The Ayres are DTE!!!!

We received the email we have been waiting for....Congratulations Ayres' Family, you are officially DTE (dossier to Ethiopia)!!!  After four solid months of extensive paperwork we are finally where we need to be in our adoption process...waiting to be matched up with our daughter who is living half way around the world.  I cannot describe how happy we are to finally be on the waiting list for our little princess.

As of today, there is a tentative waiting list that was created and continues to be updated by adoptive families within our adoption agency.  As I mentioned, this list is very tentative because the only way to get on the list is to first be DTE and to also request to be placed on the list.  Our adoption agency does not use this list to determine who is next in line for a child, it is only for the use of adoptive families to have a general idea of where they are in their wait compared to other families who are DTE.  So just because we are one number today, doesn't mean that is exactly where we are in line compared to other families.  Either way, it is a very neat to see a general idea of where we are in our wait.  As of today we are 127th in line to adopt an infant girl, 89th in line to adopt a toddler between 19-47 months and lastly we are 55th in line to adopt a 4 year old little girl.  Nic and I wanted to be open to adopting a child any where from newborn to 4+ years old.  Our only desire is that Jaxon is the oldest child in the family.  Therefore, as our wait continues it is possible that we will extend our age range possibilities.  We want to be as open as possible to whatever age God has planned for our family.

Currently the waiting time frame for our adoption agency is anywhere from 30-36 months at the time of DTE.  This is the average waiting period for adoptive families...it could be shorter, but it could also be longer.  God knows exactly what time and date Amira will be LEGALLY an Ayres...in our hearts she already is even though we have never seen her face.  That is another thing I do not think everyone knows or may not understand completely.  As of today, October 18, 2013 - we have not seen Amira.  We do not know what she looks like or how old she is...all we know is that she is out there somewhere living half way around the world.

At this point, realistically I do not think that we will be adopting a newborn because of the waiting period.  Most families want to adopt a child when they are an infant, which explains why we are 127th in line to adopt a newborn compared to 55th in line to adopt a 4 year old.  Nic and I have both been blessed to live through two infant stages and while we would be excited to bring Amira home that young, we are perfectly happy if she is not a newborn when she physically arrives in our family. I honestly believe in my heart Amira will be around the age of 4 when she arrives in our family.  Based on the average waiting period of 30-36 months, that means today she could be around 1 year old.

Nic and I would like to thank everyone again for your continued support and prayers.  We are so grateful to be walking along this journey with such amazing friends and family.  Your prayers and words of encouragement mean so much to us.

Dossier to America World....

Hello everyone!!!

As you may or may not know we have a very, very exciting update....as of Friday afternoon we officially completed and mailed out our dossier to America World Adoption!!!  Thank you Lord!!! We are beyond thrilled to finally have completed this big step and to be progressing forward in our adoption!

So where do we go from here? Once our agency receives our dossier (which should be today) they will pass it through a two step check to ensure that all the paperwork is perfect and no additional paperwork is needed. Once it is given the final approval from our agency it will be shipped off to Africa and we will officially be dte (dossier to Ethiopia)!!! This is when the real wait begins. As of today America World estimates that a family can wait anywhere from 30-36 months before being matched with a child.  We are hoping and praying that it will not take this long. However, we fully understand that this will all happen in Gods timing not ours and we are praying that we learn patience along the way. 

So what do we do while we wait? Currently we are planning on applying for several adoption grants. We still have a long road ahead of us for fundraising and want to do all that we can to reach our financial goal. We also plan on having a few dine to donates over the course of the next few months. The holiday season is quickly approaching and we understand that Thanksgiving and Christmas are a very busy time of the year for everyone so we are keeping our fundraisers simple and few. 

Again we would like to take the time to thank everyone who has helped us along the way. We are so grateful for everyone who has donated because without your contributions we would not be where we are today!!!  We also want to thank everyone for your prayers and encouragement. We are truly blessed to be surrounded by such amazing people!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! :-)

We will continue to keep you updated as we wait for word back from America World on the status of our dossier. 

God bless!!!

Light at the end of the paperwork tunnel....

Hi Everyone!!

We have a few new and exciting updates to share….As you may or may not know, we received our approval letter last night from the United States Citizen and Immigration Services.  I was beyond thrilled when I first began to review the letter because this is a huge step in moving forward with our dossier.  However, I quickly realized that there was an error on the letter that was going to slow us down – the USCIS had forgot one digit in our address.  This may not seem like a very big deal, but when it comes to international adoption the paperwork has to be PERFECT.  I immediately tried to contact my agency but could not reach my family coordinator.  Because I did not think there was any thing else I could do until the next day, I set the papers aside and went along with my evening.  The next morning (today), I got up and planned on taking care of this issue sometime throughout my day but then I quickly learned about the government shutdown that had happened at midnight.  I am going to be honest - I was completely heartbroken with the thought that we were going to have to wait, we have been trying to get everything together for four long months and we are both ready to be submitted to Ethiopia.  So I prayed and ask for the prayers of others that, God willing, we would be able to get our paperwork fixed quickly.  We were praying that there might be a miracle in the works for us by the man upstairs and once again God answered our prayers.  The USCIS was open today and I was able to reach the officer assigned to our case who said he would correct and mail out a new letter today.  The USCIS operator probably thought I was a little loopy because I almost started to cry when I realized they were not part of the shutdown.

This led us to the next step… contacting the Secretary of State to see if they were open or part of the shutdown.  Can you guess what happened next?  Yes, once again God answered our prayers and I was able to reach someone in the office.  Every state is different in their requirements for state certification and from what I read for Indiana standards I either had the choice of taking my documents to Indianapolis myself or mailing all of the original documents that I spent the last four months working hard to obtain.   Needless to say, I was planning a road trip.  However, I quickly learned that all I would be required to mail was the two documents that required the stamp.  I was literally overjoyed that I did not have to mail all of my original copies of my dossier and I could send the two originals out today rather than waiting until Friday to drive down!!!  Therefore, I made a pit stop after work and paid for over night shipping to get these two important documents where they need to be for the final approval. 

This is it folks.  We are literally so close to submitting our dossier and beginning the real wait.  Once we receive the corrected letter from the USCIS and get our two original copies back from the secretary of state we are ready to submit.  Well almost ready.  We are still short financially of what is needed to submit our paperwork to Africa.  However, I know that God will not forsake us.  He hasn’t yet and I know he isn’t going to.  I trust he will provide.  We have already raised $11,486 in four months!!!  That is a testimony in itself!!!  Currently we need to raise an additional $4093.  I have pasted the link below that shows the break down of the costs thus far:

https://www.youcaring.com/projectethiopia

I also want to share that we are hosting an orphan walk this Saturday at Coffee Creek in Chesterton.  If you are interested in walking please register at the link below:

http://theorphanmission.org/W4O_-_Registration.html

We are so excited to see what God has in store for us as we move along in our process.  He is constantly reassuring, guiding, and lifting us up throughout this process.  I mean look at today for example…what we thought was going to be impossible was possible with God.  All the Glory to him for helping us through today and getting what we need and All the Glory to him when we are holding our sweet daughter.  Thank you again for your prayers and support.

God Bless.

Lasagna Fundraiser

Good morning everyone!!

We wanted to take the time to thank everyone who helped make our Lasagna fundraiser last night such an amazing success. We are so grateful for everyone who helped plan, decorate, cook, serve food, babysit kids, make flowers and everyone who attended. We especially want to thank Karen Williams who put together the entire event. Everything was beautiful.  We could not have asked for a better evening. 

For those who could not attend our dinner I want to share with you the nights events...we were blessed in so many ways.  We were very excited for the large turn out and everyone's positive response to our testimony, it truly was encouraging and heartwarming. Speaking of our testimony, I was so nervous but once I stood in front of everyone and began speaking it was like second nature... Trust me, that was strength from above because I could not have gotten through that (tear free) alone. Thank you Lord for that strength!!!! I also want to take the time to thank the teens not only for serving but also for your selfless generosity.  After everyone left for the evening and we were cleaning up, all of the teens approached us with a gift... They decided to donate the tips they received for their youth fund through the evening to our adoption. Nic and I literally had our wallets out to add to the teens tip jar when they walked over and gave to us, without hesitation, what they had earned for the evening. Because of their generosity we were able to add $106 to our total amount raised for the evening. I love that our church is helping to raise (along with their parents) children who care so much about others and their needs. We hope our children will grow up with the same beliefs and morals. We were literally blown away and beyond grateful. Thank you so much. In addition to the teens, we also had another youth from our church empty her piggy bank to donate to our adoption. Again we were so grateful and blown away by the selflessness of a little girl. Thank you again so much.  I may not have cried throughout my testimony but the generosity of these kids brought tears that I could not fight back. 

We are happy to share that through the generosity of the youth, friends, family and church family we raised $1605.23 last night. We have now raised a total of $11,486 thus far for our adoption. We are hoping to submit our dossier in October which means we will need to raise an additional $4093. We are so close and we know that GOD WILL PROVIDE!!!! He has already proven that he will by helping us raise over $11,000 in four months time!!! What an amazing testimony in itself. Money is nothing to our God who created the universe.  Our adoption will happen and our Amira, where ever she is today, will be a part of our family. In our hearts she already is our daughter and we love her. 

Thank you so much for your support and prayers as we continue along our journey in bringing our daughter home. :-)

God bless!!!

Biometrics in the works!!!

We are excited to share that we have received our biometric (aka fingerprint) appointment yesterday in the mail!!! As of now we are scheduled for September 25 at 11 am. However, we have been informed by other adoptive families that it is ok to go in to the uscis office before our scheduled appointment to get this done. Therefore, Nic and I will be heading to the office this Wednesday afternoon to get our fingerprints taken!!! We are so excited to get yet another part of our paper chase completed! After we receive approval from the uscis, the last step will be to get our dossier state certified by the Secretary of State in Indianapolis!!! I want to say that again because it sounds so awesome...this is our last step!!!! 

Little Amira you are that much closer to be in my arms. :-) 

Thank you again for your continued support and prayers!! We will keep you updated with our progress!! :-) 

So Blessed

Nic and I are excited to share about a letter we received today from a friend of a friend of Chami's.  Chami's friend Bethany, who she had attended school with at Ellerslie in Colorado, has a friend who recently heard of our adoption and wanted to do something to help us out.  Bethany's friend, who is originally from New Hampshire and some one we have never met, has been working to raise money for a mission trip she was planning this year.  She heard through the grapevine about our adoption and decided that she wanted to be a part in helping bring our Amira home. So along with a very nice letter was a check for $790!!!  We are truly amazed by the generosity of a person we have never met.  Furthermore, I just learned that this amazing individual is still in the process of fundraiding for her own trip. Therefore, she is giving us a gift that she could still use for her own call.  What a remarkable act of kindness. Thank you so much!! I hope some day we can meet face to face and I can thank you in person.  We are so grateful!!!  Best of luck to you on your mission trip, we will be praying for your journey as well!!

It is so unbelievable the people God has been and still is placing along our path to help us bring our daughter home.  Whether it be through donations, sharing our story, encouraging words and support, and/or sharing their story of adoption, we feel so blessed.  I want to take the time to thank all of you again, we appreciate all you have done.  :)

A little update on where we are today...after sending off our i600A, we are still waiting to hear back from Immigration.  I have been told that this process can take as little as 6 weeks to complete but this is if the government does not request additional information which can extend the process to up to 12 weeks.  We are eager to continue and complete our dossier, so we are hoping that we are on the shorter end of the spectrum but we know these things take time and just like everything else in life, this will happen all in God's time not ours.  Patience, Patience, Patience.  :)

From a fundraising standpoint...September 28 is our lasagna dinner.  It is at this event we will be sharing our testimony - what led us to adopt, the trials and tribulations - all the glory to you Lord, the process and where we stand in the process.  We also have a little something extra we will be sharing at the end of the dinner that I am very excited for. :)  The deadline to sign up for this dinner is a week from today.
We also have our orphan awareness walk October 5th at Coffee Creek in Chesterton.  If you are interested in participating in this event, please click the link below to register:

http://theorphanmission.org/W4O_-_Registration.html

Please choose that you are walking for Nic and Nicole Ayres.  :)

We want to end this tonight by again thanking everyone for their support.  We will continue to keep you updated on our dossier, fundraising events, and best of all our God Moments as they unfold before us.  God Bless and have a great week!!

Project Ethiopia Update

Good afternoon!!!

We have some exciting news to share...We received word today from our social worker that our home study has officially been approved by both our home study and adoption agency! Our social worker said she has finished her part in this process by signing and sending the copies off to our home study agency in Indianapolis. She estimated they will receive the paperwork by Monday which means we will hopefully have our home study in hand by this time next week.  This is exciting because that means we are back on track and we will soon be able to submit our i600a to the United States Immigration and Citizen Services.  This will be for "preapproval" of Amira's citizenship.  It is at this point our final background check will be completed as we will be required to get fingerprinted.  We are looking forward to get this next step done as I have been told it can take up to 6 weeks to complete.  Hurray for progress!

I also wanted to take this time to thank James O'Connor and his karate school as he has offered to display our fundraising items and promote the concept of having compassion for others at his next belt test.  I think this is amazing for a few reasons, one being that word of our adoption is continuing to spread over northwest Indiana.  As more people hear of our story, the stronger our prayer chain becomes.  Not only are others hearing our story but they are hearing about the orphan crisis of the world.  Sometimes it is easy to ignore what we cannot see or maybe we don't even realize the problems that exist in our world today, but the reality is out there.  There are children who need us.  Whether that be through adoption, sponsorship, mission work or prayer, they need our love and support.  Lastly, I think it is amazing that Mr O'Connor is promoting the concept of having compassion for others to the youth of his establishment.  It is obvious many of these children look up to him and value his opinions. Training children young to have a heart for others is an amazing life lesson, something we are teaching our children and its great to see others value it as well.  So a big thanks to you!!  And best of luck at your belt tests this weekend.

It never ceases to amazing me the people God has placed in our path along this journey.  We are truly appreciative of everything everyone has done for us.  Whether it be helping with fund raisers, buying a shirt or bracelet, making a donation or praying for us, our journey, and our daughter half way around the world, we are so grateful.  Your acts of kindness and compassion are more encouraging than you may think.  So thank you. :-)

We will continue to keep you updated as we venture down this road we call adoption.  God bless!