Meeting with promise686

Last Sunday night while our kids were at Awana, we met with Amy and Tim R. from promise686.  promise686 is a christian non-profit organization that helps families with the adoption process through mentoring, networking and matching grants. We had submitted our application paper work for the matching grant and this was our interview.  It went well and we are hoping (and praying) that we will be approved for a $4,000 matching grant.  Of course we will need to raise the match part, but we are trusting God for this.  We have already seen God work so may times in raising money for us but every time it is still a faith walk.  We have several ideas for fund raisers and will be sharing these with folks over the next few weeks.

Progess to Date (Part 3)

During the time Elena was here, our American facilitator Tonya was busy compiling our Ukrainian Dossier.  We gave her all the needed forms including medical forms, certified warranty deed for our house, apostalled  copy of our marriage license from the State of New Jersey (this cost over $100), employment verification letter and various other forms.  This allowed Tonya to finish our Home Study paperwork and almost all the Ukrainian Dossier.  Our almost complete dossier was sent over to Ukraine with the team heading  back to the Ukraine with the host children.  The dossier will be translated and ready for the two additional forms that are required to submit our application to the Ukraine government.

At the same time we submitted our I-600A form to the US Department of Homeland Security/Immigration to get our pre approval to bring an orphan (hopefully Elena) back to the USA from Ukraine.  We Fedexed the forms on January 13.  We received a letter stating that they got our application but then received another letter saying we need to submit our Home Study (we of course did submit it).  I called Tonya who made a new notarized copy of the Home Study and gave it to me the next day.  I went straight to the Post Office and mailed the Home Study out again.  Hopefully we will not lose more than a few days in the process.  We are still waiting to get a letter with the date and time of our last set of fingerprints (hopefully).

The last form that we need to complete is a new form for the Ukraine.  We are now required to submit to an Interpol background check.  Originally Tonya thought that this would add 40 days to our time horizon to get Elena.  However she told us that the background is only needed for the court hearing which occurs later in the process and that the Interpol background check should not delay the process.

I will provide a post in the next few days with our estimated schedule for bringing Elena home to her forever family.

Progress To Date (Part 2)

Elena's visit was full of fun, learning to communicate with someone who understands very little English and trying to find food that Elena would eat.  This was not always easy, as she would not eat the typical foods that we eat.  Thankfully our friend Natalia came to the rescue numerous times, translating for us and explaining things to both Elena and to us.  

We spent the first few days celebrating Hanukkah and getting ready for Christmas.  Lauren and the kids went to a play that a friend was in and enjoyed getting to know one another.  Hannah and Elena really hit it off.  They both wanted to sleep together in the same bed.  They were so cute that it was easy to say yes.  We had fun putting up the Christmas tree especially with a wonderful ornament  that Elena made for Jay.

 

Ornament that Elena made for Jay

At the end of the first week, we took the kids to the Smoky Mountains to enjoy a special time away together.  On the the way back we stopped in Chattanooga to enjoy one more day together away.  The following is a list of the fun places we went:

• Swimming in the wonderful indoor pool and water slide at the Resort at Governor's Crossing
• Watching a play about Jesus at the Miracle Theater
• Picking out ornaments at the Christmas Place in Pigeon Forge
• Rides, shows, lights, parade and more rides at Dollywood
• The Chattanooga Zoo
• Chattanooga's Creative Discovery Museum
•  Ice cream at Clumpies (Elena loved ice cream)

The rest of our visit with Elena was a wonderful adventure getting to know her.  This was not always easy given the language and culture barriers.  She also had a hard time trusting us, which is normal given her background as a orphan.  Special times included reading to her and Elena reading to us, playing games (Elena loved Connect 4), watching Elena and Hannah dance and play, fun times eating ice cream and Jay and the kids wrestling.

It was very hard to see her go back.  She asked us to send her a package because she said she has nothing in the orphanage.  We just put a package together for her and sent it to the staff at New Horizons, who will hand deliver it in early February.

Progress To Date (Part 1)

Since this is our first post, we wanted to give  a brief summary of the progress toward adoption through the end of January 2010:

Early November 2009:  Contacted New Horizons for Children about hosting from the Ukraine.  Completed application, reviewed pictures/bios of children, we all fell in love with Elena and asked if we could host her.

Late November 2009:  Begin the Home Study process with Tonya from Options 4 Adoption.

Early December 2009: Continue with all the paperwork for the Home Study and prepare for Elena's visit with us beginning December 13th.  We are so thankful for the many people who donated money and clothes toward Elena's hosting visit.  Our goal was to be finished with all the interviews and paperwork for the Home Study before Elena's visit.  We were able to meet this goal.  We also begin complying paperwork for our Ukraine Dossier, which is needed to make an application to the Ukraine government to adopt a child.

December 13, 2009 - We are all excited as Elena's flight arrives in Atlanta at 8:30 PM.  First we were blessed to watch Hannah and Micah in our church's (Genesis Bible Church) Christmas Play.  They were both ornaments.  Micah was a baseball "slugger" and Hannah was the Statue of Liberty.  Given all the time we spent preparing for Elena, we did not put the best costumes together for our kids.  The play was great and all the kids did wonderful.  That night we were off to the Atlanta Airport (about 35 to 40 minutes from our home in Johns Creek) to wait for Elena.

 Here is Hannah as the Statue of Liberty

 

Micah and Daddy waiting at the Atlanta Airport

   

Hannah playing games with friends at the Airport