Making Progress

Well, we have Step 1 completed for our adoption: Home Study Completion- notarized and ready to be sent to India!

Many people have asked us what this means and where we’re at in the adoption process, so I will do my best to explain. I’m still trying to process each detailed step. Even though we’ve completed so much paperwork, I still feel like I’m drowning in mounds of paperwork.

For the India program, we have to complete several steps:

1.     Complete the Home Study and Hague training: This is done! This was a long process. We actually received our initial home study paperwork over a year ago. A little deployment delayed our plans. Then we finally were able to have our home study in February, but there was more paperwork, which finally came in this past week. Signed—sealed—delivered—done!

2.     Register on CARINGS: This is the online adoption system in India. India allows 100 families per month to register. Since it's only mid-May we have a good chance of registering.  It generally takes them about two months to approve or disapprove a family. If India does not approve our home study this time, we will do another home study when Brooks is two (November) and try again.

3.     Submit the I-800A application: This is the process where we request permission from the US immigration office to bring an adopted child into the US. Basically it’s more paperwork and fingerprints again! We will be starting this step once we complete our CARINGS registration.

4.     Finish collecting and notarize dossier documents: Our dossier is a collection of about 30 documents we had to collect: Home Study, birth certificates, marriage licenses, physicals, financial forms, five reference letters, etc. I am so thankful to report we only have two documents left to collect! Then we will head to the notary with a giant file complete our dossier. We are hoping to complete our dossier this month.

5.     Apostille the dossier documents in each state where the document originated: Before beginning our dossier, I had never heard of an “apostille”. Basically, an apostille authenticates the notary.  This will be an easy process, it will just take some time. Most of our documents will head to Hawaii or D.C.

6.     Send completed dossier to AWA with payments and additional documentation: I’m not sure when we will complete our dossier, but I know that it will be soon. Our adoption fund is quickly depleting, which is a good sign because it means things are happening!

We are at a place now where we need to ask for financial help. In addition to filling out paperwork for adoption grants, we are squeezing in one quick fundraiser before we PCS to Wyoming. We are partnering with Noonday Collections to raise funds for our adoption: "Noonday Collection is the go to spot for on trend fashionable accessories and we are so excited to partner with Noonday's local ambassador for an adoption fundraiser trunk show in her home! The passion at Noonday is to advocate for orphans and help others rise out of poverty while styling you along the way. Fashion and design are a vehicle for opportunity and change. By wearing Noonday, you get to join the story of transformation one purchase at a time. Noonday is a fair trade company whose mission is to create sustainability through dignified jobs and fair wages to the most vulnerable in over 10 countries."

 Noonday will send 10% of the total sales to our adoption agency. If you’re interested in participating in this fundraiser, please let me know!

We will also send you one of our postcards with a thank you note. Our sweet and talented friend, Abby, designed them for us. Please post these cards on your fridge as a reminder to pray for this whole process.

We are overflowing with thanks to God for the incredible paperwork progress we've seen this month. We're encouraged! 

So Thankful,

Melissa

Paperwork Pits

Some days adoption feels impossible. On those days, the paperwork seems overwhelming. And I feel like we will never bring our child(ren) from India home.

Today was one of those days.

We have been working on our dossier for months. A dossier is basically a huge compilation of paperwork that the adoption agency submits to the international country to approve you to adopt: birth certificates, police clearance, medical records, letters of reference, financial statements, tax forms, and of course the Home Study. It’s more paperwork than you can imagine! India usually takes about two months to look over a dossier and approve the family in their system.

Last week, we received our police clearances from Hawaii, all our birth certificate apostilles, and various letters from family and friends needed for our dossier. I smiled and praised God as I checked off box after box on our master checklist. The checklist revealed we only needed three more pieces to complete our dossier! I could see the light at the end of that tunnel.

Then today, I received an e-mail from our family coordinator that all our letters of reference do indeed need to be notarized (which was not noted in the guidelines); oh, and now they are requiring five reference letters, not two. Also, if it’s not too much trouble, we need to get a letter from our pediatrician stating the overall health of current children living in our home. And of course, it must be notarized.

One step forward, three steps backwards.

These additional documents will probably take weeks to collect, which means we won’t be submitting our dossier as soon as we hoped.

Let the discouragement set in.

Adoption is too big for me. There are so many hurdles and setbacks that if I didn't have a mighty God, adoption probably would be IMPOSSIBLE.

I cannot complete all this paperwork on my own. I cannot convince CARA that we are fit to parent Indian children. But I have to finish this paperwork, so CARA will give us a referral. 

Getting a referral feels like a dream that will never come true. But that is a lie, and discouragement will not rule my mind!

So I will pray. I will trust. I will beg for hope. And then I will print off another document to sign. I will visit the notary one more time. And I will trust that my Savior, who did not leave me as an orphan, is sovereign enough to complete this adoption.  He will accomplish all His purpose (Is. 46:10).

Trusting Him,

Melissa

Why INDIA?

Look at your globe. Go ahead- spin it around a few time. There are almost 200 countries among seven continents. It’s huge, right? And have you looked up the statistics recently on the number of orphans worldwide? Most sources provide different figures, but roughly 17.8 million children are “double orphaned” having lost both parents; 153 million children worldwide have lost one of their parents making them a “single orphan.” These stats probably don’t reflect the number of social orphans living in institutions.

So, it’s a big world full of helpless children in need. We can only adopt one or maybe two. Where do we even start?

We are starting in India.

David won our church’s curry cook-off our first year in Hawaii, but other that that we don’t have huge ties to Indian culture! It’s hard to explain why we chose India- we both just agreed that we want a little girl from India.

When I visited my Grandma shortly before she passed away in 2013, I was perusing some of her Christian news magazines. She always kept quite the stock. I came across an article about the plight of women in India and China. Apparently, those two countries are extremely oppressive toward women- some will even abort their baby if the gender is revealed as female. That awful fact really struck me. And I suppose that was the moment God focused the view of my lens in on two countries.

A couple months later when David and I began discussing our plans to adopt, our first step was choosing a program, or country. We talked about India and China. After some research, we learned we’re too young to adopt from China, so we looked into India. We met all the requirements! We found an amazing Christian agency that does adoptions in India, so we applied.

I know it might sound cliché, but India just seems right for our family. It’s hard to explain, but I’m so glad God gave us a passion for ONE country.

One terrifying and exciting thing adopting from India is the opportunity for God to work a miracle. The India program comes with various subjective rules including one about breaking birth order. India typically does not like for families with biological children to break birth order when they adopt. That means they would prefer for us to adopt a child younger than our youngest child. Additionally, it is rare for families- not of Indian heritage- to adopt a child under the age of three. Our youngest child, Brooks, is 15 months, so I’ll let you do the math! It’s seriously going to take a miracle for India to approve us to adopt.

We’re actually considered a “high risk family” for the India program. Because of this, we actually switched to the Ethiopia program for about a year- mainly out of fear. What if we spent thousands upon thousands of dollars only for India to tell us, “No you cannot adopt from us.” Ethiopia was a much safer program for us. Surprisingly, our adoption agency offered transfer program in December to the India program without any extra fees. We both knew immediately that we should go back to India. It would have been easier for us to adopt from Ethiopia- those kids are super cute, and there are so many in need. But, we were not called to adopt from Ethiopia. And WE will not accomplish this adoption.

Our child is waiting for us somewhere in India. And God will be the One to bring her home.

 So, now you have a very specific prayer request for our family: pray that CARA, the India agency for all things adoption, will look favorably upon our family and allow us to welcome one of their children into our home.

Trusting Him,

Melissa

Adoption is not the only way to address the global orphan crisis. For other ways to get involved check out the book Orphanology by Tony Merida and Rick Morton. (Yes, this was the book that God used to open David’s heart to adoption!)

Are They Sisters? The question that started it all...

One October afternoon in 2012, Blaire and I were at our favorite neighborhood park- Nothing unusual. Blaire makes friends with everyone at the park! She always has. And at the time, she was only 18 months. On that particular day, there was a little Asian girl who quickly befriended Blaire. The girls ran all over the jungle gym holding hands, and I heard our new friend calling Blaire her sister. Another mom also overheard this, looked at me and asked, “Are they sisters?”

This question changed everything.

This question was the seed God used to plant a desire for adoption in my heart. I smiled and said, “No, they’re not really sisters,” all the while thinking to myself, Wouldn’t that be so cool if they were? Wouldn’t that be a beautiful picture of the gospel to bring two girls- two girls who clearly don’t LOOK like sisters, but who are sisters, to the park?  That was the beginning of our adoption journey.  After that mom asked me Are they sisters, I could not get adoption out of my mind.

18 mo Blaire at our favorite park

At the time, David and I were trying to get pregnant with another child. Our second pregnancy ended up being an ectopic pregnancy- by the grace of God, a doctor discovered this, but we obviously lost our baby after just 6 weeks. We were a little discouraged because we weren’t getting pregnant as quickly as we had the first two times.  I was starting to wonder if the rest of our family would grow through adoption. That Christmas, we were visiting my sister in Greeley, CO. Her pastor preached about adoption. That seed God planted in October just continued to grow.  

In February 2013, we found out we were once again expecting! (That little baby is now a toddling energetic little boy- Brooks.) However, as soon I saw those two pink lines, I told David, “I still want to adopt.”  I was just excited about adopting as I was carrying another baby biologically. So far, God hadn’t planted a desire to adopt in David’s mind. I was okay with that- I knew that if God really wanted us to adopt, He would have to to give both of us the desire to adopt.

Fast forward a couple months to August. A dear friend convinced David to read, “Orphanology: Awakening to Gospel-Centered Adoption and Orphan Care” by Tony Merida and Rick Morton.  After reading just the first chapter, his heart was totally changed about adoption. He immediately opened a savings account for an adoption fund and started rearranging our budget so we could adopt! 

Though it took about 10 months for that adoption seed to finally sprout, God kept watering it, and now we are acting in obedience to Him as we try to adopt.

My hope is that this blog will be a helpful way to keep you all up to date about our adoption process. In addition, I hope our entire adoption will glorify God as I share it with you.

In my next blogs, I’ll explain why we chose India, and I’ll give an update on where we’re at in our adoption process.

Thanks for reading. And thank you so much for all your prayers and support!

Blessings,

Melissa