Praise HIM!! We have a referral!

Major Updates: We have a referral!!!!!

I truly cannot believe I am writing this to our friends and family at this time, but this past week we received a call on a little boy in Ethiopia.

Last Friday Kenny and I were driving home from work when the call came. I assumed it was the agency letting us know who our new social worker was, when the Lead Social Worker led with “We have a referral for you”, I was shocked—according to all the research we were planning on a 12-18 month wait, not a 3 month wait for a referral. She gave us details on the referral and let us know we had about a week to decide. Friday night, as a family, we prayed and reviewed all the information the agency gave us-at that point we decided to move forward on accepting “Minalachew”.

Since I hadn’t read that far ahead in the process we had a very quick turn around to accept the referral. Our agency requires that any referral’s medical documentation be reviewed by a State Side Agency. Saturday night we upload all of Minalachew’s medical information to the University of MN International Adoption Clinic, by Tuesday afternoon we received word: Everything looked great!

Wednesday we all received the documents required for the Dossier. These 30 plus documents included: medical clearance from doctors, financial information from the bank, criminal background checks from the local police department--most of which had to be notarized, letters from friends and employment verification checks-again all notarized.

Well for those of you who know me-know me to be a little determined and motivated (Rob might have other words for it J) when it comes to getting things done. I started out Thursday am getting these documents to the appropriate parties, with the help, and prayers, of a lot of people-we mailed out the Dossier on Friday morning!!!

The Ethiopian Courts are now closed until the end of September. Once they re-open we hope to hear word as to when our first court date will be. During the next month or so I will update the blog on the process going forward-to be honest this week was a whirlwind and I have to actually read ahead now to know for myself what is next!

In the next month Rob and I hope to send out a letter to family and friends giving more information about Minalachew and what you can do to help our adoption. As this came up sooner than expected we are looking at our finances and are in the process of applying for a loan through “Lifesong for Orphans” (I have a link for them on the blog). Lifesong is also going to be housing donations from family and friends to support our adoption-I will have more details on this process as well-but the process will allow people to donate towards the adoption and receive a tax-deduction as well.

For now we just ask for you to pray for our family (you wouldn’t believe how excited Rob and Kenny are to have another guy coming into the family) and for Minalachew during this waiting period. Thank you all for your support and prayers-God has certainly answered them in a way we never expected!

Jess