Attorneys...love them or hate them...

We are still waiting on this 5th attorney to be hired. She has had over 3 weeks to decide...from what we were told today, she is a bit under the weather?? So being sick is keeping her from making a decision???

We contacted our agency who is trying to get more information for us. Our questions right now are: why do we need to finalize in tribal court - could we do a state court since ICWA has been satisfied? do we have to go to tribal court, or can the attorney represent us without us going there? what are the chances that Kenna will be taken from us? She believes that the finalization is just a technicality, so we pray she is right. We are so ready to officially call Kenna ours!!

Right now our attorney fees have totaled over $20,000!!! Praise God that Sean and I choose to go with our agency's one time legal fee. Our agency is out quite a bit of money, but thankfully it's not us!!

Frustrated

Apparently being willing to represent us and actually representing us are 2 different things. Since it had been over a week since the 2 attorneys were meeting, we decided to email Jay to find out what was going on.

Ms. Montgomery told Jay last week she has to think it over and will get back to him. If she agrees, then we will need to have conference call to discuss the case, after which Sean and I will need to decide if we want her to be our attorney.

As always...thanks for your continued prayers!

More Info Coming Soon

Here is another email we received today from Jay:

I had a conf call earlier today with John Perlman and Dianna (sp?) Montgomery ,who is an attorney who is lic. to practice in the San Carlos Apache tribal court. Ms Montgomery stated she is willing to represent Sean and Katrina to finalize the adoption. Before she has a phone call with Sean and Katrina, she is going to review the legal memorandum I drafted on the ICWA and she and I will have a follow up phone call on Sept 19th or 22nd.

So sometime after the 22nd we will know what our next step is! Thanks again for your prayers!!

Rounding Second Base!

Here is an email from our ICWA attorney Jay McCarthy:
Great news the hearing in tribal court went well and Cynthia signed the ICWA consent…The Judge was unwilling to sign an order to terminate the alleged birth father’s parental rights, given that he does not live on the reservation . Thus I will file a motion in state court for this order. The next step is John Perlman and I visiting with an attorney to determine if she will represent Mr and Mrs Kelley for purposes of finalization

This is GREAT news for us! Our attorney feels that all should go well, but of course we can't assume anything. We will hopefully know more early next week as to what steps are next. More than likely we will be heading back to Phoenix to finalize Kenna's adoption!

But as Jay said tonight we are rounding second base! We're half way there!!!!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED PRAYERS AND SUPPORT!

AMAZED!!!

A HUGE thank you to everyone for your prayers and donations! We had over 20 family and friends donate to our sale and as you can see from the first picture our garage was PACKED! Our adoption fundraising has amounted to $2725!!!!! We have a few more possible sales in the works! Kayla and Bradon had a lemonade sale and I must say they were EXCELLENT sellers!! We enjoyed seeing how God worked this weekend. We were able to meet MANY people and share our journey with them. We also had the opportunity to tell them how GOD has blessed us and has guided us through this entire process! We met many who are now joining you as our prayer warriors and we are so greatful for you all!!!

JUST 4 DAYS UNTIL OUR COURT DATE!!! Scary and exciting!

6 MONTHS OLD

Kenna is continuing to be a healthy little peanut! She weighs 14 pounds and is 25 1/2 inches long! At the doctors office today I met a lady and her son was 14 pounds at just 8 1/2 weeks!!! He was a little chunk!

We are excited about our garage sale tomorrow and Sat. We may do it again in a couple of weeks since this is a holiday weekend. We are so thankful for everyones donations and prayers! We will update on Saturday how the sale went!
We are now just 6 days away from our court date!! Yeah!!!

About the Apache Tribe

During our time of wait, we have and always will, be praying for Cynthia. Kenna's birth mother. Last night I did more research on the San Carlos Apache Reservation. This is where Cynthia lives and if the Tribe denies Cynthias request for adoption, this is where Kenna will be taken to.

I had tears coming down my face learning about the living conditons of this reservation. The items I'm posting below come from the Chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. It was written in April of 2007 as he was requesting more funding from the government to assist with No Child Left Behind.

Here are some of the living conditions on this reservation from his perspective:

As you know, our Indian children struggle due to the staggering poverty and unemployment on the Reservation. This poverty leaves no part of life untouched. Our children cannot do well in school if they have no home, insufficient food, few supplies, inadequate transportation, poor medical care, unsafe communities, or broken families. The situation only seems to get worse.

The total population is 13,299 members. While we have worked hard to develop our Reservation economy, 76% of our Reservation population is unemployed compared to the national unemployment rate of 4.4% and the state of Arizona rate of 3.9%. We suffer from a poverty level of 77%. The communities on the Reservation are rural and isolated. This creates many basic needs for our students because of the lack of housing, overcrowded housing, poor nutrition, lack of school supplies, lack of opportunities, and public safety risks due to violent crime, domestic abuse, drug use, and gang violence. For example, in 2004, 64 babies out of 256 were born to San Carlos Apache tribal members addicted to meth, and 24-25% of pregnant women at San Carlos tested positive for meth. In 2005, the number of babies born addicted to meth was even higher. About 50% of all newborns at San Carlos test positive for alcohol or drugs. In 2004, there were 101 suicide attempts on the Reservation. The age range was 15 to 54 years old with 50 individuals being females and 51 being males. Of the 101 suicide attempts, two resulted in death.

Thank you for praying for us and our adoption of precious Kenna. We would also like to request that you pray for Cynthia and the Apache Tribe.