Our Adoption Timeline

     "God has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from the beginning to end.  I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live."  Ecclesiastes 3:11-12



Timeline

(photo courtesy of the Artist Geek)





      We have much more to write about for this blog, however we thought that it might be interesting to first show a timeline of our journey so far.  Below is the string of events that have kept us very busy over the last few years  Thankfully Brian thrives on detail and he was excited by the challenge of the mountains of paperwork and correspondence. 
    
     This is a summary of some of the more major events:

 

October 2011               We recognize the Lord’s calling for the family to adopt

 

February 2012              We make the decision to pursue adoption

February 2012              We are interviewed for our (first) homestudy

March  2012                  We choose our country, Ghana, Africa, and our agency, AAI

April  2012                      Our homestudy is approved by agency, put on list as a “waiting family”

October   2012               Ghana program slows considerably as the coordinator of the program quits

 

February 2013             Called about a needy child in Uganda; we decide to accept a referral for the child

March 2013                  Our referral is terminated when a distant relative appears and agrees to    take care of child

April  2013                    We switch within our agency to the Ethiopia program

We do a second homestudy interview (required due to switching to Ethiopia)

May 2013                      Our updated homestudy is approved

July 2013                       We prepare and submit a new dossier for Ethiopia

November 2013           We received a child referral (15 month old girl named Martha)

November/December  We officially accept the referral and compile the needed paperwork

 

January 2014               We submit our PAIR process documentation to USCIS

February  2014            We receive notice from USCIS that our PAIR interview process was beginning at the US Embassy in Addis Ababa

March 2014                  Our adoption agency announces that it has closed, requiring us to transfer to another adoption agency

We began to transfer all of our paperwork, submit an application to the new agency, and have our homestudy amended

We receive our first update on Martha (aka ‘Marti’)

Next steps                     Our case is filed to begin the court process.   We await official PAIR process approval by the US Embassy and USCIS.  We will then be scheduled to appear in court, our first of two visits, in May or June (although nothing is certain with international adoption) which will be our first trip. The second trip will be scheduled next to bring Martha home, hopefully late summer or early fall.