Saturday, March 30, 2013

Crazy "Paper-Chasing" this week...

Please be praying for us this week.  It is going to be a week packed full of adoption prep!  On Tuesday, we have our first home visit (for the home study).  This appointment will last 2 hours.  At this appointment, we'll probably also receive a bunch of our "homework".  This will be training videos and website info for training and education.  We'll also be able to turn in everything we've gathered together so far. 

On Thursday, we have our Orientation meeting with Generations Adoptions, our placing agency.  I'm sure we'll be inundated with information at this 2 hour Skype meeting!  It's so exciting to be officially on the move with everything, though.  And honestly, I'm such a nerd, that I enjoy gathering and filling out the paperwork, as menial a task as it sometimes can be.  Hopefully we'll get a better idea of our timeline at this meeting, and we'll definitely have a better idea of the entire process!  We understand that a lot of the timing is not up to us, and there are no guarantees.  When we're working with the government, and in this case, 2 governments, there will probably be some sort of hold up in the process!! 

Also, beginning on Thursday evening, we will have a booth at The Old TownSquare, a new store in downtown North Platte.  They are having their Grand Opening celebration this weekend, so we will be there with some fundraising products.  We'll have Compelled Designs jewelry, Apparent Project bracelets, and Just Love Coffee.  This fundraising event will be Thursday evening, Friday, and Saturday. 

 

Please pray for us as we have a busy week, and pray that our fundraising efforts will be successful! 

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Home Study Work Is Well Underway...

This week has been full of home study prep!  I feel like we've made good progress so far!  Here's our current list of paperwork, and our progress:

Release forms (4 forms): done
Health forms: appt April 3 for Doc to fill these out
Criminal Background Checks: appt March 27 for fingerprinting and submission
Employer References: Sarah-emailed to main office this week
                                     Ryan-to be filled out Sunday
Personal References: emailed forms to them this week, they should all be turned in next week.
Financial Statement: done
Copy of Taxes: done
Self-study Questionnaire: working on it...
Marriage License: done
Birth Certificates: done

Whew!  All we've got to do is finish the self-study!  Everything else is done, or scheduled!  We haven't met with our home study agency, or our adoption agency yet.  Our adoption agency Ghana program coordinator is actually IN Ghana, and returning this week, so we'll meet with her soon.  Also, we'll meet with our home study coordinator soon too.  We will also have training/education to complete, and personal visits for the home study as well.  Praying we can get it all taken care of soon, so our home study will be complete in record time!  God is at work, for sure! 

Next comes our dossier (the packet of information that is sent to Ghana) preparation...I've looked at the list of required documents, and we're pretty much taking care of them with the home study.  We will have a couple of forms that we'll need to have notarized for the dossier, but that's easy, peasy!  Just gathering and signing! 

All in all, I'm pleased with how things have progressed this week.  I'm loving this journey, even though it's daunting and exhausting!  I've also been searching around online, and reading up about Ghana and some of the ministries that Generations is partnering with.  I'm so excited to see what God's  doing and be part of it!  Please, check out Feeding the Orphans!  It's really an amazing ministry! 

Please keep praying for us, for our daughter, and for those caring for her now.  Remember, you can still contribute to our adoption fund, through paypal (send a gift to sarahtalexATyahooDOTcom), through snail mail, Just Love Coffee, or the jewelry we're selling (see our facebook pages!). 

Also, share our blog with your friends!  We'd love to have people we don't even know praying for us! 

Monday, March 18, 2013

We are Official!

Today is a BIG day in our adoption process!  We decided to pursue Ghana as our country!  Why Ghana?  Here's a summary from Generations website:

The culture-rich West African country of Ghana has a population of 22 million. While English is the official language, Ghana is a very diverse country. It is comprised of various tribes from more than 100 ethnic groups each with its own languages, religions, and traditions. Ghana, formerly called the Gold Coast, was found to be rich in gold. Today, tourists visit historic sites including castles and forts that serve as reminders of the barbaric slave trade that took place years ago.

Ghana is a country of great wealth and great poverty. There are large, industrialized cities as well as remote villages with no access to electricity and clean water. Due to poverty, illness, and illiteracy, there are many orphans, abandoned children, and even young children being sold into forced child slavery who are exploited by the fishing community. Fishermen often resort to ‘buying’ children from disadvantaged single mothers to help them fish the lake. They use the children’s small fingers to untangle fishing nets caught in trees in the lake. Unfortunately, a mother in desperate circumstances, unable to feed her children, believes that the fisherman will feed her child and perhaps learn a skill that she cannot give them.


There are approximately 1 million orphans in Ghana.  1 million orphans in a country the size of the state of Oregon!  Our goal is to bring one of those orphans home, forever. 

With this decision finalized, we also submitted our home study application with Adoption Consultants, Inc., and our agency application with Generations Adoptions

We received the "official" acceptance from Generations later this afternoon, so we are offically in the Ghana program!  We will be meeting with our home study coordinator soon, and the paperwork begins! 

Thursday, March 7, 2013

First Goal.....Check.

We made it!!  We have officially reached our first fundraising goal.  When we first started the adoption process, our goal was to have $5000 raised by June.  With the $5K, we can pay for our application fees, home study, and the first installment to the adoption agency.  Well, as you can see, God blew "our" plans out.of.the.water.  Just this morning in my Bible study, I was praying that God would simply work however HE wanted to...I wasn't praying for him to supply the remaining funds in any particular way, but just for Him to work in whatever way that would bring Him the most glory.  Well, He decided to work through someone that we don't even know!  I'm so amazed by the way His plans are fulfilled.  We were given a check that covered the remaining balance, plus some!
Check out the fundraising page for the updated totals.

Our ultimate goal is at least $30,000, so we've still got quite a ways to go until we've got our adoption funded!! 

So, what's next? 

Now, it's time to submit our agency application and home study application!  Of course, we have to actually be sure on the country we're adopting from before we do that....so here's the question:

 

What country do you think we'll choose?

I'm curious to see and hear your thoughts!  I have the applications pretty much completed, so it won't be long, and we'll be on our way!  Leave a comment, and let us know your ideas!!

Monday, March 4, 2013

We're Almost There!

What a couple of weeks it has been!  We had an article in the newspaper, and then the TV station did an interview!  I was so nervous....and for those that knew Daddy, after I've watched the video a few times, I realized I had Daddy's "bird-face" during the entire thing!  HAHAHAHA!!  You can check out the KNOP news story here.

We are ALMOST to our first goal!!  We had originally planned to reach this goal by June 2013, however, our GOD, who wants to do even more than we can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20), continues to amaze us.  When we have $5000, we will begin our applications and our home study.  I've already been preparing these, so hopefully, we'll be able to submit them as soon as we reach the goal.  Guys, we are SO CLOSE!  Like, $432.50 CLOSE!  Our new plan (since God blew the first one out of the water!) is to reach our goal and submit our applications by March 15.  If we get that done, MAYBE, just MAYBE, we'll even have our home study completed by June!  Thank you so much for your prayers and financial support.  We can't do this without you. 

Be sure to check out our facebook pages for photos of the jewelry we have available, or head on over to Just Love Coffee to purchase some great coffee.  If you're not on facebook, shoot me an email at sarahtalex(at)yahoo(dot)com and I can get photos of the jewelry to you.  Thanks!