Questions / Answers

Wow, we have had great response to the blog already. And lots of questions to go with it . It's hard for me to know what to include or what to tell people. So fell free to ask questions. It helps to guide me in informing all of you.

First...How do I leave a comment on the blog? Just click comment at the end of the daily journal. Then it will bring up a screen for you to type a msg. You will have to give yourself a user name and password for it to post. But you don't have to open a google account to do so.

Second...Will we see the kids before we travel? Yes, we will receive a photo, medical information and any background info available. After seeing this info we will "Agree" that these kids are to be ours. Then we prepare to travel. We will travel 4 - 6 weeks after we "Agree". This will not happen for several months.

Third...How long will we be in Colombia? We will have to stay for 3 - 4 weeks. We will be taking Emi and Nate with us. It will be a good cultural experience and life lesson for them. Yes, they will be in for a culture shock. We have tried to give them bits of culture each week to try and prepare them. But they will still experience culture shock. We want them to see where their siblings are from and to experience some of what that part of the world is like. We show them all the photos we can find to help prepare them for the sights.

Forth...Will the kids be Spanish speakers? Yes. I am taking Spanish at the college now. Eric is good with languages, and knows some Spanish, he will be fine. I will go nuts if I can't communicate at least somewhat for a whole month while we are there. Not to mention that I want to know if my children are telling me they are hungry, sleepy, etc. :-)

Fifth (last)...Will the kids come from an orphanage or foster care? They could come from either. The agency we work with works thru both orphanages and foster services. We won't know until we get our referral.

Thanks for all the interest. Hope everyone is doing well.

Pre-Adoption

I am hoping this journal will help everyone to stay as up to date as they wish on our adoption process. I will attempt to summarize our journey thus far as briefly as possible. Once we receive our referral - information on our children - I will journal more often. My real goal for this is to be able to stay in touch with our family and friends while we are in Colombia and to keep everyone up to date.

Long story short...in January 2007 Eric and I, with the help of the Lord :), decided it was time to start our research in our long awaited desire to adopt. We spoke to Emi and Nate about our idea and they were ecstatic. They were even willing to give up the idea of a bigger house and bigger rooms for more siblings. So we took them with us to an adoption information session. we knew almost immediately which agency we wanted to use, Children's Hope International (CHI). It was also clear to us that Colombia, South America was where the rest of our family was from and that we would adopt siblings, two siblings under age 7, open to gender.

We took a month to really think and pray about the adoption, financing the adoption, etc. Then we filled out the initial application and sent it in to CHI. They said it would take at least two weeks for us to know if we were accepted. In two working days, they called us, we were in! CHI then sent us information to get us started on the loads of paperwork. We went to work getting everything together. Passports, FBI checks, Fingerprints, Child Abuse records, water testing, home fire inspection, more fingerprints, immigration paperwork, vet records, Dr. records, appointments with a social worker to check out our house and us, and the list goes on, and on, and on. :) There are two major groups of paperwork. One is the Home Study and the other is the Dossier. Once both are complete we can send them to Colombia with the help of CHI and then we wait for our referral. Time is flying by and we are much further along than we anticipated at this point. Very Exciting!

Already May, paperwork more than 1/2 complete, anxious to get on a plane.