Our Dossier is on the way!

Okay after a few very crazy moments we have been able to get our dossier together. Our friends Jack & Stephanie Higgins had to take some papers down to have apostilled for their adoption of Anya and so they graciously took all of our documents (38 to be exact). Then on Friday we made a trip to Acworth to deliver our documents to a couple who are heading to Latvia this week. They will hand deliver these documents to our lawyer for us; who will have them translated and then she will file them with the courts. Hopefully we will receive an invitation to come to Latvia soon. Presently it seems to be taking about 3 months to get a court date.

Finally...

Okay, we have finally finished the home study. We had to make some changes (good ones) with Ronnie's job change, so it took a little while longer than we thought. We have mailed everything in to USCIS and are waiting for an appointment to be fingerprinted by them. We have everything together for the dossier except Ronnie's passport. Pray that we will get that back soon!!! Hopefully we will get our dossier sent off by next week. Thank you for all of your prayers and support.

Only Trust Him...

As many of you are aware of the last 6 months has been an incredible journey for Ronnie and I. We have lost a business, hosted a child for 5 weeks from Latvia, Ronnie started a new job, began the process of adoption...just to mention some of the highlights. Well here is the latest--Ronnie has had a job offer from a company that he use to work for...we came home and there were business cards from them in the front door, garage door and mailbox with notes to please call them. We prayed about it over the weekend and Ronnie called on Monday. After talking with them he has decided to take the job. He and I both think this is such a "God thing". The job is one he enjoyed, the money is good, the family who owns the business are wonderful and they actually came looking for him...that just doesn't happen very much in today's world! So as we are learning to more and more "Only trust Him" God is in control and although we may not always understand everything going on we must trust Him and allow Him to carry out His plans for us!!!

Please continue uplifting us in your prayers. We are waiting for the final Home Study Report (all the information is in). After we receive this we will send it in to the INS to get our Homeland Security clearance and at the same time we will begin working on our dossier to send to Latvia. Shortly (hopefully) after we send in our dossier to Latvia we will get an invitation to come there. On this first visit (1 of 3) we will have to stay approximately 14 days. Arturs will stay with us. There will be a social worker who will be checking in on us to see if we are compatible...if so she will make a recommendation to the officials and we will be able to file papers to adopt Arturs. We should be able to get temporary custody of him at that time and will be able to bring Arturs home to America with us. He will have to return for the other 2 visits, but more on that later.

We are so blessed!

I want to give God the GLORY for all the support that we have--Thank You!!! We feel so blessed that many of you are willing to be a part of this journey with us. Many of you are supporting us with your prayers, words of encouragement & finances. For you who would like to help with the finances we now have an account with Precious in His Sight, Inc. where you can make tax-deductible donations. Click on the donate button and it will take you to a sight where you can donate using either a paypal account or major credit card. I cannot wait until Arturs is here in America and you all are given the opportunity to meet this special young man!!!

Almost finished with Home Study--

Our meeting with Kelly went very well last week. We were able to hand in all the things she needed with the exception of one...the septic tank letter. After checking with the county on getting one we found out that because we have lived in our home for over 5 years (5 1/2 years) we would have to get the tank pumped first and then we could get a letter...Oh well I am sure it probably needs to be pumped and for $350.00 we have been able to find several people willing to do this for us. So we will wait a few weeks and get this done. In the meantime Kelly will be working on the official Home Study report. Oh yeah, one more thing, there is a little concern over our tax return...it seems that we are at poverty level. Not that we didn't know that, but to have someone tell us that was a little strange. So please pray that with Ronnie now having a steady income that our income will not be an issue.

Grammie go get Arturs...

Today as Maddox and I were coming home. Maddox asked "Is Arturs sleeping?". To which I replied "No, he is in Latvia, remember?". To which he replied "Grammie go get Arturs!". How I wished it was that easy. I wished we could just jump on a plane fly to Latvia and bring him home with us...We continue to get all of our paperwork together for a final meeting with Kelly on Thursday. Hopefully after that we will be able to file our dossier with Latvia.

Arturs & Jessi