Ethiopian Insight meeting

On Monday I attended a meeting at Bethany that focused solely on Ethiopian adoption. Ryan was out of town for work so unfortunately he wasn't able to come. It was great to meet other people in the program and hear how their process has been going.  There were probably about 20 - 25 families there and most of them were at the point where we are. There was a family who had received a referral the end of January for a little boy . It was fun to see their pictures. Their court date is set for April and they plan to travel the beginning of May.  The meeting gave more information about Ethiopian culture and what to expect when we travel.  They recommended traveling 3 - 4 days before our Adoption Week to adjust to the time change and to spend time learning more about the country. One thing Ryan is very excited about is participating in a coffee ceremony. Ethiopia is considered the birthplace of coffee and I got to see pictures of people having a coffee ceremony. They roast the beans right in front of you and serve popcorn with it. I will stick to just the popcorn while Ryan will surely drink enough coffee for the both of us. :-) They spoke very highly of the orphanages and how the nannies are very affectionate with the children.  There is about a seven to one ratio of children to nannies. We also learned the process of the court systems and all of the legalities that must take place in order to make the adoption official. I also got to hear from the pastor of an Ethiopian Evangelical church in Indianapolis.  He passed around a Bible written in Amharic and talked about the culture of Ethiopia.  Ryan and I most definitely will visit his church. Overall the meeting was wonderful and I went away with a lot more knowledge of the country our child will be from. Currently we are still waiting to receive a copy of our home study so we can file the I-600A form. Again we are learning to be patient...thank you for your prayers!

February 13th...

Today we get to celebrate love with some great news.  We received an email from Holly last night that are Home Study has been approved and it is headed to the National office in Grand Rapids. This means that Friday, February 13th was the official start to our waiting time to receive a Referral!!! We are hoping for a 6-8 month wait for the referral.  At that time, provided everything goes smooth with the referral, our court date in Ethiopia will be 2-3 months from the date of acceptance of the referral.  We could travel before Christmas!  Happy Valentine's Day to all, may you celebrate and love well!

2nd Seminar completed

Ryan and I attended our second workshop this evening entitled "Come Out and Play With Me." In this workshop we played different attachment based activities. It was very interactive and we had a lot of fun. Some of the games will also be fun to play with my students. We are looking forward to attending the Ethiopian Insight workshop on February 23rd. We are in a waiting period right now. Thankfully Ryan called and found out his criminal history check from Pennsylvania is in the mail. We are waiting on that in order for our home study to be approved. When the home study is approved and we receive a copy of it, we will file the I-600A which is the document that we send to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to obtain a visa for our child. Once that is approved we will be able to submit our Dossier and wait patiently for our referral. We have learned there are many times where we have to be patient through this process. Please pray for us to be patient!