15 pages…Have you ever wondered how many pages it would take
to describe your life to someone else? Well, apparently it only takes 15 pages
to describe Jay and I according to our social worker, which means, the
homestudy is complete! Of course the 15 page document was only a brief
description of who we are, but this document will serve to educate the
Ethiopian government about two adoption hopefuls, and once it is translated and
approved, our son is that much closer to coming home. With the finalization of the
homestudy, we can send in our U.S. immigration application, the I-600 form, and
hopefully, get officially placed on the wait list within the next few
weeks. All of the “Great Paper
chase” work is almost complete. That doesn’t mean we wont have to update many
of these same forms along the way, but it is so wonderful to have everything
gathered, notarized, and copied. I remember at the start of all of this, I was
SO overwhelmed at the shear number of documents that we needed to gather.
However, this process has really prepared us for the future. I do not credit
Jay or I as the most patient people, and yet, God is using this time to make us
just that. We have learned (particularly I) to give responsibility to others,
and trust them in helping to make this dream a reality. We have learned how
amazing our friends and family are, and how many supporters we truly have. This child, though most likely not even
born yet, has an abundance of people thinking, praying, and preparing for him
already. Jay and I went to several weddings recently, and were truly touched at
how many people asked how the process was going and how many say they follow
the blog in hopes we have good news soon. From the bottom of our hearts, we
thank you! Below are some fun we had Tyler and Allison's recent nuptials.
Ok, so that’s about it with the update. Hopefully we will
have a wait list number to count down soon. So, time to educate the masses
(including us) on Ethiopia. So here is another fun fact: Ethiopia only has 1
television station. It is a government-owned television channel and is the only
one because the government has largely banned private media. The channel is
called ETV and has several programming options including news, sports, music,
and even reality television. In fact, and im sure Jay loves this, they even
have ‘Ethiopian Idol’ which has very similar content to ‘American Idol’. ETV
transmits programs on 4 satellite stations, and they even have a facebook page!
