January 20, 2016 is when our home study was finally approved. Praise the Lord! He is GOOD and HIS LOVE ENDURES FOREVER!
Now what is next?
Well along with running a family, a business, fundraisers, church involvement etc. etc. it is now time to start working on our Dossier. This is the set of documents that will represent us in China.
The biggie for this set of documents is to fill out the I 800A, which is what we file with the USCIS, (US Citizen and Immigration Service). This will cost $975 which is for the application fee and three sets of finger printing. Anyone 18 or older residing in the home must be finger printed. Since our 19 year still lives at home and attends KU, he has to be finger printed with Paul and me.
These finger prints are then put through and cross checked with the FBI database. This helps the officials make sure adoptive parents have a clean criminal record.
There is always a big question mark as to how long this part of the process could take.
They could send us a notice with an appointment time in a week or two or six plus weeks. Obviously the longer they take to process the application, the longer we have to wait.
Once we get this clearance and the documentation to prove it, this info will go along with our dossier to the Sec of State office in Topeka for authentication.
After that is done, then the dossier will go to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago.
The Chinese Consulate in Chicago conveniently does not accept mailed in applications, so we will have to hire a courier service to physically walk it into their office one day and then return to pick it up a few days later. I guess if we did not want to hire a courier, we could just take a leisurely drive up to Chicago and back for a few days.
OH, and we can start applying for adoption grants now that our home study is done. YES! and OH NO! when will I have time!
So much more to the process, but that is all for now.
Thank you again for following our journey and mostly, thank you for your prayers!
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