is done you are assigned a social worker.  The social worker makes a few visits to your house to evaluate the suitability of the home for adoptive children.  They also work with you and the family to determine the ages and needs of the children you are best suited to bring into your family.  During this time the social worker will likely interview all the members of the family including our children.  We will find out more about this part of the process at the orientation we will attend shortly.  

Adoption Blogs

I have been reading adoption blogs for quite awhile now.  For obvious reasons I like to hear other people's stories and see what could be in our future.  Some stories are beautiful, emotional, and fill your heart with hope.  Others are tough.  The ones where the family is struggling to teach honesty, love kids who have a lot of brokenness, and so much more.

Here are a couple of blogs that I follow:

 It's how you live

 Deutschland

 Jen Hatmaker

With the adoption process comes paperwork, reading and HOURS of training.  I am very thankful for the reading and training.  My eyes have already been opened to what things could look like for us when we bring our kiddos home.  The same is true for the adoption blogs.  I appreciate the honesty of those who are sharing the stories of what is happening with their families.  Who knows what this blog will be to those who read it and for us as we write.  

My hope is that I can learn as much as possible before we bring our new family members home.  I am moving forward with eyes wide open.  I know that we will have struggles.  Everyone has struggles. I am a mom.  I love my kids, I teach my kids, I discipline my kids, and often it is all rolled up into one.  G and J are not perfect.  They make mistakes and so do I.  My next two kids won't be perfect either.  They will make mistakes, and I will too.  My hope is that each of us can love each other and when mistakes are made that we can extend grace.

Another crazy week

photo credit: www.planetofsuccess.com/blog/

It seems that right now major things are happening in our lives on Thursdays.  This time it was the inspection of our house.  If I haven't mentioned it yet, we are in the process of selling our house.  On Thursday February 28th we had the home inspection.  After I got off work, I received a phone call from our realtor telling me to call her ASAP.  When we spoke, she told me we had a major problem.  They found some things during the home inspection that were going to be very costly to fix and she wasn't sure what the buyers were going to do.  Needless to say we felt very dejected.

That same night we were scheduled to have dinner with a coworker of mine.  We were meeting to discuss the possibility of us purchasing his house.  When we arrived for dinner, we immediately told them what was going on.  They are such a blessing.  They suggested that we would probably be able to work things out with the buyer and if we didn't, they were happy to wait until we found another buyer.  What a huge relief.

One of our concerns with the repairs was how much they would cost and how that would affect the adoption process.  We were feeling very attacked during this time.  I don't know if I fully believe in spiritual warfare but I was feeling a lot like I imagine Job felt.  As the weekend started, we found out the buyers were still interested as long as we took care of the problems.

On Tuesday we had another slight low.  The chimney was cleaned and inspected.  They found some cracks in the prefab plates, this was going to be another unanticipated expense.

Around this same time we had some friends offer to help with a garage sale to raise money for the adoption (no details on when yet.).  The estimates for the first part of the repairs came back lower than we had anticipated.  Then on Thursday, March 1st when they did the first part of the work, it turned out that the second part was also going to cost considerably less.

We are still feeling a little reserved in regard to what is to come but we can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel.

What a week

We were at a Tae Kwon Do belt test for J on the evening of the 13^th.  JB opened his email while we waited for things to get started.  He looked at his phone for a minute and then handed the phone to me.  As I read the first paragraph, I couldn’t believe my eyes.  It was Chrysalis, the adoption agency, writing to see if we were still interested in adopting from the Philippines.  ICAB, the Philippine government had given them an opening for an adoption slot.  What was so amazing is that ICAB had told all agencies in the US that they were not allotting any more adoptions until April 1, 2013.  The possibility of adoption was finally real and was happening a month and a half earlier than we expected.

We sent off the application on February 14^th while simultaneously putting our house on the market that evening.  Our weekend was a blur as we stayed out of our house for multiple showings throughout Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. 

When Friday the 22^nd came around we were in complete shock.  Not only had our house sold in 7 days, but we were officially accepted and were starting down the road to adoption.  We truly felt blessed beyond belief.  There are many steps to be taken both with completing the sale of our house and waiting through the possible 2-3 years until our kiddos come home, and yet we are excited and in awe that it all happened in one week.