Paperwork Prayer Needed!

This is a call to all our faithful family and friends to pray for us.  We have heard this week that we are not able to accept a referral until all our paperwork has been updated. Originally we were told that the document from The Netherlands will not hold us up, but that has changed.  We are still waiting on Amy's police background clearance from The Netherlands to come.  Ryan received his last week, which seems odd that Amy's did not come at the same time.  Please pray that it will arrive ASAP, because our coordinator would like it to be hand delivered to Russia with a family that is traveling there early next week.  Once we do get it, we will make a quick trip up to Olympia to have it Apostilled by the state and then overnight it to the family.  

We know God can make this happen, so we are praying it and trusting in His timing. Thanks!

16+9=25!

It's not over, until it's over...

We were feeling so relieved that our updated Dossier was going to be completed this week, (with the exception of the document still needed from The Netherlands) and we would finally be done with this paper chase and be able to focus on other things.  Oh, how wrong we were!  Our adoption coordinator told us she would be sending a packet of information relevant to the region we have just been assigned to, and that there would be some more paperwork involved with this specific region.  No big deal we thought, we have done our Dossier 2 times now so what more could they possibly need from us?  Only Russia could think of 16 ADDITIONAL documents they need signed, notarized and apostilled from us, and 9 more from our social worker.  That makes 25 more documents to hunt down from California, Texas, The Netherlands, Washington and the FBI.  What more do these people want to know about us!!  Seriously, we are boring, law abiding people who just want to bring our daughter HOME.

The good news among this frustration is that these documents will not hold up our referral or our first trip.  So we will start tracking all of these down now, and turn them in as quickly as we can in order to expedite our court hearing on the second trip.  

Someday we might look back on this and smile, but today we are too buried in paperwork to see the humor.

Feeling Patriotic

Here are a couple clips of our cuties.  Brooks is 3.5 and Bradey had just turned 4.

Exciting news today!

We were able to talk to our coordinator this morning regarding our next steps in the process.  Typically when a family is registered it means a referral of a child will be coming within 2-3 weeks, however, for reasons unknown at this time Russia seems to be moving slower than normal for referrals.  Our coordinator felt that we should be prepared to travel within the next 2-3 months.  That is great news!  The race is on to get the things accomplished that we wanted to before we meet her.  We do need prayer that some paperwork we need from The Netherlands would come quickly and not delay these plans.  

It looks like we will be visiting Siberia at a very cold time of the year! I am not too interested in knowing what negative temperatures feel like, but of course Ryan in his love of the extremes can't wait:-)

Happy Birthday To Me!!

God is sooo good!  We were going about a pretty normal Wednesday when totally by surprise we received an email from our Adoption Coordinator that we have officially been registered in the Krasnoyarsk region of Russia!!!!  This is a HUGE step forward for us in the process.  Typically when a family is registered it means that they have located a child that fits your request and a referral will be coming "shortly".  We have a phone conference on Friday with our Coordinator and will receive more information then, but for now we are rejoicing in this big step closer to our little one! 

What an amazing God that he was mindful of how much this would mean to us and He orchestrated it to happen on my birthday.   He is so especially fond of each of his children that even a small detail like that he had planned.  No greater gift I could have received. Thank you Jesus!

More information to come on Friday!!! Stay tuned:-)