We are still here

I am so sorry it has been so long since I have posted on the blog.  Life has been really busy through the holiday season but it is starting to settle down to some sense of normalcy.  We went to see my family for Christmas and then to see Vernon’s parents New Year’s weekend.  Vernon’s parents celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary on New Year’s Eve.  We gave them a party and celebrated such an incredible milestone with them.  I had such a great time celebrating Christmas and New Year with our family.

Our sweet friend from Ukraine has been here in Mississippi for a while.  I really enjoyed going to a local church with her and speaking about the adoption process.  We had a dinner for her so she could see some of her friends from Ukraine who live in this area.  It was a wonderful evening.  We also met new friends from other churches locally.  It is nice to have such a great support group for families who have adopted and are interested in adopting so we can all gain wisdom from each other.  I feel truly blessed to have such wonderful friends.

We have made a lot of progress on the adoption front recently.  We have received a signed copy of the home study.  We picked it up middle of last week.  The agency doing our home study sent the home study to US Immigration Services.  We are waiting to hear when they will schedule us for our fingerprints with the FBI.  Once those fingerprints are done we will receive the last form we need from Immigration Services until we return from Ukraine.  Also, once we get our case number from immigration we can complete the amendment to the home study that will allow me to travel alone to Ukraine.  Vernon will complete his adoption here in the US once I arrive home with our daughter.  That will complete our paperwork.  We will get apostilles and send our full application to Ukraine for translation and submission.  That summarizes to only two more documents to complete and get apostilles from the Mississippi state government.  If you don’t know what an apostille is, it is a verification from the government that the notary who verified our documents is actually a licensed notary.  Basically, we have to certify the people who certified our documents.

I am so excited that we are nearing the end of the document collection process.  Then we get to wait to hear when I can travel to Ukraine to go get our daughter!!!  I am starting to get almost impatient as I get more excited about nearing the end of the process.

Also, now that we have the completed home study we can finish our application to Open Arms Adoption for tax deductible donations.  Open Arms Adoption is a ministry from a church in Columbia, South Carolina who will accept donations on our behalf and give tax deductions to everybody who makes donations to our adoption fund.  They send 100% of the donation to us for our adoption expenses.  If you are interested in making a donation to help us bring our daughter home you can send a check made payable to Christian Life and write Open-Arms Tygart Family in the in the memo line.  The address to send it to is 1722 Denny Rd., Columbia, SC 29203.   We have estimated that it will cost about $21,500 to adopt one child.  Our expenses that have been paid already sum up to about $6,500.  We need to raise about another $15,000.  We have faith that God will provide for us to complete all that He has called us to.

I hope you have all been as blessed as we have.