Adoption Update

Happy Holidays All!!

We are enjoying Hanukkah and Winter break and are looking forward to spending Christmas with family and New Years with extended family!! We are resting in not having anything to compile, fill out, send in or etc.

Here's one of our gifts this year…our agency mailed us a painting that JE did while in the US this summer. We also got a few pics of him doing his painting. What a blessing to get these items and to also know he has something in common with Tyvon and the twins (TJ and EJ). I'm typing this crying and smiling at the same time, TJ and EJ are twins by adoption and both love drawing and the arts…..WOW!! Our God is truly awesome.

Now onto our adoption. Our home study was finalized at the beginning of December. We have submitted our I800a application and have our appointment at the beginning of January. Our appointment was scheduled for January 5th but found out we could walk in once we had our appointment slipped. We were able to go today December 24th and are so excited that everything in our control is done for now!! We also sent our dossier off at the beginning of December to our agency for review while we wait for our I800a approval.

This process is where this process is different than our Ghana adoption which was non-hague. We completed a I600a application instead. And it continues to be different from here on out….Here's the process for us since we have been soft-matched with identified child who was hosted is a follows…Our agency will send our dossier to the Philippines along with our I800a approval.

1. We wait for our file to be reviewed. The executive committee of ICAB meets each Thursday. We are usually notified within a day or so after they meet that a dossier has been presented and approved.

2. Within 1-2 weeks of approval, ICAB sends The Sacred Portion Children’s Outreach a notice of the approval, along with updated pictures and information about the child.

3. Once SPCO receives the Approval Notice and child reports, they forward them, along with our “Acceptance Packet” to us. The Acceptance Packet consists of documents required by the U.S. and Philippine governments to process an individual’s immigration to the U.S.

4. We complete the Acceptance Packet and send back to SPCO.

5. SPCO forwards the completed Acceptance Packet to ICAB.

We will stop there with the process until we get further along in the above steps.

Prayer is needed for continued quick movement along the process and funding. We will have to send in a huge amount again at Step 3.

We are also still fundraising and need a little under $10k to be fully funded. We are still pushing our envelope fundraiser and have applied for 2 grants (both may take a while to hear back from; one we know will be in March). Prayers that we win both of these grants…it could drastically reduce the amount of funds we need to complete the adoption. We will also apply for another grant at the beginning of the year. We also plan to do another online auction. We made a little over $800 with the one we had around Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

If you would like to be a blessing financially, here are the available numbers in our envelope fundraiser. All the colors not shaded are still available!! You can donate directly at Petway Adopt Together or mailed us a check made out to Sacred Portion Children's Outreach; both ways are tax deductible!!