I see that light!

Last week my email and phone suddenly began blowing up with interest in the van! We had three people lined up to see it one right after the other, with other interested parties waiting to receive replies, and it sold to the first person to come look. We didn't get as much as we wanted for it, but we did end up with a few thousand dollars to put right into the adoption account! Also, we've received donations from two different sources over the past couple of weeks and with all of that added together, we bumped our total funds raised up to $18,385! We are so close to having half of the funds needed to complete the adoption! We are very grateful for that. Right now we have enough money in the adoption account to pay for our second (of a total four) agency payment ($3,168), a training class fee ($250), all of the passport renewal fees ($435), and the family physicals that we'll have to have done just before sending in the dossier to Latin America. Woo hoo! So we are completely covered financially until it's time to mail our dossier; at which time we will have to pay our third agency fee of the same amount. I feel good about it! Also, I received news from a board member of a certain grant organization I applied for back in the Spring that she is petitioning the board to give a sizable grant to our family for the adoption. She said that she is quite optimistic and that we will know for certain whether or not we've received the grant by August 15th. EXCITED!


Last Monday we received an offer on our house that's for sale in Harrison. Next month we will be at the two year mark for having it on the market. The offer was a lowball; so much so that it made Robby angry. We decided to counter with $8,000 off the asking price. The buyers took the night to think it over and visited their bank the next morning about getting a loan to buy it. While there, they were informed that because a tenant in a home they rent out is behind on payments, they couldn't get the loan at this time. They were told to take care of the issue and come back in a couple of months. So no sale after all. I was completely in a funk when I found this out. I desperately want to sell that house. At this point, it isn't about any small sum of money we might make off of it, but about the fact that we've been paying two hefty house payments for the past six months and it's a strain on us. We had another looker on Saturday who seemed very interested, but until someone makes an official offer none of that really matters, you know? I tell you what... once that house is SOLD we will have the most massive weight lifted off of our shoulders.


Things are moving right along in the world of adoption. We got passport photos taken on Thursday evening and completed all of the paperwork for renewals on Friday afternoon at the post office. It took an hour! I received our lockbox receipt from USCIS last week saying that they'd received our application and check and that we will be getting our biometric fingerprint appointments any day. Once that is completed, all that we will need that's technically outside of our control is the official approval from USCIS and everyone's new passports (which shouldn't take longer than a month). Once those are here and in our hands, we can officially mail our dossier to Latin America with a letter of request to adopt Lene! Now we still have a few tasks to complete ourselves before everything is checked off the list, but they are minor and can be finished very quickly. We have to finish our letter of request for Lene, have some forms notarized, finish the last of our family scrapbook, have physicals done for the family, and finish up our training workbooks. All of that can be completed in the span of just 2-3 days if needed. To think that we're really that close is almost unbelievable. I'm so happy that things are going so swimmingly right now.


Thank y'all for your prayers!