Author: LS

News

Mile Markers

LS

We are closing in rapidly on travel! The preparations around the house have been keeping us incredibly busy as we try to get everything organized and set. We continue to be so thankful for your prayers and would love to ask you to continue praying for us and our kids! To help with that, we wanted to share some upcoming mile markers, a few important dates.

Today, August 26th – we have our final video call with our kids. We will get to introduce them to Elijah and vice versa. In addition, we will be able to show them around the house and we hope that by this call they will know exactly when we will be coming to meet them.
Tomorrow, August 27th – we take an evening flight going from Munich to Zurich to São Paulo and finally ending in Curitiba. We will arrive mid morning on Thursday, August 28th.
Monday, September 1st – we will meet our kids face to face and bring them to the apartment we are renting.
September 9th – we will transition to a house for the remainder of our time in Curitiba. Moving mid stay was not our first choice, but last minute bookings meant not being able to get a single place for the whole time that was the right size and location.
September 12th – Elijah turns 10!

October 3rd-4th – final court hearing to make the adoption official, at this stage we will be legally parents to our four additional kids.

October 8th – we will head to Rio de Janeiro to double check things with the German consulate and prepare to travel home.

October 14th-16th – somewhere in this time frame we will board our return flight, the exact date awaits the official adoption decree and the issuing of passports.

Thank you so much for praying with us and for us! We are so thankful for your huge part in how God is building our family!

Speaking of building, we are thankful to report that, at long last, the bed is finally and fully built!

News

First Contact

LS

This evening we had our first scheduled video conference call. We were expecting this to just be with the social worker in Brazil to answer questions related to routines, schedules, etc. However, in an unexpected twist, because our travel date is so close, the social worker decided to have our children present from the very first call. Talking with our children was definitely a surprise! It was wonderful to see their personalities somewhat and to hear their questions. They even asked the social workers how to say we love you in English.

Pray for all of us as we make this transition! There are a lot of questions they have and many curious hopes and expectations (like do we all get a computer, individual room, etc.). We are all excited, nervous, and unsure all at once! But thankfully the Lord is the One who brought us all together and we trust He will guide us through the attachment and bonding period!

News

Breaking the News

LS

Many of you have asked us about whether our kids know about us and the adoption. We are thankful to share with you that we were informed that today they heard the news for the first time. As a part of hearing the news they also received photo books in order to get to know us somewhat. They have also been told where we live and are preparing for life in Germany. The social worker kindly let us know that they said it doesn’t matter where they live, the important thing is that they now have parents.

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Officially Set!

LS

We are rejoicing at the Lord’s kindness and rapid answering of our prayers! Despite a good bit of back and forth over the weekend trying to get everything up to the quality control standards for the visa, we were blessed to not be held up as long as it might have been (officially 10 business days after quality control is finished). We are thankful to now have visas on hand and so we are officially ready to go!

We are now working as rapidly as possible to arrange accommodations. We have found something from September 8th to October 8th, but we now need to find something from August 28th to September 8th. Unfortunately this means we will have to also make a move about a week after getting our kids, but we are thankful for what the Lord is providing already. Please pray for the final piece to fall into place and also for wisdom as we try to book something for Rio de Janeiro October 8th-13th/14th.

News

Crunch Time

LS

An adoption without stress, excitement, and many things happening in an unideal fashion simply wouldn’t be the full experience! We should know not to expect anything less at this stage!

After the news on Wednesday about the appointment date of September 1st, we began moving as quickly as possible to get things into place given the extremely tight turn around. We immediately ran into an issue with securing a tourist visa for Brazil. In the first place, we discovered that the online application required a notarized document for Elijah’s application, giving him authorization from both parents to have a visa. This proved problematic since notaries in Germany are only available on appointment basis and Friday was a public holiday (which meant Monday would be the first chance to ask for one). Thankfully the Lord provided a solution to this via Lifeline and we were able to submit the application near midnight on Thursday in Germany (which thankfully fell within the working hours in both the USA and Brazil).

We are still not out of the clear. Though the applications and documents have all been submitted, the listed approval time is 10 business days, which would be the day after we are scheduled to fly out. Furthermore, we have already had a request for further documentation for Elijah’s birth certificate. One of the added challenges of adoption is that paperwork is often not in standard formats. We have often run into issues with Elijah’s birth certificate as it only lists his birth name, not his adopted name. This often means producing other documents such as the adoption certificate which lists both the birth name and the adoption name and then talking the official into using the two together as the birth certificate. Because this is an online system, there is no ability to talk or even write an explanation. But, all possible additional documents have now been uploaded. Please pray for grace that whoever is looking at these will accept them and give us a speedy response. We really need everything to fall into place and very rapidly.

Plane tickets have been booked for August 27th and we are working to secure accommodations. It is a bit nerve wracking to do this without visas already on hand and we are praying and trusting that the Lord will bring everything in place in sufficient time. Just when we thought we had learned plenty of lessons about patience, trust, and the Lord’s faithful provisions, we are given more opportunities to relearn these things!

We appreciate your prayers and will continue to keep you updated! The clock is ticking, which is both exciting and throwing everything into a frantic whirlwind of activity!

News

Preparing for Take Off!

LS

After much waiting, hoping, and praying, we finally got the official first appointment day scheduled today! We will meet our children on September 1st, which is right around the corner! We are certainly very excited, but now needing to kick everything into hyper-speed in order to get travel arrangements made in roughly 2 weeks so that we can arrive several days in advance to get settled and past jetlag.

We rejoice in getting this news (that we hoped would arrive last week) even with the tight turn around! We are also thankful that Michelle’s passport arrived and so everything is now set on the official front. Please pray for us as we are preparing and trying to get everything settled – pray that we will find the right location to stay and reasonable prices both for that and for airfare!

News

Sprinting Forward

LS

As travel looms closer, the pace and preparation has definitely picked up. We have been engaged in weekly meetings with our caseworker to prepare for various potential scenarios and to help us think through how to respond in each case. This is a sign that we are about to launch, as this pre-travel training usually occurs quite close to actual travel.

We are hoping to hear exact dates within the next week or two. One of the psychologists in Brazil whose responsibility it is to prepare the children for the news is returning from maternity leave in August. Once she gets back, she will be able to let us know exactly how much time she needs. This also means the children will be informed about us and the adoption within the next several weeks. Please be praying for them as this is big news that will certainly come with a whole range of various emotions.

This past week the forms to apply for immigration visas (needed once a citizenship hearing date is set) were filled out online, giving us much sympathy for non-US citizens! Even with a very helpful cheat sheet put together by Lifeline, filling out each one was quite a chore and when multiplied by 4 took about 1.5 hours.

We are also moving rapidly to get the house ready – rooms have been decluttered and things sorted to give away or donate. The bed is getting closer to being done (the base skeleton is complete, drawer, shelves, doors, and final attachments are still in progress) and we are finding solutions for other things (clothes, storage space, etc.) while trying to minimize any new purchases especially since we will not be remaining in Munich long term.

Thank you for your continued prayers! We certainly need them and will look forward to updating you once we have confirmed travel dates!

News

Leaping the Hurdle

LS

We know it has been a while since our last adoption update. That is in part because we have been in a period of waiting and in part because our lives have been very busy with other things.

However, we are very excited to announce that last week our I-800 application was approved! This was one of the last major hurdles and periods of uncertainty for us. Lately the wait time has bee between 2-4 months for this approval and so we were quite surprised to receive this notification last week after under 2 months! We praise the Lord for this and thank you for praying for a speedy response – God graciously granted this request!

So what is next? We are still working with our agency to get the latest update on travel estimates, but likely we are looking to travel about 4-6 weeks from now. The approval announcement is currently being mailed to us, our adoption agency, and the NSV (another government branch). Once this letter is received, the NSV will notify the American embassy in Brazil that we are approved to adopt Pietro, Vinicius, Angel, and Agatha. They will then issue what is know as an Article 5 letter which is the formal request from the USA government to the Brazilian government to allow the adoption to be finalized. Once the Article 5 letter is received, Brazil will be able to issue us travel approval with dates of invitation. At that stage things will move quickly toward booking flights and setting up all the travel. Most realistically we are looking at the end of August (on the faster side) or almost assuredly early September.

We are so thankful for your ongoing support and prayers! Please continue to pray for our kids, for us, and for the upcoming transition! Contrary to how many of us might tend to think of the process, travel, although a monumental stage, is not the conclusion of the process. In many ways it is actually the beginning. All the work and effort to get to this step, though not insignificant, really pales in comparison to what follows. All adoption stories include in them tremendous loss (family, culture, familiarity, friends, etc). While much joy does await, for adopted children everything they have ever known is about to disappear and beyond trying to adjust to a new family, patterns, norms, etc., this loss is an additional significant factor. This is one reason why the first several years after the paperwork is all officially signed can be some of the most difficult and formative. We very much appreciate your prayers for us during this time as we will need more support and much more supplication. There are so many parallels here to our spiritual adoption – the struggle between new life and new creation all the while dealing with a former life and former creature which had such an enormous influence on us and yet is no longer our new identity. The feelings of joy and yet struggle to walk in accordance with Scripture and in step with the Spirit.

Thank you so much for walking this journey alongside us! We are excited to see what the Lord has in store!