So this week was a milestone week for us in the adoption process. This week ranks right up there with completing our adoption application, the excitement around telling our family and friends and the announcement of our website!
Earlier this week, we were able to have dinner with our adoption coordinator, some other families in the Uganda adoption process and one of the Ugandan orphanage directors! This excited us because we got to first meet him on October 29th and we really enjoyed our time getting to talk to him. Our first meeting with him also validated our prayers and feelings around God’s calling us to adopt from Uganda. Our Ugandan friend’s name is Joseph. Check out his Facebook page under Joseph Agape Uganda if you’d like and support his orphanage through http://agapeuganda.org. Joseph is back in Uganda now, but we can’t wait to get over there and see him again at his orphanage.
Tonight, Thursday, December 3, 2015, we were able to turn in almost 80%-90% of our home study paperwork. This really starts the process for our assigned social worker to come out to our house, conduct interviews and hopefully approve us to become parents. We’re very excited about this! Apparently, Leigh and I finished the paperwork unusually fast (around 1.5 weeks), but we were blessed to have a Thanksgiving break that gave us a couple days off to work on and finish a substantial piece of it. In any event, this is a big step in the process that we’re excited to check off.
Last, but definitely not least, the T-Shirts! So many of you have ordered your shirts and we’ve been working hard to get the screen-printing worked out, so I’m pretty sure we could have them as soon as tomorrow, Friday December 4th. We are THRILLED to see how they come out! Anyways, for those of you who have already ordered your shirts, we should be able to begin shipping them out by Monday, December 7th or Tuesday December 8th at the latest! We’ll also be carrying them around for a while, just in case we run into anyone who wants one! Once we get them in, I’ll post some pictures of us wearing them and I’ll probably be wearing them all weekend!
I wanted to thank everyone again for their support. We’re working on setting up a "goal and donations tracker" on our site and may be able to have it up this weekend. Just to update everyone, in a little less than 2 weeks, we’ve already received close to $1,000 in donations and shirt purchases! We’re so grateful and thankful for our friends, family and coworkers. God continues to pour out His never-ending grace through you. Even though we still have a long way to go, we see God already working to achieve our goal to bring home our child!