A possible Referral

OK the Sereika household is all abuzz with the possibility that we may have found our son. I opened up my email this am. and there was a plea for a 2.5-3 year old boy that our Ethiopian representative just did not want to give up on finding a home for. Well i called the agency and requested his file (I have not gotten it yet , and forgot to ask if its coming by email or snail mail) DUH! He is a healthy little boy and I am told he is super sweet and loveable Yeah. And is very attached to his caregiver. Well thats all we know so far, we don't even have any photos yet, but we are close to being paper ready so the agency said we can't call it officially a referral just a possibility. We'll see. I'm sure God has plans and whatever they may be I will submit to them. For I know with him all things are possible.

Is my fingerprint a match to a criminal

So funny story, as we waited a looooong time for them to call us up to fingerprint, I walked in to a very stern woman whom I don't think would ever be able to crack a smile for fear her face would crack apart. She started placing my finger on the computer scanner and prints appeared on the screen. OK well the part that was weird it said at the bottom Match Found. And at the same time shes going Hmmmmm Hmmmmm. Well since I'm sure I haven't knocked over any 7-11's lately. I was wondering what this all meant, then she walks away for a minute, now I'm thinking shes calling in the FBI. (their office is attached). So when she comes back i ask so what does "Match Found " mean. She says Oh you fingerprinted before for your last adoption you are in the database. Whew. My imagination just runs wild sometimes. I guess it makes me a creative person. Never a dull moment. HAHA.

The Fingerprint

Well in a little less than an hour we are heading to the Federal Building to get our fingerprints done for the immigration dept. All we are waiting for for the dossier is this homestudy, as the 171 is not needed to submit your dossier for our agency, you just need it by the time you travel. Again to finish the immigration we need the homestudy. AWWWW I don't want to bug the social worker but its just an update. hopefully tomorrow or the next day.

Surprise God is Listening

So the dossier is finished except the homestudy and we will need $1000.00 to submit, authenticate, translate and send it to Ethiopia. Well we really were not sure where this $1000 was coming from since we are desperatly trying and praying to this entire adoption without tapping our savings or going into any debt. Well I just had paid the bulk 4,500 payment so where this 1000 was coming from was beyond me . Then last month the hospital I work for every year have this $100 raffle that the grand prize is for $100,000.00 . Well I kindof forgot about the raffle ticket and the drawing was on Sat. night. I was woken up about 11 pm from a call from a co worker who wanted to tell me I won $1000. How perfect is that. God is faithful. We really see this a sign that we are still faithful and on the path Our Lord wants us on so we feel truly blessed as well. By the way my coworker won the 7 day all inclusive trip for 2 to Hawaii. We are really happy for them as well.

The Dossier is almost done

OK so it's just about complete. I spoke to the agency yesterday and intended to fed ex what we have done so they can check it over , but we were hit with a blizzard, so tomorrow Frank and I will go out and do it. We both still need 2 more passport photos to send with it so I figured Kinkos can do it all. Photos and Fed Ex. Then we just have to get the final copy of our homestudy update. I have a few more things to get for the social worker but no big deal. I'll have that wrapped up by Fri afternoon. Then the Dossier goes to Washington DC to be authenticated by the Ethiopian embassy, then off to Ethiopia to be translated and await a match. This whole process is seeming to take about 1 month. My agency states that they should be able to find a child to match us with in a month. So thats mid April folks. YAhoo. So exciting. I'm planning on making a photoalbum for him to send over during the wait to travel. I want him to be able to see pics of his new family. On the 171_H . I can't believe I just sent the application 2 weeks ago and we already have a fingerprint date for next week. Last time we did this it took almost 2 months to get a fingerprint date. Well here's hoping this will be a sign that it will come fast. We will submit the completed homestudy when we get it as well then we'll see how fast the Dept. of Homeland Security can put it all together,

Homestudy complete

We finished our homestudy last night and it went AWESOME. We just loved our new social worker as well. We loved the previous one as well but since we are not using Childrens Hope for this adoption we are not permitted to use the same social worker. It all worked out very well anyway. The Dossier is complete now accept a final copy of the Homestudy which we can expect in 2-3 weeks. The good news is that the social worker made it a point to say that she leaves on a 10 day cruise in 3 weeks and wants to have all loose ends tied up before going. Yipee. Works for me. So we are hoping to have a referral in March-April. We have applied for the 171 too. This adoption is going so smoothly so far it's kindof scary. I do worry that the bottom will fall out but I don't want to be pessimistic either. I can not wait to meet my son. Just like before we got Lilly I dream of our Gotcha Moment. That moment will stay with me my entire life as well.

The fab 5 kids.

Well heres some photos of all of our kids. We have Ben and Lindsay 24 year old twins, they are Frank's from a previous marriage. We have Chloe and Wesleigh 10 and 8 from my previous marriage. Then there is Lillian Bao adopted from Vietnam on 7-2-07.