A little update...

I have been hoping to have some kind of exciting news to post here, but nothing earth shattering has been happening. We are waiting for the next big step in the process which will be receiving our official referral from the Ministry of Justice and then our travel dates for our first trip. Rush around to get everything done and then wait - that seems to be the theme in adoption! :-)

If you look at the fund raising thermometer to the right you may notice that it has been reset. We were amazingly blessed to be able to save the funds that we need to finish paying our agency fees which is a HUGE step. Now we need to start working on raising and saving the funds we will need for our travel for the first trip, AJ's medical exam and visa, our travel for the second trip, AJ's travel home, and then all of the post-adoption reports and paperwork that will be required. Several things have happened that are going to make our final expenses much more than we expected. First, our social worker has informed us that she is going to require an additional fee for the "extra" work that she had to do for our dossier (although she did not do anything out of the ordinary for an international adoption homestudy) and we are anticipating that she will end up charging us a higher fee for the post-adoption visits than we initially thought as well. That issue, added to the fact that we will be travelling during the most expensive time of the year has put us behind in our funding. We really thought that we were going to be fully funded with the funds we had, but the increase in expenses and some recent minor emergencies at home that have cut into our savings have put us in the position of having to ask for help again. We appreciate your prayers that God will provide the funds that we need. He has provided EVERYTHING we have needed so far and we are confident that He will provide this time as well!