Going Private!

Now that our paperwork is done we will make our blog private. I intend to do this today! If you've been following our blog and haven't introduced yourselves, please do so. If you would like to be included among our readers, please leave a comment with your email address and I will add you to the list. I will not publish your comment, so your email address will not be floating around for the day in a public arena! Once I have added your email address to the private blog tonight, you will receive an invitation from our blog to rejoin. Thanks for your patience!

DONE!!!

YES! Did you hear my scratchy, hoarse screams of joy this afternoon from my driveway? Today we received the final I-171H form we were waiting for and our dossier is 100% complete! We have to send the original copy to our agency tomorrow. That means our “Completion of Documents Fee” is due within a matter of DAYS. We haven’t met this fundraising goal yet, friends. Please pray for more donations to come in and for us to receive the grant we applied for this week!


We're so excited that C even included his baby sister in his homework tonight. He had to answer the question, "How many children live in your building, house, block or road?" He came beaming over to me saying he wrote down 3. "Two for me and E and 1 for our baby sister in Nepal!"

I’m off to the library to make a couple copies of this form and then to the post office to see if I can get the original in the evening mail.

Thanks for celebrating with us. The first leg of our journey (the paperwork leg) is now behind us. Can I get an Amen!

Praying for a Long Shot

We still haven’t seen any envelopes from Homeland Security in the mail, so our dossier remains in limbo. This is completely okay with us as we know that 2010 dossiers aren’t even being accepted in Nepal until the 2009 files are completed within the next 2-3 months. We are taking this time to take 1 stab at an adoption grant.

Grants are quite hard to come by and are typically reserved for families adopting a waiting child with special needs. But it still doesn’t hurt to try, right? All it takes is some paperwork, a personal letter stating our financial need, our personal testimonies (it’s a Christian grant organization), a letter from our pastor, 2 written references from friends and 3 additional phone references. Phew! Just about as much paperwork as our home study!

Many thanks go out to those of you who are willing to help with this next step in our journey by writing letters of reference!

Please pray that we might receive some funding from this grant and SOON!

Movement -- Finally!

This has been a crazy week for us! A week full of prayer, investigating, research and finally decisions! Allow me to share the biggest news first.

I received a phone call today from our local friends also adopting a daughter from Nepal. After months of being closed down due to corruption, the news in Nepal is finally stating that all governmental officials are in place and they will be processing adoptions once again. In fact, they state that their goal is to have all 2009 dossiers fulfilled within the next 2 months! They will focus on issuing travel dates for those with referrals first, but will also be matching children to families and issuing new referrals for those 2009 files. So, 2009 families, hold onto your hats! There is much rejoicing as this directly affects our friends! Praise God!

The Nepali government recognizes the number of orphans that need assistance! They have no intention of shutting down and will push hard to solve the problem.

For us, we are still waiting for the last form for our dossier. I hope that it is on it's way this week or next.

This is the crystal clear answer to prayer we have been looking for these last few days. Only a handful of you knew, but we had been investigating leaving the Nepal program and pursuing the adoption of a waiting child in South Korea. She is an absolute dream and as hard as it is to know she is not for our family, it is an honor to know that our family is to be on our knees in prayer for her. Thank you to those of you who have been assisting us with medical information and praying right along with us. This is the answer we have been praying for. That is crystal clear to me! Please keep "Miss Precious," as we've been calling her, in your prayers for her forever family. She's darling and she stole my heart!

Next update when our dossier is complete. Please join us in prayer for the remaining fundraising needed for our Completion of Documents Fee on the ticker above. God can do abundantly more than we are asking of Him and I leave it completely in His strong, capable hands! We hope we can fundraise this final amount and then take out a home equity loan for the foreign country fee ($7000) that will be due when our paperwork is shipped to Nepal.

Our God is so faithful and I am so thankful for the answers we have been given this week!

A Nepali Christmas?

With Nepal being a country far from Christianity, they obviously do not celebrate our Christmas. But in honor of our daughter we enjoyed a few Nepali foods on Christmas Eve as a way to celebrate with her.

After our finger printing trip on Tuesday, we stopped off at an Indian Market in Omaha and picked up a few specialty ingredients I would need to finish my Nepali dinner. The menu included:

Momos (top left): A meat dumpling native to the Himalayas

Pulau (top right): A simple rice dish with spices, cashews and golden raisins
Dal Bhat (bottom): A lentil soup and rice dish that is a very typical meal in Nepal

Everything was really very good and I'd like to try different recipes in the future. Our favorite was probably the Momo! Everything should have been a bit spicier, but I kept the Scoville units low so the kids could palate them. Poor E still did not enjoy the meal. I forsee us travelling with at least 3 jars of peanut butter to Nepal next year just for him!

We followed our dinner with Christmas cookies and the exchanging of gifts. I look at my mantle now and hope and pray that there will be a stocking hanging full of gifts and a beautiful brown eyed girl running downstairs to open them next year!

Merry Christmas, sweet girl! May you be celebrating here with us in your forever home next year and may you know the immeasurable blessings of our Savior, born in a manger, who came just for you!

A Quick Trip to Omaha

We completed the last hurdle in our paperwork relay today as we drove to Omaha to be finger printed by the USCIS at Homeland Security. The weather could have delayed us, but the expected winter storm #2 has not hit yet. Jay took the afternoon off and we took the boys with us. It was a quick errand. The staff was very nice and got us in and out quickly -- probably 15 minutes. With Christmas this week, I do not expect to receive the final form for our dossier any time soon. But I hope it will arrive early in the New Year.

Once we receive this final form, we make a copy for ourselves and send the original to our agency along with our check for the Completion of Documents Fee. We are creeping towards that $4000 total. If you find yourself able to help our cause during this season of giving, we’d be forever grateful! If you’d like to give but don’t know how, just get in touch with us here, on Facebook or give us a call or send an email and we’ll fill you in.

Stay Tuned: On Christmas Eve I will be cooking 3 Nepali dishes in honor of our daughter. Log in later this week for pictures and critiques! Merry Christmas, friends!

Snow Day

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

We've all heard that statement before. It does not apply here to our adoption. The blizzard that hit us last week not only closed schools for 3 consecutive days, but it also closed down the Omaha USCIS office on Wednesday the 9th and we were not finger printed for our 1 and final form for our dossier. Supposedly, we will be rescheduled for this appointment. How and when we will hear of that news is unknown. We'd appreciate your prayers for a quick rescheduled appointment!

Nepal is still not moving forward on adoption processing, as far as we know. Yet, we are hopeful and pray for our little Nepali girl.

In the meantime, we are ready for Christmas. The holiday parties are behind us. The shopping is done. Gifts are wrapped and under the tree. I just have to mail my Christmas cards and I hope to get those out in the next couple of days. Now to enjoy the remaining days of December doing a little holiday baking and relaxing.