The Thompson’s Story

One of the local Oregon stations covered Tom and Denise’s story. You can watch it online here. They did a great job and hopefully it will get them some help.

Stuck in Ethiopia

Remember Denise that I mentioned in my last post. She is STILL in Ethiopia - it’s been 11 days and the Yakima, WA office of US Customs and Immigration is saying they won’t look at her file for 2 weeks - a month. Completely ridiculous! Denise and her dad remain in Ethiopia along with the twin 3 year olds she and her husband adopted. Tom has had to return home to care for their other 3 children (and work probably).

So the Hope Adoption Agency family is getting behind her. I spent some time online this morning finding addresses and emails for everyone I could think of - Immigration, Congressman, Senators and last but not least - the news media! (They love a story like this and perhaps the pressure will get something done.) So we’re sending letters and I’ve had one news station contact me back so we could put them in contact with Tom.

Please continue to pray that this situation will get resolved quickly. I know Denise has to be anxious to get home and I hear that the boys are sick as well.

I-171H Received!

The last coveted piece of paper is in my hands. The I-171H came from Immigrations today. This is the piece of paper that officially approves us to bring an orphan (or in this case orphans) into the U.S. It goes with us when we travel so we don’t need it for awhile but it feels good to have it.

There is a Hope family in Ethiopia right now that is STILL waiting on their I-171H from the Oregon USCIS office. As their travel date got closer and closer they tried everything to expedite the process but the local office was in no hurry. They even called state officials but were told the best thing for them to do was to go ahead and travel and THEN if one of them had to come home without the rest of the family THEN they could expedite the paperwork. So they are in country, and at least one of them will have to stay there with the kids until they get the I-171H. The U.S. Embassy there is trying to help them. Last I heard it was going to be an extra 5 days at least. So if you think of it, say a prayer for Denise and their family and that I-171H!

Estimated Timeline

So there were some good posts flying around today on the Hope Adoption board that gives a pretty clear view of the ESTIMATED timelines for our process from here on out. So I thought I would recap them. As of yesterday afternoon our paperwork is on it’s way from Washington State to Washington, DC where The Assistant Stork will do her thing.

Timeline

Arrive Assistant Stork - Dossier Arrival in ET = 10 days

Arrival in ET - translation and file for court date = 2 weeks

Assign court date - actual court date = 4 weeks (At this point they are legally ours.)

Court date - travel/embassy appt. = 4 weeks

If (and I realize that’s a big IF) all goes according to schedule that means we would be traveling somewhere around July 28th (updated on 5/1 now that dossier is at Assistant Stork). That’s like 12 weeks away. YEAH!!!! It suddenly seems very close.

Please continue to pray that the paperwork process will go smoothly. We have a friend whose dossier took a little side trip through Paris on it’s way to Ethiopia We are praying for no delays. Okay, well a one week delay would be okay because that would mean that MeeMaw and Pa would be back from England (where Mark’s sister will be having her first baby).

Either way I am extremely excited!

Putting my money where my mad is

In the time it takes me to write this blog post, 6 children will die of a disease that is completely preventable and treatable. Does that make you MAD or what? It’s a disease that has been eradicated in the U.S. but that claims the lives of 3,000 children each day. That, to me, is UNACCEPTABLE.

Compassion International has launched a campaign called Bite Back to help end this terrible disease in Africa. The BITE BACK campaign wants to provide 300,000 nets to children across Africa through Compassion International. In addition to the nets, Compassion works with communities to provide insecticide spraying, education and other malaria prevention strategies.

For $10 a bed net will help protect a child from malaria for 3 years. Considering that many African families have multiple people sleeping in a bed your $10 donation may actually be helping save more lives than that.

So here’s your chance to do something that doesn’t cost a lot but has a big impact. To donate, click here then come back and leave a comment that says “I did it”. I’m posting this over on my family blog too. My goal is to get 25 nets donated. (If you donate for more than one let me know.)

I “put my money where my mad is” and donated 5 nets (not counting toward my goal).

The Starfish Story

Thanks to Nancy for pointing me to this one. There are times when you lookat the staggering facts and it is easy to be overwhelmed. How many times have I thought “It is not enough! What we’re doing is not nearly enough.” It’s not, and it is…

adapted from The Star Thrower
by Loren Eiseley (1907 - 1977)

Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.

One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.

He came closer still and called out “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young man paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean.”

“I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?” asked the somewhat startled wise man.

To this, the young man replied, “The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.”

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, “But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can’t possibly make a difference!”

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, “It made a difference for that one.”

Sweet Dreams

Occasionally I will dream about our children. Last night I had the sweetest dream about having W-boy and B-girl here. It wasn’t our meeting but seemed more like the first “real” day we had them home. We went to some church function where there were tons of people and huge tables of food (guess I went to bed hungry). B-girl stayed at my side and I had my arm around her. (I was actually hugging my pillow.)

She was really small - which she’s really not…almost as big as her brother. She was quiet. W-boy was very polite to everyone he met. For some reason the only person I remember introducing them to was Lisa from the office. I remember being worried that everyone would fawn over them too much and freak them out. But Lisa was perfect and W-boy politely shook her hand.

We got to the huge table of food and I was worried there would be nothing they liked. W-boy filled up his plate on his own and I remember scooping up some beans for B-girl.

The one other thing I remember is that they spoke English amazingly well which was a huge sense of relief. (Can you tell I was thinking about the language issue just yesterday.)

I hated to wake up but since it was a call from my hubby in Africa that woke me up, it was worth it.

It’s arrived at stop #1

My dossier has safely arrived at stop #1 - Spokane, WA. I only checked the FedEx site about 60 times. Um, can someone explain to me why my package went from AZ to Oakland, CA then to Tennessee before hitting Washington. Seriously.

Frugal Adoption

My honey would be proud. Frugal won over impatience.

Today I took our dossier to FedEx. First I chose overnight-afternoon over overnight-by noon thinking that would save me some bucks. Then they guy told me it would be $49. (It was a heavy box - lots of paper.) Or I could send it 2 day and have it there by Friday for $21. I hemmed and hawed for a minute or two, sighed and said “2 day please”.

Arriving on Friday afternoon probably means that nothing will happen to it that day but maybe it will be fresh on their minds on Monday morning

In my hot little hands

It is OFFICIALLY done! My completed, authenticated dossier is in my hot little hands. Took it to the Secretary of State this morning, praying that all was in order. Took about 25 minutes to get 17 documents authenticated - and $81 - but it is DONE!

As impatient as I am, I refused to go to the post office on tax day. So tomorrow it will get overnighted. This is its route:

• AWOP office in Spokane for Review
• Assistant Stork in D.C. who hand walks it to the State Dept. so they can authenticate the AZ seals. Then they take it to the Ethiopian Embassy in D.C., leave it for a day and go pick it up.
• On to Ethiopia where it will get translated and approved.

It will probably be a couple of weeks before it lands in Ethiopia. From there I’m not really sure how long it takes for it to get translated, etc. Once it is, Hope will apply for a court date for us which is usually for about 4 weeks later. The court date is when the kids officially become ours (as long as we pass court on the first try). Then we will travel 6 weeks later to pick them up. I’m hoping we’ll be traveling around the end of July.