Thankful Thursday!

O.k., I have to confess that I stole this idea off of my friend Sarah! I like the idea of every Thursday writing about things of which we are thankful!
I have to start this Thursday by writing about how thankful we are to God for bringing people into our lives at just the right time to encourage us and sometimes to just make us laugh.
Chris and Sarah are friends of ours who just adopted an adorable boy from China, named Jaxson! They are also the parents of 2 beautiful girls Amaya and Paige! Mark has known Sarah and her family since 1986. Sarah was in Mark's youth group when he was a youth pastor in Lynn, Indiana. Ten years ago, Mark married Chris and Sarah! That's one of the best things he ever did!!! :)
Chris and Sarah have a contagious smile, and when Sarah laughs, you can't help but laugh too!
They have introduced me to the blog world and opened my eyes to all the beautiful special needs children that need forever families! Their passion for these children is evident and "of God"!

Immigration Approval!!!!!

We are so excited to write that we have Immigration Approval (Form I-171H)!!!
We would like to say that we are ready to go, but have not heard from our adoption agency about our other paperwork, so as soon as we know what changes need to be made, we can get the complete dossier sent in!!!
It will feel so good to have this completed!
We truly appreciate your prayers!! Thank you, all!
Diane

God's Provision

We received an email from Lifesong today updating us on how much money we have toward our adoption. With the matching grant, we have $12,425!!!! Wow! God is so good to provide for our every need! He goes before us. . .A small example of that was today. . .We went to have another state criminal check done. We needed $10/each for this. . .last week we received $20 for a donated gold crown! :) Also, we needed to pay for our bloodwork. . . a young lady handed us $40 of her own money for our adoption the Sunday before our bloodwork. God has gone before us each step of the way! That doesn't mean that everything is always smooth, but we do see that God is faithful and good!

Limit on Number of Dossiers Lifted!!!

I am excited to let you all know that we have been informed that Ukraine did away with the "100" limit of dossiers!!! This means that they could be accepting more than 100 dossiers for children 6 and under! When it comes to Ukraine, we know that this could change again tomorrow so we are working diligently to gather our paperwork. Ukraine will not accept a provisional dossier so our dossier must be submitted in full!! To give you an example of what we have had to do. . .We had to get our blood work redone(Our previous lab report will expire soon--Some documents are only good for 6 months), medical report redone--to show that we physically and mentally are able to care for a child/children, copy of our Dr.'s license, copy of social worker's license, state clearance report, letter from assessor's office stating the size of our house, W-2, employment letter to verify that Mark does work, power of attorney form (so people in Ukraine can handle our paperwork), formal application to Ukraine stating that we want to adopt, and copies of our marriage certificate(those will expire also--Thank God our MARRIAGE won't expire)!
We continue to wait on immigration approval. This Monday will be 2 weeks since we were fingerprinted. Our adoption agency told us yesterday that immigration rarely goes smoothly, so for ours to go this smoothly so far has been a real blessing!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! for your prayers! It continually amazes us how people who don't even know us, pray for us---Mark's Mom called this week to tell us that a man from Focus on the Family is praying for our adoption! God is so good to give us encouragement just when we need it the most! :)