Traveling to Haiti...our next step

Well, we are down to 4 days until Brittany, Haley & I leave for our mission trip to Haiti.  We have so much to do, but slowly getting it all done.  We are still hoping to take our completed dossier with us when we go.  The dossier is all of the paperwork that we have been working on for the last 4 months. We have everything complete, except we are still waiting to receive the last 13 pages of translation back from our translator in California.  The first half (the longer half) that he already translated for us took exactly one week.  If this half takes a week then we will receive it on Friday...yeap, that is the same day we leave for Haiti.  Hopefully we will get it a day or two earlier, but no word from him yet.  Nothing like coming down to the wire.  We have faith it will arrive before we leave!  Once we submit our dossier- we will be able to get our referral.  We hope & pray that we will get our referral while we are in Haiti.  How awesome would it be to meet, play and get to know them while we are there!  To come home with pictures and videos of OUR CHILDREN...WOW!!!  We are praying that God will lead our children to us...that we will know it's them when we meet them. 

Dwight will have to travel to Haiti at some point to meet them before the adoption is final.  There are two types of visa's that can be issued.  If both parents have travelled to met the kids then they become US Citizens when they arrive here.  If only one parent has visited the kids, then a second type of visa is issued, meaning we will have to leagally adopt  them when they arrive in the US (they are considered orphans coming to the US to be adopted).  We want it all finished when they come home, so Dwight will be traveling to Haiti at some point over the next several months (he will have to go to court in Haiti- once the dossier comes out of IBESR).  The way we understand what IBESR is- it is sortof like childrens services of Haiti...they paperwork enters IBESR and when it comes out then the adoption has been approved.  That could take anywhere from 3 months to a year!  We will keep everyone posted when we get that far.  Right now it is a matter of getting our dossier completed and hand delivered to Dr. Bernard and receiving our referral!!

Looking forward to seeing how God will use us to do  His work in Haiti!

I'm getting the hang of this :)

I'm learning how this blogsite works, so I thought I would update everyone as to where we are in our adoption journey.  We sent our paperwork to the Haitian Consulate in Chicago on Thursday, with hopes we will have it back in time for our trip to Haiti in a couple of weeks.  It looks like God has answered yet another prayer.  Since I don't have patience,  I've tracked our package on the UPS website (many times) and it looks like it is already on the way back...scheduled to be delivered Monday morning.  YEAH!!  We only have one step left before our dossier is ready for Haiti.  We still have the other half of our dossier to be translated into French (our translator did us a HUGE favor and translated half of it so we could get it on it's way to Chicago).  It is scheduled for translation next Friday (7/22)- it takes 3 or 4 days, plus mailing time.  We leave the following Friday (7/29), so we once again are praying we can get it back before we leave.  IF we can get the translation back before we leave, there is a chance we could actually get our referral while in Haiti...to come home knowing which children are ours...WOW!

Starting our own blog

Hey everyone!  We have decided to start our own blog, so that we can keep everyone informed as we journey through our adoption process.  This is a learning experience (both the adoption and learning how to use this blogpage).  This is our "test" so once we have it figured out... we'll get started with updating you :)