Image of women selling fruit on the streets of Cartagena, Colombia. Source.
Whew! After months and months and a ridiculously long wait from the great state of Kentucky for my criminal background check, we are finally “home-study-approved.” This means that our adoption agency has decided that we are ready to adopt a child from Colombia. That is a huge step! We are so excited and thankful!
Of course, this means that after a nice little hiatus from paperwork, it’s now time to dive in again and start working on our dossier. What is a dossier, you ask? Yeah, um….well, ask me again in a few months. All I know right now is that it’s another mountain of paperwork – this time mostly government-related, I think. For example, we are filling out Form I-800A right now for the Department of Homeland Security: Application for Determination of Suitability to Adopt a Child. So, even though our adoption agency has decided we are ready, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) still has to weigh in. :)
The good news is that since we are home-study-ready, we can be matched with a child now, when the right child comes along. And that is very very exciting! We are praying that before the end of 2011, we will have our child with us. We are trusting God for big things! :)