Adoption Fundraising

We have another exciting update! I have decided to join The Body Shop at Home as a consultant. I have been a customer of The Body Shop for years and learned of the at home division last year. I am excited about this because it will allow me to make some extra money that we can put towards our adoption costs. I will be hosting parties for ladies, Mother/Daughter spa nights, girl's spa birthday parties, etc. I am getting creative with our adoption fundraising. :) I have a website now too- I am so high tech-LOL! It is www.thebodyshopathome.com/web/nicoleechols

Dossier Complete

We wanted to give you all an update on our adoption process. For the last month and a half we have been working on paperwork that is required by both the US and Taiwan. It is called a dossier and must be completed prior to receiving our referral for a child. We finished the last two peices of our dossier this week and mailed it to our agency this morning. It feels so great to be done with the paperwork! We are so thankful that our immigratioin approval letter arrived so quickly. We received it this week just two and a half weeks after being fingerprinted. So, now we just wait for a referral from Taiwan. The wait time for a referral can take up to a year. Please continue to pray for our future daugther-that she would be healthy and well loved and pray that God would prepare her to join our family in His perfect timing (and that we would be patient in the meantime--ha!ha!).

Dossier progress

Well, we received some great news in the mail this weekend. We sent in our paperwork for immigration in May. The Homeland Security office sent a letter stating they received it on May 22nd and would send an appointment card for us to be fingerprinted in the next 4-6 weeks. We were shocked to receive the appointment letter already. We go June 5th to be fingerprinted in Atlanta. So, that was super news! That is a part of the dossier (paperwork) for Taiwan we must complete for adoption. We will continue working on all of the dossier requirements and hope to have it all completed by July to mail to our agency. We feel blessed that it has all gone smoothly so far. It is just the beginning but it has gone great. Thanks for your continued prayers in our adoption journey. We also got an email from the director of our agency in Utah last week. She said we would be getting an update from them in early June letting us know where we are on the waiting list, etc.

Waiting since May 9th

We received an email from Wendy at FFC, our agency, today saying when we get closer to the top of the waiting list all of our documents will be sent to Taiwan for a referral. She said we officially started waiting on May 9th. It is exciting to know the wait has begun!! Even if it's a long one it will all be worth it in the end when we finally meet our little girl and bring her home to join our family.

Israel Trip

Eric and I went to the Holy Land with a group from Crossroads in May. It was a wonderful trip!! It was incredible to see so many places and learn more about the Bible and Christ's life here on Earth. It was a chance of a lifetime to get to go and I am so glad we did. It was more meaningful than I ever imagined.

The journey begins

God placed a desire in our hearts to adopt many years ago. It was always a hope to one day adopt a child. We found out about the international adoption program from Taiwan in March of this year. It was very exciting! We found an agency we really liked and applied to their program soon after. We began our home study with a social worker in late March. She was super fast!! We finished up in April and received the final draft in early May (when we returned home from our trip to Israel). We mailed our home study to our agency last week. We also mailed our home study to the Department of Homeland Security on May 18th. This is for immigration purposes. We hope to hear back from them in a few weeks with an appointment to be fingerprinted. Now we are working on our dossier for Taiwan.