One Step Closer

final home study visit made... check!
portfolio complete and in the mail... check!

We should have our home study in hand within a couple of weeks, which means we will be officially ready to wait!!  Having never reached this point with our first adoption, we are learning what anticipation feels like!

In the meantime, fundraising ideas are beginning to take shape in order to bring this next little Sherwood home.  Details coming soon...

Homestudy Scheduled

Our social worker who will be conducting our homestudy called yesterday to schedule our visits.  We will be meeting her in Asheville next Friday, followed by a home visit the following Friday.

At this point, we hope to have a completed Preplacement Assessment in six to eight weeks which will be one HUGE step closer to being ready to wait on a very exciting phone call!

It's In The Mail!!!

March 8, 2011

I know many of you have been wondering what has been going on since our last post, so here it goes...

At the beginning of January we finally nailed down an agency to complete our Home Study.  The Children’s Home Society of North Carolina mailed the paperwork to us and since then we have been gathering:

·         Photos of our Home & Family

·         Service Fee Agreement Form

·         Application

·         Reference Form

·         Statements Regarding Prior Pre-placement Assessment & Civil Record

·         Client Rights

·         Consent for Release of Information

·         NC Criminal Record Checks

·         SC Criminal Record Checks

·         Certified Marriage Verification

·         Health History Forms

·         Current Medical Forms

·         Child Medical Forms

·         Child Abuse & Neglect Clearance

·         1040 Tax Return

·         Original Pre-Placement Assessment

Whew… I’m glad that’s over!  So, several hundred dollars and a few trees later, we are mailing this rather large package of information to our agency today.  Now we wait for a phone call to schedule our first home visit!  This is finally starting to feel real!

Roadblock #1

It's been a couple of weeks now, but we have sent in our application, chosen a home study agency, and have filled out the second round of paperwork and have it ready to mail.  Things have been going smoothly, which should have been a sign that more was to come...

I just opened an e-mail to learn that the agency we had chosen to complete an update on our home study will unfortunately not be able to help us at this time.  Therefore, we are back to square one on the next step in this process.  After MANY phone calls to agencies across the state of NC, this was the only one that was willing to use our previous home study and treat this one as an update, cutting the cost by more than half!  We were well on our way to having enough money to schedule that, so now we're just a little unsure of where to go from here.

We know that this too is in God's plan.  We are trusting Him to show us the way!

Here we go...

So after researching the refundable tax credit we found out that it's actually NOT too good to be true!  The government is going to help us adopt!  Amazing!!!

We have contacted a couple of other agencies and have made the decision to proceed with Christian Family Services in Rock Hill, SC.  This is the same agency that we used for our first adoption and are thrilled to be working with them again!

Right now we are in the process of filling out the application and getting our first bit of information ready to mail.  I have spent the majority of the day on the phone with agencies across the state of North Carolina in search of someone to complete our home study.  We have a couple of prospects and hope to get that ball rolling very soon.

As I've said before, we will need your prayers as we embark on this adventure.  Please pray that God will provide for all of the financial needs that will arise.  Pray for wisdom and guidance for every decision that must be made.  And pray for our birth mom, whoever she is, that God will protect her and give her strength and peace of mind in the months to come.

Adoption REFUND?!

Am I the last to find out that the old adoption tax credit is now more than a $13,000 REFUNDABLE tax credit???  I just found this out in an e-mail from the agency I spoke with in Virginia.  This was news to me!  So I checked it out with my accountant sister-in-law and if we are reading all of the IRS wording right, it looks like if you have adopted in 2010 or plan to adopt before December of 2011 then the former tax credit (which few, if any, people every got to use anyway) is now a refund!!!

If anyone has any further information about this, we would be interested to hear.  I plan to call our accountant next week so she can look a little deeper into this.  But if all this is true, then we need to get the word out!  If the government is willing to help this much with the cost of adoption, then it could make a big difference for orphans around the world!

Still searching...

After meeting a man by the name of Ken Coleman at Catalyst last week, Allen and I came home very encouraged about a new potential adoption path.  Ken and his wife adopted one of their boys through Family Life Services in Lynchburg, VA.  At the time they were accepting 20 families a year into a financial program that would cover the cost of adoptions exceeding $7,500!  That is a BIG deal!!!  $7,500 seems a lot more doable than $20,000!

However, after making the phone call today, we learned that they no longer have the funds available to continue this program.  Being a little bummed about another dead end, I am reminded that God has a plan for our family.  Because He has placed adoption on our hearts we will continue to seek and to pray until we bring our child home.