As you may have heard the Texas Gulf coast is hunkering down for the arrival of hurricane Ike, which should make landfall sometime tonight. Austin is preparing for the arrival of thousands of evacuees (I heard close to 30,000 but I could be wrong). Austin isn't exactly out of the woods for some damaging winds...we are expecting 40-60 mph winds depending on which side of the city you are on. We live in the western part of the city and are expecting winds up to 40 mph. Other Texas towns/cities are expecting 74+ mph winds which is considered a category 1 hurricane. Those areas include Houston, Bryan, and all the way up to just south of Corsicana. Please pray for safe travel for those evacuating and also for the brave ones (brave??...questionable) riding out the storm.
Unfortunately we have no adoption news. We are hoping to hear from our case worker next week.
Last night we attended a Scout meet at Jeff's school. We all love the outdoors and thought this would be the thing to get him involved in. At first he didn't really care to join until he heard about the camping trips....and shooting a BB gun. Boys and guns....I think it's in their blood. We learned (or at least I did) that the Scouts are not a bashful organization when it comes to morals, God, physical fitness, parent involvement...you know, all the values that America used to have...ha ha. Our first meeting is this Monday. We are all looking forward to getting started; especially Jeff. He can't wait to get his uniform!
Thanks for reading!
Shane and Misty
Friday, September 12, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
Confirmation from Gladney
We received an email from Gladney confirming that they have received our file from Commonwealth! We are looking forward to hearing from our new case worker.
Stay tuned!
Shane and Misty
Stay tuned!
Shane and Misty
Friday, September 5, 2008
Thankful
We received confirmation from Gladney that the visit to Taiwan was a success! They visited with all 3 orphanages and each is willing to do business with them. Praise God!
All families that have submitted information release forms to Commonwealth will have their files transferred to Gladney. Gladney is going to look through all the documents in every file (95 of them to be exact) and verify where everyone is in the process. Our social worker from Gladney should contact us in a few weeks.
What all this means for us is that we will pick up right where we left off with Commonwealth. We have not lost any time or money in this agency transition. What started out as a disaster has turned into a blessing. I don't think it could've happened at a better time for us. Our paperwork has already been sent to Cathwel (the orphanage we are adopting from in Taiwan) and we are just waiting for a referral. Many families have paperwork scattered everywhere and uncertain of who has what and what they need to do in order to move forward. Please pray for them!
Blessings,
Shane and Misty
All families that have submitted information release forms to Commonwealth will have their files transferred to Gladney. Gladney is going to look through all the documents in every file (95 of them to be exact) and verify where everyone is in the process. Our social worker from Gladney should contact us in a few weeks.
What all this means for us is that we will pick up right where we left off with Commonwealth. We have not lost any time or money in this agency transition. What started out as a disaster has turned into a blessing. I don't think it could've happened at a better time for us. Our paperwork has already been sent to Cathwel (the orphanage we are adopting from in Taiwan) and we are just waiting for a referral. Many families have paperwork scattered everywhere and uncertain of who has what and what they need to do in order to move forward. Please pray for them!
Blessings,
Shane and Misty
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Next conference call
Well I guess we will find out how the trip to Taiwan went...the conference call is tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes!
Misty
Misty
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Waiting...
...and waiting....and waiting. You think we would get used to this waiting thing. :)
Waiting for the results from the trip to Taiwan....waiting for a referral....waiting for our file to be transferred from Commonwealth to Gladney....waiting for a loan confirmation to allow me to register for school...
On a side note, Jeffrey's first day of school was yesterday; 2nd grade! Our baby is no longer a baby! He has been talking a lot about his new brother/sister during the past few days. He has been excited about the adoption since we first started talking about it almost 2 years ago. Has it been that long already??
Hopefully we will have an actual update soon!
Shane and Misty
Waiting for the results from the trip to Taiwan....waiting for a referral....waiting for our file to be transferred from Commonwealth to Gladney....waiting for a loan confirmation to allow me to register for school...
On a side note, Jeffrey's first day of school was yesterday; 2nd grade! Our baby is no longer a baby! He has been talking a lot about his new brother/sister during the past few days. He has been excited about the adoption since we first started talking about it almost 2 years ago. Has it been that long already??
Hopefully we will have an actual update soon!
Shane and Misty
Monday, August 25, 2008
Mailed release forms
Surprisingly we received the information release forms from Commonwealth after the conference call with Gladney. We mailed those this morning. Now we just wait for Gladney's return from Taiwan. They should be back by August 31st and after that we will find out more.
Shane and Misty
Shane and Misty
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Looks promising
The conference call with Gladney was an overdue dose of assurance for us. The upper level group from Gladney is leaving for their trip to Taiwan tomorrow to visit with the orphanages and to work out the details of their nearly developed Taiwan program. Gladney's initial plan was to make the trip to Taiwan first and then have the conference call with us but had a change of heart and decided to communicate with us their plans and to fill us in on the transition details. They did not want us to worry another day about what is happening with our adoption...which we are very appreciative of.
The Senior VP of Gladney himself announced that we will not have to pay another dime to continue our adoption through them! Nada! Not through email...not through a letter....we actually heard it from his mouth. Which is way more than I can say about Commonwealth. We were lucky to get an email from them. It will cost Gladney an estimated $100,000 to cover the expenses that Commonwealth was supposed to pay to the orphanages. Gladney sees this as an investment opportunity and with their track record I'm sure it will pay off. And another bonus is that they have been in business for 120 years, starting with domestic adoptions only for the first 100 years and have since added international programs. We are so relieved to receive this news.
Their trip to Taiwan is to work out the operational details with them and to close the deal on their adoption partnership with the orphanages. While they are in Taiwan we (the clients) have to fill out an information release form for Commonwealth in order for Commonwealth to release our files to Gladney. Gladney is not allowed to contact us until they have our files in their hand. Until then it is our responsibility to contact Gladney if we have any questions or concerns. They are expected to return from Taiwan on August 31st and will have a follow up conference call to answer the operational questions. Hopefully they will have our file by then. If they do we will then be assigned a case worker. Oh and another thing we learned about Commonwealth today. Their case workers were contract workers...Gladney's are actual employees of Gladney. That would explain why we had 3 different case workers within a 1 1/2 year time frame.
We are very thankful of the outcome so far. This has been a huge learning experience for us... we have learned so much about how the international adoption process works as well as trusting God when the road to get where we need to be is not what we envisioned. Thank you so much for your thoughts, prayers and support. More to come!
God bless,
Shane and Misty
P.S. I have added the link to Gladney in the Personal Link section if you want to check out their website.
The Senior VP of Gladney himself announced that we will not have to pay another dime to continue our adoption through them! Nada! Not through email...not through a letter....we actually heard it from his mouth. Which is way more than I can say about Commonwealth. We were lucky to get an email from them. It will cost Gladney an estimated $100,000 to cover the expenses that Commonwealth was supposed to pay to the orphanages. Gladney sees this as an investment opportunity and with their track record I'm sure it will pay off. And another bonus is that they have been in business for 120 years, starting with domestic adoptions only for the first 100 years and have since added international programs. We are so relieved to receive this news.
Their trip to Taiwan is to work out the operational details with them and to close the deal on their adoption partnership with the orphanages. While they are in Taiwan we (the clients) have to fill out an information release form for Commonwealth in order for Commonwealth to release our files to Gladney. Gladney is not allowed to contact us until they have our files in their hand. Until then it is our responsibility to contact Gladney if we have any questions or concerns. They are expected to return from Taiwan on August 31st and will have a follow up conference call to answer the operational questions. Hopefully they will have our file by then. If they do we will then be assigned a case worker. Oh and another thing we learned about Commonwealth today. Their case workers were contract workers...Gladney's are actual employees of Gladney. That would explain why we had 3 different case workers within a 1 1/2 year time frame.
We are very thankful of the outcome so far. This has been a huge learning experience for us... we have learned so much about how the international adoption process works as well as trusting God when the road to get where we need to be is not what we envisioned. Thank you so much for your thoughts, prayers and support. More to come!
God bless,
Shane and Misty
P.S. I have added the link to Gladney in the Personal Link section if you want to check out their website.
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