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!