An Update on the Adoption...

The support and excitement so many people have expressed about our adoption news has been such a blessing. The embrace we have received from the adoption community--particularly from other families who have adopted from Ethiopia, has been such an encouragement. Words can't express our gratitude for all of the prayers, advice and and kind words we've received--it's been humbling. We continue to trudge through paperwork and related assignments (photocopying documents galore, writing down all details of our life and our thoughts on a huge variety of topics, asking friends and family to write reference letters, reading books and taking classes on adoption and transracial adoption issues, completing workbooks, scheduling doctor's physicals, ordering background checks, etc...). We so appreciate our dear friend Sonya for her willingness to serve as our designated adoption notary and meet with us early in the mornings for that purpose (we're going to bring you breakfast next time, Sonya!). Our first in-home visit with our social worker should be happening in a couple of weeks. Although we know deep down that she's not coming to inspect the organization of our closets or check the baseboards for dust, the prospect of this meeting has motivated us to up the ante on some of those home projects we've been procrastinating about. At the outset, we were confident that we would set a world record for fastest homestudy and dossier compilation ever but now our goal is to have the homestudy and dossier complete by the end of February. We are trying to work on everything after the girls go to bed in the evenings, early in the mornings, and on our lunch hours so as not to take away from precious family time. So, while it's somewhat of a blow to our competitive sides, we're probably going to be in the average range. But things are moving forward and our enthusiasm has not waned.

We'll close this post with a video by Steven Curtis Chapman (click here), an adoptive parent and adoption and orphan care advocate whose faith in the face of tragedy has been such an inspiration to our family this year.