15 Pages

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!