http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel Our adoption journey en norrisfamily norrisfamily Tue, 12 Jul 2005 22:12:45 +0200 daily 1 JULY 12 Well, we are sorry for the confusion, but we have developed a new blog so that we can upload pictures once we get to Ukraine.  Please go to:                           www.adoptingsamuel.blog-city.com   to follow the rest of our adoption journey to find our little boy, Samuel! Much love,  Jeff and Rachel Tue, 12 Jul 2005 22:12:45 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/NEW-BLOG/11/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/NEW-BLOG/11/ JULY 5 Things are moving along, but we wanted to ask for prayers regarding our travel date to Ukraine.  Right now, our contact in Ukraine is trying to find out our travel date before July 17.  We need to know our date by then in order to travel in September hopefully.  Please pray for him as he talks with the National Adoption Center and works hard to get us to Ukraine as quickly as possible!  We are excited about the possiblity that we could know in the next couple of weeks about when we get to travel.  Please pray with us as we wait and trust the Lord with this.    Tue, 05 Jul 2005 23:43:42 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/Please-Pray/10/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/Please-Pray/10/ June 24 Just wanted to give a quick update...our Dossier (all of our legal documents) arrived in Ukraine on Wednesday!!!  So, now our Lifeline contact is working on translating it and will then submit it to the National Adoption Center hopefully soon.  Please be praying for us as we anxiously await word about our travel date to Ukraine.  You can also always be continually praying for Samuel as he is most likely already alive. Pray for his health and safety as he is in the orphanage.  Also, we made it out to Colorado safely and are enjoying it so much.  Our classes have been amazing and we are really excited to be  learning more about the Gospel and the Kingdom of God.  Pray with us that we would experience Christ in new and rich ways!!! Sat, 25 Jun 2005 05:11:29 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/DOSSIER/9/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/DOSSIER/9/ JUNE 17 "I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them.  I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground.  These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them."  Isaiah 42:16 God is so good!  After a frustrating day on Wednesday, we were still able to send our dossier to Ukraine yesterday at 3:30!!!! It is such a relief and we are so excited to have finally sent it off.  We were able to get all the documents notarized and certified correctly and then we went to FedEx Kinkos and mailed it all off.  YEAH!!! Now we must begin the season of waiting.  Once our dossier gets to our Lifeline contact, he will translate it and submit it to the National Adoption Center (NAC) where they keep a database of available children.  Once they get it, they will begin to look for a child to refer us to.  Then they will contact us with a... Fri, 17 Jun 2005 22:54:50 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/GOOD-NEWS/8/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/GOOD-NEWS/8/ JUNE 15 Today was frustrating to say the least.  We updated yesterday saying how excited we were because we got our 171h and that meant we could send our documents to Ukraine hopefully today or tomorrow.  So, we went to Atlanta today to get all of documents certified (this is required to send it to Ukraine).   Well, they could not certify our documents because a lot of them still needed things or were notarized wrong.  We got most things done, but the sad news is that one form will not be able to get done until Monday.  This is bad because we are supposed to fly out Saturday to Colorado for our Crusade summer assignment.  I (Rachel) will have to stay back and change my flight (expensive) and get eveything done by myself next week.  All that to say, we are VERY discouraged.  Please pray for us that we would continue to trust the Lord with this.  On another note, we need your prayers too for the financing of this adoption as... Wed, 15 Jun 2005 23:05:12 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/Frustrating-Day/7/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/Frustrating-Day/7/ june 14 Good News...we got our 171H in the mail yesterday!!! This means we get to mail our dossier (all of our documents) to Ukraine tomorrow or Thursday.  We are so relieved that we are able to do this all before we leave for Colorado on Saturday.  Please be praying that all goes well as we FED EX it to Ukraine and the process begins to find Samuel.    Also, we have realized that this blog doesn't allow us to post many pictures so we may be changing sites in the future so that we can post more pictures when we get to Ukraine.  We'll continue to keep y'all updated...thank you so much for all of your encouragement and prayer through this journey!!!  Wed, 15 Jun 2005 00:42:17 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/ANSWERED-PRAYER/6/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/ANSWERED-PRAYER/6/ May 24 Well first of all, we are sending our homestudy and other documents tomorrow to CIS (citizenship and immigration) !   We are so excited to finally do this...it means that within the next 3-4 weeks, we will send our  DOSSIER (all of documents) over to Ukraine!!!!  And then of course, the waiting begins...we are praying that we will travel around October.  It usually takes 3-4 months to hear back from Ukraine after we send the dossier.  2nd, we are changing Samuel's middle name from Paton to Gibbs . I know we are crazy, but we really wanted to use a family name.  Gibbs was my mother's maiden name.  We still love Paton and will maybe use it again if we have or adopt another child.      So hopefully y'all won't be too confused...his full name is now Samuel Gibbs Norris (and we promise we won't change it again) Please be praying... 1.  For Samuel's health and safety 2. ... Wed, 25 May 2005 00:27:47 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/Name-Change-and-Update/5/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/Name-Change-and-Update/5/ May 6 Things are moving along!  Today our child abuse and neglect clearance came so our homestudy is done! We will try to send off to CIS (citizenship and immigration) early next week and then we will wait for our approval.  Pray that this will happen quickly so that we can send our documents over to Ukraine before June 18.  This is when we have to leave for Colorado for our summer assignment with Crusade.     Some of you may be wondering about his name.  Samuel is of course from the Bible...it means 'asked of God' which is appropriate because we have prayed for a long time for a child.  His middle name Paton comes from a great missionary named John Paton (sounds like Patton) who ministered to the New Herbrides islands for 84 years.  One of his famous quotes is.. " Among many who sought to deter me, was one dear old Christian gentleman, whose crowning argument always was, "The cannibals! you will be eaten by... Fri, 06 May 2005 21:55:51 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/Good-News/4/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/Good-News/4/ Well, there is not much change in where we are in the process.  We are still waiting on all our paperwork to come in before we can send it in to Citizenship Immigration Services (CIS) so that we can be approved for adoption and then send our dossier to Ukraine.  Right now we are waiting on our child abuse and neglect clearance from Clarke County.  You can pray that things would come in quickly and that when we send it to CIS that they will be quick about processing and approving us.  Please also be praying for Samuel ...pray for his health and safety and attachment issues.  Pray for us as we are trusting the lord to provide the funds to get him.  Thank you all for your support and prayers!  We will continue to update this log as things happen in the future.   Wed, 27 Apr 2005 20:20:01 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/2nd-Update-April-27/3/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/2nd-Update-April-27/3/ April 11   For those wanting to know, here is some basic information about the Ukraine ...    The Country Ukraine is a country in eastern Europe, and the second largest country in Europe after Russia . The capital and largest city is Kyiv ( Kiev ). Much of Ukraine is a fertile plain suited for agriculture     In 1918 a Bolshevik (Communist) government was established in Ukraine , and in 1922 the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) was one of the four founding republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Ukraine' s declaration of independence, approved by a popular vote on December 1, 1991 , was a major factor in the USSR' s collapse later that month.  The country now has a democratic form of government headed by a president.   Way of Life Ukraine 's society was traditionally... Mon, 11 Apr 2005 03:00:12 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/UKRAINE/2/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/UKRAINE/2/ April 9, 2005 Well, today we start our first ever weblog.  We want people to stay updated on our journey to adopt our first child, Samuel Paton , from the Ukraine.  We are so excited!  Right now, we have completed our homestudy and are just waiting on a lot of paperwork to be processed.  After all of that comes in, we will continue working on our Dossier to send to the Ukraine.  This is what tells them we want to adopt a child from there.  Hopefully we can send our Dossier off by June and then travel sometime in the fall to find Samuel .  We are praying and hoping it will be September or October.  Please be praying with us that the paperwork gets done quickly and everything continues to go smoothly.  You can also be praying with us that Samuel be safe and healthy and getting lots of attention from his caregivers.  Jeff and Rachel   Sat, 09 Apr 2005 11:16:00 +0200 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/First-Update/1/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/findingsamuel/First-Update/1/