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!