Homestudy Approved!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends!

The South Africa team at Bethany Christian Services notified us this morning of our homestudy approval! Merry Christmas to us!

Once the holiday season winds down, we should be meeting with our caseworker to sign the homestudy and take a few copies for our own purposes. We will need to send one in with the immigration application and use others to apply for grants.

Our next agency fee of $4,300 is now due, and thanks to work bonuses, generous gifts and the sale of a Volkswagen, we have the money! Praise the Lord!

We will start working on the next chunk of moo-lah and will probably do some more fundraisers. T-shirts and jewelry, anyone?

Christmas in the Orphanage

Today, I am thinking about Christmas and our future little one. At this time next year, they might be home with us. But for this year, right now, they are probably in an orphanage. Without parents to snuggle them and read them the story of Christmas, without grandparents and aunts and uncles to spoil them with gifts and attention, without cousins to run around and be silly with. Our little one is in South Africa, practically all alone. Feeling like there is no one in the world to take care of them and love them unconditionally. It breaks my heart.

I am helpless to do anything but pray. Pray and have faith in what I know to be true. That God is watching over them because I cannot. That He loves them more than I ever will and He will protect them. I pray that someone in that orphanage is taking special care of them until we can claim them as our own. I pray that they are getting enough food and medical attention. And I pray that God is preparing their little heart for a new family and a new life.

Our little one does not have a name, a face or even a gender yet. But they are already in our hearts.

BCS Grant

Another week has passed and there isn't much to report about our adoption process. We are still waiting for the homestudy to be approved.

We did, however, receive some really encouraging financial news this past Friday.

A little while back, we had applied for a grant from our adoption agency, Bethany Christian Services. Unlike most grants, this one required an application prior to the completion of the home study. I assumed we were not approved for any assistance because I hadn't heard anything, but we received a letter telling us we were approved for a grant of $1,500, which will be applied towards our Bethany Christian Services fees.

This is a huge help towards our next fee of $4,300!

We are also selling Dave's car, so those proceeds can go right into the fund. We certainly have a long way to go (I try not to dwell on this). All we can do is take one day and one step at a time. Please continue to think of us and keep us in your prayers! 

All Our Love,
Dave and Sarah

Home Study Submitted for Approval

Happy Friday, All!

I received an email this morning. Our caseworker has submitted our homestudy to her supervisor for approval! We are technically still waiting on the results of our drug screening, but she is confident that we are drug-free so she is moving forward.

The homestudy must first be approved by our caseworker's supervisor and then by the South Africa Team of the agency. Typically, they will have some questions or want some clarification on something so it will probably take a couple weeks until it is approved.

Upon homestudy completion, a fee of $4,300 will be due to the agency. We haven't quite figured out where all that money is coming from, but I'm sure we'll figure something out! We will also file our immigration paperwork along with a $720 application fee at this time.

We will be able to start applying for adoption grants as soon as the homestudy is approved. Please pray that we will be approved for some (lots of) grants. Without them...well, I'm not sure how we will pay for everything that is to come!

One super exciting aspect of having an approved homestudy is that from now on, we are allowed to express interest in children who are available for international adoption. There are already children listed on our agency's private site, and as new children become available, the South Africa team sends out a message to the families in the program. Now we will be able to notify them when we are interested in a child. That does not guarantee that we will be approved for that child in particular, but at least it will not feel as if our hands are tied when we see a little kiddo that we would love to make our own.

Keep praying! We still have a long process ahead of us!

Love, Sarah

Home Study Review

I hope everyone enjoyed a Thanksgiving feast with family last week!

We don't have much news to report on the adoption front today. I am still trying to tie up loose ends with medical forms and employer references. It feels never-ending; always one last detail that was overlooked by someone (never me, of course ;))

Our caseworker finished writing our homestudy, with the exception of the details from the paperwork we are still waiting on (see above). Dave and I read through it over the weekend and caught a few minor mistakes. Let me tell you, it is weird to read a 25 page paper about yourself. I actually got pretty bored a few pages in and had to take a break.

I have almost completed the immigration paperwork, so that when the homestudy is approved, we can send it right away to Homeland Security. Immigration approval is said to take anywhere from 30-90 days. Let's pray for 30!

Our first fundraiser, a Pampered Chef book party, ended last week. It was a successful show as far as sales, and we will be getting a portion of the representative's commission. We will apply that to the cost of the immigration application. We've also received a couple monetary gifts from loved ones that went straight into the adoption account. Every little bit is so appreciated. We are so humbled that people are willing to partner with us in this process of giving a home to an orphan and expanding our family. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers!

Love, Sarah

To Do

The "to do" list in my brain today:

Bug Dave's employers for their employment reference letters (which must be notarized)

Make doctor appointment for drug testing

Bug Remind Dave about making his doctor appointment for TB and drug testing

Pick up notarized medical letters from doctor (can combine with drug testing appt)

Adjust asset sheet to reflect student loan debt (a sobering number)

Start completing the immigration application so it is ready to go as soon as the homestudy is approved. (And prepare to spend almost $1000 to file this application and get fingerprinted...again)

Lists help me. Thank you for enduring the mediocrity of this post.

Love, Sarah

Medical Requirements

I will try not to bore you with the little details of this process on a daily basis, but here is a quick update of what we are currently "working on." This may give you an idea of of how tedious this process can be.

As part of the home study, we were required to get physicals. At this appointment, our doctor had to complete and sign a form given to us by our caseworker. In addition, we also need a signed letter from the doctor testifying that we are in good health and able to parent a child. This letter had to be notarized. In case you have never had anything notarized, the notary has to witness the signature taking place. Thankfully, our family doctor had a notary on staff. However, the country of South Africa requires that the notary's commission be good for at least 6 months from the time the notarization took place. The kind woman at the doctor's office was allowing hers to expire so her commission was only good until February 2013. The letters that she notarized would not be sufficient. We had to wait until the "new girl" received her notary license so the letters could be re-done. Thankfully, I got a call early this week that the new letters would be ready soon.

In the meantime, the medical forms completed by our doctors reached our caseworker's desk and I received an email stating they were not complete. (Oh joy) Dave still needs to have a TB test done and we both have to be drug-screened. So back to the doctor we go! Our caseworker is still writing our homestudy so the medical complications aren't technically holding anything up at this point. Have to look for the silver lining!

Until next time :) Sarah

International Adoption: What is the Process?

Most people know very little about international adoption. It is easy for me and Dave to forget that because we are learning so much in such a short amount of time. We thought it would be a good idea to do something that keeps our loved ones in the loop as we journey through this process.

I thought that a logical first step would be a general overview of the international adoption process.  That way, in future posts, the details will make a little more sense.

There are basically six steps, beginning with the application. Our agency required a preliminary application and a longer formal application. Next, there is the home study process. We recently completed this stage. The home study is a series of interviews and a home visit with your caseworker. The interviews delve into some very personal information, but we felt comfortable with our caseworker so it was virtually painless. Our caseworker then has the task of writing a rather lengthy paper about us.

The next step is immigration pre-filing. This is paperwork that we will send to Homeland Security to gain approval to bring an orphan into the USA. We cannot file this until our home study is written and approved, so we are currently stalled at this step. Immigration approval can take up to 90 days.

While waiting for immigration approval, we will work on our dossier, a compilation of documents, all of which are certified, notarized and apostilled by the Secretary of State. The dossier consists of birth and marriage certificates, letters of referral, power of attorney for our partners in South Africa, etc.

Once we have immigration approval and a completed dossier, everything is sent to South Africa, where our agency’s partner and the South African government will match us with a child in need of a family.  When they have matched us with a child, we have the opportunity to review the information and either accept or decline.

Should we accept, we will be invited to travel to South Africa 8-12 weeks later.  Only one visit is required, but we expect to be in the country for 5-6 weeks while the adoption is finalized.

Payment is due at different stages throughout the process. Some of the fees are paid to our US adoption agency, some are paid to the South African adoption agency, some are for legal and medical fees while in South Africa, and the rest is travel expense. Some of the figures we have been given are estimates, but the total cost should be more than I earn in a year. This aspect was certainly a scary one to swallow, but we felt so strongly that God wanted us on this path, we decided to take a huge step of faith and trust Him to provide. We will raise as much as we can through fundraisers and support letters. We plan to finance the rest. Obviously, we want to borrow as little as possible but we will do what is necessary to take a child out of an orphanage and into our home.

Please partner with us and remember us in your prayers. Your support is so greatly appreciated!

All Our Love,

Dave & Sarah Kern