OUR PART FINISHED!!

We completed our dossier yesterday. We finally received all of our paperwork. We had an exciting day in downtown Columbus. We began at our bank and we had to get about 30 documents notarized. We walked from there to the Franklin County Courthouse (Clerk of Courts) where we had to get the notary certified. After getting all of our doc's certified we had to find the Secretary of State office to get all of our certifications apostilled. It was a very long and stressful day, but it is over.
We went to Fedex today to ship all of our doc's to the agency. From the agency, they will send all of the doc's to translation, once they have been translated, the will be returned to the agency to be reviewed by an attorney. After review, they will be sent to the Kazakhstan embassy in Washington D.C. and then FINALLY, they will go overseas and they will send our info to an orphanage and then give us the BIG phone call. On the phone call, they will tell us that we have three weeks to get to Kazakhstan to the "ministry" which is like our "social services" and then we will go to the orphanage from there. Pray for us. Once at the "ministry" we will be presented with 3 or 4 options for children to adopt and we have to pick one. This is going to be the hardest part, but I believe that we will know the minute we see our child because God will put it in our hearts.
It's so amazing how God has worked this entire process out and opened every door. Even yesterday during our day on the town in Columbus, everything that we prayed for, God granted, and even more. There were some things that when looking back, I can see God's hand in everything. UNREAL! The first thing we prayed was for such a small thing. We were on our way to US Bank in a Kroger store because we forgot to get one of our bank letter's notarized. I prayed on our way that God would help us not to have to stand in line for very long, and if possible if the gentleman that we needed to talk to (the manager) would not be busy. We walked in, and I just laughed. Kristin asked why and I said "look, there's nobody in line, AND the man we needed was available." After arriving (about 1 minute later) the line was about 10 people long. At the beginning of the day, I wanted a specific gentleman at our Credit Union to notarize all of our 30 forms because he notarized a bank letter for us earlier in May. I called the credit union and he was not working that day, and I thought "oh that stinks." Well I thought nothing of it until we got to the Clerk of Courts to get the notary certified (basically the Clerk is saying that the notary is registered with Franklin County). The Clerk told me that this specific guy who signed our bank letter and I wanted to notarize the rest of our doc's was registered in Delaware and not Franklin Co. If he would have been there, we would have had our 30 doc's notarized by him and we would've done it all wrong and had to start over from scratch, because Kazakhstan will not allow doc's with mistakes on them. Instead, I just had to run back to our Credit Union to get our bank letter re-done and notarized by someone in Franklin Co. and then I had to run back to the courthouse. God had it all in His plan. At the courthouse we walked right up to the counter and did not have to wait in line. After we arrived, the line backed up out of the door. God answered another prayer. After we were done at the courthouse we parked under the statehouse to find the Secretary of State's office. I prayed once more that God would help us find her office easily and that we would be able to get the apostilling done yesterday instead of leaving the doc's and picking them up at a later date. We walked into the statehouse and WE WERE LOST! We had no idea where to go and a police officer told us that the Secretary of State was in a different building and he gave us directions to get out of the building and to her office. Well, we tried to follow his directions, but if any of you have been in the statehouse, you know that there are lots of staircases and hallways, etc. so we did not know where to go. People were literally asking us if we were lost and leading us to where we needed to go (outright strangers). We couldn't believe how people were just so kind (that doesn't happen too much today, especially more that one in a day, right?). We eventually found our way out of the building and onto Broad St. Two blocks later on a 100 degree day we ended up finding the Secretary of State's office. Once again, we walked right up to the desk, the lady came out to apostille our documents and they were done in about ten minutes. WE WERE DONE!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS! We'll update when we know something more than we're waiting for a phone call. We're praying right now for financial help (grants and interest-free loans) to fulfill the final steps which are all of the traveling costs, visas, and $9500 fee to Kazakhstan. Outside of this, we're done!
Isn't it amazing to have a God that cares about the little intimate details of our lives? It's so wonderful to be able to ask for His help and have complete faith and trust that He will work it out for our good whether we think it's for our good at that time or not! How could someone not believe in God? WOW!

Almost there...

We got our 171h! We are now waiting on our fingerprints to come back from the FBI. We are getting very close to submitting our dossier. We are so excited about the progress that God has just pulled us through. Everything is going so quickly, and we know that it is all Him. I am amazed at the speed we got everything back. We got our 171h exactly 1 week after we mailed the final piece of the application. He is so good to us. Now we're going to have to start thinking about cribs and clothes and all of that kind of stuff. ;-) I can hardly contain myself. I can't wait to get all of the fairy tale books, Dr Suess stories, and all of the other great traditions that I can share with my baby. ;-) It's those small things that I'm looking forward to the most. Reading stories together, singing lullabies, and playing "pretend" together. It'll be wonderful to watch our child grow into the young man/woman that God has created them to be.

Thank you all so much for your support, and I look forward to introducing to the newest Krull very soon.