Our dossier (14 different documents, all state certified) along with our passport photos, family photos and other assorted paper work are finally out of our hands and on their way! We mailed a box containing everything and should hopefully reach our adoption agency on Monday, August 1st! We are so thankful to have this portion of our adoption process completed by the end of July. Praise God! Another praise is that we had EXACTLY what we needed to pay our dossier fees. (We actually had $8 left over!) Between savings, working summer school, a little baby-sitting, and my (Crystal's) mom craigslisting items from her garage we had just what we needed.
(We still need to fund our immigration process and our referral process, so if you need a babysitter let us know!)
Thank you for all of your prayers over these past 4 months. We have definitely felt it and know that it makes all the difference. Here is a list of ways that you can continue to be praying for us...
*School starts tomorrow (August 1st) which means we need to go back to juggling work and our adoption.
*August 1st also marks the date that we can start receiving referrals! This can take 0-18 months. We are praying that this waiting time is on the shorter end of this. Our prayer is to be completely done with the adoption process and home from China before the end of the school year.
*That our paper work will make it safely and timely to Washington state where our agency is, and that everything will be in order so we don't have to redo anything.
* We are still waiting for All God's Children International to approve our home study. Praying that happens soon so we can file for immigration!
*Continued financial provision (God has been so faithful to us these past 4 months, and we know He will continue to do so!!) :D
Mahalo for all of your support!
Sunday, July 31, 2016
Previous Postings...
Roadblocks
| Posted by crystal.b.kawai@gmail.com on July 15, 2016 at 2:30 PM |  comments (1) |
Aloha friends and family!
We are SO close to being able to turn in all our paperwork for our dossier, however it seems all we keep hitting are roadblocks. We can definitely use your prayers! We submitted the bulk of our paperwork to the State Capitol so that it could be state certified, only to have it returned back to us. Two of our documents weren't notarized correctly. Fortunately, we don't have to redo it, we just need to get the notary to add a statement to them. However, the notary we used is out of town until next week, which delays us even more. We are also waiting to get our state certified marriage license, and haven't received any confirmation from the deptarment of health yet where that is. Finally, our homestudy hasn't been approved yet. Our adoption agency required some extra information that wasn't included. We were able to answer all the necessary questions , but just pushes everything back more. We also can't file for immigration until we have our completed homestudy as well. Right now it feels like pushing a boulder to the top of a hill, and we just can't get it up and over! We can see the finish line, but we just can't seem to break through. Our agency would like to have everything submitted by the end of the month (July 30th). Not sure if we can make this deadline, but with God all things are possible!
On a more positive note, we can start getting referrals as early as August 1st! A referral can take between 0-18 months. We are praying that ours will come sooner rather than later. And more specifically, we are praying to be able to complete the whole process and bring our child home by the end of the school year.
Thank you everyone for all of your prayers. I know it helps and we have seen God do some pretty incredible things the fast few months! Can't wait to see what else He has instore for us 
Our First
FUNdraiser
| Posted by crystal.b.kawai@gmail.com on July 2, 2016 at 3:20 PM | comments (0) |
Our dossier is almost complete and ready to be turned in! Our paperwork is being sent out today to be state certified, and once we get it back we will be able to submit it to our agency! With it we will need to make our next payment for our adoption fees. We currently have $2,000 and need another $4,000 before we can send in our completed paper work.
Another family who is adopting from China from the same agency as us has offered to help families with fundraising. She sells coloring pages on Etsy to help fund her own adoption. She has offered to dedicate a coloring page to adopting families for a 2 month span. How could we pass this up! From now until September 2nd 100% of the profits from the "Hummingbird" coloring page will go to us. (etsy just takes out 20cents per purchase)
The best part is that it is DOWNLOADABLE and you can MAKE AS MANY COPIES as your heart desires! If you are a teacher like us, this could be fun for your classes next year! And you can even tell them that it has helped to bring an orphaned Chinese child home to their FOREVER FAMILY!
If you know anyone who is in the current adult coloring page phase, please feel free to pass it on, or even buy it for them as a gift!
Copy and paste the link below to see our coloring page and to order or share
https://www.etsy.com/listing/285695983/kory-and-crystals-adoption-coloring-page?ref=shop_home_feat_2
Hurry Up and Wait!
| Posted by crystal.b.kawai@gmail.com on June 18, 2016 at 3:45 PM | comments (1) |
Over the past 4 months we have been told several times by different people that the adoption process is a lot of hurry , hurry, hurry, wait. Things move really fast and need to get done in a timely manner, and then there is nothing for you to do and you just wait. Then you hurry, hurry, hurry, and then wait some more.
We are so close to being in the "just wait phase", and are really looking forward to it. These past few months of continuous appointments, phone calls, and paper work have been exhausting, but so worth it! We have all our paper work finally in order, and all we need to do now is get it state certified.
God has answered a lot of our prayers over the past couple of weeks. Kory and both now have passports. Yay! I sent in my birth certifcate to California to be state certified and I just got it back in the mail yesterday! Kory's birth certificate appeared to have gotten lost in transit when we were tracking it. We were definitely getting worried. But God is faithful! Yesterday morning we thought it was lost somewhere in Kansas. This morning the tracking showed that it is already on its way back to us! We are also very thankful for the opportunity to work the summer program at our school. We are still a few thousand dollars away from being able to pay our dossier fee and our summer job will definitely help!
Thank you everyone for your continued prayers and support. Here is how you can be praying for us...
*Finish state certification - we have to mail all our documents, that we have worked for three months to get, to get state certified. Please pray that nothing gets lost in the mail!
*Continued financial provision
*Rejuvination - this has definitely been our most exhausting summer so far!
Answered Prayers!
| Posted by crystal.b.kawai@gmail.com on May 28, 2016 at 10:15 PM | comments (0) |
Thank you to everyone who has been lifting us up in prayer as we are finalizing all our paper work for our adoption! God has been answering your prayers! On Thursday we were able to get our medical forms completed and notarized. On Friday we were able to get our local background clearance printed, signed, and notarized as well. Were able to get all this done during our final two days of the school year too! This week has been packed full with end of the year responsibilities and getting our adoption paperwork in order, but we have perservered and made it to the end.
Today was our Home Study visit, which was also a huge answer to prayer. We prayed this morning that we would have fun during this process and that our social worker would be someone who was kind and easy to open up to. And that's what we got. We love our social worker and it was such a fun time. The morning flew by and it was by far the most pleasant experience of this entire adoption journey. She loved us too (and Boba and Chewy of course)! She really appreaciated us being on top of our paper work, our honest answers, and she loved our home. She even said we were "perfect models" for adoptive parents! So yay!
Finally, we had another major answer to prayer yesterday. In the morning Kory and I both prayed that God's favor would be upon us and that He would financial provide for us to help pay for our home study fee. After a crazy, final day of work we came home to a check in the mail! Our homeowner's insurance company refunded us over $1300! God is good! We were completely blown away by God's immediate response and provision.
Thank you SO much to all of you who have been lifting us up in prayer. We are definitely feeling it!
The End of the Beginning... Almost
| Posted by crystal.b.kawai@gmail.com on May 20, 2016 at 6:50 PM | comments (0) |
The last three months have been filled with paperwork, appointments, paperwork, classes, and more paperwork. But the end is in sight! These last few months have been very educational and eye opening as we have begun the process of adoption. For example, I never even heard of a dossier (pronounce dos-see-ay) before, and now it pretty much consumes our lives! This is our entire lives on paper that later gets sent to the China consolant in DC, translated, and then sent to China for approval. We have only 2 more pieces to acquire from others for our dossier, and just a few more pieces to take care of ourselves. Then we just wait!
Things have been quite overwhelming, as we are simultaneously getting our adoption paper work completed in time and ending out the school year. However, God has continually poured out his favor and grace upon us during these past few months. Ephesian 3:20 says, ""Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think." This is so true! We can't imagine going through all this without the favor of God upon us.
We are also thankful for all of you for your love and support! We can't do this alone! We know that many of you have been praying for us, so here are a few specific areas where we can use your prayer support...
PRAYER REQUESTS:
*We can coordinate our final two appointments with a notary for our medical report and local background clearance,
*Home Study goes well - Saturday, May 28th
*Perserverance and peace
*Continued financial provision
Mahalo for your prayers and support!
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