Sofi update

Dear Life,

We are so thankful to our friends, family and supporters. 

Our main desire for Sofi is to get her 

home so we can provide a loving

 family, with the medical care she 

needs and deserves, and the nurturing

 every child should have.  She  very 

much deserves to have the love and 

care of a family.  Sofi has Spina Bifida, 

and the sooner she receives the care 

we can provide for her the better. I beg

 of you to consider helping us- pray for 

us, consider donating, and spread the 

word.  Please read all of the ways you 

can help at the end of this post. 

 At this time we have had enough donations to cover our homestudy, our inital fees to our adoption agency, and our passports.  This week I sent in our application to the homestudy agency, and am awaiting an appointment date.

I want to answer the biggest question we have heard from everyone..."WHY SO MUCH MONEY?  If the child is an orphan, why aren't they just handing her to you?"  

I know it helps for people to see our needs and what the funds are being used for. We have an agency payment of $3000 due ASAP, (thankful to the unknown donator in Florida who sent 100 dollars to our agency, and to my sister who donated 50 dollars to our agency) and now that we have the money for the Home Study, there are various documents that we need to have taken care of, fingerprints done and sent to the FBI, medical reports, etc that all cost money.

I realize not everyone is familiar with adoption or international adoption, so I figured I would share a bit more detailed explanation. Our US agency prepares our paperwork to send to the country we are adopting Sofi from- which includes a list of about 20 documents from our marriage certificate to passports to documents agreeing not to use our adopted children for body parts (for real...it's in there) to our home study to our financial information.  All of these documents must be prepared and completed in a very specific manner. The US agency also provides support to us, makes sure everything is done to the letter of the law, they maintain a support group, a web site, they maintain files of available children, they oversee the home study (if done by a separate agency),etc. 

The home study is basically a report on our family done by a licensed social worker in our state. She interviews you- in the case of married couples you are interviewed separately and together. This usually takes more than one visit. She inspects the home. She also runs background checks- in the case of a Hague home study, as we are doing, there will be background checks done in every state we have lived in since turning 18. (Thankfully we have only lived in California) She visits with our children a bit and observes our interaction with our children to see us in action. In the end, she either recommends or doesn't recommend us to adopt and this will go to court and be signed off by a judge.

The foundation in the other country consists of attorneys and facilitators who do everything in country for us- they translate the documents, submit them to the government in country, go to court for us- they also visit the children and do individual reports on them and take pictures and video. Their work is extensive and requires them to travel, possibly across the country, to do all of the work. Once we are in country they will be our travel companions and tour guides, accompanying us to the orphanages to meet the children and translate for us, to take us for visa pictures (for the children), etc. The child we have requested to adopt are either orphans or social orphans- in which their parents gave up their parental rights (in order for a child to be available for adoption, this had to happen prior to the agencies ever receiving info about them, so there is no concern that the parents were forced to give up their children). 

Whew, that was a lot!  

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask us.

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

If you are local....SHOES FOR SOFI

Consider going through your closets, finding shoes you no longer wear, shoes your children have grown out of, cleats, dance shoes, any kind of shoes.  As long as the sole is intact, there are no holes, and they match, we'll take them.  When we get at least 5000 pairs of shoes, Angel Bins will come over, weigh our shoes and give us a $3500 dollar check written out to our agency.  

Diamond Necklace Raffle....sponsered by Mimi's Jewelry

(it is enlarged in this picture...it looks big...but it is PERFECTLY sized)

This beautiful necklace was designed by David Truong of Mimi's Jewelry in Fountain Valley, California.  It is a one of a kind piece that David designed with Sofi's story in mind.  At this time, he is allowing me to wear it until the drawing.  It is GORGEOUS..... 

All you need is ten dollars for one ticket.  Here is the website you can go on to buy tickets!  You do NOT have to be present to win.

Lamppost Pizza fundraiser

Will you be in my area on January 17th?  Consider buying your lunch or dinner at Lamppost Pizza and a percentage will go directly to our adoption fund.  Tickets for the raffle will also be available for purchase.   

YouCaring Page

You can send money directly to Sofi's YouCaring page HERE

Direct to Agency

You can also send a tax deductible check to Children's House International.  On the notes please put Jensen Family adoption and they will send you a receipt. (Please let me know if you want their address)

SPREAD THE WORD

Please feel free to share any and all of our fundraisers, our story, etc with anyone that you feel may be interested.  

PRAY  

Of course all prayers are needed and desired.  We know that God hears our prayers, and is definitely in us with this process.  We know that because of the challenges and gifts we have been given, we have been directed towards the path of adoption.