I have realized I never stated the status of our storm a few weeks ago. This storm, called a derecho, according to NOAA is likely to happen every four years. However, everyone in our local area says they had never heard of this type of storm and other than a Hurricane, have not experienced anything like it.
This storm started in the Chicago west area and quickly ran across the states toward the Atlantic crossing through the DC area. A derecho system is set up when a combination of extreme high heat and pressure is present and being pushed by another jet stream of slightly cooler temperatures. The addition of the extreme high heat is what propels the storm from being a typical summer thunderstorm into a derecho. The fast moving storm, with repeating rain clouds, and pressures can produce winds clocked to be that of hurricanes.
Our outcome was worse than that of our hurricane last year, late August 2011. The way our house is situated around the grain fields, I can eerily hear winds coming. The grain fields, lack of trees to slow them, creates a low ground in the 200 acres which is forced up our property line where it smacks into our house. These winds, up to 70 m/hr, are typical in winter where they have produced huge snow drifts around our home. The wind we received from the derecho was clocked at 79 m/hr not far from our home. The weird thing, I heard it coming! I was lying in bed talking to Karl as he was returning from calming the kids because we lost power just a few minutes before the storm actually hit. Everyone was armed with their flash lights, as I was starting my calculations of how much water we had in the house. Funny how vulnerable how one feels when they fear not enough water or are compelled to estimate how long one can go in their house with current water supplies. Since our well pump uses electricity, water is the weak point we succumb to needing to plan for. I have about 1 1/2 cases of water bottles in the basement to be used for power outages, soccer games, and impromptu outings/cookouts. Back to our storm!
I told Karl I could hear it coming, even in the rural area, it is amazing how quiet it can be without electricity. The air conditioning or fans are not providing a soft background hum typical of those hot summer days. But this time, even the bugs and frogs were quiet, like they knew they needed to hunker down. Why we don't keep a pulse on nature around us until it is too late is one of those deep moment thoughts one only thinks about post a weather event. Like before a Tsunami, wild and domesticated animals sought higher ground, they knew! Karl went over to the window. With my eyes drifting into exhausted sleep, I murmured, "It's coming." and a pause before, "It's here." Just a few seconds later, the house was slammed by the force of the winds. Karl exclaimed that trees went from standing straight to a 90 degree angle. I crawled out of bed to look out the big window as Karl crossed to look out another window facing the back of the house. I could feel the force vibrating the windows to an uncomfortable point to where I thought about how much force would be needed to break the glass.
"I think we should go to the basement," I said in my now awakened state but wishing I could just go to sleep. Karl and I had just spent the evening cutting up about 8 chicken carcasses from our trip earlier that day from the farm. We have to cut them up before we freeze them, dividing them into freezer bags and filling the space with home made marinades, a trick I learned from Rachel Ray to marinade items while they thaw at a later date. It takes us about 2 1/2 hours from start to bleaching down the kitchen clean up. When you don't start until 8:30, it becomes a long night. I even through some of the carcases in a crock pot to make stock overnight. It was not until an hour later that I remembered this and transferred the carcasses to a large stock pot with extra water on the gas stove top on lower setting.
"I think we are OK," Karl responds, "It's not that bad yet." Just as those words were leaving his lips, another strong gust came up and smacked the house again; only this time, it knock a piece of siding off and it smacked the window that Karl was standing looking through. Karl jumped back from the window and quickly changed into his Navy Officer self ordering us to the basement. The kids just happened to be moving towards our bedroom when the order to retreat came. Armed with a few pillows, flashlights, and a couple blankets, we scurried down the two flights of stairs. Bella asked about the dogs to which Karl said in his controlled but not harsh officer voice to leave them in their kennels, they are on the main floor of the house.
In the basement, I started picking through the camping gear to find the large LED lantern, and a couple sleeping bags to place on the concrete floor. The floor, much cooler than the house, had an uncomfortable coldness at the moment. Interestingly how one's mind can drift to thoughts of how I wished I had a safe room with comfortable sofas in the basement for just such occasions. I only think of it when we are there for tornado warnings or in the present state of a really forceful storm. Karl and Anton would try to peek through the thick blanket of darkness to see what is happened outside in front of the basement sliding doors. I think this is one of those curiosity cat moments and asked Karl if they might be safer to come away from the windows.
When the brunt of the storm, typically the first 30 minutes of a storm front where the pressures and winds are most volatile, starts to even out, I too joined them in trying to peer into the darkness. One can quickly learn the just so angle of a LED flashlight against the window so as not to produce a reflection. Since I am one of those see the whole picture then the details kind of person, I noticed something was not right in a sweep of the light beam through the back area. "Where is the trampoline?" I said softly mostly to Karl but little ears were pricked up and soon everyone was trying to search through the blackness. It became a quest. First Karl, then Anton ventured to the main floor to see if they could spot anything. Karl was more concerned about the solar panels, but the missing trampoline gave him a concerned thought of the trampoline smashing a few solar reflectors. This baby has not been paid off yet, so it would be heart breaking to loose one or more. Apparently this concern grew to the point where Karl went outside to check the panels. Anton followed to the covered porch, just to check on the chickens.
"The solar panels are fine, but no sign of the trampoline," Karl reported when he returned to the safety of the house. "I can't see much out there, so we are going to have to wait till it is calmer or morning to see how bad things are from the storm." We thought of playing cards, but soon the exhaustion kicked back into our bodies as the adrenaline was wearing off. Karl and Isabella were laying on camping pads, but I couldn't get comfortable. So I went to the main floor and laid on the couch. That was when I remembered about the chicken. Then one of the smoke alarms had to beep to let me know it was on battery power not hard wire. By the time I tracked down this offending smoke alarm, I decided to try to venture out to assess the damage.
What I found:
Missing trampoline and not trace of it.
One apple tree broken at the ground level.
Three pieces of siding off of the back of the house.
Lots of my perennials laying on the ground.
Branches strewn around, but mostly on the neighbor's yard.
Some broken branches on fruit trees and lots of fallen apples the chicken will love on the ground.
One outdoor lamp on the garage wall twisted upside down.
I was still trying to find the trampoline and was searching in the flashes of bright lightening, but there was little rain at this point. Then a loud clap of thunder, so loud it shook the ground, told me to get back into the house.
In the morning, while Karl was reverse wiring a set up for the generator to power some of our house, including the water pump but not the A/C, I started to make coffee in the French press. Karl needed a hand, so told me to wait just a few more minutes and he would have given us power to run the coffee maker.
I contacted one of our friends who have a pool to see if we could come over to keep cool, the temp was expected to be over 100 and I figured our pool would be closed due to power outages. She said to come over and bring a chain saw because they had a large tree down across their driveway. As we were getting ready to leave, Anton found the trampoline. He made a video of tracking it, Karl jokingly calls it The Blair Trampoline Project. (Once I get the video off the camera, I will upload it to the blog.)
Needless to say, it is not salvageable. Karl says it was an Act of God that the trampoline missed the garden. Honestly I can say, we had more damage from this derecho than from last years hurricane. I was also more prepared for the hurricane because of the advanced notice. I had had the tubs filled with water for the hurricane before the power was off, lessening that water issue. Our power came back on Saturday night. Karl was worried because he was leaving with Anton for Scout Camp on Sunday afternoon and would be gone for a week. He left me detailed instructions on how to set up the generator to power the water pump and then disconnect it when I needed to in specific steps. We lost power three other times that week but it was not long enough that I wanted to pull out the generator and do the set up. It was only out for 1-6 hours, the longer time being overnight.
OK the burning question about why no power with the solar panels. We are not "off grid", in other words, we have not installed the power cell batteries in order to store our solar power. When we are generating power, it first gets used immediately by the house and the rest is sent back up the line to the power company, the meter running backwards. Without the battery storage system, we need power to run the converter to change power from DC/AC or AC/DC, I am not sure at the moment which way it works as this is Karl's baby being the Electrical Engineer. I just smile and nod my head at the right times when he gets all excited about the inner workings of the system. He gets a better response from Anton and his Home Schooled friends who wanted to have a field trip to our house to learn about solar energy. Hey we all have our strengths, I can tell the slight differences between 40 shades of pink and dissect Shakespeare into common English.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Update to Ordinary Hero!!!
I am not sure how I missed this, but instead of purchasing t-shirts, bags or frames, you can also make donations to help missions going to Ethiopia that is tax deductible and we get credit added to our account just as if you purchased an item from the regular store as long as you note Karl (with last name). This is detailed here, http://www.ordinaryhero.org/Ordinary_Hero/Donate.html.
If you decide you really feel called to help children in Ethiopia, and do not need a t-shirt, bags, frames, etc., you can purchase backpacks, sheep, shoes, education, and even a blanket. I didn't know that in the "rainy season" it drops to 50 degrees, so the blankets keep them from freezing on those cold wet nights. Here is the link for that portion of the store: http://www.ordinaryherostore.org/Donations-For-Children-In-Need-c15/
Also, if we are high sellers in a given time period, Karl and I can be awarded a $500-1,000 grant in addition to our earned fundraising fees.
If there are people who want to give a tax deductible donation to our adoption, we are working through an application to a company that sets up match grants. We have not completed it yet, but I wanted to state this because it has been brought up to me already. The reason why going through a non-profit to donate is to give you a tax credit and then the company send the payment directly to our agency, so we do not have to claim the donation as income for taxes. Working with a company that will award us with a match grant doubles our donations! When/if this becomes available, I will let you know.
If you decide you really feel called to help children in Ethiopia, and do not need a t-shirt, bags, frames, etc., you can purchase backpacks, sheep, shoes, education, and even a blanket. I didn't know that in the "rainy season" it drops to 50 degrees, so the blankets keep them from freezing on those cold wet nights. Here is the link for that portion of the store: http://www.ordinaryherostore.org/Donations-For-Children-In-Need-c15/
Also, if we are high sellers in a given time period, Karl and I can be awarded a $500-1,000 grant in addition to our earned fundraising fees.
If there are people who want to give a tax deductible donation to our adoption, we are working through an application to a company that sets up match grants. We have not completed it yet, but I wanted to state this because it has been brought up to me already. The reason why going through a non-profit to donate is to give you a tax credit and then the company send the payment directly to our agency, so we do not have to claim the donation as income for taxes. Working with a company that will award us with a match grant doubles our donations! When/if this becomes available, I will let you know.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Matugunan ang aming mga batang babae! (Meet our girls!)
I have been a little reluctant to post specifics about the girls on the blog because they are not officially ours yet, but according to our Social Worker, they are ours. We are waiting for the official documents to come from the Philippines, expected within the next two weeks, for us to sign and pay the matching and visa fees. It is then that we get to send letters and books to the girls.
After this set of paperwork gets back to the Philippines, then we are sent the documents needs to finish Homeland Security pre-Visas. Then those documents are sent back to our contact in Philippines to begin the girls exit Visas and medical to be cleared for American Visas and passports. Once this is cleared, we are given the travel date and must travel within 60 days to get the girls and return to the US. While in PI, we will be there for about 7-8 days, but it takes 24 hours in flights to go to Manila and another 24 to return.
Chriselda, we are trying to get confirmation on the spelling of her name as we have seen it spelled 5 different ways. Chriselda is very close to Bella's age, loves to make cards to show her love and gratitude toward others, and likes to help her house mom (the ladies in charge of each of the orphan houses at this particular orphanage) with her tasks in caring for the younger children and meals. She is progressing in her studies and starting to help other with their studies, however math is not her strongest subject. Chriselda can read and write on an elementary level in both English and Tagalog.
Christine, called Christy, is currently 7, loves to build with Legos, prefers to be outside swimming, riding a bike, climbing, and (this cracked me up that the report found it important to mention) prefers to wear shorts. Well, if she is an active little girl who likes to explore, I would think shorts is more comfortable than a dress when on the climbing equipment where she is most happy. She excels in her math studies, probably due to the Legos, but also likes to draw. She is in the first grade program at the orphanage (like a home school program).
These are our girls! They will find out in a couple weeks they are spoken for and we are working to bring them home before Christmas. The American Director of the orphanage already knows as she has been in contact with our Social Worker. Oh, the girls are in an American Christian run orphanage about two hours north of Manila. I guess I will need to bring some motion sickness bands for the girls because everyone seems to remark about how motion sick Filipino children get in cars, not just our family friends but those in the adoption classes who hosted for the Summer Program.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Are you an Ordinary Hero?
As you can probably guess, things have been very busy around here. I apologise to everyone if they have found me a bit scattered brained for the past couple weeks. First it was getting the call from our Social Worker and having to wait for Karl to return from Boy Scout camp with Anton. Then it was the "Are these the right ones for our family?" debate. Well, that debate didn't take too long, a couple days, but a heart wrenching couple of days. We talked with our priest who was very encouraging who quickly went over to Anton to tell him being the brother of three sisters is not all that bad (he is the only boy with three sisters). Anton and Isabella had decided long before Karl and I made the call to our Social Worker to say yes. Then came the flood of "Oh MY! We've got a lot to do!" and followed by "We were not expecting this at this moment!"
For the past five days, I have been busy working on fundraising efforts. One of my adoptive mom friends just keeps saying, "God wants you to have these girls because it is just happening so fast. It will all come together." So, yes God will provide, but I have to set it up for it to happen. Karl and I have been working on applications for grants and adoption loans. I also set up the Amazon button. Thank you to all who have made purchases already and due to the traffic through the button, Amazon is awarding me another percentage point!
Today I have opened another avenue for funds through Ordinary Hero. This was a place recommended (and reminded of a few days later, Thank you Kristen!) to set up an account. This web store's purpose is to provide funds for adoptions and mission trips. It is heavily weighted for Ethiopia, because they sponsor mission trips there. There is a nice video from a teen age girl who went on a trip last year. I have my eye on a few things and one is this picture frame.
 It reads "For this child I prayed...And the Lord granted me that which I asked of Him." 1Samuel 1:27
I love this frame! It has so much meaning for me and all my children. As most of you know it took us some time before we had Anton, so it doesn't just fit people adopting. If you like it, you can get it at their store and some other things like t-shirts. They have a couple of mottoes, "Ordinary Hero", "I'm Gonna Change The World", and mom shirts that read "Change the World for One Ordinary Hero". If you go to their website and order anything, when you go to check out, you will have an option of picking an "affiliate". Use the drop down bar and click on Karl's name (with last name too! but I will not list that on the blog as I have people reading this from Japan - OK they were reading about the pine wood derby cars.) If you do this, Ordinary Hero will send 40% of the total purchases to our adoption agency to cover pending costs!
http://www.ordinaryherostore.org/ |
Friday, July 13, 2012
Adoption!
Well, I have been silent for awhile due to changes and activities going on around here. Some of you have known but now the rest will hear of our changes in our family. Karl and I decided to look into adoption about two years ago. It is something that has been in the back of our minds for quite some time. We know many successes and failures through family and friends. We prayed about it and talked with clergy to help us discern this big step in our lives. We came to the first stipulation, we could no longer proceed until our house in CT was sold. With Karl traveling for work and this uncertainty of when things would need to be taken care of there or if unplanned trips and expenses would happen. So this would be our first road block that God would help us to lift.
After the house was sold, we began looking into how we would adopt. The kiddos busted us scouring over pictures of children we were privy to via free sites on the web, both domestic and international. Due to money issues, we were first looking into domestic, i.e. within the US. We began weeding through all the red tape and information in order to educate us on our options. At this same time, one of our close family friends began their adoption classes with Catholic Charities in Baltimore after having problems with a local program through a Protestant Church that would not help Catholics. Anton also had a new boy on his soccer team who was recently adopted from Ethiopia, this was the third adoption for their family. We felt God was leading us toward not domestic adoption as we were getting discouraged by our findings in domestic adoptions and seeing two families within our church who were having success with international.
Why not domestic? This is what most everyone asks us when we inform them of our choice, so I will try to summarize our long answer. First, we did not want an infant. Second, we have not been located in one state for a specific amount of years, it varies by each state. Yes there is a waiver for military families for this particular regulation but it only opened up the borders, i.e. most agencies only allow people in either their city or state to accept their children. We did not want to go the foster route. By fostering children we then open up our family to constant intrusion by every social worker within 100 miles to decide if we are a good family. Yes, most of you will say we are a good family, but it means our home schooling, family activities, social networks, religion, travel, sanitary/cleanliness, etc. would be under exam without notice every day we would be in the foster program; no two reviews would have the same standards either! We also do not relish the idea of opening our home and hearts to a child(ren) only to have them yanked away at anytime the courts deem acceptable. Some people are called to this and we pray for them, but it is not something we could do. Why did I mention fostering, well it opens up the options of getting a non-special needs child that we could take within our home. The children listed in the system not in the foster first system tended to have at least one if not more of the following requirements:
a.) Wheel chair Accessible/ Few if any stairs (Our house is three stories and all bedrooms are on the top floor.)
b.) Must be the only child (No need to explain).
c.) No pets (See b)
d.) Must be the youngest and the child listed is 12 or older (Isabella is 10)
e.) Must remain in contact with family and within the state (these would be in Florida, Texas, Iowa, Georgia, Michigan, California, etc.)
Some people are called to adopt these children and they are truly amazing people, but it is humbling to admit you are not given that much grace to deal with all those requirements. We accepted that adding adopted children to our family would create change, but it does not have to change us completely. We can not go from a horse back riding, scout camping, soccer playing, gardening, active church family who home schools to weekly therapy, doctor appointments, school assessment reviews, IEP's, no sports or outdoor adventure type of family. It would be too much change for our family and destroy who we had become. Gone are the days of Annie when the US had true orphans. The domestic adoption system is mostly filled with abused or abusive, severely handicapped, temporarily removed from parents or family members who want to have them around but not actually raise the children. Movies like Annie and Stuart Little are set within the depression era for a reason, that was when orphanages did exist. Now the children are placed in foster homes or temporary shelters (used between foster homes or courts).
Yes, there are a few that do not fall within the above description. I would see them pop onto the system only to be gone before the week ended. So yes, we could have went through the domestic system, but we just did not feel we were capable to deal with this type of adoption.
On to International adoption! Yes, it does have its issues also, but not the same as domestic. In the International system, you truly have orphans or children who have been abandoned so they can be given food, shelter, and schooling. People in our country do not comprehend the idea of either having enough money for school or you do not go. Our country has the highest literacy rate due to public schooling, even with all the bad reports out there on test scores and international rating. One of the things we learned in our adoption classes was to expect all children adopted from over seas to be at least two years behind their age group for US schooling standards. You hear that in class but then you read it in reviews of children and it really hits you. The world is filled with people who do not know how to read or write, not just on an elementary level but really do not know letters. This is shocking to a country that the majority of people know letters and numbers even if not at a higher level. OK, I digressed here! I will get back to our journey!
We went to Catholic Charities and began the mountain of paperwork and inspections to be deemed passing by first the Agency, which amounts to the state as they have state inspectors do the inspecting. We spent months cleaning, organizing, and preparing for inspections. All floors must be baby proofed, something I had not worried about for quite some time, but since we were open to age two and up, we had to be deemed prepared. We still hate the child safety locks on the doors, cabinets, and stove knobs, but it does give us a greater peace when our friends come over with their young children. Once we passed the Home Study, which was the agency and state approval, it was on to the National. This meant Immigration and Home Land Security. This did not require anymore inspections but more money, paper work, and finger printing to verify we were who we said we were and no criminal records. Once this and our photo books were completed, photo books are visuals for the Foreign Adoption Board and also one for the child(ren) who we would be matched with., it was sent to our country of choice. We chose Philippines. Basically, when we went to our first meeting at Catholic Charities, we told them we were open to siblings. They responded quickly with Ethiopia or Philippines. Since we already have very close family friends who are Filipino, have Polynesian Background from living in Hawaii for two tours on submarines, already make the food, and the country is 85% Catholic, we thought it would be the easiest to incorporate into our family.
So ICAB, Inter-Country Adoption Board, received our dossier (the packet of specified paper work, photo books, etc.) via the Catholic Charities' contact person in the Philippines. They reviewed the material, and asked for a couple more things. Those items were created and faxed over. We were approved on June 9 to be put on their list. Thus would begin the waiting game. Our social worker who was assigned to us from Catholic Charities told us it could take up to three years to be matched. So we started to move on and begin saving for the next chunk of expenses we would be facing. We were fortunate enough to not have to borrow any money to cover the expenses in the beginning, there seems to be a large chunk in the beginning, then a waiting time till matched when the expenses for retrieving the child(ren) would start mounting.
OK, let me explain the expenses myth. No we are not purchasing or buying a child(ren). The expenses in the beginning was to cover our social worker/agency fees(this is a non-profit agency but they still have running expenses), state inspections (the state collects money to pay those salaries and to produce paper work), background checks (more paper work), copies of birth/marriage certificates, immigration/finger printing fees, photo book printing, the Filipino contact's fees (a portion of her salary as an employee of Catholic Charities), and filling fees to ICAB (another state run program that requires fees). Some of these fees were as needed; state inspections, different states for back ground checks, etc. Some were in one lump sum, Social worker/ Agency Fees, Filipino contact, and filling fees with ICAB.
Our next set of fees are to place the children with us and go get them. This means health inspections, visas, transportation related to these agencies for the Filipino contact and our children, a good will donation to the orphanage that has been raising the children (helps to cover food, clothing, supplies, and salaries to run the orphanage), travel expenses, country travel fees, legal fees to temporarily place Catholic Charities as legal guardian (The children must be in the states for 6 months before we can legally adopt them in court as per the Hague agreement with the US and Philippines. The children will be in our home with inspections at one month, three months and then six months to make sure we are blending.), etc. So we figured we had time to save up for these expenses.
Imagine our shock when our Social Worker called last week to say we have a match. We were being offered two children to see if we thought they would be a match for us. One of the children is close to Isabella's age, loves card making/art, sweet, ready to help take care of the house chores and smaller children. The second is seven, loves adventure, climbing, and playing Lego's. Both are in excellent health with no known medical/psychological problems. The younger needs some dental work and when the older is frustrated she might talk back (err sounds normal for a pre-teen). Both are girls who were abandoned to the orphanage because their family could not take care of them. They are looking for a family to love them, and take care of them. They want stability. In the orphanage they have been given enough food, clothing, and shelter along with some schooling. They are in an American Christian Orphanage where they are taught in both Tagalog and English. Tagalog is the base language (like how the Amish all speak Penn Dutch) but then learn English for all legal and business transactions. Both girls can speak both and can write some in both. They have been in the orphanage for less than two years.
Karl and I are looking at our finances very carefully. We know we are getting ready to have to find some large sums of money fast and minimizing the amount we borrow or charge. We have some options. One thing you will notice is the button on the side bar of my blog for Amazon. I am asking you to click on the button to link you into Amazon when you are making purchases. If you do this, then Amazon will pay us a portion of the transaction as Advertising fees. This will allow us to come up with some money to off set the expenses with no real effort on your part other than clicking the button BEFORE you shop. You must complete your transaction through the link in order for us to get credit for it. I know I shop a lot through Amazon, so I was hoping you could help us by clicking before you purchase what you were already planning to purchase. Thank you for your trouble. We hope to bring the girls home before Christmas, but it all depends on the finances! If we are able to do this, then we will be able to legally adopt them in Mid to late Spring!
So get your Back to School, Birthday and Christams Shopping started! Just a friendly push for a good cause!
After the house was sold, we began looking into how we would adopt. The kiddos busted us scouring over pictures of children we were privy to via free sites on the web, both domestic and international. Due to money issues, we were first looking into domestic, i.e. within the US. We began weeding through all the red tape and information in order to educate us on our options. At this same time, one of our close family friends began their adoption classes with Catholic Charities in Baltimore after having problems with a local program through a Protestant Church that would not help Catholics. Anton also had a new boy on his soccer team who was recently adopted from Ethiopia, this was the third adoption for their family. We felt God was leading us toward not domestic adoption as we were getting discouraged by our findings in domestic adoptions and seeing two families within our church who were having success with international.
Why not domestic? This is what most everyone asks us when we inform them of our choice, so I will try to summarize our long answer. First, we did not want an infant. Second, we have not been located in one state for a specific amount of years, it varies by each state. Yes there is a waiver for military families for this particular regulation but it only opened up the borders, i.e. most agencies only allow people in either their city or state to accept their children. We did not want to go the foster route. By fostering children we then open up our family to constant intrusion by every social worker within 100 miles to decide if we are a good family. Yes, most of you will say we are a good family, but it means our home schooling, family activities, social networks, religion, travel, sanitary/cleanliness, etc. would be under exam without notice every day we would be in the foster program; no two reviews would have the same standards either! We also do not relish the idea of opening our home and hearts to a child(ren) only to have them yanked away at anytime the courts deem acceptable. Some people are called to this and we pray for them, but it is not something we could do. Why did I mention fostering, well it opens up the options of getting a non-special needs child that we could take within our home. The children listed in the system not in the foster first system tended to have at least one if not more of the following requirements:
a.) Wheel chair Accessible/ Few if any stairs (Our house is three stories and all bedrooms are on the top floor.)
b.) Must be the only child (No need to explain).
c.) No pets (See b)
d.) Must be the youngest and the child listed is 12 or older (Isabella is 10)
e.) Must remain in contact with family and within the state (these would be in Florida, Texas, Iowa, Georgia, Michigan, California, etc.)
Some people are called to adopt these children and they are truly amazing people, but it is humbling to admit you are not given that much grace to deal with all those requirements. We accepted that adding adopted children to our family would create change, but it does not have to change us completely. We can not go from a horse back riding, scout camping, soccer playing, gardening, active church family who home schools to weekly therapy, doctor appointments, school assessment reviews, IEP's, no sports or outdoor adventure type of family. It would be too much change for our family and destroy who we had become. Gone are the days of Annie when the US had true orphans. The domestic adoption system is mostly filled with abused or abusive, severely handicapped, temporarily removed from parents or family members who want to have them around but not actually raise the children. Movies like Annie and Stuart Little are set within the depression era for a reason, that was when orphanages did exist. Now the children are placed in foster homes or temporary shelters (used between foster homes or courts).
Yes, there are a few that do not fall within the above description. I would see them pop onto the system only to be gone before the week ended. So yes, we could have went through the domestic system, but we just did not feel we were capable to deal with this type of adoption.
On to International adoption! Yes, it does have its issues also, but not the same as domestic. In the International system, you truly have orphans or children who have been abandoned so they can be given food, shelter, and schooling. People in our country do not comprehend the idea of either having enough money for school or you do not go. Our country has the highest literacy rate due to public schooling, even with all the bad reports out there on test scores and international rating. One of the things we learned in our adoption classes was to expect all children adopted from over seas to be at least two years behind their age group for US schooling standards. You hear that in class but then you read it in reviews of children and it really hits you. The world is filled with people who do not know how to read or write, not just on an elementary level but really do not know letters. This is shocking to a country that the majority of people know letters and numbers even if not at a higher level. OK, I digressed here! I will get back to our journey!
We went to Catholic Charities and began the mountain of paperwork and inspections to be deemed passing by first the Agency, which amounts to the state as they have state inspectors do the inspecting. We spent months cleaning, organizing, and preparing for inspections. All floors must be baby proofed, something I had not worried about for quite some time, but since we were open to age two and up, we had to be deemed prepared. We still hate the child safety locks on the doors, cabinets, and stove knobs, but it does give us a greater peace when our friends come over with their young children. Once we passed the Home Study, which was the agency and state approval, it was on to the National. This meant Immigration and Home Land Security. This did not require anymore inspections but more money, paper work, and finger printing to verify we were who we said we were and no criminal records. Once this and our photo books were completed, photo books are visuals for the Foreign Adoption Board and also one for the child(ren) who we would be matched with., it was sent to our country of choice. We chose Philippines. Basically, when we went to our first meeting at Catholic Charities, we told them we were open to siblings. They responded quickly with Ethiopia or Philippines. Since we already have very close family friends who are Filipino, have Polynesian Background from living in Hawaii for two tours on submarines, already make the food, and the country is 85% Catholic, we thought it would be the easiest to incorporate into our family.
So ICAB, Inter-Country Adoption Board, received our dossier (the packet of specified paper work, photo books, etc.) via the Catholic Charities' contact person in the Philippines. They reviewed the material, and asked for a couple more things. Those items were created and faxed over. We were approved on June 9 to be put on their list. Thus would begin the waiting game. Our social worker who was assigned to us from Catholic Charities told us it could take up to three years to be matched. So we started to move on and begin saving for the next chunk of expenses we would be facing. We were fortunate enough to not have to borrow any money to cover the expenses in the beginning, there seems to be a large chunk in the beginning, then a waiting time till matched when the expenses for retrieving the child(ren) would start mounting.
OK, let me explain the expenses myth. No we are not purchasing or buying a child(ren). The expenses in the beginning was to cover our social worker/agency fees(this is a non-profit agency but they still have running expenses), state inspections (the state collects money to pay those salaries and to produce paper work), background checks (more paper work), copies of birth/marriage certificates, immigration/finger printing fees, photo book printing, the Filipino contact's fees (a portion of her salary as an employee of Catholic Charities), and filling fees to ICAB (another state run program that requires fees). Some of these fees were as needed; state inspections, different states for back ground checks, etc. Some were in one lump sum, Social worker/ Agency Fees, Filipino contact, and filling fees with ICAB.
Our next set of fees are to place the children with us and go get them. This means health inspections, visas, transportation related to these agencies for the Filipino contact and our children, a good will donation to the orphanage that has been raising the children (helps to cover food, clothing, supplies, and salaries to run the orphanage), travel expenses, country travel fees, legal fees to temporarily place Catholic Charities as legal guardian (The children must be in the states for 6 months before we can legally adopt them in court as per the Hague agreement with the US and Philippines. The children will be in our home with inspections at one month, three months and then six months to make sure we are blending.), etc. So we figured we had time to save up for these expenses.
Imagine our shock when our Social Worker called last week to say we have a match. We were being offered two children to see if we thought they would be a match for us. One of the children is close to Isabella's age, loves card making/art, sweet, ready to help take care of the house chores and smaller children. The second is seven, loves adventure, climbing, and playing Lego's. Both are in excellent health with no known medical/psychological problems. The younger needs some dental work and when the older is frustrated she might talk back (err sounds normal for a pre-teen). Both are girls who were abandoned to the orphanage because their family could not take care of them. They are looking for a family to love them, and take care of them. They want stability. In the orphanage they have been given enough food, clothing, and shelter along with some schooling. They are in an American Christian Orphanage where they are taught in both Tagalog and English. Tagalog is the base language (like how the Amish all speak Penn Dutch) but then learn English for all legal and business transactions. Both girls can speak both and can write some in both. They have been in the orphanage for less than two years.
Karl and I are looking at our finances very carefully. We know we are getting ready to have to find some large sums of money fast and minimizing the amount we borrow or charge. We have some options. One thing you will notice is the button on the side bar of my blog for Amazon. I am asking you to click on the button to link you into Amazon when you are making purchases. If you do this, then Amazon will pay us a portion of the transaction as Advertising fees. This will allow us to come up with some money to off set the expenses with no real effort on your part other than clicking the button BEFORE you shop. You must complete your transaction through the link in order for us to get credit for it. I know I shop a lot through Amazon, so I was hoping you could help us by clicking before you purchase what you were already planning to purchase. Thank you for your trouble. We hope to bring the girls home before Christmas, but it all depends on the finances! If we are able to do this, then we will be able to legally adopt them in Mid to late Spring!
So get your Back to School, Birthday and Christams Shopping started! Just a friendly push for a good cause!
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