We talked to our placing agency social worker this week about all that is needed for the dossier. It is very similar to the home study, only a little less laborious. The paperwork is a bit more streamlined and less tedious. The best part is... fewer essay questions! Just a few letters and things. The dossier seems to be more "doing". That doesn't make much sense. It's more going to appointments and updating things (like fingerprints and renewing passports and getting another physical and blood tests and stuff like that). All in all, totally doable and I'm excited to get started! However, we need to move first. In our conversation, we talked about our life changes coming up. The move to the bigger house looming nearer, and Zack's opportunity for a new job (it came to find him!). She suggested we move first, then do the dossier paperwork. That way everything reflects the new address. Another however, we will have to move before our USCIS application is processed. That's the approval from the US government to adopt someone of orphan status abroad. It's currently being processed, our biometrics appointment is this week up in Cleveland. So we have to do it by the end of September at the latest. We are going to be laserbeam focused on moving for a little while. Ok, enough boring update stuff. Here's a picture.
Ok, sorry, that picture is totally boring, too. It wasn't boring to do, though. Those are our grant applications. It shows how I'm getting used to doing these papers, because it really didn't seem that bad to do 7 of them. Each one is a similar size to each of the 2 applications I sweated about a year ago. I've done so much of this that I have all the information in a folder I call "Marriage Papers and Life History" (literally, that's what's written on the folder). I just get that out and it has all the jobs we've ever had and addresses of them, every old address, our financial items in great detail, family info, you name it. I wish everyone had to compile something like that because it's so very handy. What's the value of your vehicles based on condition and mileage? What's your net worth? How much gets taken out of your paychecks for taxes monthly? Annually? What's your gross income? Hmm? Just kidding. But seriously.
So out of all of those grant applications, 5 are for adoption expenses, 1 is for medical referral expenses, and 1 is for after you get a referral. We already got turned down for the medical referral expenses, but we were not expecting to get them all. So we're only a tiny bit bummed. :) Here's hoping for the rest of them. It's just another way we are trying to be good stewards of our resources and utilizing all the opportunities and gifts that God leads us to - or drops in our laps! Praise be to God, the path has been laid out for us and we are following it. Though we get scared sometimes, we thank God that we have this gift of a purpose and calling! I know paperwork doesn't sound like so fun a gift, but when put in this perspective, it is somewhat exciting.
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