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