the homestudy is starting!

we had our first homestudy meeting last night.
we have to have 4 meetings with our social worker as part of our homestudy.
then our social worker will put together the homestudy that will be submitted to our government to give us permission to adopt.

it's basically a description of us...pat and i, our kids, our home, and nothing is off-limits.

i'm not nervous.
i know that God has us where we are...so i'm not scared about this part of the process.

i'm going to back up a bit.
for those that are interested in the details.
and tell you what, exactly, we've done so far in this process.

once we decided to adopt, we chose an agency.
this wasn't easy.
my only criteria as i began looking was one that worked in the continent of Africa.
i searched blogs, google, websites.
emailed strangers asking them their experiences.

and we were led to America World Adoption Association.
{did you know that i found out this past weekend at the seminar we went to that the CEO of America World goes to our church?? God...you are so funny! here i think I am doing all this stuff...and You are SO in control :-)}

we met with them in person.
and loved them.

we were given an application to fill out.
it wasn't long.
8 pages.
but we had to put a LOT of important info in that application:
the country we wanted to adopt from, how many kids, the age range, all our financial info, give names of references for them to contact, health info.

it wasn't just "we want to adopt"...you really had to be serious.
and you had to submit $250 with the application.

once that was approved we were sent TONS of attachments in an email.
the majority of it was the "Rwanda Overview Packet"...but there were also some agreements we had to sign and return...with $1500 (our first of 3 payments to our agency for what all that they do).
we had to do this in order for a Family Coordinator to be assigned to us so that we could begin our Home Study.
we weren't doubting anything at this point.
but it was feeling very REAL.
and, remember, God sent a $1500 check in the mail that week.
just a little confirmation to push us along.

we also had to complete an online course that took 8 hours.
{just basic stuff about adoption...the process...the terms...all the transitions...}
we somehow managed to finish it in 1 weekend...during naptimes and after the kids went to bed.

after that we received another phone call {LOVE those phone calls!}
and were officially accepted into the Rwanda program and assigned a sweet girl to help us along.
after the phone call, we were emailed TONS of attachments...about the homestudy, about the dossier, articles we had to read, forms to fill out, agreements to sign...it was VERY overwhelming to me.

but i printed it all out and started organizing.
and filling out.
and it slowly became manageable.
none of it is HARD...it's just tedious.
we have 22 items that we need to gather to be a part of our homestudy.
things like:
*a form of every place we've lived
*marriage license
*birth certificates
*medical forms for Pat and I (we have to go get physicals) and medical forms for each kid (they each have to get new TB tests!)
*FBI clearance...with fingerprints
*State police clearance
*Child Protective Services clearance
*Employment letter
*and we have to each write an autobiography (can i just give them my blog address?? :-))

we've submitted maybe half of the paperwork so far.
and another big check.
and i feel like i've been working so HARD!
we need to get fingerprinted and physicals done.
once we get ALL our paperwork in, they will move on to Visits #2, #3 and #4 of the homestudy.
Visit #2 is with our whole family. at our house.
Visit #3 is with Pat and I. individually. at our house.
and Visit #4 is basically the social worker presenting us with our completed homestudy and us signing it.

so...we have lots of work ahead of us.
the ball is in our court right now...finish the paperwork for the homestudy.
but we're ready to take it on.

there were 3 other couples at the homestudy last night.
each of us were adopting from different countries.
it was so neat to hear how God works so clearly in such different ways in each person's life!

this journey is amazing.
i'm in awe of Him.