South Africa

We've been home for about a week and a half now. As we see our friends and family, everyone obviously wants to know how our time in South Africa was. Let's just say, I wouldn't want to do it again.

Here are a few shots of our time there. Dave will be working on putting together a video.

The day we met Noel. Taking a tour of TLC. 

One of the first days we spent at TLC. Noel wasn't crazy about having his picture taken. 

@ "Fish & Chips". It was grossing me out a little. 

The roof-top of a really cool restaurant near the Jo-burg Zoo.

We've got more, but I need to sort through both mine and Dave's. Stay tuned for a post about how we are doing as a family of three back in the USA. 

Post-Court Paperwork Process

The adoption of Noel was finalized on August 14, but we are still here in Johannesburg, South Africa. Why? Because a few things have to happen before we can take him back to the US. This is the process:

First, wait for a week while court paperwork is sent to the Registrar of Adoptions in Pretoria and then sent back to us.

Stage 1: Go to Home Affairs office to complete and submit four different forms. These forms basically pull his old name out of the South African database and re-enter him with his new name (Noel David Kern). They will assign a new ID number (which is like a SS#). We cannot proceed to Stage 2 without a new ID number.

*We are currently stuck in this stage. It was only supposed to take 7-10 days and it has been two weeks already. Our agency's partner, who is working behind the scenes on our behalf, has apparently made a direct appeal to National Assembly for our case. (And no, I don't know what National Assembly is)

Stage 2: Go back to Home Affairs office to complete more forms. At this point, we will request a new unabridged birth certificate, which is a necessity for Noel's Visa. We will also apply for a temporary and permanent Passport (We cannot apply for a passport without new ID number). The temporary passport should take 3-5 days. We do not know how long the birth certificate will take, but I don't have high hopes for anything speedy.

Stage 3: Receive notice that the birth certificate is ready and schedule appointment at US Consulate. At this time, we will be able to purchase a plane ticket for Noel. (We will most likely have to change the existing flights for me and Dave, because they are for September 10 and I don't see any way we will be able to leave then.)

Stage 4: Visa interview at the US Consulate. I believe they will give us his Visa right away at this appointment and we will be able to come home.

We have no idea how much longer all of this will take. We are so discouraged at this point. We have been here for 5 weeks and the estimated time in country that we were given was 5-6 weeks. We are having some horrible luck and could really use a miracle right now.

Greetings from South Africa

August 1: After a LONG time in the air, we waited in the line for passport services, collected our rental car and drove on the wrong side of the road to our hotel room for the night. The next morning, we met with two social workers and drove to TLC Children's Home, where our little boy has been living his entire life. We began to walk towards the entrance and a little figure appeared in the doorway. And even though I had never seen him in person, I knew it was our son. I waved to him, chuckling nervously, and he began to run towards us. I knelt down and he crashed into me for a big bear hug. I cried and said something like, "We are so excited to finally see you! You look so handsome!" He didn't let go for about 30 seconds. Then he grabbed my hand and led me to the main building, where I tearfully hugged the woman that has been loving him while we could not. He had put together a few  snacks for us (which he had been nervously nibbling on while he waited for our arrival).

For the rest of the day, we played together. We jumped on the trampoline, played hide and seek, climbed on the jungle gym, met the other kids, ate lunch and took a tour of the property. We left around 3 pm with plans to return the next day at eight for breakfast.

For the next three days, we arrived at TLC in the morning and spent the whole day with Noel, sometimes taking him on brief outings to the mall or to a restaurant. On Tuesday, August 6, we took him from TLC for the last time.

We were staying at a guest house near the children's home, and although there wasn't much to do, Noel never complained of being bored. He is happy as long as he is playing, so we just spent our days playing and reading and napping.

On Saturday, August 10, we checked out of the guest house and began our stay with a mutual friend. They have a four year old son as well and while it is nice to be in a home, being with another family complicates things a bit. We are working on bonding with Noel, which is easier when there aren't other mommies and daddies in the same house.

Our court appointment with the magistrate was on August 14. We were in and out within 15 minutes and the adoption was finalized. It wasn't as exciting or emotional as I would have thought it would be. The magistrate was very matter-of-fact. I got a little choked up as he talked about the circumstances that led to Noel's adoption, simply because it was presented without any feeling.

On Wednesday of this week, the court paperwork was couriered to us and we went to the local home affairs office to fill out a few applications. These forms were mainly to change his name and re-register his birth. We need a new birth certificate before we can proceed with the passport and visa application process. It would normally take months to get  the new birth certificate, but our agency partner here in South Africa has a contact within home affairs that pushes things through for inter-country adoptions. We will not be able to proceed for about a week, so we just continue to busy ourselves and pass the time as best we can.

We will be moving to another guesthouse on Monday and we hope that we can be comfortable there until we can go home. We are missing our family, our dogs and our house, but try not to think about it too much since we still have a few weeks to go.

We appreciate your prayers. Everything has gone pretty smoothly so far and we are hopeful that it will continue this way.

All our love,

Sarah, Dave and Noel

Traveling at Last!

We received word this morning that our court date has finally been confirmed for August 14th! Therefore, we must be in South Africa by this Friday, August 2. We are leaving Wednesday, July 31 at the crack of dawn. It will be a long day of travel. We will leave for the airport before 6 am and we will not arrive in Johannesburg until 4:30 pm the next day. One 13 hour flight, a 2 hour layover in Dubai and another 8 hour flight to Johannesburg.

We've reserved a rental car for the whole time we are there, about 5-6 weeks. We will be staying in a guesthouse not far from the children's home where our little guy is living. After our court date, we will have a week to do some sightseeing and hanging out as a family. Then we will begin the process of obtaining little man's Visa, new birth certificate, passport, etc. It will take 3-4 weeks for all of this to get processed through the system and we may need to adjust our return flight depending on when everything is completed. We'll also have an interview at the Embassy at some point.

As of now, we are planning on staying with a friend of a friend (of a friend) for the last 3-4 weeks. They reached out to us and invited us to stay with their family. They have a 4-year old as well. If we feel that we need to be in our own space, we will look into another guesthouse or hotel.

I am going to try to update the blog while we are there. I will only be able to do so when we have wi-fi access. If you want to be in contact with us, we are planning on using the app What'sApp for chatting, rather than texting. We will also plan on using Skype, FaceTime and email. We will be purchasing a cheap phone with a South African SIM card once we arrive in country so we can make phone calls.

Prior to our court date, I will not be posting any pictures or videos of Noel, because we really aren't supposed to until he is legally ours. After August 14th, though, prepare to be bombarded. Because he is adorable and you have to hear him talk.

We appreciate your continued prayers. We have been warned that this process is stressful.

All Our Love, Sarah and Dave

Anxiously Waiting

JUNE 14th: Received word from our agency that our court date in South Africa was secured for July 31st and we should be in the country by July 17th to begin the required two-week bonding period. We were told to wait until we had a scheduled telephone call with the South African adoption agency partner before we booked anything. That was scheduled for Friday, June 21st.

JUNE 21st: Skyped with our son for the first time. Travel call postponed until June 25th.

JUNE 25th: Skyped with our son for the second time. Travel call with Wandisa Adoption Agency in South Africa. Learned that the July 31st court date was tentative and they still had to submit more paperwork for the court to review. Still cannot book plane tickets or accomodations. Hope to hear from Wandisa by July 5th.

JULY 2nd: Skype with our son for the third time.

So that is where we sit right now. Getting anxious about booking everything with such short notice. Hoping we have enough money to pay for everything. Attempting to Skype with a four-year old.

Everyone keeps asking if we are excited. And we are. But honestly, there are so many other emotions bubbling around within me, that it is difficult to feel the excitement. I imagine it will come to the surface as we are on the plane.  Keep praying for our little man. We have seen him go through some different stages of this process already just in our Skyping. He was very reserved this morning and is clearly conflicted about leaving his home and coming to the States. We ache for him and all that he must be feeling. So much change for such a little boy.

Home Stretch

We were notified this past Friday that our court date in South Africa has been scheduled for July 31st! We need to be in South Africa 2 weeks before that, so we will be leaving in about 4 weeks. This is sooner than we expected, which is exciting, but also overwhelming. There is much to be done in a short amount of time.

We need to get our immunizations, complete some more required training for our agency, finish getting our little man's room ready, arrange care for the house and our dogs, and book all of our travel plans.

This tight timeline doesn't allow much time for additional fundraising efforts, so we are humbly asking for any support our friends and family can provide. Know someone in the Jo-burg area that wouldn't mind a house guest for a little while? Let us know! Have Capital One reward miles you aren't using? They can be transferred to our account! Or if you would just like to donate money, feel free to use the PayPal button on the blog or mail a check to our home. Feel free to email me at skern1129@gmail.com if you have any questions or need more information. We also have a few t-shirts and bracelets left for sale.

We also ask that you be our prayer warriors! Continue to pray for our little man, that the Lord would prepare him for this huge life change. Pray for safety in travel and safety while in the Johannesburg area. Pray that we will be able to bond with our son and that we can comfort him and entertain him on the long flight home (18 or more hours). Pray the the Lord will keep us calm as we prepare. It is certainly a stressful time, and the time in South Africa will be stressful as well. Just pray, pray, pray!!

We thank you so much for your support!

Love, Dave and Sarah

Don't Let the Numbers Stop You

OK, let's talk about money. Just this once.

When we started looking into adoption, we were scared silly by the cost of international adoption, as I'm sure everyone is. We prayed about it and we decided that we weren't going to let money stop us. We felt so strongly that God wanted us to take this path, and lack of finances was not going to stop Him from seeing us through it. So we dove right in. With very little money in our checking account and absolutely no savings.

The expenses are different for every country and every agency. Our total expenses are close to $40,000 (yikes). The fees have been broken up throughout the process and there has not been a single time when we didn't have the money that was due. It has been so astonishing to see God work. Dave and I have been amazed at the generosity of friends, family and strangers. We have been humbled, blessed and moved to tears.

So far, we have received over $11,000 in gifts and donations alone! We've been awarded $8,000 in adoption grants from various organizations. We've held fundraisers: a night of worship at church, selling t-shirts and jewelry, a yard sale that brought in over $3,000.

The last installment of agency fees and country fees will be due when we sign the referral acceptance for Tshepo. The Memorial Day yard sale brought in almost exactly what we needed to meet that goal! It's as if God is always saying to us, "I will give you what you need. Trust me."

So now we begin raising funds for our travel expenses. This will be, without a doubt, the most expensive trip we will ever take. And it will be worth every penny.

Introducing...

Good gracious.

This little man was born premature at 28 weeks, weighing less than 3 pounds and measuring less than 14 inches long. He's a little miracle already! Thank you, Lord, for watching over him.

We learned today that he and a little girl in his home are close friends (and hope to get married one day :)). She is also being adopted by a family within our agency, so we hope to make contact so these little ones can stay in touch once they are here in the States. What a blessing for Tshepo!

Looks like a handful, doesn't he? We can't wait.



APPROVED by the Central Authority!

We just got word that the match with "Sebastian" has been approved by the South African Central Authority! The adoption agency in South Africa is getting all of his paperwork ready to send to us. We should have it by the end of the month!We can't wait to introduce his sweet face to all of you!

(Not Much of an) Update

We have been twiddling our thumbs since our case was submitted to the South African Central Authority. It's been a little over three weeks, so we expect to hear something shortly. We attended a training event last week and ran into our caseworker. She said that she has been asked to do a few things related to our account over the past couple of weeks, so I guess something is happening behind the scenes.

One of the items she needed to address was our homestudy. In the homestudy process, we were asked to comb through a long list of medical conditions and indicate which ones we were willing to consider or accept in a potential child. Our list was quite long and each condition was then included in the body of our home study. However, "Sebastian's" medical history includes a couple things that were not on our original list. Therefore, our caseworker had to amend it and charge us $250. We now have to submit a supplemental form to our previously approved immigration application and pay another $360 to Homeland Security. It was un-avoidable (I checked). Without the home study addendum, we wouldn't get Visa approval for the little guy and we would also risk not being approved in South African court.

Meanwhile, our fundraising efforts continue. I have been making and selling bracelets and we have a few fundraising items now listed in an Etsy shop. We are having a yard sale on Memorial Day and are contemplating a fundraising dinner as well. We got our first grant denial this week. Hopefully, we will have better luck with the others we applied for. We still need to raise about $7,000 more in agency and country fees, in addition to the staggering travel expenses (estimated $14k or so).

We are growing weary. Pray for renewed strength and patience, as well as God's financial provision. We are so grateful for your support and prayers. Love, Sarah

Jewelry Fundraiser

These are the handmade bracelets I have "in stock" right now. There is an album in my Facebook page as well.

$7

$15

$15

$15

$7

$30

$30

$30

$15

$15

$15

$15

$7

$7

$7

$7

$7

$7

$12

$12

$12

$12

$7

$12

$12

$7

Moving Right Along

As I mentioned in the last post, our dossier is being mailed to South Africa today. I also received word that our case was actually submitted to the Central Authority today! I was expecting that our partner in SA would have to wait until they actually had the dossier in their hands, but apparently that is not the case. No complaints here!

The Central Authority takes about 4 weeks to review and approve the match between a child and a family. Then we will receive the official referral about 1-2 weeks after that. We have been told that we should expect to travel 8-12 weeks after the referral acceptance and expect to be in South Africa for 5-6 weeks.

Dossier Update...Last One, I Promise

Our dossier arrived safely in Michigan today, into the hands of the South Africa team of BCS. And as it turns out, it does not need to be authenticated, because South Africa is part of the Hague Convention (Google it). Which means the dossier will make the trip to South Africa on Friday! The partner adoption agency in SA should be able to submit our match to the Central Authority almost right away :) Keep praying; Things are going to get pretty crazy before too long!

Dossier Update #2

We are feeling some relief today as the dossier is completely finished! It has been notarized, apostilled by the Secratary of State and will now be sent to the South African Embassy in Washington, D.C. for authentication. So basically, it is triple checked for accuracy before being sent to South Africa. We will let you know when it makes the final trip!

Continued prayers appreciated! Our adoption bank account will be nearly drained when the dossier is sent, so we will be starting all over again to raise the next big chunk of money.

I'm not exactly sure when it started, but I have a physical aching in my heart for this little guy.

Dossier Update

Well, our dossier is complete, but that does not mean that it is ready to go to South Africa. We're close, but not quite there yet!

Everything was compiled when we met with our caseworker this past Thursday, which felt pretty good. I had it all organized in my trusty binder, every document in a protective sleeve. Our caseworker notarized some documents and then scanned the dossier to our dossier specialist at BCS in Michigan.

Once the dossier is perfect, someone from our local BCS branch will take the dossier to Harrisburg and get it apostilled. Two irritating things about apostilling documents: First, it is not cheap. Pennsylvania charges $15 a document and we have 26 PA documents (Almost $400 that we were not anticipating). Secondly, we have two documents that are not from PA, so they must go to their respective states. One to Ohio and one to Nebraska. (Wish we had realized this weeks ago)

Most of the dossier documents look great, but there are a few things we need to address.

• An employment letter and a reference letter that the Secretary of State "may or may not" have a problem with for different ridiculous reasons. It's all in the details, people.
• A reference letter that needs to be apostilled in NE and a birth certificate that needs to be apostilled in OH
• Dave's passport expires in November so we need to get that renewed and then send a copy after the dossier is already sent. Mine has already been renewed.

All in all, this short list is not horrible. Hopefully, the NE and OH documents will come back quickly. I already sent the birth certificate to Ohio and they claim that they process them within 2-3 days. Nebraska's Secretary of State apparently processes it and mails it back out all in the day it is received. Yay, Nebraska!

Pray for patience in this stage. It is frustrating that days and weeks go by while our child is without a family. All for paperwork. It certainly shouldn't be this difficult to put children in loving homes, but that's just the way it is, so we need to accept it and trust in God's timing. All we can do is plug along, all the while praying that God is preparing our little person's heart and mind for what is to come. And we will continue to watch his videos, trying to imagine what his little personality is like and what he looks like when he smiles. Oh, how I long to see that smile.

**UPDATE: The birth certificate from Ohio and the reference letter from Nebraska have both been apostilled . The PA documents were apostilled 3/27/13 and there were no issues!! Praise the Lord!!**

The Weekend

Well, a new week has begun and we had a pretty eventful weekend!

Our immigration application approval (I think it is called an I-797) arrived on Saturday. We weren't expecting this for another couple of weeks, so it was exciting to see an envelope from The Department of Homeland Security in our mailbox.

We have an appointment with our caseworker this Thursday. If our final referral letter is returned to us by then, our dossier will be complete!! There are a handful of documents in it that we need to sign, so we will do so on Thursday and our caseworker will notarize them. Then we will scan the whole dossier and have our dossier specialist at BCS review it to make sure everything is alright. Here's hoping we don't have to re-do anything!

If everything looks good, our caseworker will get all the dossier documents apostilled (state sealed). We are not sure how long this takes. I don't know if she sends it away or physically takes it somewhere and gets it done right away. Let's hope for the latter! Once it is apostilled, it gets mailed to South Africa and we wait for the Central Authority to approve the match with our little man. We were told they take about 4 weeks to review and approve the match.

Meanwhile, our fundraising efforts continue. We will have a large payment due once the match with Little Kern is official. It is the largest chunk yet and we will still have travel expenses after that (which are estimated to be very high due to the length of time we will be there).

We had some Africa t-shirts made up by a buddy who has his own screen-printing business. They turned out great and we'll be selling them for $20 each. We are also planning a yard sale for Memorial Day. A generous church friend/adoptive family offered their home for the location, as they see lots of foot traffic that day. Our church held a night of worship the other week. An offering was taken and we were also able to sell the jewelry and crafts we had made. We do not have a total figure for the offering yet, but we walked away with over $600 in sales and gifts. What a blessing!  

We also spent some time this weekend painting Little Kern's room. It was the guest room and I loved the color, but it was too mature and dark for a toddler. Here's a sneak peek at what we landed on. It isn't finished yet, so I don't want to reveal the whole room until it is.

Keep praying! Things are starting to feel a little overwhelming as they progress! It is starting to sink in little by little. And man, are we in for the ride of our lives!!

Sebastian

Dave and I were not sure when we were going to share this news, but it has been leaking out little by little, so we figured it was time to make an actual announcement.

While nothing is official, we do have a preliminary match with a little guy in South Africa (his "fake" name is Sebastian, to protect his privacy and identity). We can't share much about him at this time, but he was one of the waiting children in our agency's database.

When our home study was completed, we asked for more information about this little guy. The partner adoption agency in South Africa wanted to review our homestudy and see a picture of us to determine if they thought we would be a good fit for him. They felt comfortable moving forward, so they asked the organization that is taking care of him if they would be willing to give more information to us. We were then given three short video clips (which I have now watched about a million times) and his medical records.

We had our future pediatrician look over his medical records (she was pleased with the amount of information they shared), talked about it, prayed about it, and decided to let Bethany Christian Services know that we wanted to move forward with him :)

They have now removed him from the database, essentially putting him "on hold" for us. The match will not be official until the Central Authority in South Africa approves it. In order for this to happen, we need to send our dossier over, which we are not quite ready to do. Our part is almost complete, but we still have a couple weeks until our USCIS approval comes.

We are estimating, if all goes very smoothly, that we could be traveling to South Africa late this summer. Of course we are very excited, but we are trying not to get ahead of ourselves. We realize that anything could happen, so we don't want to act as if we know the final outcome. This little man has found a place in our hearts, so please pray that everything will go smoothly from here on out.

Thanks for your support and prayer. We appreciate it so very much!!

All Our Love, Dave and Sarah

One Step Closer

We haven't had much "adoption activity" lately. We are in the USCIS stage, so we had been waiting to receive a fingerprinting appointment, all the while working on our dossier. We had our fingerprinting appointment this morning, so we expect to receive our USCIS approval within 2-4 weeks. At that point, we would be able to get our dossier ready to send, provided it is complete.

This bad boy is filled with dossier documents!

Our dossier is almost there! We are still waiting on a few personal reference letters. Other than that, we just need to compile and print 10-20 photos. These should be of us, our home and family, the neighborhood, etc. When we have everything compiled, our "dossier specialist" at BCS will review everything to make sure it is perfect. Then our caseworker will notarize everything as we sign it and she will also send everything to be state sealed. I have no idea how long they take to complete that. After that, it will be sent to South Africa!!

Then we fund-raise like crazy and wait for the SA government to approve a match with a little one :)

Handmade Jewelry

In a continued effort to raise funds for the adoption, I am making bracelets to sell. I have each one listed on my Facebook page with a description and price. Feel free to "friend" me if we are not friends now. I am including the pictures here as well. Let me know if you are interested in any of the items! Thanks for your support!