FedEx has our "package"

YAY! After 10 months in the making, FedEx is currently traveling with our "package" (Dossier) to Bethany's corporate office in MI. There it will be translated to Chinese and then sent to China! A perfect ending to our year of preperation. We are blessed by many answered prayers and rejoice that the Lord has opened doors to allow this to happen. There have been many joyful tears over this past month as each hurdle was jumped over with ease! Our hearts have been overwhelmed by joy and gratitude again and again, as we wrote very large checks to accomplish this. Thank you again to so many generous friends and family that have joined us in prayer and financial support. There is no way we could ever thank you all enough! Please know that with each dollar spent, we were ever mindful of all of you!!!!! We will update again when China has our dossier... translation process takes about a month. Please pray all continues to go smoothly and that we'll have a "log-in" date real soon. Once we have that date, our wait begins. We are also praying that God sees fit to bring her to us sooner than the guesstimated 3 year wait. However, we want His will to be done and if it takes that long, we are at total peace with that. Happy New Year everyone!

IMMIGRATION APPROVAL.... CHECK!!!!!!!!

WOOOO HOOOOO.... we just received our I-800 Immigration approval today. Our social worker is reviewing dossier currently. If all goes well, we hope to have it state sealed and authenticated on Monday. From that point, we make 4 copies and send it off to MI (Bethany's corp. office). That will be the final step for us!!!! So, PRAISE THE LORD, we are indeed getting our dossier turned in this month!!!!!!! We'll keep you posted, and believe us, you'll know when that official documentation leaves our hands! We are over-joyed. What a perfect Christmas gift from the Lord to have received immigration approval this week... that was our missing link and the one remaining peice to the puzzle that we had no control over. It is awesome to see how God brought it all to pass! :-)

Immigration Phase

YAY! Home study was officially completed and notarized a couple of weeks ago! It has been sent to Immigration along with our I-800 immigration application. We are so relieved to have the ball rolling again. We should be contacted soon to go in for another series of fingerprints. We'll likely be held up in Immigration for a couple of months and then we can send our Dossier to China... can't wait for that day!!! So, in the meantime, we'll be busy with another massive task of completing our Dossier, which involves tons of paperwork and notarization. A trip to Sac. to have everything authenticated will also be on our to do list. Alongside this paperwork, we'll be busy applying for adoption grants. What a blessing that so many granting organization are out there to help families like ours, who have a heart to adopt and yet are overwhelmed by the daunting $30,000.00 to do so. We are so grateful to be about a third of the way there financially and we look forward to seeing God's hand in continued provision for the remaining $20,000.00ish we need to come up with. We would greatly appreciate your prayers as we apply for these grants and we look forward to seeing the Lord's perfect provision! Thank you for your interest in our journey to adopt Faith. Much love to you all!

NAME CHANGE JUST ABOUT RESOLVED.... IMMIGRATION HERE WE COME!!!

Praise the Lord, our name change issue is just about resolved. Chad's name change has been taken care of and we cancelled Rica's, since we found a way around that! A simple ammendment to our marriage license will do the job.... who knew?!?! Apparently not many... haha. It went something like 3 or 4 attorneys, numerous social workers, a large amount of government officials and 1 judge. It was one wonderful attorney in Fresno named Julie that solved this mystery! Thank you Julie!!! Anyway, we are very grateful to be just about past this hurdle... (and we thought finances would be our biggest mountain... haha). We are dreaming again about our sweet baby Faith and we are so happy to be moving forward! If you'd like to pray for a miracle.... we'd love to have our Dossier into China by the end of this year, please join us in prayer! Love you all!

Name change saga continues... bummer!

So, had our hearing and the judge told us we were going about things the wrong way... ugh! He didn't sign off on our name change because it would have legally changed Rica's name back to Hoffmann (maiden name). Now working with an attorney on an AKA affidavit in hopes China will accept this and allow us to continue moving forward, hoping to have our dossier to China within a few months. Please join us in prayer for God's will to prevail. We have another court date on Aug. 27th to either close the name change case or change Rica's name... only to have to change it again back to Allen. This will ultimately be an additional $1400.00 on top of our already outrageous adoption fees of nearly $30,000.00 and could be another 6 months to a year in the already painfully long 3 year wait. So, feeling a bit frustrated, but still trusting the Lord and looking forward to seeing Him work in this situation. Thanks everyone!

Court date for name change

Hey friends... it's been a bit since our last posting. So, next week on July 23rd, the name change issue should be resolved. We have our court date that morning and prayerfully all will go well and we can move on from this little snag we ran into. Our homestudy should be complete once we have the legal documentation explaining why our birth names differed from our married names... a confusing mess to get this one worked out, but praise the Lord, we are almost there. We will also be busy this week with another mound of paperwork... this time for immigration. We are thrilled that within a few weeks (once our homestudy has a complete stamp of approval), we can begin applying for grants from several different granting organizations, please join us in prayer for God's perfect provision. We are very thankful for the numerous ministries and organizations out there eager to help fund adoptions! That's it for now, thanks for your interest everyone!

red tape

We are still waiting on Stanislaus County Court in order to change our names officially from our birth names to our current names. After that we will continue forward with the beginnings of our dossier work. We also have our homestudy friday with Bethany. Not much of an update, but that is what is happening for now :)

BLESSED!!!

Today is May 15th, 2009. Rica & I feel so blessed! Here is an update:

ADOPTING FAITH BENEFIT EVENT:
1 - Our May 8th Adoption benefit was Amazing! Our family felt so loved and encouraged! There were nearly 200 adults in attendance with another 43 children in childcare! Dianne Porter and her incredible team outdid themselves with all the set up, food, silent auction and many other efforts. Joey Prather did a great job as emcee, Mitch blessed us by singing "When love takes you in" , and the Albertoni's shared their China adoption story of Annie - very moving. We cannot express all the gratitude we have for the many people who gave of their time, effort and resources to make that night an incredible evening. And for those following our journey... the answer that many of you have been waiting for... to date we have been blessed by $10,400.00 in donations and gifts!!!! Most of it came from the benefit event. We now have what we need to pay for all of the stateside expenses in preparation for our dossier! We praise God for His faithfulness and for moving in the hearts of so many of you to get invovled. Thank you!

PROGRESS REPORT:

- We also finished our 8 hour online Hague course and did our fingerprinting yesterday (FBI, DOJ & Child abuse checks.. we were waiting for the latex glove to follow...)

- We will finish reading two adoption books this week

- We're waiting for our social worker to schedule & complete our home study.

- We need to go through the immigration paperwork and process.

- We're waiting for the green light on putting together the dossier that we send to China (followed by much waiting..)

* special prayer request: we have hit a snag in our paperwork. We have discovered that Rica and I do not have any legal paperwork on file showing a change from our birth names (Chipponeri & Covey) to our family names (Allen & Hoffmann). It is uncertain at this point how much of a snag this could be... it could be a significant setback, or just another piece of paper to fill out and fee to pay. Please pray that we are able to resolve this simply and quickly so we can move through the immigration process smoothly.

Again, thanks for joining us on this journey to adopt Faith!

Love,

The Allen family

End of April Update

ACCOMPLISHED:
We have been busy this month with the first wave of requirements for our adoption and have seen God's provision as we move forward in this first phase. I think we broke a speed record at Bethany! In the last few weeks we have:
- Completed our self study form (35 questions each)
- Completed our family of origin forms
- Completed our questions for inter country applicants form (17 questions each)
- Completed our applicants with children in the home form (35 questions each)
- Completed our parent and child medical examinations and forms (blood draw on us.. yuck!)
- Completed our affidavit of health insurance form
- Completed our personal financial form
- Completed our employer reference form
- Completed our guardian information sheet
- Completed our statement of understanding form
- Completed our realities and risks form
- Completed our medical needs questionnaire (one of the most difficult forms to complete - you basically let the agency know what medical needs you are open to and which ones you are not)
- Completed our "making a transracial adoption a success" form
- Completed our parental discipline policy form
- Completed our foreign country informed consent form
- Completed our permission/consent form
- Completed our certificate of identity form
- Completed our criminal record statement (Rica's former thug life was cleared - haha)
- We applied for Rica's passport renewal (Chad's passport is currently valid)
- We completed our second interview with our social worker
- We read one of our two books for our mandatory read requirement
- We have begun the mandatory 8-10 hour Hague adoption course

FINANCIALS
And some real exciting news... God has provided all the funds needed for this first phase
- Initial donations covered the first $550.00 to Bethany Christian Services
- A wedding honorarium paid for Rica's passport ($75.00) and the Hague course fee ($175.00)
- And we were confirmed that God's Grace Adoption Ministry has funded us $2500.00 toward our adoption and Bethany is allowing us to move forward with their process knowing this grant has been funded! GOD IS SO FAITHFUL!
- Waiting on the Lord's provision for fingerprinting fees and fees related to next phase.

TO DO: - Left to complete for this Phase:
- Complete second book for mandatory read
- Complete Hague course
- Fingerprinting (hopefully in next week or two)
- Third meeting with Social worker - our individual intake interviews
- move into next phase to prepare for Dossier (more documentation and notarizations)

We are also Two weeks out from our Adopting Faith Benefit event on May 8th - we currently have 60 tickets sold, and are hoping to at least double that in the next week. Just a reminder to buy your tickets from Dianne (209-480-4012) and it is an open event... meaning anyone is invited :)

Thanks for your prayers and support! We're moving forward!

Love Chad & Rica

First Interview

This Friday, April 10th, we go to Bethany for our first intake interview. It's one of the first steps in the home study and will take a couple of hours. We are not sure when Bethany will request the next payment for moving forward with the home study, but because they are familiar with GGAM (grant agency) and our affiliation and past funding with GGAM, along with knowing we are having the fund raiser on May 8th, they seem willing to begin the process with confidence that we will be able to make payment when needed - thank you God!

Step One... Check!

Objective #1 Has Been Accomplished!

April 6, 2009 marks the date we turn in our application to formally start the process of adopting the little girl God has for us in China!!! Through special gifts and a wedding honorarium, God provided the $550.00 we were waiting upon to turn our application into Bethany. We praise Him for His provision!

We will now wait for Bethany to contact us and initiate the home study. This could be anywhere from a week to four weeks from now. It will consist of interviews, a home assessment and... you guessed it... more paperwork! The home study will cost $2500.00 (document processing, social worker fees and other home study expenses). Fortunately, we will not have to pay this in one large sum, but in 3-4 increments. This next step involves a significant financial hurdle and we depend on God for every dime of provision.

We are excited to see how the Lord will provide at our ADOPTING FAITH BENEFIT EVENT - FRIDAY, MAY 8TH. Anyone who would like to attend is welcome! We have been overwhelmed by the efforts and support so many have offered to make this event happen, and extremely grateful! We hope you can join us! The silent auction should be a big hit - The generosity of the donated items is amazing! Here's just some of the incredible items:

• A week at a beach house in Kauai
• A weekend at a home on the coast of Cambria
• A weekend at a cabin near Pinecrest Lake
• A side of beef
• His and her bicycles from Oakdale Bike Shop
• A cord of firewood
• and many, many more...

So our next steps consist of:

(1) Waiting on Bethany to engage us on the home study

(2) Waiting on a decision from our first grant application (GGAM).

(3) Waiting on the results of the Benefit Event to provide the funds needed to move forward.

Did you notice the word "waiting'? We know that word will be a regular part of our journey :)

Psalm 37:7 - Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him...

Thank you for your prayers and support!

Love,

Chad & Rica

The Chinese symbol for Faith

Biblical Inspiration

Just wanted to share some great verses the Lord has been bringing to our minds...
Hosea 14:3 -"...for in You the orphan finds mercy".
Psalm 68:6 - "God sets the lonely in families".
James 1:27 - "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this; to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Many Thanks!

WOW! We are truly blessed by the amount of feedback and encouragement we have received in the last two days!!! Thank you very much. Today we will be mailing off our first grant application to God's Grace Adoption Ministry (GGAM). They normally don't fund until placement, but because we have worked closely with them in the past (we received a grant for Cruz's adoption and Chad was actually on their board) they may be willing to work with us earlier.

We will be posting a list of prayer requests soon... pretty much the progressive checklist of what we need to accomplish in the pursuit of this adoption :) It will give you a better idea of the steps we will have laid out before us. The immediate 2 prayer requests are:
1 - That God will provide the $550.00 for our Bethany application soon
2 - That the Lord will also provide the $2500.00 for the home study following the application.

We are also in the process of securing a date for our benefit dinner, so stay tuned. God has already provided a location!!! A big "THANK YOU "to the Erwin's for their generosity in letting us use the Almond Pavilion free of charge for our dinner!

Thanks for journeying with us!

love,

Chad & Rica

Adopting Faith

THE BEGINNING:

We started off our marriage with the typical "5 year plan," waiting to have children after being married 5 years. When we hit the five year mark, we ran smack into the middle of the unexpected wall of infertility. Sparing you the details... after four years of trudging thru the valley of infertility, we realized God wanted to grow our family through adoption. We learned much about adoption and openly embraced this as God's means of growing the Allen family. Our original thought was to adopt a girl from China, but the price tag spooked us. Of course we realized very quickly that was because God had already divinely orchestrated Cruz and Isabelle to be our first 2 children... and we praise Him for the precious gifts they are! :) Now, after having on and off conversations about becoming a three child family for the last year, we feel God is calling us to adopt again and come back to the seed He planted in our hearts years ago, to pursue a little girl from China.

THE JOURNEY:

In times that are so uncertain and that would seem unwise to initiate such a financial endeavor, we feel we have clearly heard the Lord's call to step out in faith and pursue adopting a little girl from China. It could take about 2 years and cost around $25,000 (none of which we have). This is truly a journey of faith and complete dependence on the Lord's provision. We invite you to journey with us! We would be incredibly grateful for your prayers, encouragement, support and even financial contribution if you feel so led.

BETHANY:

We are currently approved by Bethany Christian Services for pursuing an international adoption and have been assigned a social worker. We have our application filled out and are waiting on God to provide the $550.00 application fee in order to submit it. Following the application, Bethany will set up a home study to the tune of $2500.00.

GRANTS:

There are several agencies and ministries that offer grants for adoptions. As you can imagine, we are lining up some applications and beginning some of the paperwork, but many of them won't look at us until we have our home study done. These ministries were a huge help in funding Cruz and Isabelle's adoptions.

WHY CHINA?

There are adoption needs all over the world, but God has clearly placed China on our hearts. The one child rule in effect has led China to have over half a million orphans! Many of those orphans are girls. Often the family desires to have their one child be a boy so he can carry on the family name, be more industrious and take care of the mom and dad when they age later in life. Therefore, many newborn girls are born and then abandoned and eventually end up in the already overloaded orphanages. Once those girls are released from the orphanages as a teenager, they often find themselves trapped in a life of prostitution. It may only be one child among thousands, but we would be honored to raise one of those little girls in our home, learning the ways of the Lord and experiencing the blessings of a loving Christ-centered family. Plus, those little girls are so darned cute!!!

FROM HERE:

From here we are doing our best to fill out the necessary paperwork, prepare a benefit dinner in April (stay posted for the date) and trust God for every footstep and every dollar. As you journey with us, you can check this blog spot for our upcoming steps in the process, prayer requests and answered prayers. We are humbled and honored that you would take enough interest in our family to partner with us in prayer and be part of our journey. Blessings!

Love,

Chad & Rica