Webinars Done!

We just finished our last training webinar! Praise God!

Even though they were kind of boring in that we were just watching PowerPoint slides and hearing someone speak, in general they were informative and I learned some things. I'll consider sharing some of what I learned later. For now, goodnight!

Homestudy Almost Done!

Thanks to God and some awesome friends and family who provided us with references, we are almost done with our homestudy! Our interviews went well, we completed our house projects Saturday and had a great house tour this morning, and we now have access to the webinars we need to complete our training and homestudy! God is good. Thanks for your continued support!

Homestudy Paperwork

Since our pre-approval was postponed a month, we decided that we would throw all of our energy into completing the homestudy. We met with our local social worker at Catholic Family Center at the end of June to begin the process. We've been told that it usually takes 2-4 months.  So of course we decided to try to get it all done before that pre-approval meeting at the end of July. And we went on an awesome vacation to the beach the week of July 4th, so we basically had three weeks to complete everything.

A homestudy means filling out a bunch of forms; answering detailed questions about your past, your marriage and family, your parenting and discipline philosophy, etc.; a one-hour interview with each of us; a tour of our home; physicals from out doctor for all three of us, and 12 hours of training webinars.

We're praising God that somehow as of 10:30 last night all of the paperwork is in except for my (matt's) medical exam report (my physical is Wednesday next week)! It's been a few late nights, but we've done it. At the same time, we got a long autobiography form from Phillip's orphanage, which is just a few keystrokes from finished as well.

For our homestudy, my interview is this morning and Belinda's is tomorrow. The final piece is the home tour on Wednesday (right before my physical). And yes, we do have a few home improvement projects to knock out on Saturday to make sure our house is ready!

The most significant thing we have left for the homestudy is the 12 hours of classes, which we haven't been able to access yet due to a technical failure at our international agency.

Thanks for your prayers and support. We're nearing the end of the beginning.

Pre-approval Postponed

So this post is overdue, but we were out of town all last week, so here it is a week late.

We mentioned in our last post that we got all the documentation in for the pre-approval process. We found out right before heading out of town that the pre-approval meeting was postponed until the end of July. In one sense, it was disappointing, but in another sense, it was great because that means we have time to get our homestudy done before the orphanage makes any pre-approval decisions about "Philip". With our homestudy completed, we could not only get pre-approved, but we can also get matched, which would mean we could bring "Philip" home sooner. So that's what we're doing. It means a lot more paperwork, appointments, meetings and 12 hours of training, but we're pushing forward and going for it. Prayers appreciated!