Who knew?

To say the least, I am surprised that NOT being Indian decreased dramatically our wait for a referral. Decreased it by 12-18 months to be precise. India has a very strict pattern for how people are able to adopt from their country. First priority goes to Resident Indians (those living in country). Next priority goes to Non-Resident Indians (those who are citizens but live outside of the country). Third, and least prioritized are those who are not Indian. That last group would be us. Pretty obvious, huh. Who ever heard of pasty-white Indians? Not me either. Anyway, all indications were that we were going to be waiting a very long time. To get a referral now was mind-boggling. Maren got a chance to talk to one of the workers in Portland and was able to ask about this. It turns out that we are the only non-Indian family on their wait list, and the only family willing to take a child as old as the one we are now pursuing (3 years, 2 months old). Thus, the massive jump up the wait list. Huh, who'da thunk it?

But let him who boasts

This is what the Lord says, "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom, let not the strong man boast of his strength, let not the rich man boast of his wisdom, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who exercises kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight" declares the Lord. Jeremiah 9:23-24

May I boast clearly about one thing. The Lord, He is faithful. The Lord, He is good. The Lord will not call someone to something to which He will not provide.

On Tuesday of this past week, Maren got a call that there was a referral ready and waiting for us if we were interested. After listening to some of the details about this little girl, she asked for more information. The next day, we received details of this wonderful little one. The following day, the day before Christmas, we received an 8 minute DVD of this sweet girl. By now, we had made the decision to move forward with accepting this referral. To do so would require a multi-thousand dollar committment. We didn't have that available to us. We weren't expecting to receive a referral for another 12-18 months. I can say with all honesty (and those who know me may be surprised) that I was not the least bit concerned about where this money was going to come from. God called us to it, He will provide. I was sure of it. Not arrogant sure, but peaceful sure. And yet, we didn't know where this money would come from.

Ok, are you following the path so far? Tuesday, we get the verbal referral. Wednesday, we get the paperwork documentation. Thursday, we get the DVD. We decide to adopt her, but have a boatload of cash to come up with. That brings us to Friday. Friday, we get an unsolicited offer for a no-interest loan for $1,000 more than we need to move forward with the adoption!

I am experiencing a mix of feelings about this. I think the predominant feeling is one of peaceful admiration for our God. Let me boast about Him. He is worthy to be praised. I am thankful for the number of people He uses to bless us and our daughter-in-waiting. I ask for return blessings for them.

Where paperwork meets people

So the past week or so, I have been meaning to add an update or two to our process but haven't gotten it done. Writing about paperwork is a bit dull, and let's face it, repetitive. Let's see, I think we are up to four sets of fingerprints now. Just yesterday I got our second copy of our marriage license. As a quick aside, may I say that if everything about the adoption paperwork process was as easy as obtaining our marriage license from Clermont County, why this would have all been over with months ago. From the moment I stepped into the Probate Court office, I walked out in less than three minutes with a new certified copy of our marriage license. Mind you, I did this without an appointment. It was marvelous. But I digress. Anyway, we have been working on the final touches of our dossier. Actually, we thought it was complete, but when I went to put things together, I realized there were several pieces that we were still missing. Very frustrating. So, the last several days we have been slogging once again through the gathering of more paperwork. It has been an aggravating process UNTIL...

Maren got a call last night from our social worker in Portland. After asking some routine questions about where we stood on our paperwork, he asked if she was ready to discuss a possible referral! Say what? We weren't expecting a referral for about a year at this point. She got off the phone with him and called me while I was on the way to a dinner meeting. We were both surprised to say the least. In the adoption world, it is generally unheard of that things happen faster than you expect. And things happening a year early, well, I have never heard anything like that. Today, we got information about this girl including estimated birth date, first name, and medical information. Due to Hague Convention rules, we are not permitted to share any of this information online. In a surprise Christmas gift, we are now very seriously considering accepting this referral for this little girl.

We are very excited about this yet calm. We are certain that the Lord will lead us and are seeking out His will. We are looking forward to tomorrow when we are supposed to receive a Fed Ex package that includes a DVD of her.

New sense of......something

It is interesting, you know, this thing we know as the Holy Spirit. For those who are not Christ-followers, the whole thing must sound like a pretty crazy (I was going to us the word "cockamamie" but I didn't know how to spell it) idea. I mean really. Think about it. A Christ-follower describes that "the Spirit led them" or some such unusual statement. What is that supposed to mean anyway? However, if you are a Christ-follower, having the Spirit lead you is a pretty normal kind of thought. But then, you run into a conundrum of sorts. Is what you are feeling from the Holy Spirit, your own personal desire masking as something spiritual, or simply the extra-spicy chili? It makes it challenging to say the least. So you know what is coming next, right? Sure, you do.

This past week, I had a strange sense of need to complete our paperwork. It can't exactly be described as "urgency" though in some sense that describes it. I guess I think of urgency as being similar to emergency. The feeling was not a "I have to get this done now, or there will be really bad consequences" kind of feeling. It was more of a "Greg, it is time to get this done because I am doing a new thing in this process, and you need to be prepared" kind of feeling. Make sense? Well, it does to me anyway. And, thankfully to my wife as well.

That being said, we spent the last few days buckling down and working to complete our dossier. We are are nearly there. We have recommendation letters to obtain (a story in itself) and two forms from our home study agency. All of those things are on the way. We have also gotten needed info and notarization from our bank.

Who knows? Maybe the sense last week meant something. Maybe not. Either way, we continue down this road on which we have been led. It feels good to be nearing the end of the paperwork process.

Something went right!!

You know, it is pretty easy to get cynical during this whole process as one thing doesn't work smoothly followed by another one that is full of potholes. We have finally had something go just the way it was supposed to.

We went on Monday of this week to the Butler County Sheriff's office to try once again to get our background checks completed. As we have already experienced a lot of hassle in this area, we were expecting more of the same. I will say that going into, however, I did have a bit of hope. Honestly, our dealings with the Butler County Sheriff for the last adoption were quite good. We even bumped into the big dog himself, Sheriff Rick Jones. How can you not like a guy that brings back the old chain gang and makes them walk five-wide chained at the ankles picking up tracks in the median of state routes!! I love it. I saw them the very first day they were out. As I drove up near them, they had road signs out saying "Caution. Chain gang ahead". I wasn't sure what it meant at first since real chain gangs had gone away a long time ago, but hey ho, there they were in their striped pants and everything!! Our sheriff rocks.

Anyway, I digress. We went in, and unlike other locales, they seemed to grasp pretty quickly what we needed. They stated that it wouldn't be a problem and we just needed to fill out a short information form. They would be able to have the results the next day for us. This was great news. AND, it didn't cost anything...Bonus!! But the best was yet to come. After we completed our paperwork, she called us back over and said that she had located a notary and they would be able to take care of it for us right then and there so we would not need to come back. Whoo Hoo!! Inside of 10 minutes, ol' Sheriff Jones office accomplished what several other agencies couldn't do. So, now we are done with that portion of the process. We continue on.


Oh yeah, our background checks came back negative. I guess Maren doesn't have any explaining to do afterall!!

Retina scans might be more appealing

Have I mentioned the fact that I REALLY don't like dealing with fingerprints? I mean, seriously. How obnoxious can these things honestly be? Apparently, I haven't yet found out the depths to which fingerprinting can freeze my shorts. So the latest is this: Two days ago, I had some time in the middle of the day and used it to go to the Clermont County Sheriff's office to get my state and federal fingerprinting done. I did have a bit of a complicated request. I needed a set to go to our homestudy agency. I needed a set to go to the agency for whom I am about to start doing homestudies. Finally, I needed a letter to be notarized, signed by two witnesses, OR sealed with the police seal on department letterhead to be given to me for our international dossier. Not exactly straightforward, I know. But explainable. So I explained it. The first two requests were no problem, but the third was impossible. I will get to that explanation in a minute, because first I have to note that I had to leave there after waiting in line and talking to the nice people so that I could go get exact cash...no checks accepted. Ok, so I am back at the sheriff's department now. I talk to my fourth person about what I needed to do. By the way, I must add that all four people were genuinely very nice and patient. Anyway, the fourth person was able to explain some of what they could not process my request for a written letter. She told me I would need to go to my local department to get the document. So, says I...If I am here getting a fingerprint check on the state and the federal level, why wouldn't those capture any crime I might commit in my home county? All she could really tell me is that there might be things in their handwritten files that are not entered into any computer system. I pointed out that the sample document I had listed the "Texas Department of Corrections" as the sample department that it came from. I noted that Texas was a state and that I was pretty sure my agency is just trying to determine that I have not committed any crimes anywhere in the state (or nation for that matter). I also pointed out that Maren was able to go to a different county (Warren County) and get the same document I was requesting even though she didn't live in that county. No dice. They were unwilling to produce such a thing. So now I get to go to my THIRD locale to get yet more fingerprints taken. Oh yeah. For all of you keeping score, I still have to go at least one more time past that to the federal building in downtown Cincinnati to get more federal fingerprinting done. Apparently there are federal fingerprints and then there are federal fingerprints. Makes sense to me. Perhaps what I really need to do is to go to one location per digit. Does anyone have a stamp pad at their house. I can get some from you too!

Disappointing, but meaningless

We got word back from our adoption agency thay they are content with the way our former homestudy agency conducted themselves. This is disappointing and somewhat confusing, but ultimately, it doesn't mean anything for us. From what I can tell from the email we received back, this former agency misconstrued some of their actions and the events. For example, they apparently said there was no signed contract (wrong) and an imcomplete application (wrong again). I will send one final email stating that I disagree with the former agency's characterization of things and request again that Holt consider partnering with another agency in Southwest Ohio to give adoptive parents more than one option to consider. I will also state that I accept the results and appreciate their looking into it. Really, how much can Holt do with a Dayton agency while being located in Eugene, Oregon? I am impressed with the speed with which they addressed the complaint (Holt, that is).

The latest paperwork update is that Maren has obtained her local and federal fingerprinting. I have to do mine still. We also both got our physicals last Thursday (both alive, well, and kicking).

More government fun

We are in the process of readopting Elijah in the United States. He has always been officially and legally ours, but by readopting him here, he will be able to have a United States birth certificate created for him. Then in the future, getting a new original will be a piece of cake compared to trying to track down his original in China.

Maren diligently completed a 21 page form last night so that we could take it to the Probate Court today to get our hearing scheduled. We were almost turned away because an address area was left blank. Maren offered to write it in, but was denied because it needed to be typed. Yep. A trip to another city was almost wasted because they were not going to let her handwrite in an address. It had to be typed. Even now, I am not quite sure I understand why the woman relented and set us up for a pre-court hearing. And, she didn't even have the address added at all. If government were a private business, it would have gone under long ago. But the good news is that government just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and lately it is getting bigger by leaps and bounds. What a good good thing for our country.

Fingerprints: The Dark Stain

There is much about the adoption process that is a pain. At least the second time through, much of the process makes more sense. We can see better how some things go together. And yet, much of the process only reveals the ineffeciency, idiocy, and ridiculousness of the government. And doggone it, a similar issue really has my craw again. Fingerprints. Yeah, fingerprints. Those simple things on your hands that you forever hear are unique to you. You can watch 5 shows per night in which some bad guy is captured as the result of his fingerprints being left somewhere incriminating. And yet, for some reason if you are going to adopt a child, the dumb things EXPIRE in 18 months. Yep, you got it. Some how, if you need them for an adoption, after 18 months...POOF, they just aren't any good anymore. Oh yeah, and when they do expire, you have to pay a bunch more money to get them done again. Gee, can you say "racket"?

So that was our experience last time. They expired so we had to get them again. This time, our fingerprints are causing a bit of a different issue. I took some time off work today and Maren passed on Bible study so that we could go get our FBI fingerprints and our BCII fingerprints. Amazingly, since we did this the last time, it now appears that you can get them in the same spot whereas before, we had to go to two different locations to get our fingerprints taken twice. Nevermind the fact that they take the prints digitally now rather than the old ink format. It would be waaaaaaaay to easy to simply email the things to the other organization like the rest of the world does. But, alas, it seemed as if things became more efficient. Bravo government. So we get to the Clerk of Courts in Butler County who proceeds to tell us that they can only send the fingerprints to one location. We needed them to go to three. They repeatedly assured me that this was not possible. For $57, they could only send them to one location. I then asked if they could just give them to us. No way could that happen. We are not permitted to have our own fingerprints apparently. We can carry the original but not a copy. Ok, got it. Anyway, after going round and round with the lady explaining why we needed three copies, she kept insisting that it was not possible. I was flabbergasted. For real? How hard is it to hit "print" three times and address 3 envelopes. She finally called over a supervisor (not because I was belligerent...I wasn't but because she didn't understand). The supervisor assured us that it was in fact possible to send them to three places. It would just cost us $57 EACH TIME!!!!!! Arrrrrrggggghhh.

Finally though, she gave us a bit of good news. She told us that the sheriff's office does them for about $30 cheaper. Ok great, can you direct us there? Well, I can she says but they only do fingerprints Monday-Thursday from 8am-3pm. And, of course, today is Friday. HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THE SHERIFF'S OFFICE ONLY DOES FINGERPRINTS DURING THAT TIME FRAME???? If I ever commit a crime, I have made a mental note that I am only going to do it at night when they can't fingerprint me. Heck, I can keep good criminal hours. Perhaps I will commit the crime at 4pm and then get away free since they can't fingerprint me. I wondered out loud if I pulled into the sheriff's parking lot and kicked one of the patrol cars if while they were fingerprinting me if I could simply ask them to forward it onto our needed addresses. I was told that would probably hurt our chances to adopt.

So now we wait again until we can arrange time during ridiculous hours. Seriously though. Think about that. We CAN'T get fingerprinted at the sheriff's office except during normal working hours. In other words, if you are a contributing member of society on day shift, you have to take personal time from work to get fingerprinted. But, if you are a criminal, you can get fingerprinted at any time. Heck, they will probably even come to your home to accomodate you. Good grief.

Starting Over Again

We did the homestudy thing once for Elijah. Then, we started over on a new homestudy for our next child only to have to fire that agency. Now, we get to start over again. We received our homestudy packet from our new agency today. Maren has already gotten a leaping start on it. Pretty impressive actually. Several of our friends who have adopted have husbands who say something like, "My wife was amazing. She did everything and did it quickly." I must admit that the selfish side of me would love to be able to say that, but honestly, I do not want her to have to complete all of the work. I am interested in getting it done as quickly as possible, but my reasons are perhaps a bit different than many adopting folks. I am interested in bringing our daughter home, and I know the paperwork is part of the process to accomplish that, but basically, I can't stand it all. It is just so much, and I get tired of it.

Goal realized

This is pretty cool. It won't be very cool to anyone but me, but in 13 hours, I will be officially hired on as an adoption assessor with All God's Children. For those who remember, this is the same organization that our family used to expand itself in bringing home Elijah. I cannot speak highly enough about this adoption agency. They were first rate in every single thing they did. It was after our adoption was completed and I was wishing that I could use my social work skills to benefit others on a ministry basis that God placed in my head to become an adoption assessor myself. What better way to use my skills than to assist others in bringing home their own children from the community, state, country, and around the globe? I set out to earn my assessor certification and took vacation time from work to complete much of the necessary coursework. I did this specifically with the goal of being hired on by All God's Children. I never asked the organization about doing this and was never given any promises that I would be hired on. In fact, after earning my certification, I first approached All God's Children and was told there wasn't enough work and it likely wouldn't work out anyway. While I was disappointed, I never doubted that there was another reason for me earning my certification. The call felt too certain.

Through an unusual set of events, I was hired on with A Center for Homestudies and Placement Services in May 2008 for my first contract work as an assessor. I remain very very grateful to Rima (director) for bringing me on and coaching me through my first homestudies. I continue to contract with this organization and also think very highly of her and her dedication and professionalism towards those who seek her services.

Tomorrow, however, barring any unforseen circumstances, a specific dream of mine will be realized. The Ohio director of All God's Children (different from the director I talked to over a year ago) has indicated she intends to hire me on as a contractor. That is cool.

Sometimes you get what you pay for

For a guy who can't spend $20 without searching and researching over and over to find out if I can buy the same thing elsewhere for $19.27, the concept of voluntarily paying a $1000 or more for an agency to do the same thing that another agency can do goes against nearly every fiber of my body. The fibers that it doesn't go against, however, are honesty and integrity. I was always taught that those things were supremely important, and I have come to believe that intensely. One example of this is that we purposely searched for a name for Justin that meant "integrity" when he was born. Shy of naming him some obscure name that would have gotten him beat up regularly, we agreed on "Justin" meaning "truth and righteousness". So, we have decided to retract our application to our original homestudy agency. They simply did not pass the "smell test" as it were. In fact, they simply stunk from the very first phone call. I don't tend to complain about things too much to others who do things for me. Sure, I might complain to Maren (especially about 40 degree temperature drops in less than 16 hours....good grief), but generally I keep most complaints to myself. I am in this business, however. I complete homestudies. I know what their requirements are, and I have a fair understanding of good business practices. Holt International suggested we write a letter of complaint. I did. I probably went overboard. It was nine pages, single-spaced. Hmm. That might be overkill. But, I wanted to be detailed so I included all of our email communications to demostrate the extent that we went in trying to make this work. So, now we are trying to connect with another agency. We will keep you posted.

At what price ethics?

Greg here.
I remember when I served on the board for American Heritage Girls when some dialogue was occuring on the spirtiual differences between AHG and Girls Scouts of America. Part of the dialogue revolved around the greater cost to each family to have a girl in American Heritage Girls versus having her in Girl Scouts and that some families had their girls join Girl Scouts because of this. The Girl Scouts have seriously left its original roots and has become heavily feminist (and all the negatives that go with that designation) and very much openly stands against Christianity and the values contained within that belief system. The executive director made a comment at the time that she is always amazed when people will sell their beliefs for so little a cost. In other words, people will choose a organization to save a few bucks even when they know that organization stands against their stated beliefs. That has always stuck with me. I found her statment to be simple yet very powerful. In fact, it has haunted me since then wondering for what exactly would I sell my beliefs. It has been pretty scary a few times. I have found temptation in selling my beliefs for mere pennies. Forget millions. While I can't recall a time when I actually sold my beliefs, I do know that there have been times when I have had to actively campaign against myself from doing so. Perhaps the most recent was when I discovered that we had failed to report $750 on last year's income tax. Almost all of that money was paid to me in cash over the course of the year so there is no paper trail for it. It was very tempting to simply let it go. Certainly the IRS would never have found out about it. They couldn't have. I even thought about simply overreporting my income by $750 this year to "make up for it". In the end, I completed an amended return and mailed in the extra $106 we owed the IRS. All the while, I knew that our likelyhood for audit or some other problem was exponentially increased. Well, probably not exponentially, but still.

OK, so what in the world does all this have to do with our adoption. We have sent in and paid for an application to a particular homestudy agency. After we and they agreed on costs, after we sent in the application, after we paid the application fee, and after they verified receipt of the application, they came back and told us they were adding new fees for us that would total about $90 extra dollars per visit beyond what we had originally agreed. After complaining about this, they agreed to reduce it to an extra $65 per visit beyond our original agreement. I am still fired up about this, and we have been dealing with it for several weeks.

So the question is this. Do we continue with this agency? In some ways, the easy answer is "Absolutely not". This is not such an easy answer however, because to change to a different agency would likely cost an extra $1000 by the time everything is said and done. So, do we go with an agency whose integrity is now seriously in question to save a thousand bucks. Or, do we switch agencies knowing that the cost to us would be substantial?

Any thoughts are most welcome.

Studying our home

We have barely begun the next step in our process. We have scheduled our first meeting with our homestudy agency. It is kind of strange, however. For the first meeting, they want us to come to their offices in Dayton (without the kids). I must say, I do homestudies as a side job, and it is confusing to me why we would be going to somebody's office to do a HOMEstudy.

We get a lot of questions or statments that compare our first adoption process to this one. There are definitely similarities but differences as well. We are using a different adoption agency and a different homestudy agency. We are approaching this with some mild trepidation because we had such a good experience last time, especially with our former adoption agency. Here is a major difference. The last time, during the paperwork process, we were given a call EVERY MONDAY by our adoption worker. This current agency only calls once per quarter. That is strange to me. Thankfully, the experience we gained from the first process is already guiding us through this one.