It happened again.
Something beyond coincidence.
I shared with you the story of our police clearances and psychiatric evaluation yesterday. Here are a couple things about yesterday that I didn't mention.
We started sending in our clearances and such the end of April. A couple of them hadn't reached us yet and I couldn't understand why. The day before our home study, I called to find out what was happening and it turned out our clearances were lost between approval and notarization. The man on the other end of the phone promised me he would send them out by last Friday or yesterday.
In the meantime I had applied for my passport and that hadn't come yet. Last week I received a letter saying my name was incorrect and I needed to have my license changed to reflect my name. What had taken weeks for me to accomplish when I needed to change my address on my license took less than an hour for the name change because it turns out you can go to the DMV and have it done while you wait! Husband sent it in that evening. I figured it would have gotten there sometime in the course of the next week.
Yesterday everything that was left arrived. And our mail came early.
Which is what prompted me to call our agency and find out if anything had changed in Haiti, which is when I started learning that MANY things were changing in Haiti.
Last night I started going through everything to make sure it was ready when the time came. I remembered that the notary wasn't quite right on my physical exam form. My physician personally had the form notarized in his free time with a lawyer's office (I thought) in the same plaza as his office. I called my doctor's office today to find out for sure though. They wouldn't let me leave a message for my doctor and said they couldn't help me. So, I drove down there. Lawyer's office was closed.
I marched all three kids into the next office building to find out where Edgar Snyder went! "Oh, they moved about a month ago. Why?" I explained the situation. Well, that particular person told me she had just received an email from a friend of hers that morning who had adopted and said how wonderful adoption. Then she told me she'd pray for me. I'll take it! She told me where they had moved. I called. "Nope. Never heard of the guy."
I googled the notary's name, looked in the phone book, looked in the directory of notaries. Couldn't find the guy anywhere. Out of frustration, I finally called the doctor's office again and got a different person. 10 minutes later, they were able to tell me that the notary was at a bank across town. Across town!! So, I called the bank to see if he was in before I drug the kids there. Here is what the woman said to me.....
"Well, its a good thing you called today because he is here for a half day tomorrow and then he's retiring."
WHAT?????? I caught the guy with less than a day's work left. Can you believe that?
Act of God? That's what I'm calling it!
I needed that today.
So, update.....
The Senate did ratify yesterday. I'm not sure what that means yet. We haven't heard anything from our agency today. From what it sounds like there is a window of about 3 months. For us, about 7 months of work has to happen in that three month window, so I'm continuing to ask for your prayers in this - that His will would be done and we would walk in it. Thank you so much for being a part of this journey with us.
Love,
Karyn
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Prayer
Have I told you about Barb?
A few years ago my husband decided he wanted to talk to a financial planner to make sure we were doing what we needed to in order to prepare well for retirement and college for the kids. I thought it was ridiculous at the time. Not because I didn't respect his ideas, but because that seemed like too far in the future to be planning for already.
We started working with John and his wife, Barb, to develop a reasonable budget for our very long term plans. Adoption was no where near our radar at the time.
When we went to get our taxes done this year we were applying to our agency at the same time. We had to have our application notarized, so we asked if anyone in the office was able to do that. Barb, John's wife, happily notarized our application. She was so sweet - asked us great questions and was so excited for us to begin the process.
When we received the list of items we were going to need for our dossier, we saw that everything and its mother needed to be notarized. Husband called Barb to see if we could hire her to be our official adoption notary. "Hire?", she asked? "Oh no, I'll do it for free. Just consider it part of our ministry. We're so excited for you." Tremendous blessing.
We're meeting with Barb tomorrow to have the last of our documents notarized. When I called to schedule with her today I told her it would be the last time we'd be visiting for this project. She said, "When will you get to meet your child?". I explained to her what is happening in Haiti right now and told her that if this all works out, from Haiti, it will be.......and started crying. She finished for me.
"An act of God." Yes.
She said, "Can I pray for you now?" So,she prayed.
It is amazing blessings like that that will keep encouraging our hearts to keep moving forward,even though it looks impossible. I do believe, that if this works out, it will only be because God allowed to. Thank you, all, for the prayers you have lifted up for us in the last day. We are so grateful and it makes a huge difference.
Love,
Karyn
A few years ago my husband decided he wanted to talk to a financial planner to make sure we were doing what we needed to in order to prepare well for retirement and college for the kids. I thought it was ridiculous at the time. Not because I didn't respect his ideas, but because that seemed like too far in the future to be planning for already.
We started working with John and his wife, Barb, to develop a reasonable budget for our very long term plans. Adoption was no where near our radar at the time.
When we went to get our taxes done this year we were applying to our agency at the same time. We had to have our application notarized, so we asked if anyone in the office was able to do that. Barb, John's wife, happily notarized our application. She was so sweet - asked us great questions and was so excited for us to begin the process.
When we received the list of items we were going to need for our dossier, we saw that everything and its mother needed to be notarized. Husband called Barb to see if we could hire her to be our official adoption notary. "Hire?", she asked? "Oh no, I'll do it for free. Just consider it part of our ministry. We're so excited for you." Tremendous blessing.
We're meeting with Barb tomorrow to have the last of our documents notarized. When I called to schedule with her today I told her it would be the last time we'd be visiting for this project. She said, "When will you get to meet your child?". I explained to her what is happening in Haiti right now and told her that if this all works out, from Haiti, it will be.......and started crying. She finished for me.
"An act of God." Yes.
She said, "Can I pray for you now?" So,she prayed.
It is amazing blessings like that that will keep encouraging our hearts to keep moving forward,even though it looks impossible. I do believe, that if this works out, it will only be because God allowed to. Thank you, all, for the prayers you have lifted up for us in the last day. We are so grateful and it makes a huge difference.
Love,
Karyn
Monday, June 11, 2012
The Fears and Blessings of Adoption
A couple of weeks after we mailed our application and first fee to our adoption agency Haiti stopped accepting dossiers until June 1. That changed to July 20 in a week. Today I heard that August 1 is the new date.
I hadn't heard that from our agency, so I started researching what was happening with IBESR and learned that the Senate in Haiti may ratify the Hague Convention Agreement today. For the children of Haiti, that is good and bad. It's good because that means the adoption process will be ethical and safe when all the policies are in place. It's bad because ratification usually results in stopping adoptions altogether until the country is in complete agreement with the Hague Convention standards. It took the United States 15 years to accomplish that.
Obviously my heart is wondering if that means that our fears clear back in April are going to come true after all.
Our agency told us to go ahead and compile our dossier, which we have done. When I called today to ask if we should stop they said to keep going.
We have 2 steps left.
Our first home study visit happened last week. Our last home study visit will be in a week. We are less than 24 hours from having all the papers we need to have completed done - and notarized. All we have left is to get the home study report and have all of our notarized documents certified. We're still about 6 weeks away from being finished, but we're close.
So, here's the potential timeline.....
Our goal is to have our dossier mailed to our agency by mid-July (1 month). It will take 1-3 months to receive a referral, at least and then 1-3 months to have our child's file completed. At that time our files will join to one big file and enter IBESR. We're about 3-7 months away from being in what you might call the "safe zone". Usually, once countries ratify the Hague, dossiers already in process are grandfathered in and moved through. So our goal was to get into IBESR prior to the ratification process.
If the Senate does indeed ratify today, it will be 1-3 months (potentially) before adoptions will cease.
Here's what I don't get.......
We've had so many confirmations, both good and bad, about adopting.
Here's the biggest one yet.
Adoption is flipping expensive.
We are supposed to have a psychiatrist evaluation completed for our dossier. If we couldn't find a psychiatrist for whatever reason, it was okay to have a psychologist complete the evaluation instead. When we talked to a friend of ours, who is a psychologist, he basically said, "Good luck. Everyone is booked up for months. If you can find someone to do it, just get it done." So, I started making calls.
One psychiatrist told us it would cost us $300 for the evaluation and $400 for the letter. Another told us $300 for both. When we asked our friend who was "better", we were told that the second was a better psychiatrist, so to go with him. We scheduled.
The evaluation was scheduled to happen a couple of weeks ago. I was a nervous wreck about it because there are things about my life that are not pleasant to talk about and I was afraid of how those things would be looked at.
A friend of ours offered to watch Little Miss - for free - in the middle of the day - while we went to the evaluation.
We could NOT find a parking space and being good debit card customers, we didn't have any cash on us at all for meters, so we resigned ourselves to just have to pay for a parking ticket. As we walked to the office, we found a parking lot right next to the office building where we could park for free - for as long as we needed to.
The psychiatrist was the nicest guy. He was very normal! :) He asked pertinent and interesting questions about why we wanted to adopt - and why from Haiti. He found out all the crap I wasn't excited to share at all and was very empathetic and supportive. We spent about an hour with him.
He had asked how we wanted to pay when we first went in and we had said we wanted to just pay outright - that there was no medical need for the evaluation and that our insurance really had no need to pay for the evaluation because we were asking for the evaluation for solely personal purposes.
He finished the evaluation and completed the letter right in front of us.
When we went to leave we stopped at the desk to pay and he walked passed us and said, "No. There's no charge. Just.....good luck." Husband's jaw dropped, as did mine. We just stood there looking at him - in disbelief. We argued with him and offered to pay, again. We took up his time and valued that and wanted him to know. He wouldn't accept.
We got in the car, stunned. This man had just saved us hundreds of dollars.
Here's another one.
A couple of weeks before that we needed to get police clearances from our county. When I called, I spoke to a woman who took down all the information we needed for our letters. I asked her when she thought she might be finished with the letters, she said, "a couple of hours?" I called the woman who has offered to notarize all our documents to see if she could meet me there and she said, "How about 1:00?" Seriously? From the time I called until the time it was finished was a mere 4 hours. While Little Miss was in school.
It seems like within the last week, all the things we have been waiting on were finally getting to us. And all at the same time. It felt like things were coming together.
And then our news today.
I'm not sure what to think. If you think of us, please keep those prayers coming and we'll keep you posted.
Love,
Karyn
I hadn't heard that from our agency, so I started researching what was happening with IBESR and learned that the Senate in Haiti may ratify the Hague Convention Agreement today. For the children of Haiti, that is good and bad. It's good because that means the adoption process will be ethical and safe when all the policies are in place. It's bad because ratification usually results in stopping adoptions altogether until the country is in complete agreement with the Hague Convention standards. It took the United States 15 years to accomplish that.
Obviously my heart is wondering if that means that our fears clear back in April are going to come true after all.
Our agency told us to go ahead and compile our dossier, which we have done. When I called today to ask if we should stop they said to keep going.
We have 2 steps left.
Our first home study visit happened last week. Our last home study visit will be in a week. We are less than 24 hours from having all the papers we need to have completed done - and notarized. All we have left is to get the home study report and have all of our notarized documents certified. We're still about 6 weeks away from being finished, but we're close.
So, here's the potential timeline.....
Our goal is to have our dossier mailed to our agency by mid-July (1 month). It will take 1-3 months to receive a referral, at least and then 1-3 months to have our child's file completed. At that time our files will join to one big file and enter IBESR. We're about 3-7 months away from being in what you might call the "safe zone". Usually, once countries ratify the Hague, dossiers already in process are grandfathered in and moved through. So our goal was to get into IBESR prior to the ratification process.
If the Senate does indeed ratify today, it will be 1-3 months (potentially) before adoptions will cease.
Here's what I don't get.......
We've had so many confirmations, both good and bad, about adopting.
Here's the biggest one yet.
Adoption is flipping expensive.
We are supposed to have a psychiatrist evaluation completed for our dossier. If we couldn't find a psychiatrist for whatever reason, it was okay to have a psychologist complete the evaluation instead. When we talked to a friend of ours, who is a psychologist, he basically said, "Good luck. Everyone is booked up for months. If you can find someone to do it, just get it done." So, I started making calls.
One psychiatrist told us it would cost us $300 for the evaluation and $400 for the letter. Another told us $300 for both. When we asked our friend who was "better", we were told that the second was a better psychiatrist, so to go with him. We scheduled.
The evaluation was scheduled to happen a couple of weeks ago. I was a nervous wreck about it because there are things about my life that are not pleasant to talk about and I was afraid of how those things would be looked at.
A friend of ours offered to watch Little Miss - for free - in the middle of the day - while we went to the evaluation.
We could NOT find a parking space and being good debit card customers, we didn't have any cash on us at all for meters, so we resigned ourselves to just have to pay for a parking ticket. As we walked to the office, we found a parking lot right next to the office building where we could park for free - for as long as we needed to.
The psychiatrist was the nicest guy. He was very normal! :) He asked pertinent and interesting questions about why we wanted to adopt - and why from Haiti. He found out all the crap I wasn't excited to share at all and was very empathetic and supportive. We spent about an hour with him.
He had asked how we wanted to pay when we first went in and we had said we wanted to just pay outright - that there was no medical need for the evaluation and that our insurance really had no need to pay for the evaluation because we were asking for the evaluation for solely personal purposes.
He finished the evaluation and completed the letter right in front of us.
When we went to leave we stopped at the desk to pay and he walked passed us and said, "No. There's no charge. Just.....good luck." Husband's jaw dropped, as did mine. We just stood there looking at him - in disbelief. We argued with him and offered to pay, again. We took up his time and valued that and wanted him to know. He wouldn't accept.
We got in the car, stunned. This man had just saved us hundreds of dollars.
Here's another one.
A couple of weeks before that we needed to get police clearances from our county. When I called, I spoke to a woman who took down all the information we needed for our letters. I asked her when she thought she might be finished with the letters, she said, "a couple of hours?" I called the woman who has offered to notarize all our documents to see if she could meet me there and she said, "How about 1:00?" Seriously? From the time I called until the time it was finished was a mere 4 hours. While Little Miss was in school.
It seems like within the last week, all the things we have been waiting on were finally getting to us. And all at the same time. It felt like things were coming together.
And then our news today.
I'm not sure what to think. If you think of us, please keep those prayers coming and we'll keep you posted.
Love,
Karyn
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
On My Heart
I read somewhere that if your heart is aching during a particular time prior to receiving your referral, you should pay attention and pray even more.
A friend asked me last week how I was feeling about our adoption process. I told her I felt like I was "playing adoption" because it just didn't feel like it was real or ever going to happen. I don't know what happened, but just a couple of days later, our little boy started being heavy on my heart. I'm thinking of him a lot.
I read a story about how a woman was just aching one particular week as they were waiting for their referral. Months later they found out that was the very week their future child was taken into the orphanage.
I don't know if there is anything specific happening in our child's life right now, but I'm going to pray harder this week. This could be nothing, but it could be something. We'll see.
In other news, we're still moving forward. We have our first home study visit scheduled!! And Justin's birth certificate finally arrived! We think that within a couple of weeks we'll have our part completely done and will just need to wait on the home study to be finished, which will be a huge mile marker for us. So, we're working and praying.
Thank you, friends, for praying with us.
Love,
Karyn
A friend asked me last week how I was feeling about our adoption process. I told her I felt like I was "playing adoption" because it just didn't feel like it was real or ever going to happen. I don't know what happened, but just a couple of days later, our little boy started being heavy on my heart. I'm thinking of him a lot.
I read a story about how a woman was just aching one particular week as they were waiting for their referral. Months later they found out that was the very week their future child was taken into the orphanage.
I don't know if there is anything specific happening in our child's life right now, but I'm going to pray harder this week. This could be nothing, but it could be something. We'll see.
In other news, we're still moving forward. We have our first home study visit scheduled!! And Justin's birth certificate finally arrived! We think that within a couple of weeks we'll have our part completely done and will just need to wait on the home study to be finished, which will be a huge mile marker for us. So, we're working and praying.
Thank you, friends, for praying with us.
Love,
Karyn
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Where Did Jesus' Money Go?
This post has been a long time in coming.
Jesus had a fund that was up to almost $250 from little things I was cutting out of my regular spending. And now it's down to close to $6.50. I'm sure you're wondering if I'm embezzling from Jesus.
Not so, my friends. Jesus had His first disbursements!
My heart just aches for children with no parents, and for the tremendous cost required to adopt. I truly believe that Jesus can step in and make it happen for people starting out with no savings to adopt and ending with their entire adoption fully funded. Through DFC, I've been privileged to meet many people who that is a reality for. But, I also believe Jesus works through us and He's not going to come down here and start putting money in people's bank accounts to fund their adoptions. He's going to ask you and me to do it.
It bothered me that the Jesus fund was accumulating and not going anywhere but my bank account, so I started to pray about where it should go. And then I learned about this family adopting from Haiti. I sat at my computer and CRIED as I watched the beautiful video done by their daughter. And, there was my first answer to the Jesus fund. Another Haiti family did the same thing to me, so the Jesus fund shrunk a little more. And then I learned about Second Mile Ministries and they got all the rest.
I think all of my passions are rolled up into one through this organization. Second Mile Haiti works in Haiti (can you believe it???). Here's their mission.....
I am ALL over that, baby! Dignified livelihood. Children staying with their parents. Small business opportunities. Sustainable medical care. Helping children. HAITI!! Yep!
I can't tell you how sick it makes me to think of a parent relinquishing their children because they can not support them. Just makes me sick. As a future adopting parent, I have a responsibility to do something about that and Second Mile Haiti just seemed like the perfect fit.
So, there's my accountability for the day. :) So much better than any muffin I'd have eaten at Tim Horton's. Or donut, or panini, or XL hot tea with sugar........
Jesus had a fund that was up to almost $250 from little things I was cutting out of my regular spending. And now it's down to close to $6.50. I'm sure you're wondering if I'm embezzling from Jesus.
Not so, my friends. Jesus had His first disbursements!
My heart just aches for children with no parents, and for the tremendous cost required to adopt. I truly believe that Jesus can step in and make it happen for people starting out with no savings to adopt and ending with their entire adoption fully funded. Through DFC, I've been privileged to meet many people who that is a reality for. But, I also believe Jesus works through us and He's not going to come down here and start putting money in people's bank accounts to fund their adoptions. He's going to ask you and me to do it.
It bothered me that the Jesus fund was accumulating and not going anywhere but my bank account, so I started to pray about where it should go. And then I learned about this family adopting from Haiti. I sat at my computer and CRIED as I watched the beautiful video done by their daughter. And, there was my first answer to the Jesus fund. Another Haiti family did the same thing to me, so the Jesus fund shrunk a little more. And then I learned about Second Mile Ministries and they got all the rest.
"Our mission is to provide for the physical needs of sick and malnourished children while empowering their mothers through health education and small business opportunities."
I am ALL over that, baby! Dignified livelihood. Children staying with their parents. Small business opportunities. Sustainable medical care. Helping children. HAITI!! Yep!
I can't tell you how sick it makes me to think of a parent relinquishing their children because they can not support them. Just makes me sick. As a future adopting parent, I have a responsibility to do something about that and Second Mile Haiti just seemed like the perfect fit.
So, there's my accountability for the day. :) So much better than any muffin I'd have eaten at Tim Horton's. Or donut, or panini, or XL hot tea with sugar........
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Prayers for Our Child
When we first started considering adoption, I thought of it in happy terms.
"There is a baby who needs a family. We want a baby." Happy.
But there's another side of this that I hadn't considered until I started reading 20 Things Adopted Children Wish Their Parents Knew.
The side of grief.
The child that we will adopt has been abandoned. Abandoned through death or poverty. He isn't about to go to an orphanage or in an orphanage right now for happy reasons. He is there because he has been given up because his parents couldn't afford to feed him or his parents have died. His parents could be doing the most loving and most brave thing in the world for him by placing him in an orphanage to be adopted to the United States, but it won't be happy or easy.
If my husband and I passed away right now, our children would technically be abandoned. But, we already know that they would go to a couple we love dearly who would take such good care of and love them.
But it wouldn't be happy for a while.
So, if you're praying for this child, as we are, please pray with us that he will know our Savior's love, when he is taken to the orphanage and as he is waiting for us, and that he will be able to embrace our love when the time comes.
"There is a baby who needs a family. We want a baby." Happy.
But there's another side of this that I hadn't considered until I started reading 20 Things Adopted Children Wish Their Parents Knew.
The side of grief.
The child that we will adopt has been abandoned. Abandoned through death or poverty. He isn't about to go to an orphanage or in an orphanage right now for happy reasons. He is there because he has been given up because his parents couldn't afford to feed him or his parents have died. His parents could be doing the most loving and most brave thing in the world for him by placing him in an orphanage to be adopted to the United States, but it won't be happy or easy.
If my husband and I passed away right now, our children would technically be abandoned. But, we already know that they would go to a couple we love dearly who would take such good care of and love them.
But it wouldn't be happy for a while.
So, if you're praying for this child, as we are, please pray with us that he will know our Savior's love, when he is taken to the orphanage and as he is waiting for us, and that he will be able to embrace our love when the time comes.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
A Mother's Love
Just a couple of weeks ago I started wondering what in the world our cat was so curious about that she had to be staring out my window at promptly 7am every morning. So, one morning I looked out and there was a nest in the gutter right outside my window.
How long at that been there? Was there anything in it?
Just two days later Husband told me that there was a blue egg sitting softly inside the perfectly manicured nest.
Tucked in, under the roof above, the nest fit perfectly in the little space allotted by the gutter. Something without opposable thumbs or digits of any kind, build the nest out of nothing more than twigs. Amazing.
The next night I saw her for the first time - Mamma Bird. I checked on her every morning when I woke up and every night when I went to bed. And every time I checked she was there. If she wasn't there, she was gone no more than a couple of minutes and she didn't go very far. One morning I was able to take the snapshot of the nest without her being around, but I only had that opportunity one time in all the times I checked.
She'd get up to eat and stretch her legs a little and then she'd stand on the roof, look at the nest and hop down and settle in for a little more incubating.
The prepared nest, just under another roof to keep to hidden from predators, the brief moments she stole away only for self sustenance and tolerance of the elements around her no matter what - 30 degrees, 80 degrees, pouring down rain and thunderstorms, sunshine, all revealed a level of self sacrifice that could only be given by the Creator Himself.
I know I'm putting human emotion on all of this. It frustrates Husband when I do that because you definitely can't hunt or support hunting very much when you're on the side of the creature. But, I'm a female and a sensitive one at that, and I watched all the Disney movies just like you did that put human emotions on animals all the time. I found myself remembering things that have happened in my children's lives so far that made me feel like I could relate to her. Nursing for what felt like the millionth time that day, not wanting to give up a night with friends because of needing to be home with a child, but doing it anyway, being willing to take on anything for my children. It made reflect on all those things, and more.
I told Mr. Man when we checked on her together one day, "That's how much I love you. I'd sit through anything to protect you and be there for you no matter what - just like that bird." It's been a beautiful reminder of the self sacrifice a mother has for her child.
I'm so grateful for the instinct God put in that bird - a BIRD - and for the love and nurturing He has instilled in so many women around me. It is a beautiful. I'm grateful that His compassionate, nurturing and protective nature has been placed in moms and that He feels those things toward us, His children, and so much more faithfully.
For all you moms (and to-be moms) out there, thank you for the way you protect and love your children - facing the elements for them. Whether it be through pregnancy and delivery or paperwork, referrals, waiting and travel, it is a beautiful thing. You are a beautiful reflection of Him.
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