Not a lot to say currently. We are looking at our final home study appointment next week. It will be the actual visit to our home to see how we function and interact as a family. Amy will finally get to meet our children we have been bragging about for months now. I don't know what really comes after this step because I believe my back condition will be holding things up for awhile. I don't think the home study can be officially finished until my back surgery (or whatever will be done) is finished and I am released from a doctors care. Me being the hold up is surprisingly funny since I am the chomp at the bit gal. I am fairly calm about it, in that I know ALL OF THIS is about God's timing. I keep praying I won't take one step ahead unless his light is there to illuminate my path. I refuse to step out into darkness. So I figure, we need more time to do more homework and we need more time to collect funding and we may even need more time for Maria herself to even be born. Who knows but God and we just are trusting in his timing. We got our fingerprints back from DHR stating that we passed our security clearance and we are clear to be able to foster and adopt in the state of Alabama. It came back like mid-February which was in good time. Amy was shocked when I brought her copies of our letters. So that is good news. The CAN's are another story, apparently they can take up to 4 months or so to process. Those are the record of abuse reports. I finished my 8 hour online Hague training and Eric is halfway through his. We have yet to tackle all the millions of discussion questions from the Adoption Manual so I suppose that is next, it is the dreaded homework I spake of earlier. Our interviews with Amy our social worker have gone great. We really like her and the feeling is mutual. Most of the people we asked to fill out letters of recommendation for us have already sent in their letters. So really everything is moving along swimmingly. We received our tax refund so we can pay our first payment or two payments really, I think it is about 5 thousand. God is so faithful. How we ended up with a tax return at all is amazing and Eric gets a 3,500 bonus in April. We will begin the application for grants and the support letters when the home study is completed. You can't apply for any of the grants without the home study in hand. I have a lot of peace about the money currently. If God orders something, he will pay for it. It is my mantra. So far, he has been faithful to bring in the money out of our own checkbook. I know we will have to ask for support, but for now, it is pretty neat to be able to pay for it ourselves. We are blessed! So no real exciting news to report other than I guess we have a name for our new daughter...Maria. Noah chose it and it sorta has stuck. It is in honor of Maria Chapman, who has gone on to be with Jesus. Noah says he can't wait to meet her in heaven. We pray for our Maria her name and discuss our second daughter by that name now. So if you think of it pray for our little Maria!
