January 10, 2008
Dear Friends and Family,
As many of you know, we feel led to begin our family through the process of international adoption. Originally we were planning on beginning this process during the summer of 2008. The more we have learned about the adoption process, the more we realize how excited we are and ready to begin this step of faith.
We have applied to adopt an infant boy from Ethiopia. The entire process is estimated to take 9-12 months. The process begins with a 3-4 month paperwork stage. This includes our home study (social services reports and approval) and all the legal documentation called our dossier. We are then placed on a waiting list for 2-6 months. A child is then referred to us. At this stage a U.S. Embassy approved pediatrician does a medical review of the child, we are given all known information, and e-mailed a photo. After our acceptance of the referral the child will be transferred to Hannah’s Hope Ethiopia. Next is the adoption processing where the Ethiopian court will review our documents and the adoption will be finalized. This step can take 3-5 months. Finally we will travel to Ethiopia for 1-2 weeks and come home with the newest addition to our family.
Yesterday, we submitted our application to All God’s Children International. They have wonderful information about their organization on their website www.allgodschildren.org and a very informative and touching video about Hannah’s Hope Ethiopia. There were a couple reasons we felt led to work with All God’s Children. First and foremost we wanted to support a Christian organization. After first requesting an information packet the staff was very quick to follow-up with us (only one of twelve other agencies contacted us). Also, we were extremely drawn to their orphan care program. Most of the agencies only handle adoptions, however, All God’s Children has made it a point to care for the millions of orphans that are left behind. Through Hannah’s Hope Ethiopia orphaned and abandoned children can live there while waiting on their forever families. If our child is not already there, he will be transferred to Hannah’s Hope once we accept him and will be housed there until our homecoming.
The total cost of the adoption is estimated to be $23,000-27,000. To help defray the overwhelming expense we will be having a fundraiser over the month of February. If you would like more information on the fundraiser and how you can help go to our adoption website for more information. We have created this website so all of you can follow along with us on this exciting journey. The web address is http://gossettadoption.blogspot.com. Please continue to remember our child, his birth family and us in your prayers.
With thanks and love,
Brian and Autumn Gossett
Autumn_gossett@yahoo.com
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