Dossier due September 16, 2010. Travel Date likely in October!

Today Lindsey and I received exciting news from our case manager at CWA. We are now officially pre-registered to adopt our child in the Ukraine! We received confirmation today from Ukraine that our new registration date at the SDAPRC is September 16, 2010! At this time our dossier will be due in Ukraine. Once it is submitted, our travel date to Ukraine to meet our child should come as quick as 3-5 weeks thereafter, as we have been told. This means we will likely be traveling to Ukraine in October!

This is very exciting for two reasons. First, we finally have a definite date from Ukraine of when all of the paperwork is due; there is no more guessing. We will travel to Ukraine shortly after that. Second, it’s very likely we will be in Ukraine during our two year wedding anniversary! (October 18th) What a wonderful way to spend such an occasion! Looking back on this entire experience we really were hoping that we would travel in the summer, but we will just have to be a bit more patient. Given that we officially started this process last August, we’re a bit over the year timeline, but God has a child picked out for us this Fall and the countdown can begin!

Even though our date falls in September, our dossier is actually due at our agency two months prior on July 16th, 2010 – My 27th birthday! This gives CWA 60 days to translate and prep all of our documents before sending them over to the Ukraine.

On a side note, a week or so ago I added to the side panel of this site, a link and instructions on how you can help us financially during this time. The good news is, we have a little more time to save than we anticipated, but we still have a long way to go. Our agency fees are paid, however we still have the large international fee to Ukraine which is approximately $14,000, a “relief donation” to Ukraine of $1,000, suggested $9,000 cash to have on hand for living expenses in Ukraine, and approximately $3,500 for travel expenses for our international flights. This is a lot of money, but we have full faith God will help us save every penny. To all of those who have already donated to this cause, we thank you!

If you feel led to be a part of our adoption financially, please click here.

Under Specify Donation, select General Fund: Adoption as the project type. Under Choose Person, select CWA Family and enter the following:

Scott and Lindsey Howell
2130 Water Crest Lane
Columbus, OH 43209

Your gift to us would be greatly appreciated! (and also tax-deductible through the link above). As a heads up, we are also planning on having a few fundraising events over the coarse of the spring and summer. Details on how you can help sponsor Lindsey during an upcoming half-marathon will be announced shortly.

If you can’t offer to help financially, please know there is also other ways you can be a part of this adoption! We consider this adoption a ministry, and we are always in desperate need of continued prayers that this journey continues as smoothly as it has.