Submission date coming up fast!

We were notified that our papers are being translated and will be submitted to the Adoption department in Eastern Europe on thursday the 22nd. This means we should have a travel date once they approve us...again, we are being "approved" by people even further away and having no real picture of what we are like except on paper. This is pretty amazing to me for some reason. But whatever works you know. We have been at this for 14 months now and at this point I am grateful for the few weeks that we have not been asked for any papers by anyone. I know we will travel soon and we are nervous to be honest. We are running full steam into the unknown. Come to think of it, isn't that what we do every day? Raising funds has slowed down but I know that I am to trust God on this. He has come through always for us.
For any of you that have donated directly to us, it is sitting in an account designated to traveling to get Marina. Recently in the health care bill their has been a change to the adoption credit sneaked in around page 906...it states that the funds not supplied by grants but used for adoption expenses will be returned in the form of a tax refund rather than a tax credit. It also has had the maximum amount raised to just over $13,000.00 We feel at this point that we can do better in the long run by focusing more on adding to our adoption account because we will be able to utilize the refund to assist more orphans when it is refunded. Simply put, we obtain donation "gifts" and use them for adoption, then when the tax refund comes, we can pay it forward by donating to Reeces Rainbow with that money next year. Its like we get to use it twice. For larger donations that we have received we are keeping the records necessary to make sure the donation is made in your name next year by money order and you will get the tax credit next year. I have taken lots of space here to make the point that if you are thinking of donating, and you can wait for the credit for next year, you can actually help by getting double usage out of your donation by donating directly to us. You can help us this year and we donate that amount next year out of the refund. That tax credit of over 13,000 is set to expire at the end of 2011 in case anyone is thinking of adopting and needs a reason to do it this year rather than later on....later on it rolls back to way less than half that amount. Makes ya wonder who benefited from throwing that in the health bill for such a short run, doesn't it?

I hope I explained that well enough. If not, sign the post and I will post the actual link to the new information on this adoption refund change. Thanks for your prayers along the way. I know we could not have done any of this on our own...because when two or more are gathered in His name....and man, you all must have really done some gathering of prayers is all I can say. Climbing Mt. Everest has nothing on adoption. But we are finally at the point where the papers are turning into a little girl who will be coming home. I thank Julie Nalle adopting Aaron, for her sweet disposition of carrying our dossier to our facilitator across the water and hand delivering it to her. Micah Six Eight is her story. They live outside of Charlottesville VA and I think it is important to understand that we became friends months ago on the Reece's rainbow chat sight because we both have great friends in Hopkins Belize. When you realize Hopkins has about a thousand people in it, and America has loads of people in it, and only a handful of people actually adopt a special needs orphan internationally, the fact that we were destined to meet up again in the time line we did is without a doubt an orchestration of God's hand. I was trying to figure out who would be leaving for Ukraine next out of our group and at that moment a comment came across the computer on this blog to be moderated. (I had to do that moderate comments thing due to the amount of viral activity and porn sights that were linked to the chinese signatures-weirdos-happening in a lot of RR blog sights). Anyway the comment was from Julie and she was leaving in 4 days. Our dossier went out from Columbia SC since we apostilled it that same day and that evening 3 minutes before the post office closed I watched a very loving postal worker chuck the paperwork beasty into a large mail bin. Godspeed beast. Across the south, into the mountains, into a bag, and onto a plane...across the water, thousands of hours of effort and then translating that effort, to bring Marina home. Now the journey begins...

The girl in the photos...

is NOT Marina! I am sad to say that the updated photos I had posted have been confirmed that it is someone else because that someone else is 120 kilometers from where Marina is residing. So we are back to the babyish photo as our last image of her. The problem is that the new image burns a desire for more information about that child...she is not listed on RR so I do not know anything about her other than where she is and that she does not walk. So other than being totally precious, and wiggling her way into my prayers because I thought she is who we would be bringing home...we know nothing of her. No name no anything. Not even if she is available. Please pray for that little girl to be "discovered" so someone can scoop her right up and bask in the sunshine of that smile!!
Evan and I are taking the day to travel to Columbia and have the papers apostilled while we enjoy the Edventure Museum. Then I can send them to Ukraine tomorrow. Wheee, that makes my tummy flip just considering letting this dossier out of my hands! I want to carry it over there myself just in case....of what I don't know. But just in case. OF course that is a little pricey of a delivery so I will have to immediately scrap that idea....
Posting updates as we move forward...and I bet it gets faster from here on out!! Yeeee Haaa!

July 1, 2010

Should be remembered here as the day a great battle was won...immigration gave us a favorable finding in our application to adopt an orphan. Marina is coming home! I wanted to post last night but work has been so incredibly busy and I got home so late and tired, not to mention just exhausted from finally getting the news. Tully had it in the car all day not realizing that was the paper I have worn a path to the mailbox looking for...but nonetheless here it is. I woke up this morning and all I could say was Thank you. It seems like the first time in so very very long that I did not go to sleep with a beggars prayer on my heart and wake up the same way...I have been begging God for something about this adoption and then something about Caylyn before that for the last several years (4!!) Today all I can say is thank you. Thank you that there is a heaven at all. Thank you there is God. Thank you that God is love and not something bad. Thank you that He made us a way to be there with Him some day and talk with Him now. Thank You probably needs to be bigger...
Today we send the papers to be apostilled after scanning them all in for everyone to see stateside and approve. This is a final check and we can fix anything that needs possibly fixing, though I cannot imagine what that might entail by now...and yet surely something:)
Once everything is apostilled (notarizing the notary at state level), then the dossier ships to our facilitator in Ukraine where it is translated and interpol clearance is run and the application submitted to their State Department of Adoption. They give us a travel date and it is on at that point to travel...
Wow, I can't believe we got that thing after so long...amazing.