We Are On the Waitlist!

It's official. Our dossier is out of our hands and on its way to the Rwandan Embasssy. According to our agency this means we are officially on the waitlist for a child (or children) referral. We are hoping its children, but whatever God wants for us will be an exciting blessing!

Whew! What a paperwork process. To all of the families that are out there in the paperwork phase... YOU CAN DO IT!

To all of everyone else who has been praying through this process so far with us, THANK YOU, your prayers are so much appreciated. But... please don't stop now! We still need your prayers so that we can get there and bring our baby(s) home safe and sound. In the meantime there is a good chance our girl(s) are already sitting in an orphanage in Rwanda so we would love your prayers for their health (physical and emotional), etc.

The agency is still unsure of how long we will wait from here on out. We are following the one other family that is on the waitlist, besides us, right now, they have been waiting about two months, and seem to be getting closer to a referral (hopefully in the next couple of weeks) so with any amount of favor it could be about that same time frame for us as well (2 plus months from now). Once we have a referral and officially accept it, then things have to process through the Rwandan court system before we set our travel dates. So... we are still thinking the possibilities are good for traveling sometime early summer. But again, no guarantees... it could take longer.

It seems like every day now the boys make comments about their baby sisters. Kelton wants to get bunk beds so there is room in his and Oliver's room for cribs :)

Love to all!

It's HERE

I'm so excited I can hardly type! Our approval letter came from CIS today. We're waking up early to get the last few papers notarized and will overnight everything to our agency who will send our dossier the Rwandan Embassy! Next step... approval from the Rwandan Embassy... typically a three to four week process!

Just a little

So we received just a little bit of encouragement today!!!! Our home study agent got a call from CIS with a question about our application. The question got resolved and the CIS worker told our agent that he was working on the approval and hopes to have it to us by next week. Hooray!!!! None the less we aren't 'counting our chickens before they are hatched' :) and are gonna keep praying for the paperwork to come through FOR SURE. If it is here next week we plan to overnight it to the Rwandan embassy in the US where it will process for a few weeks before going to Rwanda!

Been awhile.

Ok, so it's been awhile since I've posted anything, and that's probably because there really isn't a whole lot to post. No news from CIS yet. We just keep on waiting for that one simple approval letter to come in so we can move forward and get our paperwork in the hands of Rwanda! Every day I get a few butterflies in my stomach about time the mail is suppossed to be delivered and every day there is no mail from CIS. Oh well, I am chalking it all up to God's pruning process :) Hopefully soon... very soon I will walk out to the box and behold the long awaited approval letter will be there!

Dossier to Gladney

So at the encouragement of our caseworker we sent our dossier (the paperwork that will eventually go to the Rwandan government) to our agency in Texas yesterday. The agency will recommend adjustments if they are needed and then eventually send it to the Rwandan embassy in the US who has to approve it before it goes to Rwanda. Anyway we are STILL waiting for CIS approval, and might be waiting for awhile. (Please join us in praying that it arrives soon!) That approval has to go with the dossier, but the caseworker had us send her the paperwork without it for now so that they can at least look over all the other documents (and there are a lot of them). As soon as the CIS approval comes in we will send it to be added to the other docs and then off to the embassy. It's not much but at least gives us a sense that something else is happening in the process and we are not sitting ducks :) I also ordered some DVD's from amazon for Christmas presents today (hopefully my husband doesn't read this blog in the next few days or he'll know what he's getting :)). I'm excited to have some visual pictures of Rwanda. One of them is a PBS special that looks really great. They'll be fun to view during this waiting process for sure!

simple prayer request

Hello everyone who is keeping updated on our adoption journey via this blog!!! We have a simple prayer request for you. There has been a series of delays with our paperwork from the citizen and immigration office. We are asking people to join in prayer for a quick approval from CIS for our I-600. We started paperwork for this back in August and were notified today that it could be another 60 days before we hear anything. If there is a major hang up here then we wouldn't even be able to adopt... so please pray that it passes with "FLYING colors!!!" :)

Thanks,
Alisha

Love is patient...

Love... it's a funny thing sometimes. Sometimes an emotion, sometimes an act of will. It requires truth, honesty, kindness, understanding and patients. Perhaps only God can really understand the full meaning of Love... after all He is it! When it comes to our love, I know without a moment's hesitation that Buster and I already love these babies in Rwanda... We truly believe that this process was and is part of God's plan for our lives. His plan to give us an even large picture of how much He cares and how much He loves. What an honor. I don't, for one second, believe that we are being a blessing to these babies nearly as much as our Father in heaven is blessing us with the chance to be their parents.

It is funny to see how differently Buster and I embrace the reality of our family in Africa. I seem to internalize things a lot. I imagine what they look like, what our first encounter will be like, what their little hands and feet will feel like. Buster, on the other hand, shows up today with a suburban and excitedly demonstrates how well the car seats will fit here and there, how easily the boys can help out from the backseat, and all the fun features that will make life just a little bit easier for our growing family. What a provider!!! :)

The process that we are in right now is a lot of waiting, waiting that requires patience, patients is a process of pruning, patients is part of love, and this pruning will only make us better parents who can more wholy love their children. So... we find joy in in all.. the waiting, the paperwork, the waiting, the daydreaming, and even the waiting :) We believe that our paths have already crossed with Rwanda... now its just a matter of process until we actually put our feet on the ground in Africa and hold our children in our hands.

Until then... my heart is full of thanks, awe, and... love