The Holy Spirit and Paris

What do these two things have to do with each other you might ask?  Here is the answer.  The first has to do with our son's confirmation, and the second is where our dossier is, en route to Eastern Europe!  Go Fed Ex go!

Our son Joshua was confirmed today in a beautiful ceremony.  After studying for several months, and dutifully reading several books on the life of Christ and the early church, he was confirmed today by Cardinal Egan, former Archbishop of New York.


It was a beautiful fall day, and we had a wonderful brunch afterward which you can see if you view the full album.

On another recent beautiful fall day we held a fundraiser at our community day that looked something like this.

From Hardscrabble Fundraiser

It was an enjoyable chance to visit with neighbors and talk about the wonderful work of Reece's Rainbow, but we barely covered the cost of our table and supplies. ;-(

We'll keep you posted on the ongoing travels of our dossier across Europe.  ;-)

On the way to Eastern Europe - the complete Dossier that is

It's in the mail!  (Fed Ex actually).  The complete dossier is on its way to the birth country.  Can you believe it?

Please pray with us that translation, approval and submission go smoothly.  While we wait for all this we will start to plan for eventual travel and associated logistics.

Quick Update

I-171H letter has come and gone.  We received it yesterday.  Today we had it notarized, county certified and sent it off to Albany for apostille on Monday.  Once it gets here next week - the dossier is complete!

Tomorrow is also our big community fund raiser day.  We're baking ferociously, preparing posters, handouts,... and praying for some generous visitors to our adoption table.

If you are not yet aware of the Spitz families courageous journey to bring home Lyla check out their story at "Lucky to Love Lyla".  Keep them in your prayers and donate if you can using the link at the left under fundraising.

It's in the mail!!!

Our immigration approval that is (aka the USCIS 171-H "Favorable Determination" letter).  We talked to USCIS today and we are approved to bring little Jenny home!  As soon as that letter gets here we'll be expressing it off to the capital to be apostilled and our dossier will be ready for shipment to our facilitators in Eastern Europe.  How's that for good news? 

Also in the good news department...  If you look at our fund raising section, you'll see through the generosity of our church and some friends we've raised over $2,000.  We are so grateful to those who have stepped forward and joined us on the journey.  Still a long ways to go, but every little bit counts.

Clearly all your prayers are working.  Things are moving along as fast as they possibly can.  Keep up the labor of love, and pray there are no documentation or translation problems prior to submitting to the foreign government agency.

While we are waiting for time to pass, we've had some fun events to attend in the last couple weeks, one of which may be of interest to those of you that follow adoptions.  Most of the family got to see a great evening of music and prayer with the Chapman family, founders of the Show Hope orphan ministry.

It was a wonderful evening full of uplifting music, and plenty of orphan advocacy as well.  You can read more on the evening and what led us there at this blog entry.

Hope you are starting to see some of the colors of fall! We'll write again soon once the dossier is sent.

Goodbye Summer, Hello School

With the end of summer, comes the beginning of a new school year. As a mostly homeschooling family, that means we are pretty busy.

We wound up our summer with a great trip to the Long Island Sound and Norwalk's Maritime Aquarium. For the full story, check out the album below, or our son Caleb's blog entry on the day.

From Norwalk Aquarium

Then we had to close the pool concluding the glorious days of summer swimming and splish splashing fun.

On the adoption front, we had some great news.  We called the USCIS Thursday and they said our immigration review officer has been assigned!  We have to go to the nearest USCIS center for fingerprints on Tuesday.  We're hoping that means we'll have that pesky 171-H letter in our hands around the end of the month, allowing us to submit the complete dossier for review by the birth country.

Praise the Lord - and bless all the little orphans waiting for a family to bring them home!

The beast is complete (well almost)

Today some of our family made the trip to the state capital to have the bulk of our dossier certified ("apostilled") by the department of state. That means our dossier is 99% complete. All we need is that pesky I-171H letter from the USCIS.

A small album of pictures of the day are available below.  Only had a mobile phone camera with us but they came out ok.

From Albany Capital

I just love pictures of churches, these glorious places people devote their time, talent and treasure to, to honor and reach out to their God. Here is a picture of a recently renovated cathedral, right next to our state capital.

Hard to believe Labor Day is already here. Here's hoping you all have a chance to rest from your labors, enjoy friends and family, and prepare for the coming of fall!

Beautiful Summer Sunday

Time is flying - where did August go?  Had a quiet day today going to church, getting in some walking and swimming.

We then spent some time putting together materials for our upcoming fund raising and awareness day.

We also did a big special needs adoption banner for the front of our table but it is not entirely pieced together yet.  In addition to the blog bracelets we showed you last time we got a bunch of generic Christian bracelets printed with various virtues and walking with Christ slogons.  We'll be running our table in front of a local church, so hope lots of people will be feeling the love and stand along side us in this adventure.

It was good to be doing something for the adoption other then checking notary stamps.  ;-)  Have a great week and talk to you soon.