Sunday, May 21, 2017

I serve a Mighty God

It is about 8:15 on Sunday May 21, 2017.

I should be getting ready for church. We have a big day today with our First Responder Appreciate Day and the kids are going to have a blast. BBQ lunch and Fire Trucks will accompany us today.

I just want to take a second and say that I serve a Mighty and Powerful God. This week has been a real test of my patience and understanding. I've been nervous this week. We've had a fall out with our Social Worker of the many mistakes she has made through our process. The lack of communication and her ability to just drag all things out. I've said some truly unkind words and maybe even said I was going to mail her some of our chicken's poop.

I did not know what we were going to do. Thankfully I calmed down and took a deep breathe and just went in the direction I felt God was telling me to go and its been in our favor. We have ceased working with her and found a new, awesome Social Worker who has managed to fix every wrong doing in the course of one day.  Incredible!

More details to follow. I really do need to get ready!

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

I received an email today...

... that told me we are USCIS approved!!!

This is huge. I thought for sure it would take a couple more weeks to receive this, but Officer Krost in the Adoption Department of the U.S. Immigration service assures me our approval letters are in the mail by tomorrow. So here is our timeline for those interested in where USCIS currently stands:

Application and Home Study received 4/13/2017
Finger printed 5/8/2017
Officially Approve 5/15/2017

I'm thrilled that this leg is over! Once the hard approvals are received I will send them to Tallahassee with a few other documents to be apostilled and I will send them to the next family traveling to Ukraine and we will wait to be submitted to the court. A couple weeks after submission we should receive travel dates for our appointment at DAP.

It is officially crunch time. There is no other way to describe it. I need to raise an additional $8,000 in roughly 2 months or close to. Pray for me. I'm really going to need it. :)

Saturday, May 6, 2017

FaceBook Auction and USCIS

Hello Everyone! So excited to be back with somewhat of an update for you.

The last week of April we held an online auction and all money is going towards our adoption fees. We had some amazing donations from our friends in the adoption community along with several GENEROUS Etsy store owners. In all sincerity, without these donors we would not have had much to work with and our gratitude can never be expressed. I'd like to give these folks a little shout out so if you have time please check them all out and support them if you're in a shopping mood.

HearttoHomeOrganics
Reborn Furnishings
TubiePockets
WCDShoppe
BelindasGarden
Country Tags
Stitching Families Together (find her on FaceBook)
QberryCreations
GreyBunnyPaperie
The Village Gifts
21Blessings
Beyond Paper Flowers
HoneyThorns
FleaCircusDesigns
Madison Street Leather
In A Different Package
Bushel&Bobbin

A huge, "THANK YOU" to these stores and their generosity. I am very sure these small shops are bombarded with requests, often fake ones, and they took the time to check out our blog and story and saw that we are very real.

That being said, after bids and a little extra in donations (before taking out shipping costs) we made just under $1400.00. That is fantastic! Much more then I anticipated. Thank you to all our bidders! Your support is very appreciated.

We are still plugging away on fundraising and saving towards the remaining funds we need. At this point we need right around $8,000 more to be fully funded. It sounds like a lot, and it is, but honestly, we can do this. Look how much we have raised in such a short amount of time anyway. Remember, we do have our tax free account where donations can be made. You can click the "Donate" button our blog to be taken directly to the site. :)

Great news!! We have our Immigration fingerprint appointment on Monday morning at 8 am. We are praying for a quick turn around with no requests for additional information. I tried to be very proactive in sending everything they could possibly ask for. Fingers crossed!

We want to just say, Thank you again to everyone for all your love and support along the way.