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.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
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.
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!!**
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.
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!!**
Monday, March 4, 2013
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!!
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!!
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