On August 10th, at 6:15 am, Robby and I left our house for Fort Smith, where we were to have our biometrics appointment for the adoption. Our appointment was made for 8 am, and because we didn't want to drag all six of our kids out so early and then into our appointment with us, our awesome friend Nicole came over with her infant son to sit for a few hours until our kids woke up. What a blessing that was! We arrived a bit early at USCIS, and shortly thereafter a line began forming at the front door. Once it was open, we walked inside and were immediately thrust into a security line (think airport security). After that, we went to sit for a few minutes in a room with other people waiting to be fingerprinted. Robby was called back first, then me. When I went to the back of the room, a lady took each of my fingers, moistened them with a wet paper towel, and took each of my fingerprints on a computer-type screen (no ink involved!), and then asked me to sit down for a photo. She asked me to remove my nose ring, saying that I'd also possibly have to remove my lip stud, so that there wasn't an issue with the flash reflecting off of them in the photo. I hadn't removed my nose ring in probably six years, so it took a few minutes to get it out! We took the picture with just my lip piercing in and it turned out just fine. After that, we were finished! It was easy peasy, just the way we like it. Due to waiting times on approval going very quickly lately with USCIS, we are hoping to have ours back within about two weeks from our appointment date. Fingers crossed!
Another exciting bit of news is that we have received a $5,000 grant from the organization Angels in Disguise! I have been in talks with someone from the grant organization since April and just two days ago we were officially awarded the grant! Also, for whatever reason, I hadn't been counting the grant from Reece's Rainbow that goes to the family that adopts Lene (which is about $7,000), and so it dawned on me last night that we are SEVEN GRAND ahead of what I've been calculating! Officially, that puts us at right about $30,000 raised so far! The funds from Reece's Rainbow and Angels in Disguise won't actually be released to us until we are approved/matched by Latin America to adopt Lene, but we are counting on most of those funds for our travel costs anyway. We are so very excited to only have approximately $10,000 left to go! In the big picture, adoption costs are just estimates, therefore it could be a bit less or a bit more than the projected $40,000 total, but we won't know for certain until much closer to travel. Either way, we are getting very close to being fully funded!
Ready for another praise report? Our house finally sold! Unfortunately, getting it to sell in the traditional sense was not working for us and so we had to go about it in a different way. We had a family that we'd been talking with for weeks who was doing absolutely everything they could to get a loan for the full amount (but was coming short), and so we decided to owner finance with them for about a year until they are able, according to their bank, to get a loan for the full sale price. We are okay with this and feel utterly relieved to no longer have to pay for two house and electric payments each much. Having the mortgage payments covered from here on out will grant us much, much more freedom financially and we will no longer be stressed to the max about lack of funds. This is HUGE for our family.
Right now in the adoption process, we are very near the point of mailing our dossier to Latin America! We simply need four items to do so:
USCIS approval*Arrived on 8/21!Our passports*Arrived on 8/20!The finished report from our psychologist (which seems to be going incredibly s . l . o . w . l . y)*Finished on 9/6!Completed family physicals (which we can't have performed until the above items are all in our hands)*Completed on 9/4!
In order to be with Lene by her 6th birthday in March (which has been our prayer all along), we need to be able to send our dossier to Latin America ASAP. We are desperately hoping for no later than mid-September. Would you pray that all of the remaining required documents would come along very quickly? Thank you, friends!
Awesome, and will be praying! :)
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