Paperchasing my way to China

"For You formed my inward parts; You wove me together in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Your eyes have seen my unformed substance, and in Your book were all the days that were ordained for me, when as yet, there was not one of them. How precious are Your thoughts to me, Oh God. How vast the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand." Psalm 139:13-18

Parents applying for international adoption must put together a "dossier," which is an application containing all the information the country needs to assess the suitablilty of the appicant(s) to parent a child. Each country has different requirements of what should be included in the dossier. China requires an applicant to include copies of birth certificates, police criminal clearance forms, medical forms, employment verification forms, financial statements, a home study that documents four visits by a social worker, and permission from our country's government to bring the child home. These documents must all be notarized, certified by the Secretary of State in which the applicant lives, and authenticated by the Chinese Consulate here in the U.S. The documents then go to China, where they are translated and reviewed by the China Center for Adoption Affairs, the government agency in China responsible for placing children for international adoption.

The process of obtaining all this paper work is called "the paperchase." I am currently buried up to my eyeballs in paper. But here's a cool little tidbit. The social worker who came to do my homestudy is actually from the same hometown as me (Killeen) and knows my family! What a blessing and divine appointment that surely was. What a small world.