Prayers are Answered!

Many of you were a huge part of these decisions that were made! We asked for prayers this past Sunday night specifically for the SDA in Ukraine not to close and stop processing all adoptions. We received news Monday morning from our translator that they had not closed as planned and they were going to continue processing adoptions until the other ministry openned! None other than God could have answered that prayer! Yes, we have to make a few changes to documents but that feels like a breeze when we have been worrying that this adoption was going to be halted until???

We are still going to be adopting an older child but if God is openning these doors we feel this is exactly where He wants us. We will face many struggles but none where God is not near. We are so blessed to have so many people involved in this adoption! We have been overwhelmed with the encouragement and excitement we have seen over this wonderful news.

Thank you all for being such a blessing to us.

These were the first words we read from our translator Monday morning:

Hello Tyler & Felecia,

Good news, the SDA will continue to work. No delay.

New Age Law: http://for-ua.org/politics/2011/05/19/183439.html

Be Still and Know I Am God

These title words are ones my Mom spoke when I asked her for some advice tonight at supper. We received news we didn't want to hear today about our adoption. We were told that on May 19th the Ukrainian government decided children 0-5 should only be available for Ukrainian people. We were also told the SDA (facility who does all adoptions) is closing on July 11th. This is huge news to us because our dossier is supposed to be submitted on August 4th which won't happen if the SDA closes in July. We are not sure exactly how either of these are going to impact our adoption. It all strikes when you are least expecting it. We have been on an adoption high due to our LONG wait to send our dossier to be submitted and now finding out that it might not be submitted is a real blow. We know there is a real plan and God knows what it is. All we have to do is put 110% faith in Him no matter how hard this might be.

Please pray that we will have strength and faith to push on through all of these bumps in the road. Please pray for our child wherever they are.

Dossier Sent

We sent our dossier today! What does this mean? Kostya, our translator, will receive it on July 5th and he will translate the entire thing. He will then submit it on August 4th. They then have 20 working days to give us a travel date or reject it. Let's pray for a travel date! It's crazy to think that all steps except travel to Ukraine are completed!

This was so us!

A friend who has adopted posted this on her wall today. When I watched it made me think back to when we were deciding when to adopt. We kept making every excuse in the book but we kept crossing them off because they just didn't seem to make sense after we thought about it. Now it all seems so selfish that we actually used excuses to wait for our adoption. All of those excuses we had LITERALLY written down have been slowly marked through by God. Once we decided to put all our faith and hope for this adoption in His hands things just took off. We are no where near finished with this adoption and we have many strong holds to get through before we bring our child/ren home from Ukraine. This isn't even considering the things we will have to figure out and work through once we have them home. Honestly, these are things we don't even worry about now because we know it's not just us on this road. We have a God who is right beside us whispering encouragement and assurance that this is right..this is His will for our lives right now. All of this being said I hope you take a few minutes and watch this video.

Dossier

I officially collected our entire dossier minus 1 document in 5 days! I was quite proud but of course the 1 document took over 2 weeks to finally come in. It did arrive on Friday after calling a thousand times! Nonetheless, I sent our dossier package to Montgomery Friday afternoon with all 32 notarized documents to be apostled and then off to Ukraine! Kostya, (our translator), will then translate it and submit it to Embassy. They have 20 working days to in return give us a travel date. We are yet another step closer to our Forever Family!

Dossier Time

It is now time to gather the life story documents (aka - dossier). This is the packet of information that will be submitted to the Embassy in Ukraine that will in turn get us a travel date. This should be the final step before actually going to Ukraine! Let's pray that we can gather all the needed documents and get them passed the first time. Our process with Ukrainian Angels is to gather documents then send them to Florida so that Cathy (Ukrainian Angels Lady) can check them for accuracy. Then we will send them to Montgomery to be apostles. Then we will send them to Kostya in Ukraine and he will translate them and submit them on August 4th. We are guessing the travel date will be about 4 or so months from submission (just a guess). We have come to learn that adoption is God's way of teaching us patience! We know that this is in His time and we are perfectly okay with that. Below are the documents we have to gather:

__ Updated Home Study

__ Agency License

__ Social Workers License

__ Letter from agency about social worker

__ I-171H Approval

__ Copies of Passports

__ State Police Clearance Letters

__ Employment Verifications

__ Medical Certificate & Doctors License

__ Marriage Certificate

__ Petition to Adopt

__ Letters of Obligation

__ Power of Attorney

__ House Deed

__ Tax Returns

__ Description of House

__ Ukraine Interpol Police Clearance

Nothing more nothing less!! Our goal for completion is this Friday!!

Dossier Date August 4th

We have been sitting back waiting on our translator to translate and submit our home study for a few weeks now. We knew it would take a little while because of all the holiday seasons and the offices being closed. It is hard to ship things over the holidays because offices aren't open here during our Christmas and then Ukraines offices are closed during our New Year! It's been kind of crazy. FYI- every piece of paper sent to Ukraine is $92 bucks!! I about flipped!

We got an email from Kostya, our translator today. He registerd our home study today and our date to send him our dossier is August 4th. He said the line for younger children seems to be much longer than the rest. This is something we were pretty sure of because of the things we had been told. I have emailed our independent lady, Cathy to see when we should begin collecting our life story for our dossier.

The next step... We will begin gathering these documents (drs forms, fingerprints, house deed, pet records, state clearances, proof of work & stability, tax statements, insurance, and MANY MANY more things). I am sure we will be able to keep busy for a while gathering these! We are excited to have moved on to the next step.

What's left... After we submit our dossier on August 4th we will receive our travel date. So we are actually very few steps away but the time will still be a while. It's possible we won't travel until next year some time. We have no clue how long our travel date will be from our dossier submission date.

Cross your fingers & shoot JC some prayers that the process doesn't seem as long as it really is!! We know our little one(s) are being prepared in Ukraine as we prepare here.

Until next update...