Letter to Friends and Family

Dear Family and Friends-
Many of you may have heard our latest and most exciting news-but if not, let us share it with you now! We are in the process of adopting an infant girl from Ethiopia. We have requested a baby girl between the ages of 0-12 months old at the time of referral. About 3-4 months after we accept a referral for a girl, we will travel to Ethiopia, summer of 2010, and stay between 5-7 days picking her up. We are very excited and it has been a life long dream of ours to be able to adopt. We have talked about it since high school and can hardly believe that we are already well into the process. We are using a Christian agency out of Portland called All God’s Children International (AGCI). Here is their website-check them out!

http://www.allgodschildren.org/adoption/ethiopia/
The paperwork and documents that we have had to provide are beyond description! It is a long process, which in total takes about 10-16 months, but one that will prove to be well worth it when we hold our little girl in our arms!

We have taken a loan out to be able to do this, but still need to raise around $6,000 in order to complete the adoption. In order to do this, we are planning on having a huge garage sale with all proceeds going toward the adoption. It will be the weekend of Silverton’s Homer Davenport Days-August 7–9. We are asking that if you have anything lying around that you don’t want or need anymore, that you would please consider donating it to us so that we could use it in our garage sale-that would be awesome! We would so appreciate it and would love to take it off your hands. Since we live right down by the city park, you can leave it on our front porch anytime, or call and we can come by and get it!

We have also started a blog page so that everyone can keep up to date on how our adoption is proceeding. Here is the link-stop by and check it out to get updates:

http://adamandamberstutzman.blogspot.com/ We are not super great at blogging-the computer part of it-so bear with us as we try and add things.

There are a few other things we are going to do to raise money for the adoption-

1. We are also going to try and get a carwash together to raise funds, sometime this next spring before we go, so we will keep you updated on a day and location for that.

2. We have started a savings account at MAPS Credit Union for just the adoption. If you feel it in your hearts to contribute to our adoption-we would be so appreciative. Anyone can donate by sending a check to: MAPS Credit Union P.O. Box 12398 Salem, OR 97309 ACCT # 471-S1

3. During the festivals each year held at the Silverton City Park, Jacob always parks cars in our yard for extra spending money, so the weekends of Aug.7-9 and Aug.15-16, he will be doing this and wants to give ½ of his proceeds toward getting his little sister home. His heart is so sweet to do this! So if you need a parking spot-swing by and visit “Jacob’s Front Yard Parking”. :)

4. We will be having an “orphanage shower” for AGCI-Hannah’s Hope Orphanage sometime before we go. This is where our daughter will be staying until we pick her up. We can take totes of items over with us to donate to the orphanage when we go. We know that they always have a need for any type of formula, diapers, wipes and croc rubber shoes-(or like those) shoes, but we will send out more specific needs as we find out more-so if you ever want to pick up any of these things to donate, you can drop them off any time too.

5. We ask that more than anything you keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we go through this journey-we will let you know when we accept a referral for our child, and we know that the Lord will hand select her for our family-it is in His hands.

What blows us away is the fact that, chances are, a woman somewhere clear across the world is either pregnant or soon will be pregnant with our future daughter and that thought alone is more than our minds can grasp! It is a true miracle and we are in awe of the whole process.
Thanks to everyone for all your help and support during this time-we are very blessed and excited to be able to do this-we love you all tons!
Anything else we come up with, we will let you know by e-mail or on our blog. ------

MAKE SURE TO JOIN OUR BLOG AND "FOLLOW" IT!!! :)

Adam, Amber, Jacob, Cassidy, Zachary, Noah, Logan and our future daughter-Baby A :)

We are moving along-SLOWLY but Surely

So, we are now in the process of getting each family member physicals for the adoption-this all takes some time with 7 of us, but it is going well so far. The things we are working on accomplishing are these:

For our home study we need:

FBI Criminal Check

State Criminal Check

Local Criminal check

Child abuse Checks

Adam and I Physicals

All 5 kids Physicals

Have 10 of ACGI forms notarized

6 reference forms filled out from friends, neighbors, relatives, etc.

Adam and I each fill out a 50 page questionnaire about our entire life, growing up, family, occupations, and everything ever known by anyone!

Do a 10 hour on-line class about bi-racial adoption

Fill out a 150 page workbook that is part of the on-line class with tons of questions on bi-racial adoption

Do a total and complete financial worksheet about every bill we pay and our income

Get a guardian (God Parent) for our new daughter and get that notarized

Get Employee verifications that are notarized from our employer

Get all our social security cards, birth certificates, and drivers licenses, marriage licenses copied and order original ones too

Copy of last tax return

Vet letter for all our pets stating they are up to date on their shots

A family photo

Get proof of life insurances and auto insurances and proof of health insurance

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We then do a 6 hour (about 3-4 visits total) home study with our social worker from AGCI

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Then for our Dossier-which is a large packet of info. that will actually go to Ethiopian government. A Dossier when defined is: A collection of papers giving detailed information about a particular person or subject



We need for this for the Dossier:

Two power of attorney -giving the orphanage leader-(Almaz is her name)-power of being our representative in court and our daughters temporary guardian-forms need notarized-one we had to get STATE certified-and went down to the building by the capital to do this

an application letter to the Ethiopian government-notarized

2 passport photos

Plus a passport for each of us to travel

photographs of the family, ourselves, inside and outside our home pasted neatly on paper

Another financial statement

A copy of our home study from ACGI when it is done

Another employment verification letter notarized from our jobs

another birth certificate-original copy for Adam and I, a marriage one

A medical form, notarized from our doctors stating we don't have TB and are healthy to have a child

Criminal check for both

two letters of recommendation one friend one family

Two copies of all of the above, and a huge chunk of money! :)



WHEW-well, I am please to say that we only have a few more papers to organize-my physical, 3 of the kids physicals, waiting for our background checks from FBI in Virginia to get back, do our homestudy, get a couple more people to send their reference letters and we are nearly done-it has taken 2 months to get this far-but we are moving along. :)



We are hoping our homestudy can be by the end of August- (anyone want to help clean a house? ) :)



Then the next step is to wait for the governments-both USA and Ethiopia to do their jobs and get a referral of a little baby girl for us-a referral is when they send us photos and all the info on the girl and we have 10 days to get a international pediatrician to review it and we decide if we will accept her or not.

If we were to accept her and then for some reason change our mind or back out, Ethiopian government has a law that that child can NEVER be adopted out again!!! Wow-talk about the pressure to make sure of something!

Will continue later-till next time-