One Month

We have been officially waiting for our referral for one month today! We knew that waiting would be really hard for us, but we've been managing to keep ourselves busy this month. The hardest part is knowing that (most likely) our child is born and living on the other side of the world without us. We can't wait to get our referral and see our child's little face, find out their name and age, and learn the beginning of their life's story.

One month down and hopefully not too many more to go!!

Uganda

This weekend, Uganda was shook by two mass bombings that took the lives of nearly (80) people, including (1) American. A radical extremist group in Somalia has claimed responsibility, and I can't begin to tell you how devastating this is to the tiny country that we love so much. Our prayers are with the people of Uganda as they deal with this tragedy. We were in Uganda exactly one year ago, and thought this was a good opportunity to share a few pictures that show the true beauty of Uganda:





A bit of Africa trivia...what two African countries border Somalia??

What have we been up to??

Its been a few weeks since we've posted, so I thought I would let you know what life has been like "post-paperwork". It definitely feels strange not to be carrying around a binder full of documents! We found out that our dossier was officially registered in Ethiopia on July 9th, so we're VERY relieved to know that all of our information made it overseas in one piece. Meanwhile, we've completed all of our required parenting training (which was wonderful)!! I'll post more about that in a few days. We've also been working hard to get our house unpacked and put together. The moving process took a backseat to our paperwork, so we're finally getting rooms painted and decorated. We're looking for suggestions on other things we can do to distract us while we're waiting...any suggestions??

Its a BIG DAY!

Today's the day we've been waiting for -- dossier submission day!! We got our documents back from Washington at 11:30, and by 12:15 I was officially handing them over to our agency. So, our wait for a referral begins today!!! I tried to get some indication from our coordiantor on how long the wait could be, and very "unofficially" she said it could be anywhere from four to six months. So, we're hoping we'll be matched with our child late October (or ealier?!?!). Thanks again for all of your prayers. Its a huge relief to have all of the paperwork finished and now we look forward to referall day!

Update

Just wanted to let everyone know that Caring Hands called us yesterday, and our documents are finished! They said that the Department of State reattached the cover sheet and they are "good as new"! We should get them back from FedEx today, and we're taking them straight to our agency. Yes...this time I made all of our copies BEFORE sending them to Washington, so we won't have another copy disaster. So, unless there's some FedEx delay, today will be the day that we formally submit our dossier!!

Caring Hands

I don't think I've ever been excited for Monday morning, but we've spent all weekend wondering what to do about our document disaster. We thought that, surely, either the Department of State or our adoption agency would have answers for us when they opened today. Well, the Department of State wouldn't return our calls and our adoption agency had never seen this happen before and couldn't give us a definitive answer. Rather than losing an entire day waiting for the Department of State to finally call us back, we contacted Caring Hands.

Caring Hands is the courier service that we used the shuttle our documents from place to place in Washington DC. Their primary job is NOT to answer international adoption questions. Their sole responsibility is to get documents from place to place in Washington. Honestly contacting them was a desperate attempt to get some idea of whether or not anyone has seen this happen before and we weren't getting answers from anyone else.

I just can't say enough about this WONDERFUL company. Not only did they reassure us that this happens frequently, but they told us that if we send them back our documents with the detached cover sheet, they would take it back to the Department of State to have it reattached free of charge! So...our documents are on they're way back to Washington via FedEx, and we are adding Caring Hands to our list of angels that have helped us along the way!

Copy Disaster

Just wanted to post quickly with good news & bad news (well...maybe bad news). The GOOD news is that our documents came back from Washington Friday afternoon and they were perfectly complete and ready to turn in to our agency. The BAD news is that when attempting to make copies, the authentication page that was so perfect binding our entire dossier together completely detached from our documents. Just when we thought we were finished....

We have a meeting with our agency tomorrow, and they're going to let us know what we need to do next. We are prepared mentally for this to be a big set-back for us, but we'll find out for sure tomorrow afternoon. Its been a rough weekend for us, but we're getting through it. Its all in God's hands, and we know that these set-backs are ensuring that our path meets up perfectly with the child that God has hand picked for us.