Moving right along!

Things are moving right along--actually more quickly than we had aniticpated! Our dossier is almost complete and will be in our agency's hands in less than a week. A few very special things happened to make that possible and I want to give God the glory publicly!

1. We have to redo our medical reports for our Ghana adoption (more specific information) and they also have to be notarized. I was worried that the notarization would cause problems because our doctor's office doesn't have a notary. But they are so great! They will take the document in person to the hospital, have it notarized, and will return it to us the same day! I know this is a little thing, but sometimes it's the little things that give us the most joy, right?!

2. We have been waiting since the day we decided to adopt from Ghana for our Social Worker to (literally!) change ONE word on our homestudy--from "Liberia" to "Ghana." As of yesterday she still wasn't ready to make the change and get 2 new copies notarized for us (said she is swamped). On a whim I called Lois (our agency director) today and ask if it was really a huge deal that we get our homestudy changed. In all other places on our hometsudy it says "Africa" or "African child". There is only one place that mentions "Liberia." Lois okayed us to send our homestudy as is so we no longer have to wait for our Social Worker to become "unswamped"! When I told our SW that she didn't need to do anything for us she was amazed that she had said "Africa" and "African" on the homestudy so many times, rather than "Liberia" and "Liberian." She's a Christian and said, "Anita, that must have been a God thing." I agree!

It's so fun getting to know people who are traveling down this Ghana journey with us. There is one other family that is just a bit ahead of us that will be adopting two or three 3-5 year olds. Our prayer is that we get to travel to Ghana together (with Lois) for the first round of adoptions. I also just "met" (online) another family who plans to adopt from Ghana with LVI. The neat this is that they live in Jopline, MO (a short drive) and are originally from Oklahoma! Hopefully we'll get to meet this family in person at some point in the future. I love being able to pray specifically for the families that are on this journey with us. The whole thing seems so much more real when you have people to go through it with.

Finally, I want to take a moment and brag on our agency directory--Lois Socrant. People, we should thank God that there are representatives like this working in international adoption. I feel with all of my heart that she is one of the "good guys" and it sometimes feels hard to find good guys in this "business." She has been so attentive to my questions and concerns. Today I approached her (via email) with some very difficult questions but she didn't take her time to formulate and "official" written response. She just picked up the phone and talked with me candidly about everything. She doesn't pretend to be perfect. She doesn't pretend that unplanned on things could happen during our process. That's exactly how all agency reps should be in my opinion. Who needs someone who is only going to blow sunshine up your skirt?!