Signed, Sealed, and Off!

After months of blood, sweat, and tears our dossier is now finished and ready to be sent off for authentication in D.C.  Woohoo!  For those of you who are wondering what in the world a dossier is, basically dossier means "documents".  For an international adoption, prospective parents must gather many, many documents which verify to the courts abroad that they will be fit parents.  The dossier bundle includes items such as birth & marriage certificates, background checks, photos, letters of reference, medical clearance letters, home study documents, and other such important things.  It was a true lesson in patience and perseverance gathering all of these documents.  I think the hardest part about all of it was the re-doing of documents over, and over, and over again until they reached perfection where every i was dotted and every t crossed.  Needless to say, we are so thankful it is finally finished!

Our bundle of documents needed to be authenticated at both the county and state level before getting sent off to D.C. To get the document "sealed" I visited 2 court houses on Wednesday; one in Louisville and the other in the capital, Frankfort.  Justin really wanted to join me on these outings but he had a j-term this week and has already taken quite a bit of time off in June for classes.  So, my dear friend Laura and her baby Jude were troopers and accompanied me on the trip so that I didn't have to make the drive alone.

The court house was gorgeous!  We enjoyed the majestic facility and its beautifully manicured campus.  After our documents were sealed I held back tears of rejoicing.  It's finally done!!! Throughout the day the song "Come Thou Fount" kept popping in my heart. 

O to grace how great a debtor

daily I'm constrained to be!

Let thy goodness, like a fetter,

bind my wandering heart to thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

prone to leave the God I love;

here's my heart, O take and seal it,

seal it for thy courts above.

Getting those big, shiney, gold seals put on our documents was such a reminder of how God has sealed us as His children before His courts above!!  We are authenticated through the blood of Jesus.  Nothing or no one can say otherwise because it's been sealed!  We're so thankful for how God has given grace for every step of this journey and for all the things He's teaching us about Himself through it.  Please pray that our dossier arrives safely to D.C. and that the judge in Ethiopia who will eventually see it will show us great favor!