Fundraising Update #2 and Home Study Update

Another fundraising update - another change to express our gratitude to those who have offered their financial support and prayers!

Since our last update, we have received another $2,487! This brings our total received to $6,314, which is awesome! Combined with our own savings, we are very near to the $10K mark at $9,932. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

This is something of a visual for the kind generosity we've been blessed to receive. It is a board in our living room where we display cards, photos, etc. Right now it's completely full of cards we received in the mail from friends and family supporting us in our adoption pilgrimage (with the exception of one Christmas-in-July card :))

This makes us happy each and every time we walk past it, and it's nice to open the cards and read the sweet messages again, too.

We also wanted to share this lovely card we received from three little kiddos who promised to teach our future child everything they know and share their toys :) It has a proud place on our fridge:

Again - thank you. We continue to be very touched by the donations we receive, as well as the pledges of prayers, which are so, so needed!

And, a quick home study update: we have been diligently working to get through the many forms needed for the home study. We've now sent in just about half of the forms (24 out of 50) and are working on several others. The ones we've sent in so far have been the easy ones - just sign & date, or fill in basic information like social security number, previous addresses, etc. We've had to get two forms notarized, and luckily Bethany has a notary at her work, so that wasn't too hard.

Next up: we're going to get fingerprinted for security clearances this week, and we have a doctor's appointment set up for next week (July 20) to get the medical forms filled out: our medical history, lab work, make sure we don't have contagious diseases, etc. Other pending forms include our autobiographies (which are in the works), financial forms and proof of all our assets and liabilities, the fire inspection, and the forms that our housemates are filling out plus our reference letters. Slowly but surely!

So far the experience hasn't been too difficult. It's gone relatively quickly, and our agency has been fantastic about responding to our many questions about the forms, to make sure we fill them out right the first time. It just feels great to be making progress toward a goal so dear to our hearts.

One last photo: this is command central, the box that holds all of our adoption info: our research leading up to our decision to adopt, our application, all the forms we've collected so far, folders for all the forms we have yet to get, and so on. Small but mighty! It holds a lot of hopes and dreams (yes - Bethany picked it out, Dan wanted a much more manly container like a steel enforced vault surrounded by vipers :-) )....