Signed & Sealed

Today was a great day for the progress of our adoption! It was busy, but it was good! I (Kim) got home from Chicago last night. It was soo good to be home- however, when we checked the mail, we discovered that our Police Clearance letters didn't arrive yesterday like they should have. So, today was a little hectic to say the least but in the end- we have completed our dossier and have the state seals are also on all the paperwork. The short version of today's agenda involved a 7:30am physical appointment for our life insurance, signatures at the Bethany office, drove back to Sturgis, stalked a few postal workers, nearly cried when I had that Sturgis Police Department letter in hand, headed to Pierre (175miles away), trust me- I made good time... : ), dropped everything off at the Secretary of State's office, finally got some lunch, went back & picked it all up, treated myself to a little Zestos for the road home (it was Raspberry day), headed back to Sturgis, stopped by the hay field in Milesville, had a nice chat with Dad and made it home all before 7pm. The moral of the story is- we're done paper chasing for our adoption!!!! The final fully compiled document is about 80 pages long. None of it is complex or difficult- but, it does kind of feel like that last day of the semester when you're just finally done.

Its taken an army people too- so, thanks to everyone who has helped along the way. So, what's next? Well this weekend we will make 4 copies of the whole thing. We'll keep a copy and give the original set and 3 copies to Bethany on Monday morning. They'll check everything (so please pray we've got it all in there) then send it to the Ethiopian embassy for authentication & translation. And, that's it- we wait for our referral. We still have a long ways to go but, the steps in between are getting fewer. Praise the Lord : )