Closer...?

It has been awhile since I updated this blog, it's harder than I thought to come up with something poetic to say. Since my thoughts aren't high school portfolio quality today I will just share the news.

In the last few months we have been working on gathering information for our Formal Application. The arrival of the Formal Application meant good things for us; 1. One of the last steps before we receive our actual child referral (picture and medical history of the child) 2. That our home study is complete and approved 3. That referrals are actually coming in to the agency from Korea because they do not send our Formal Applications until they have some referrals in hand.

Our Formal Application included more information about us, our medical history as well as pictures of our family and home. The process of gathering the photos was fun for me, these pictures would be the ones that introduced the agency to our family as well as our future child. I made scrapbook type pages including vacation photos, snow photos, daily living photos and even pictures of our extended family. The goal of all the pictures was to make the agency think, "I would like to be a part of that family, send them a referral quick, maybe two!"

Soon after sending the application I sent an email to make sure they had received it, the reply to the email went as follows:
"I did receive your formal application which has been approved by the director. I should be putting your file together and prepping your paperwork for Korea later this week. I will keep you posted."

After receiving this email I was elated to say the least, we are really getting closer, how close, well who knows? But closer! Closer than we were a few months ago! Closer than we were a few days ago!

We are beginning to prepare our home as well as our hearts! Travis and his Dad have been working on finishing up part of the basement all week (so that Travis will have a place to sleep! HA! HA!). I am reading over the materials provided to us for the adoption about preparing for the questions and days ahead.

Please continue to pray for our Amazing Race! For the journey ahead, for the financial concerns and for grant approval. I will keep you posted!

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
James 1:27