My boring but productive day, our little blessing, and a HUGE prayer request

First I want to start off with the prayer request.  If you pray, I need you on this!  Baby Evangeline was due to be born in a few days.  She has spina bifida.  Today, her mother was in a car accident that was caused by a drunk driver.  I am not sure how they are doing, and they need your prayers.  You can follow Evangeline's story on her mother's blog at http://mrskugler.blogspot.com/ .


Today I decided I needed to get some adoption paperwork out of the way and be productive.  It helps me feel like I'm "doing something" for the adoption.  In case you do not remember, our adoption agency sent us our dossier paperwork even though we aren't officially approved, since our approval in Arizona is taking so long.  Yesterday I sent away for certified copies of our birth certificates and pulled out the certified copy I have of our marriage certificate.  Today I decided I would tackle the bank, which ended up being a 1 1/2 hour trip.

India requires that you deposit $1,000 in to an account in the name of the child you are trying to adopt.  That poses an interesting problem, though, as you cannot open an account for someone that is not a US citizen, does not have a social security number, is not in your care, and has no last name.  They also want financial statements from your bank with all of your balances, your average yearly balance, and all of that converted to rupees.  Fun, fun!  I went to the bank today with the information on what we needed and prayed for the best.  The man who helped us was really a blessing.  He had two friends adopt internationally and knew pretty well all the hoops they had to jump through to be able to do so.  He was willing to jump through hoops to help us figure out how to handle the paperwork and account information we needed.  He was really amazing. 

He got us the information we needed, converted to rupees, and got it notarized for us.  Then he helped us tackle the account problem.  Basically we ended up opening a checking account (fee-free) in my name, with Rama as the secondary.  We used our last name as her last name and her estimated birth date for her birth date.  Then we filled out some paperwork that they use to get people accounts that do not have a social security number.  After that, he typed up a letter stating we had deposited the money in to an account for her and had that notarized as well.

The whole process took about 1 1/2 hours, which was not fun, especially with the kids in-tow, but I'm thankful to have it done.  The kids did really, really well, which was great.  One of the tellers gave them a sucker and later brought them crayons and coloring paper to help keep them busy.  I rewarded them with some sorbet at Yogurtology when we left because they did such a great job.   

We still have no news, but it did feel good to get some things out of the way.  I don't know what God has up his sleeve, and I realllly wish he'd let me peek, but I do find peace in knowing His plan is perfect.

OH!  I also wrote a letter to our senator today asking for help with getting our adoption approval pushed through.  Hey, can't hurt!