We did it!!! Our dossier has made it to Kiev!!! After working tirelessly throughout June getting documents together, repaired, requested and received, we got them all notarized on Wed, June 20th! Our next, much more intimidating step, was to get each and every document that had been notarized “apostilled”. Never heard of that? Neither had I, so I will attempt to explain. In a nutshell, an apostille is a very fancy certificate looking document (at least in FL) which confirms that the notary who signed your document really is a notary. If the same notary notarized 15 different documents, they still have to have a separate apostille on EACH document…to the tune of $10 per document in FL. It must be obtained at the State level, which for us is in Tallahassee. After my call to the courier went unanswered on Wednesday….I decided to hop in the car and take them MYSELF to Tallahassee! On Thursday, June 21, my oldest daughter and I road-tripped on a four hour drive to the Secretary of State’s office. In sorting through my documents in the parking lot, I discovered that the notary stamp on the warranty deed was old (from the date we purchased the house!)…and wondered whether that would be able to be Apostilled. My suspicions were confirmed when the lady at the counter pulled that particular document out and said, “this is a copy, I can’t apostille it.” Hmmmm…. We had just obtained it two weeks prior. They called the local court house who said they couldn’t help us since our deed was not registered in their county. I was told I needed to return to my county and obtain the deed and then mail it to them, which would add at least 2 weeks to the process. L They typically ask those who mail their documents in to expect their document s in 7-10 business days. If you just show up at the office, though, in 15 minutes you are outta there!:) So show up we did. So, I gave her my stack of 35 documents she COULD apostille and sat in the waiting area and PRAYED! I have seen God do amazing things in this process, so I hadn’t given up hope. I reasoned through it all as I prayed…we had just obtained that deed two weeks prior from the CPA who confirmed we lived there. If I drove all the way back to my county court house and obtained it, it would look exactly the same. It is a copy. So when my new friend returned with my huge stack of 35 documents, I presented my idea. Could we have it verified as a true and exact copy (as I had on two other documents) and notarized in town and bring it back? She said that would be fine!! But where in Tallahassee would I find someone who would type up and print out a document for me to certify the deed as a true and exact copy??? SO, still hoping and praying, I drove to the local bank where I had just opened an account in my town the DAY before, having NO idea I would need notary services on this day. (But God knew!!:) Unlike so many other banks, this bank still offers free notary services to its members. I returned to the bank in Tallahassee, and explained my situation. The amazing notary at our bank not only looked up the deed info we needed online, he typed up a document, notarized it and excitedly sent us on our way back to the Secretary of State office!!!!! He was truly a Godsend! In less than an hour, we returned to the Secretary of State’s office announcing to our new friends, “We’re baaaack!”J Our new friend went to work apostilling the last and final document and we were SET! We raced it all to the Easy Mail office just before they closed and sent it via DHL to Kiev, Ukraine!!! Expecting it to take weeks to arrive there, I was shocked to learn that it would only take 3 business days! It actually went out on Friday morning and I tracked our dossier all weekend. It travelled to Atlanta on Friday, Cincinnati on Saturday, Germany on Sunday and made it to Kiev on MONDAY MORNING by 9 am our time! It is now in the hands of our facilitator and will be translated and then submitted to the authorities for approval after July 9th,, as they are on a break until then. After that, we’ll wait for the reply as to whether they need more information or whether we’ll be invited to travel. If there are no problems to correct, we will wait another 30 working days to be invited to travel, then 3 more weeks after that to actually travel. SO, it appears that best case scenario we’ll be travelling mid September. We would love to be surprised with an earlier travel date, but are attempting to be flexible and open to God’s perfect timing!
Fundraising:
On the subject of our fundraising, we still have $13,000 to go. Our last garage sale was not nearly as wonderful or productive as the first two as we have now entered the zone of the huge Florida summer rain storms. We were only able to stay open for 2 hours on the first day, but were pleasantly surprised by the traffic way out in the middle of nowhere! The second day was more productive as we were able to stay open much later, but we pushed it too close to the rain storm and got WET; we workers and several of our items as well. All in all, though, we made more money that if we had cancelled it, and made some great memories with our Pastor, my friend Jinger, the amazing Teens from our Youth group, a friend from my daughter’s school , and several awesome and amazing Church and school friends who gave of their time and effort to help us. Eventually, the memory of us racing around like maniacs in the pouring rain transporting clothing stacks to shelter will make a funny story! :)
My awesome Sister-in-law, Michelle, is hosting a bake sale in West Virginia on July 4th to help raise money for our adoption. We are so grateful for amazing and loving family and friends as we travel this path!
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