Archives for June 2005

Adoption Update – June 2005

Well, as you can probably already tell, we haven’t been as faithful to these postings as we probably need to be over the past several months. So let me get you caught up and ask you to pray for us to be more faithful. We really want these updates to be a source of information for our friends and family, but also a history of events for our children.

Our last post was a optimistic exclamation of achievement. We did get our paperwork finished and turned into the adoption agency. However, due to some changed guidelines we recently discovered that our application is still in the approval process in Colombia. Back in May we were told that we would need to re-file our adoption application because the form had changed. We were also told that the new guidelines required a psychological evaluation to be done for both parents. That was a little bit scary at first. What if the evaluation uncovered some deep psychotic tick? But the psychological evaluation adventure turned out to be a little less threatening. We were both relatively normal, Mary Ann being a little more so than me. The local psychiatrist we found was willing to work with us and gave us a huge discount that helped greatly. A big thanks goes to Dr. William Spinks in Richmond Hill, Georgia for his help.

Once we got the evaluation and new adoption application turned in we thought that maybe our application would finally get approved. However, that was not yet to be. Last week we got another e-mail letting us know that our FBI Clearance and our medical letter had both expired. So off we went to the local police station for more fingerprints and to the doctors office for another medical letter. The fingerprints have to be sent off to West Virginia to get the clearance letter. It could take a few weeks to get that back. Once it is received we will send it off to the adoption agency for approval and then off to Colombia. And then maybe, we will finally get approved for adoption in Colombia.

So, what is next after approval, you might be wondering. Well, we are told that once we are approved, then we get placed on a waiting list. The average wait time on the list is ten months. Yeah, you read that right. It will be a good ten months before we hear anything else after we are approved, unless of course the Lord sees fit to do something wonderful (which is what we are praying for).

The biggest concern we have right now is in regard to our INS application. In order to bring the children back into the United States, you have to file an INS application for each child. This application is the beginning of their immigration process. The process starts with a pre-processing application which will expire after 18 months. Ours will be coming up for expiration in about 6 months. At this point we are uncertain if there is any way to extend this application or whether we will have to re-file, which will cost us a good bit of money. Please pray that God will show us how to handle this and that it won’t cause any delay in the adoption process.

One thing that we are very thankful for is the effort that has been made over the last two months to help us raise the remaining money that we will need in order to go get our children. Our church as been very supportive of us and have done several fund raisers that have raised a little over $2,500 to help us. So many people have helped us and we want to say thank you to all of them. We are estimating that we have about $10,000 more to raise, however there have been several unexpected fees recently with all of the changes and expirations. We know that the Lord is going to provide in His time.

Please pray for us, and for the children. We know that all of these things are happening for a reason and that God has His perfect timing. Please check back often for more updates. God Bless!