Selling Assets

I have been crunching numbers over here for days and I've come to realize we'll never know exactly what this adoption will cost us until it's complete however I'm not one to leave my bases uncovered so we're selling our assets to make this happen. It was a little disheartening but we're still singing. We're praying that some financial doors open along the way but we're not going to sit here in the hoping and wishing arena. We've sold our Harleys which will help with the foreign country fees of 21,500 + our travel, air fare for 2 trips, motels, visas, medicals, etc.

We are selling the Harley Davidson clothing on our adoption blog. Check it out here.

Someone today asked me how it feels to sacrifice all this for a child we don't know. My answer was probably the same way Jesus felt when he sacrificed his life for you and me!

ADOPTION UPDATE:::
We are officially in the "waiting" stage. Yipppee Yes I understand kinda crazy that I'd be so excited to be waiting but in the adoption world that means you've come along ways. I've had a # of people ask me about the process and I guess us AP's always think people following us should know what's going on but that's not the case esp. if you've never been through it so I'll try to fill you in with a brief explanation.

You spend months gathering papers, visiting doctors, going thru the Home Study, having people check every aspect of your life from the day you were born until now. Once all the necessary things are collected which all have to be certified, notarized and apostilled you put them together which makes up the dossier. The dossier is then translated after approval and submitted to the region. After approval in the region the wait for a child begins. This is the stage we are at. We've requested female under 18 months so when a child that fits that comes available we'll be given medicals and a picture so we can decide if she's a match for our family. We have hired 2 International Adoption Dr's, one from MN and one from WA to review the referral (child). Once we got the Ok from these Dr's on her health we will accept and again wait for Russia to give us a travel date for our 1st trip. During this trip we will met the child and the orphanage. We can also take an incourty IA Dr to the orphanage with us, we are still debating this option. We then return home to wait for a court date. Once we get the court date which could be anywhere from a week to months after trip 1 we fly back to Russia for court and to take custody of our child. Most regions have a 10 day wait period between court and custody which means the 2nd trip could be up to 3 weeks. Let's all pray the 10 days gets waved.

I hope this helps some of you and anytime you have a question I'd love to chat and I'm open to discuss any of it or help if any of you are feeling the tug !!

We appreciate all the prayers and ask that you keep them coming. We've come along way but have a long ways to go. God has been very good to us, it's simply amazing to me what He can do when we just listen.

I added a counter at the top of our blog so you can see just how long we'll wait.

I can't close this post without thanking my Savior. He has literally saved and changed my life and I know that without Him I wouldn't be where I am today. He loved me and never left me and for that I am more thankful than one could ever imagine. Thanks Lord and I love You.