Adoption Update

The follwoing is an e-mail we received from our adoptiong agency about raising fees...it will cost us $4,435 more than we planned

Dear Families,
As you most of you know our program is growing by the day. And with such growth comes the challenge to maintain the quality of service we provide to you. But most of all it introduces a new challenge to us to ensure we are caring for the orphans who are entrusted to us by adoptive families and the Ethiopian government until adoptions are finalized.
Raising fees is never an easy task, and I know that a fee increase is just one of the many pressures on family budgets today. My hope is that after reading this letter you will better understand why, as a measure of last resort, I request the fee increase, effective November 1st 2008, to help us cover the following costs.


NEW CAPACITY BUILDING FEE BY MOWA
After many complaints by us (adoption agencies as a whole) of lower productivity by MOWA in completing adoptions, MOWA has mandated a capacity building fee so they can hire more social workers and purchase computers to process adoptions.
TRANSITIONAL HOME COSTS
Our role as an agency in Ethiopia is quite different than any of our programs in many ways. One is that we care for the children we are to place in homes. These children come from difficult situations. Some are malnourished and many get sick with common cold, pneumonia or parasites. We don’t want to merely “keep” the children until families come for them but deem it our responsibility to give them the best treatment and care we possibly could. Medical care of children, specially when they first arrive in our home is quite high. We also try our best to involve families in the child’s life long before they meet them. We send updates with snippets of their children’s milestones and pictures. We hire qualified nurses and have a lower nannies to children ratio so that the children can get a more personalized care than they would at an orphanage. We also provide transitional services such as hiring English teachers and an American Social worker to help the children adjust better. All of these things involve significant financial undertaking.
We have also found that diapers and Formulas cost quite a lot more than what we projected. This is also due to inflation in the past year and weakening of the dollar.
TRANSLATION AND AUTHENTICATION OF DOCUMENTS
The cost of dossier translation and authentication both at the department of state and Ministry of Foreign affairs in Ethiopia have gone up.

POST PLACEMENT
The Ethiopian government requires 3 post placement reports the first year of the adoption and one self report per year until the child turns 18. As the agency that facilitated your adoption, we are required to follow up with families to make sure that reports are submitted and on time. We will be charging a one time minimal post placement administration fee to cover the administrative cost.
For these reasons we have been unable to cover the cost with the current fee schedule. I recognize that this is difficult news for families, and that the increase in the cost of your adoption will impact each of you in significant ways. The fiscal situation facing the program is a critical one, and these increases are essential in order to maintain our commitment to offering you and the children you adopt the best care and services possible.
Attached is our new fee schedule. Please note the deadlines and fee structure are different depending on where you are in the process. The fee change will be in effect on November 1 2008
I appreciate your understanding, and I pledge to continue to serve you and orphans in Ethiopia by working to make the program the best it can be.
Sincerely,

Duni Zenaye
AWAA Africa Program Director

We also learned that Duni is moving to ET (Ethiopia) with her family to handle all the adoptions from there. I think this a good thing. She and her husband our both Ethiopian and I just know this will be a positive move for our agency.

Everybody loves a good Parade

The University in our city celebrated their Homecoming this week. So of course we had to attend the parade this morning. Hannah is proud to be an American.

What's a parade without a bunch of Marching Bands.

As you can see Hannah thought the bands were a little to loud.



These clowns were funny they saw me with my camera and drove over to pose for me....clowns crack me up...which leads me into the next photos...please tell me my daughter won't be a plumber.
The theme of this years Homecoming was Las Vegas so there was a lot of Elvis' and weddings.
Hannah took this photo of me...she insisted on taking a picture of me with my camera (it was very hard for me to hand my nearly $1300 camera to a 3 year old). I was very impressed with how she knew how to operate my camera...not impressed with how I look. It was fun sharing one of hobbies with her.

Anyway Go NSU Wolves.

Bliss

Huge Harvest

We had fun helping Uncle Rich harvest his big fat garden today. It couldn't have been a more perfect day. I need to let you know it is October in SD and we are in shorts...I love it. Hannah had a blast playing in the dirt and helping pick some of the produce (she was pretty much more interested in digging in the dirt). We ended up with 61 squash, a bunch of potatoes, a few zucchini (I took claim to this one)






Hannah loved finding worms...she was fascinated by the little squirmy things

We had a very fun day...I did break a blood vessel in my middle finger on my right hand. It is very swollen and black & blue. OK I'm off to watch the debate. Go Sarah!!

The Harvest

Hannah picked her carrots last night. We planted carrots (in a little cup) last Spring in her story time at the library. We transplanted them outside at the end of May. My husband said they would not grow. I guess we showed him. They were huge and delicious (we washed them up and cut one up...very tasty). The taste made up for how ugly a couple of them appeared.

The other big event this weekend is that Hannah had her bible presentation at our church this morning. Our church presents all 3 year olds with a children's bible (they also get presented a bible when they are in 3rd grade).

Other fun things from today worth mentioning

We attended an ice cream social with other families from our church with young children (Hannah brought her 2 aunts who were visiting from out of town). The bad thing is it started thundering about an hour into the event and the wind really picked up so we headed home. On our way home it started to rain pretty hard and we were able to rescue one of our neighbors (before the rain got to heavy) who was on a run and about 3 miles away from home. I think she was pretty grateful as it really started to come down with a strong wind shortly after she got in our van.

Our Minnesota Twins one their final game for the season. Bad thing is we don't know if they won their division as the White Sox also won and need to play a makeup game with Detroit tomorrow if they lose the Twins head to the playoffs. If the White Sox win they have to play a tie breaking game with the Twins. Go Detroit...beat those sox right off of Chicago. OK I'm sorry if you are White Sox fan...I know you hope the results are just the opposite...may the best team win (please make that team the Tigers).

Blessings,

Bliss

"Gotcha Day" Anniversary

Today we celebrate the third anniversary of our "Gotcha Day". What a day that was...Oh Happy Day when they put Hannah into my arms. It was unreal to finally be holding my daughter after looking at her precious referral photos for nearly 2 months.

It was different than what I thought it would be...I thought I would just lose it with big fat tears streaming down my face. I was also prepared for Hannah to cry also. Neither of us shed a tear. I didn't have time to really think about the situation as we were so delayed in our travel to China (43 hour flight delay in Minneapolis, 3 hour delay in Anchorage, AK, 5 hour delay in Tokyo...can anyone believe we still travel on NWA) that our plane landed in Changsha and Hannah was in our arms 45 minutes later. It was amazing there was no break down on my part being so sleep deprived after all the delays and 18 plus hour flight. I know God had a hand in this whole thing as she instantly bonded with me...so amazing. I watch the video that we made over and over and just can't believe the miracle of her adoption. She was 10 months old when we got her so I was expecting some mourning from being taken from the only environment she had ever known. There was none...I don't think she ever really cried the whole time we were in China. I look at our video and she is laughing and smiling as soon as we arrived at our hotel.

We all look different 3 years later...but we love each other even more. Hannah is a very affectionate little girl who has enough energy to run our State (I'm not kidding she is like the Energizer Bunny). She is very excited about getting her little sister from Africa (Ethiopia). We can't wait to celebrate our next "Gotcha Day" with our baby girl from Ethiopia.

Blessings,

Bliss

Bad Dream

I have to start off this post saying...praise for the referrals that families got today. One baby girl..2 months old. Please keep all families adopting in your prayers.

OK about my bad dream...

I had the worst dream last night that kept me up all night. Keep in mind my mother past away over a year ago.
Dream:

I'm walking along with my new fancy phone that I received from husband for my birthday. It rings and I answer...and hear my mother's voice. It is unreal I hear her voice and argue with her that she died over a year ago...that is how real this was...
I'm still not doing well after this dream...

Bliss

Fun Weekend

We had a fun weekend in Sioux Falls. Life is good.

Blessings,

Bliss