Home Study Report Review

This might seem little to many of you but I just got this email from our family coordinator. After she reviews the home study it can be sent off to USCIS, approved and then complete!! So exciting.


Hello Katie,

I received your home study today and will review it within 7 business days.

I hope you have a blessed start to your week!

Caitlin Edwards
Africa Family Coordinator

Letter from CEO of Our Agency

I just got this email and thought I'd pass it on.

Dear Scott & Katie,

We have had such a positive response to our posting and email about Haiti adoptions. We’ve heard from many families that are interested in more information once it becomes available. If you’d like to add your name and e-mail address to this list, please email info@awaa.org with “Haiti Adoption Interest” in the subject line.

I spoke with someone today whose family is now strongly considering adopting after he and his wife learned of the plight of orphans in Haiti. After they learned a few days ago that adoption from Haiti isn’t readily available for new adoption cases, he and his wife are now considering adopting a child from another country. We believe that God is using the tragic events in Haiti to help a child who is in need of a family – even though that child isn’t in Haiti.

I know that God works in mysterious and unpredictable ways – and I wonder if this tragedy in Haiti isn’t God’s way of showing us that there are orphans all over the world in need of families. Instead of an earthquake, tens of thousands of children have been left as orphans in Ethiopia because of HIV/AIDS, poverty and famine; your family can get more information about Ethiopia adoption by going to our website or emailing ethiopia@awaa.org. In Rwanda, the aftermath of the genocide, HIV/AIDS and extreme poverty have left many children as orphans; this is one of our newest programs and we’ve been encouraged to see the results; families can email a Rwanda Family Coordinator at rwanda@awaa.org. Our China Waiting Children Program has children available age six months to fourteen years including young children with minor and medically correctible special needs; please email waitingchildren@awaa.org for more information about this.

I encourage you to pray and seek the Lord’s will for your family. And please continue praying for those in need in Haiti – a crisis of this magnitude will require years and years of help – and I pray that by the mercy and grace of God this will not be a time when orphans are left by the wayside, but that permanent families will be sought for them.

Blessings,

Brian Luwis
CEO


6723 Whittier Avenue
McLean, VA 22101
Toll Free: 888-ONE-CHILD
Fax: (703) 356-8973
www.spirit-of-adoption.org

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV)

Click here to learn more about AWAA’s An Orphan’s Ticket Home campaign. Subscribe to our Orphan’s Ticket Home Blog here.

Great News!!

Our second try at the I-600 application was accepted! We got the approval letter in the mail today. Seeing Department of Homeland Security as the return address made me so happy. We actually got 5 letters today. The other ones were our appointment times for our USCIS biometric FBI fingerprinting. FEBRUARY 1st at 8:00am we will be going to the USCIS office here in Chicago! (Don't worry, I'll take pictures;))



I found this little flow chart and it helps to understand the process.




We are almost ready to ship our dossier. (in the next couple weeks) We are just waiting for our home study report to be done and approved by the state of IL. Please try that our social worker, Beverly gets it done quickly. We have a long way to go but we can't help but get excited about each step.

Africa 2010!!

Dreaming, hoping and praying that 2010 might be the year for our child to come home.

Ephesians 3:20
Now all glory to God, who is able,

through his mighty power at work within us,

to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.