Wanted by the FBI

Yes it is true the United States Department of Homeland Security has requested our presence in Indianapolis on Thursday March 3, 2005. We will travel there to give them the finger, well actually all of our fingers. They will send the fingerprints to the FBI for the appropriate background check. It seems that after we complete all of these background checks, fingerprintings and interviews we will have top secret priority clearance which will allow us to walk into the White House unannounced for lunch with George and Laura. Steph has been wanting to meet Laura anyway and I have been meaning to give W a call.

On Thursday I will pick Steph up in Anderson and we will take our passports and our fingers to Indianapolis.

February 14, 2005 Update

Last week we received a copy of our Homestudy. Every step from here forward depended on getting this report completed. Although there was no concern, we have it in writting now that a professional social worker has granted approval for us to adopt one or two children.

This weekend we went to Louisville for the 2nd week in a row. We attended the annual fund raising banquet for Hopeful Hearts Foundation. It was a formal occassion. Prior to the dinner there was a silent auction. Steph really wanted a beautiful tea set that was from Ukraine. It seemed to be the most popular item at the auction. We really enjoyed going back to the table with the tea set and raising the bid every time someone over-bid us. We did not find out until the end of the dinner that we won the bid and we got to take the tea set home. We also bid on a couple of water color paitings of the city of Kiev. Unfortunately, we did not get these. We were bidding for my parents as well. I thought that I was going to get the best of the two paintings. It was a winter scene painted by a Ukrainian artist. I placed a bid of $200 on this painting as the lights went off indicating the auction was over, someone sniped us after the auction ended. Still we got a beautiful tea set, 22 piece, hand painted from Ukraine. Steph and my mother are sharing the tea set. We dispayed two cups and saucers on a shelf at mom's and we have the serving tray, pitcher, creamer, two cups and saucers and sugar bowl sitting on our antique music cabinet.

The dinner was great. They served spinach stuffed chicken breast, steamed carrots and a side of grits. Yep, grits--we were south of the Ohio river you know. There were about 400 people there. The program included a new video from the orphanages in Ukraine. Hopeful Hearts is taking on another 3 orphanages in Ukraine, one of them being for older children. A comment from the program that sticks out in my mind is that one Orphanage Doctor told the group from Hopeful Hearts that the medicine that was provided by Hopeful Hearts saved many children who would not have made it through the winter. They do not have hot water and have limited heat, children suffer greatly during the cold winter months. I was please to learn that over 89 cents of every dollar that is donated to Hopeful Hearts goes directly to help the children.

We were seated with a couple who has adopted two children from Ukraine, in addition to the one from Russia and one from Guatemala. We asked a lot of questions about what to expect when we travel.

Steph and I stayed at the Seelbach Hotel, downtown Louisville, where the function was held. The rooms were small but quaint, it is a very old hotel and holds a great deal of historical significance to the city.

Now we wait on an appointment from the INS to get fingerprinted for an FBI background check. After that we wait on INS approval. Then we send our documents to Ukraine for translation and submission to the Adoption Center.

More later.....

Progress on the Paperwork Front

February 5, 2005 we attended a meeting in Lousiville to have the next step in this process revealed to us by Kathy and Nancy. We were surprised that we did not recognize anyone in this group. There were 5 other couples there, none of whom we had met at previous meetings. We discovered that most of these couples started the process last September, we didn't start until December. This was exciting for us, knowing that the timeline that God has set for us to this point has been accelerated above the normal pace. We feel blessed that in every step of the process so far, it seems that we have been able to get it complete in much less time than we expected. For example, our home study visit was done in December when we expected that it would take a couple months from the time we requested the visit to when it occurred; we applied for our passports less than three weeks ago and they have already arrived; we received a reply from the Department of Homeland Security USCIS regarding our Petition for Approval to adopt internationally before the USPS Return Receipt was delivered to us. We pray that this trend continues.

This meeting was to discuss the documents that will be necessary to include in our dossier that will be sent to Ukraine. There are 15 documents required. Some of these documents are very similar to those that were required for the Home Study, but they have to be in a different format specific to how the government in Ukraine wants them. They are very specific in the format and how it is presented. We took a lot of notes and will soon start preparing these documents.

We can only do the intitial preparation though. We must wait to have the docments signed, dated and noterized because the dates on these forms cannot be greater than oe month old when we submit them, and we cannot submit them until we receive approval from the USCIS.

This approval may take a few more weeks. After they receive our completed Home Study report from our Social Worker, they will schedule a time for us to get fingerprinted for FBI clearance. It may take 3 weeks to get the appointment to get fingerprinted, then the process may take 1 month to obtain FBI clearance. After this is complete and received we can proceed with compiling all of our documents for Kathy to review. When she agrees that our dossier is in order we then must go to the Indiana Secretary of State to get the documents apostiled. This is a document that authenticates all of the noterized documents in the dossier.

Timing and accuracy is important in this process. Please pray that God will continue to bless us with an accelertated timeline and that we can remain focussed on being thourough and accurate with all of our documents and government requests.

If you are interested here is a list of the documents for our dossier:

Petition for Adoption Letter
Letter of Obligation
Medical Statements
Doctor's License
State Police Clearance Documents
Employment Letters
Marriage License
Certification of INS
Home Study
Social Workers License
Passport copies
Power of Attorney
Other notarized blank documents
Petition for adoption