IMMIGRATION APPROVAL & DOSSIER PREP

Glory, our July has been busy!!  Brad and I go with our high school friends to Young Life camp every July and the week before, week of, and week after are guaranteed whirlwinds.  While we were in the midst of this beautiful Young Life tornado, our immigration approval came in and we started working on our dossier.

The dossier (pronounced 'doss-ee-ay') is simply the collection of all the documents needed to be sent to China to be approved to adopt.  All the paperwork we've worked on up until this point (home study, I800A, etc.) will be included in it along with a long list of other documents we need to fill out, order, or find.  Some include certified copies of our birth and marriage certificates, notarized letters from our employers and doctors, notarized letters of reference, and the list goes on!  Just about everything has to be original and has to be notarized.

As of right now, Brad and I are playing the waiting game.  We've requested and paid for everything we need to complete our dossier but will have to wait a number of weeks, maybe even a couple months, for everything to roll in through the mail.  Lord help us.

In the meantime, we're filling out as many grant applications as we can.  It is said that you can expect to receive grant approvals from around 1/3 of the grants you apply to.  So far we've applied to three so we still have a long way to go if we hope to receive financial aid that way.  There are at least six more that I hope to apply to.  Many of the questions, I'm finding, are either the same or similar so I'm getting faster at being able to work through the applications!

On a personal note, the Lord has been teaching me a lot, specifically regarding simple trust and the surrender of my emotions (or lack thereof in my case).  I'm anxious to tell you more!  That and the switch from YouCaring to GoFundMe are coming soon!