Waiting for Passports

Good news!  Last week, we received confirmation that our adoption case received final approval by the Indian courts.  As soon as the orphanage receives written confirmation of this approval, they will apply for passports for the children.  After their passports are issued, we will receive our travel authorization.  At this point, we anticipate traveling to India in mid-March (with Zinnia) to finalize the adoption and return home as a family of five in early April.   

As many of you know, we also received several adoption grants towards the end of last year.  This has been a tremendous blessing to our family in helping us reach our fundraising goal.  One of those grants was a $4000 matching grant, and within less than a month we reached our matching goal!  For those of you who were patiently waiting to learn more about the matching donation information on the blog, we’re sorry that we never posted the details as we had anticipated doing.  Amy participated in a holiday market event through our church in early December and sold many handmade textile items.  The donations started coming in right away, so we met the $4000 matching goal before we even had a chance to post about it!  We’re now at 97% of our total fundraising goal and are extremely grateful for the generosity of everyone who has supported us in this way.  If you would still like to make a donation, our online fundraising page can be accessed through the “Donate Today” button on our blog home page – and we’ll keep the donation site active through the end of February.

Over the past month, we’ve also continued making adjustments to our home and routines in preparation for becoming a family of five.  We’ve sold non-essential furniture on Craigslist, relocated breakable decorative items (our little guy will turn 4 in March), shopped for kid-friendly luggage for the girls, practiced cooking daal twice (Indian spiced lentils), and put a downpayment on a used minivan.  Amy and her mom also made matching travel purses for the girls, which are pictured below.  (SO. CUTE.)

Many friends and family members have been asking us how they can continue to support us as we get ready to travel, so here are several ideas:

1)  Pray for our travel plans.  We will be making all of our own travel arrangements, so prayers for finding affordable flights and reliable/safe/comfortable in-country transportation and lodging would be great.  Cross-cultural communication can also prove challenging, so we would also appreciate prayers for clear communication with anyone helping us make advance reservations.

2)  Invite Zinnia for a play date, especially on a weekend.    This is helpful in two ways – both for Zinnia to get some extra time playing with her friends before we travel and for Amy and I to get some quality time together before we transition to being on parenting duty 24/7 for many months.      

3)  Hang out with us!  We would love to see friends in the area before we travel.  Once we arrive back in the US, our nuclear family will need to stay home together much of the time in order to encourage healthy attachment.  Unfortunately, this also means that many of our relationships with friends and colleagues will need to take a back seat throughout spring and summer.   

Thanks for your encouragement and support and we continue this journey.  We’ll keep you posted on our travel plans once the passports arrive!