Where We Are Today!

So now we start another journey, in July 2012, we started the process of bringing home our 4^th child.  We contacted our lawyer in Ghana and he started the process on his end, while we started on our end.  Is this really real?  I asked myself several times, are we really doing this again? Yes we are, and we couldn’t have been more thrilled. 

We had all the paperwork for our homestudy filled out and ready, we have to have 3 appointments with her, and one of them has to be at our house.  Which that one was already finished! So now 2 more to go.  We had a vacation planned for the beginning of August; we wanted to get as much done as possible.  One of our good friends was leaving to go to Ghana at the end of August and we wanted to send our dossier over with her, and then we found out that she was leaving the 1^st of August.  Bummer for us but great news for her, she was going to see her kids!!!  We weren’t sure how it would get to Ghana, but we knew God would provide a way.

The homestudy visits were now complete, in the end of August, now we are just waiting on the homestudy to be printed.  On September 6^th (our middle son’s birthday) we got a gift, our preview homestudy came in the email.  I was so excited because another friend of mine just planned a trip to Ghana in the middle of September, so now we just need the final copy of the homestudy completed before she goes and she can take the dossier to our lawyer!  I looked over the homestudy and there were just a few mistakes, so I emailed them back with the corrections and then asked her if there was any way we could get the finalized homestudy before my friend left, she said she would work on it and try her best.

The week my friend was leaving was the week we got our finalized completed homestudy!!! Just in time.  I took everything to her the day before she was leaving.  I am a last minute person, but this was cutting it close for me!

Everything was feeling more and more real to me.  I was told by our POA that the lawyer was ready to go to court as soon as we are approved.  So we thought that when she took the dossier over we would get a court date within a few months.  It was Tuesday September 18^th and the phone rings at 6:30am I answer and it is my friend that was in Ghana, she said that we had a court date the next Thursday 27^th!  WHAT??? Goodness I wasn’t expecting this! I just sent off my I-600A application on Friday. So this really took me by surprise!  I know things happen and court dates sometimes have to be changed, but to know we were that close to being his parents legally was CRAZY!!!

After a week of “oh my goodness” we get another phone call saying court was gonna have to be rescheduled, and they didn’t know when it would be but they would let me know as soon as they knew.  So now we wait.  It’s ok, we are waiting on our finger print appointment for the I-600A approval.  We can go to court without it but we can’t file the I-600 in Ghana without it. 

 

A couple of our friends are going over sometime soon to get their kids; it would be awesome if we get our approval fast enough for one of us to go over and file it with them.  It will be really close, but it is possible. 

 

With our first adoption, everyone supported our decision to bring home another child. We really thought that people would be excited that we were bringing home Kobys best friend from Ghana. Little did we know, we weren't being supported by to many people.  Many people have given us their opinion about this adoption.  We have been really hurt by several comments.  We have been told that this isn’t of God for several reasons.  But I have a story to share.  I know I have an on time God, and this just proves it to me that He is standing right there with us through this adoption.  We have done several fundraisers; we did a car wash and a couple of yard sales.  I sell Gold Canyon Candles and have done several of those to go toward other adoptions and a couple to go toward ours.  We sold the J103 (a Christian Radio Station in Chattanooga) coupon books.  I am also doing outside pictures and selling a CD to help with the adoption cost.  Jacky just finished a weight loss challenge, where we asked if anyone wanted to sponsor him per pound.  We did a pasta fundraiser and we have a Just Love Coffee website, https://justlovecoffee.com/hope4henry check it out, and share with your friends!  Every time something is due we have the money, when our homestudy needed to be paid we had all but $200 and then that came the next week.  We needed to send money over for several different things and every time we had just the right amount and it just came that week.  During one of our homestudy visits we were rear ended and our car got totaled.  Thank God we were all safe!  A few weeks went by and we received the insurance money to buy another car.  We went car shopping and finally found what we were looking for.  After a week or so we got our reimbursement of our part we had to pay.  Little did we know we got an extra check from them because we had to go without a car for several weeks.  Well guess what?  That was the week the POA was going to meet the lawyer.  We had to send money over for him and our little guys medical and birth certificate.  And I want you to know the amount we received was $90 more than we needed to send over.  Think this is a coincidence? Well I don’t.  Here’s one more,  I told you about the weight loss challenge,  it just so happened that it ended the week before we go to court, and he lost 27 pounds during this, our friends and family gave (added all together) $35 per pound.  And if everyone pays we will receive $945, and we have to pay the lawyer the rest of his fees and then apply for a passport and a new birth certificate, and you guessed it, this amount is really close to what we are going to have to send over!  Tell me My God isn’t Awesome and I will have to tell you otherwise! He has provided for us so far and I have no doubt He will provide for us the rest of our adoption journey!

I finally got an email telling me that we have a court date!  It is Thursday October 18^th.  We got our fingerprint appointment and it is Friday October 26^th. So that is where we are today, waiting till our court date, and finger print appointment. 



*****UPDATE*****
Our Lawyer and POA went to court this morning, and there were to many cases today so they chose some to come back next week and we were one of the chosen ones.  I hate that it didn't happen today but we aren't ready on our end anyway, so keep next Thursday October 25th in your prayers, that's when we go back to court!!! THANK YOU :)