Our First Home Study

Thank you for your prayers! We had the first part of our home study yesterday afternoon, and it went even better than expected. Our caseworker just recently adopted two girls from Ethiopia, so she was extremely knowledgeable about the process. She was able to tell us exactly what we should expect, from paperwork down to the transition home that our son will probably be in before we bring him home.

We already have the second part of our home study set up for next Thursday, December 3 at 3 pm. For this part of the study we will actually go to her house and we will get to meet her girls. We are expecting this visit to be more intense than the last, as she will be asking us several questions and interviewing us individually. Please be in prayer that God would guide us, even down to the words to say.

As we prepare to do the final part of our home study, we are also in the process of putting our dossier together. The dossier is a set of documents that will be sent to the US government, and it will basically grant us the privilege to adopt and to bring an orphan to the United States. Those documents will also go to Ethiopia with us when we go to pick up our son. The dossier is a lot of work to put together. Right now we have almost all the paperwork we need, but we are waiting on certified copies of our birth certificates and marriage certificate. Once we finish the dossier, we will then begin to proceed with finding a specific child to adopt. Please pray that these documents will arrive soon, so that we can get the dossier sent!

We really covet your prayers. We have clearly seen God's hand through this process and we pray that He will continue to guide us, provide for us and make things clear to us. We are also praying that God would protect and care for our son while he is in Ethiopia. I am so thankful for those who are loving him and caring for him while we cannot be there.