Away he goes....

Hey,

So Drew and I completed our homestudy visits and we are pretty relieved to be done with the major parts of this adoption paperwork! What a blessing it is to be able to adopt this child and we couldn't be any happier about it. On a sad note, Drew is leaving for training tomorrow and I won't see him again until April as he serves our country and protects our freedom in Afghanistan. I hope everyone will continually pray for him while he is away....I'm sure he will appreciate the support and prayers very much. I will keep everyone updated on Drew and our adoption process over the upcoming months.
Thank you, thank you and thank you again for supporting our family :)

Jess
xo

Whoo...

Doctor's visits done!! Now just to finish our homestudy on Monday....getting more excited to finish some of the last of the major paperwork :)
Thanks for the prayers and keep them coming!

Love you all,

Jess
xo

Ups and Downs

Hello.

So Drew and I had our first homestudy visit on Monday and it went very well! We have really tried to embrace everything that has gone on in the past month but it has been very stressful at times. We have been sending out huge portions of our paperwork to Gladney, our authenticator of our dossier and to the FBI and Immigration services for clearances.....most of what we have done has been good so far but we are having to do a few things over again and that is the most frustrating. I feel as though we put so much energy in to something and so much money and we just continue to take baby steps rather than long strides...we have made good progress but not as much as we would like (or maybe not as much as I like)! There is a lot of stuff that is out of our control now (i.e. waiting for clearances, background checks, agency licensing, homestudy review and so on). I guess it will just be a waiting game for about a year now :) We still have some paperwork to do and our final doctor visit and homestudy visit next week so I'm hoping we can get wait listed by the beginning of 2011!! Please pray for our paperwork to get through the stages appropriately and pray for our child who is in Africa awaiting to come home with us! :)

Love you all,

Jess & Drew
xo

A Weekend to Breathe

Drew and I had a relaxing weekend in Orlando. We went up there for an A-LO conference...this is an extra activity that Drew volunteers for and helps high school students get into the Air Force Academy. He is great at working with high school students and really great at recruiting them! :) We stayed at a Disney Resort and had a nice night away from adoption paperwork and work itself! We are getting the paperwork done very quickly and it has been a real blessing...we continue to embrace all that the Lord has given us and hope to be good influences and servants of His Kingdom!

Keep the prayers coming...

Jess

xo

Gladney Paperwork Almost Done!

I am thrilled to say that our paperwork for the adoption agency is almost finished. Besides finishing our home study and background checks, we are about through with that part :) Yay....God had been good the past two weeks (no matter how stressful it has been). We have a decent amount of our dossier finished and will start sending those documents up to New York to be compiled and authenticated.
I am happy to say that we have contacted the Immigration Services and they are allowing Drew to get his fingerprints done before he leaves for training! So that means we should be on the fast track to getting our child from Ethiopia...woop, woop! If there are no big delays, we should be able to pick him up by the end of 2011. Weird to think that we may have a child in a year considering I am not pregnant and going through all the physical aspects but it is awesome to think that we will be able to help this child in need....God is so good and I caught myself today saying that out loud to our puppies :) lol...and yes, I do talk to our dogs.
I hope everyone has an awesome weekend and please continue to pray for us to finish the dossier and homestudy with flying colors. We are still not technically approved yet so hopefully in the next couple months we will be able to get put on that long wait list!

Love you all,
Jess
xo