Adoption Update

Pam ~ We mailed our I-600A yesterday!!! Now you may be wondering, "What is an I-600A?" Good question. :-)

The I-600A is a United State Citizenship and Immigration Services {USCIS} form that is also called the Application for the Advance Processing of Orphan Petition. This form allows the USCIS to begin processing our request to bring orphans into the United States.

In order to submit the I-600A form, we had to have a completed Home Study. In addition to the I-600A form and our home study, we submitted copies of both our birth certificates, our marriage license, our home study agency's license, along with a cover letter and a check for $830. Needless to say, we packaged all these important documents in a padded, water-resistant manila envelope and prayerfully mailed it at the post-office.

Now we have to wait to be contacted with a date, time, and place to go be fingerprinted. After the fingerprinting is done, we will wait some more until we receive our I-171H form in the mail!!! The I-171H is basically our letter of acceptance and permission. It doesn't sound so exciting, but it is a HUGE step in the paperwork we need for our dossier. It sounds like IA is one of the states that has a longer wait time to get this processed, so we are happy to have it done and in the mail!!!

While we wait for this to be done, we are continuing to work on the rest of our dossier paperwork. I am typing this post at school, so I don't have the list of the documents we still need to complete in front of me, but I'll try to remember and list a few of them {since I know that you are just dying to know}.

~ Police Reports
~ Three letters of reference
~ Proof of medical insurance
~ Proof of life insurance
~ Application Letter
~ Family Photo Sheet
~ Copies of our passports
~ Two passport photos of each of us
~ Dossier Checklist {that's not what it's called, but it's the general idea}
~ A few others that I can't remember :-)

I am leaving right after school today to attend a two day teacher's conference so these documents are having to wait a few more days. Nathan and I are planning to sit down on Saturday {hopefully} and talk through a plan on when/how to complete the rest of these documents. Our personal goal is to have the paperwork done in the next month or two, and then just work hard and wait on the Lord to provide the rest of the needed finances to submit our dossier. He has a plan and we are excited to see how He will provide. Wouldn't it be GREAT if we could submit our dossier before Christmas?!?! What a wonderful Christmas present that would be!!!!

{By the way, since I will be out of town on Friday, our "Fund-Raising Friday" post will probably be on Saturday.}