Redeeming Journey

After a little over two months of waiting for information we got a call from Lawanda, our Social Worker, letting us know that we received a court date for February 10, 2010.  We can't wait to get there and meet our little guy and legally make him our son.  We are excited with the overwhelming feeling of "we have so much to do" all at the same time.

I wish you could have been in the office today when I got the call.  Laurie, Shelley and I were in the conference room finishing up the Christmas ornaments talking about how the adoption agency will be closing at noon on the 23rd.  I told them if we do not hear anything by noon tomorrow then it will be after Christmas before we know anything.  I walked out of the conference to go to my office and before I got to the end of the hallway Laurie handed me my phone and told me the agency was calling.  God's timing is so perfect.  The timing of all of it made the two months of waiting worth it.  I immediately hung up and called Coty, who is very sick, woke her up and started jumping up and down telling her the awesome news.

So what's next?

It looks like we will leave the states on Sunday, February 6th and arrive in Ethiopia on the 7th or 8th.  We will be able to spend a couple hours each day with him and then also have a chance to tour Ethiopia and learn as much as we can about their culture, food and where Journey was born.  We go to court on the 10th and then head home, without him, on the 11th.  Once we are home we will PATIENTLY wait for him to receive a passport, visa and other travel documents before we can go back and bring him home.  They said it should take about 4 weeks before we can go back and get him.

Be praying as we make our travel arrangements (THANKS UNCLE LAMAR and AUNT PATRICIA), finish gathering all the necessary paperwork and while we are traveling.  We will be without our girls for a little over a week.  I am sure they will be fine, but daddy and mommy will really miss them.  Also pray for Journey.  He is going to have a lot of major transitions coming up in his life.  I can't begin to imagine what he will be processing.  I told someone in my family this week that I am longing for the day that he says, "Hey Dad."  I have been praying for him and loving him from a distance for so long now and I can't wait for him to call me dad.  It is coming...very soon.

Thanks for loving us and praying for us.  We hope you all have the best Christmas possible.

Love,
The Melvins

Just wanted to update you on where we are in the process.  We are officially still waiting.  We are still waiting to be assigned our court date to make the whole thing official.  Every time the phone rings or I get an email I hope it is from Lawanda, our case worker, letting us know of our court date or an update on his condition.  Keep praying for "M" and for us.  We are so ready to bring him home.  God has provided in some huge ways this weekend and we are honored and blown away by God's goodness.  One thing is for certain, God loves this little guy and you can tell by the way he is providing ways for him to be a part of our family.  I will keep you posted if we hear any new information.

Jeffrey

Well we are now one week post referral and our minds are still spinning.  We were and still are overwhelmed by the love and support so many people have given us and "M".  Lisa Easton was in the office this am and told me she had been praying for him everyday since she heard the news.  She is not the only one praying for "M" and for us and we wanted to say thank you from the bottom of our hearts.  I am sitting here looking at his picture on my desk and my heart melts and longs to hold him, tickle him and just hold him close.  Coty's mind is running like crazy planning the design of the nursery and all of the fun "mommy" things she gets to do.  Ri and Ro say hi to his picture when they pass it in the kitchen and know him by name.  It is the little things that make him feel like he is already a Melvin.  It really is the strangest feeling to know that our son is out there and we can't get to him, but we know that God has him in the palm of His hand.  When we close our eyes we imagine what that first moment will be like when we see him.  He will probably be scared and cry, but as long as he is in our presence we will be complete.

Where are we now and what is next?  We have signed and submitted all of our acceptance documents.  They were sent to Ethiopia last week.  We are now waiting to be assigned our court date.  We are hoping and praying it comes quickly.  It could come as soon as the end of the year or into the first of January.  We are also hoping for picture updates in a few weeks.  It would be so exciting to see additional pictures of "M" and hear how he is developing.  We will keep you updated as we receive a court date and our first travel trip.

WE ARE GETTING CLOSE!!!!

Coty and I are so excited.  We received a call today out of the blue from Bethany, our adoption agency, to give us some exciting news.  We received our referral of a healthy and energetic 3 1/2 year old little BOY!  (We are going to refer to him as "M" online.)  That is the short story, now here is the long drawn out story that explains everything.

A lot of people have been asking, "How long does the entire process take?"  I wish we had an answer.  What I do know is what we have completed and how long it took us to do those steps.  I wanted to document some of our time frame so we would remember ourselves, but also to help other people who are in the process or praying about adopting an international child.

May 2009:  We began praying and researching a couple of different agencies and options available.
June 2009: Identified an agency, Bethany Christian Services, and completed a preliminary application.  We were approved, but were told we needed to wait until Rowen turned 1 at Christmas.  (That was a blessing to have that extra time to wait)
January 2010: Completed our formal application to Bethany Christian Services and were approved.
February 2010:  Began our home study.  The home study consisted of 3 meetings with one of our case workers, Autumn Andretta, at her office and our house.  The process taught us a lot about ourselves and the adoption process.  It definitely was a great experience.  It was during this time that we identified the age (1-5 years old) the sex (little girl) and the special needs (deaf/hard of hearing with other minor correctable needs)
April 2010:  By the end of April our home study was totally completed and written up for approval by the higher ups at Bethany.
May 2010:  We filed our Immigration paper work (I-600A).  We were told this would be a 4-6 week process.  It wasn't :)
June 2010:  Began work on our Dossier.  We weren't prepared for the amount of work, time and energy that goes into this document.  We have a greater respect for our case workers and other families who are working on their Dossier.  Basically, it includes every document both legal and personal that we sent to Ethiopia.  Every document (40+ documents) had to be notarized, thank you Aunt Shelley and Aunt Lauren, authenticated by the county clerk and then sealed by the Secretary of State office from which the document originated.  This included birth certificates from Maryland for me and New York for Coty.  We had a couple of "redos" on notarized forms and other rewrites of information, but we finally wrapped it up.
July 2010:  By the end of July we had our entire Dossier completed with our immigration paper work in hand.
August 2010:  We turned in our completed Dossier on August 2, 2010.  At that point we concluded 7 months of hard work and prep work on our part to get to the point where we are today.  Our documents arrived in Ethiopia around the end of August.
September 2010:  WAITING

What are we waiting for?  According to Mr. Sebilu, our Bethany representative and country director in Ethiopia, here is what the next few months should look like in the process.

Be aware that Ethiopian courts close annually for 1-2 months between August
and September.

1.    Sebilu receives the dossier and takes it to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be authenticated.

2.    The authenticated documents will be translated into Amharic.

3.    The translated documents will be verified and registered in the Ministry of Justice.

4.    Copies of the dossier are given to the Addis Ababa city Government Social and Civil Affairs Bureau.  The Bureau will inform our Director when they have children to refer.

5.          An official referral will be sent to the adoptive family and the family will respond with an official acceptance letter.

6.    Once a referral is accepted, the Orphanage center and Sebilu will submit an application to the Court asking for a date to hear the case of adoption of the given child to the prospective adoptive family.

7.    The Court will asses the above application and give an appointment (court date) to hear the case. At the same time the Court will write a letter to MOWA (Ministry of Women’s Affairs) asking for their suggestion/recommendation. The orphanage representative, adoption agency representative, birth parent(s), adoptive parents, and child (depending on his/her age) are required to be present on the day of court appointment.

8.    After interviewing the above persons and reviewing the letter or recommendation from MOWA, the Court will give a verbal decision on the day of appointment.

9.    The Court issues a written declaration that the child will be adopted by the specific family (usually 3-7 days after the verbal approval).

10.   Once court approval (written declaration) is in hand, our in-country team them works to secure the child’s birth certificate and passport. Once those are secured, an application for a Visa appointment is made.

11.   Once an Embassy appointment is secured, the family will be given the invitation to travel.  Once they arrive, they will take all the documents and go to the Embassy appointment, after which meeting they may travel home.



We are not exact on the time frames from this point forward.  We are planning on having her home around the spring of 2011, but that is our plan.  We will keep you posted as we learn new information.  Please keep praying for our daughter and for us.  We know God has already chosen the little girl for us, we are just waiting for his timing to reveal her to us.  I recently came across this video on youtube of a couple who adopted from Ethiopia.  We can't watch this video without crying our eyes out in anticipation. 




Thanks for supporting us and loving our new little girl wherever she is.

We are excited to report we are getting closer.  We FINALLY completed our Dossier and all of our information is in Ethiopia.  Many people have asked, "What is a Dossier?"  This is our packet of everything we have been working on and compiled stateside to send to Ethiopia.  It includes birth certificates of us, marriage certificates, passports, county, state and federal paperwork and our immigration approval.  The entire document was over 60 pages.  At one point I thought they were going to request copies of our neighbors birth certificates.  All joking aside, it was a full 3 month project of requesting official documents, notarizing and obtaining State Seals on everything.  As soon as I dropped off the packet to Lawanda, our case worker, I took a deep sigh of relief.

So, where does this leave us now?  Dr. Seuss says it best:
"Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite. Or waiting around for Friday night or waiting perhaps for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil or a better break or a string of pearls or a pair of pants or a wig with curls or another chance. Everyone is just waiting."


We ask as we wait that you join us in praying for the following:


1.  First and foremost pray for our little girl.  We have not seen her face or know exactly who she is, but she is ours and God already has her on this earth waiting to connect with us.


2.  Pray for Coty, Myself, Riley and Rowen.  Pray that we continue to depend on God through all of this and allow Him to do what He does best.  Pray for us, and the girls, as we begin introducing the concept of bringing their new sister home.  We are covering the girls with lots of prayer because they will be facing lots of adjustments as well.  Their dynamics (oldest/youngest) dynamics may be changing.  Pray that we do not grow frustrated or weary while waiting.


3.  Pray for our parents (Tom, Kirsten, Jim & Angie) and Jeffrey's sister and husband (Jennie and Shane) as they will also be facing lots of adjustments and becoming grandparents and aunts and uncles to our new child.


4.  Pray for our process.  Pray that our paperwork ends up in the right hands at the right time to lead us to the child God created for us.  


Thank you again for walking this journey with us.  You are each very special and dear to our hearts.  I can't wait to host our homecoming party with her and each of you.


Jeffrey, Coty, Ri & Ro

Hey there little one!  That is the thought that keeps running through my mind tonight.  As tough as life can feel here in America at times, there is a little one that may never hear "I love you" but needs to feel it.  Picking up the phone is not an option, but whoever you are we want you to know that you are already loved and cherished.  We are fighting and praying to get to you and wrap our arms around you as soon as possible.  We check the mail daily waiting for the next piece of the puzzle.  We received documentation for our fingerprinting through the Department of Homeland Security for our scheduled appointment in the mail this week.  God has already ordained the time we will meet.  Until then we will earnestly and patiently wait on God to reveal you to us.