Happy Birthday Daddy!

My hubby turns 28 today! We just wanted to say happy birthday and we love you!

Tom's Blog

Hey, I just wanted to direct you over to Tom Davis' Blog because some great conversations are going on about adoption and orphan care over the last few days.....be sure to check the comments as well.

Also I have really awesome news but not quite ready to share it with you just yet. So this is a teaser......more to come in the next few days:)

Another Thought Provoking Article

I wanted to share with you this article that Tom Davis posted on his blog about Ethiopian Adoptions from New America Media....... Tell me your thoughts:) Thanks. I'll post my thoughts a little later b/c I'm swamped at the moment.

more on Focus on the Family and SCC

More interviews will be popping up with Steven Curtis Chapman and Dr. Dobson over the next few days. To hear them click here then click on Daily Broadcast and today's interview is called The God of All Comfort Part 1. Please keep this precious family in your prayers.

Focus on the Family and Steven Curtis Chapman

Here is an awesome interview with Dr. Dobson about adoption and Shaohannah's Hope. (Click on Daily Broadcast) Next week sometime they will interview the Chapman's about their recent loss. Check it out to see how this family has glorified God.

Still waiting on the funds for the dossier....................................

Approved!

Ok I just checked my email and our homestudy has been approved! Yay! Praise the Lord! This blog must have magical powers:) So the only thing we need now is money:) haha. I know God will come through on this we just have to be a little patient. yippee, we are one more step closer.

waiting

That's the name of the game in adoption land. Well it seems we are STILL waiting for our homestudy to be approved by AGCI so hopefully that will happen soon. (This is in no way AGCI's fault, more a miscommunication on our social worker's). We are also still waiting on the money to send in our dossier but God is definitely moving on this one...Hopefully I will be able to tell you about that soon.

Thanks for all of your prayers and support for our extended family, things are looking up. Just taking things one day at a time. You are all in my thoughts daily as we wait to bring home our kiddos.

Prayer Needed

If you have time could you pray for our family this week? We have had a lot of issues to deal with that I can't really disclose and also the death of my step-grandmother. It has been a stressful week and on top of that our dossier papers are all ready but we are waiting for the money to send in our payment with it. I know everything will work out but things are pretty crazy right now:)

Shameless Plug

Tonight is Tapestry night!!! Tapestry is an adoption ministry that we are a part of through Irving Bible Church and I can not tell you how much I love it! They have all sorts of get-togethers and seminars and such for every part of the adoption and foster care process (play-groups, adult adoptees groups, emergency closet for foster families, etc.). We have only attended the Waiting Families Group but I have heard so many good things about this ministry so I decided to put in this shameless plug post.

I encourage you if you are adopting to find a support group. We don't attend Irving Bible Church so I was a little intimated at first. Our friends Daniel and Whitney (I know I talk too much about them!) have an adoption ministry at their church in Illinois so I decided to google and find one here in Dallas. We were desperate to figure out what agency to use and find other people in the same place as us and Tapestry has really come through! We also meet with a yahoo group for Dallas area Ethiopian Adoptive Families which is so fun, too. Search Ethiopia babies in yahoo groups if you live in Dallas.

So all this is to say if your feeling a little lost out there, find a real live support group or adoption ministry to be apart of..... it makes the waiting feel a little easier. Don't get me wrong, I love all of you supportive bloggers, but sometimes you just need a face to face conversation:)

PS. we have a new water heater! now if only the carpet would dry.....

Coca-Cola and Ethiopia!

Just wanted to show you what I got when I ordered my lunch today:) Coca-Cola is apparently doing olympics themed cans and this one is from ETHIOPIA! How cool is that? I also included a video of my little man walking around the house. It's amazing how fast they get, it's only been a month since those first tiny steps!






Oh and the uh-bo at the end means "up" (or help) in Jackson language....

ugh!

So our documents made it to the right places today so says UPS and FED EX and I also received an email saying that Paul's passport is finished and is already in the mail on the way back to us and that mine is being processed. (We sent mine in a few days later because I needed just a name change and forgot to bring the marriage certificate...I know....) This is crazy since we went LAST WEEK! I mean that is the fastest turn around time on a passport in history! Also, our social worker sent me an email today saying my homestudy should be finished TOMORROW! I know, again, SUPER FAST!

So with all this super fastness, our dossier is ALMOST DONE! But as the title says, UGH! Our water heater is currently leaking into my living room. Yep, either this is a bad timing coincidence, the devil is trying to bring me down, or God is trying to keep my perspective straight. Whatever it is I am trying to stay calm and know that God is in control and I am not. He will provide us the money to send in the dossier that is now going towards a water heater. I am trusting and leaning on Him!

I also realize a broken water heater is not the end of the world and we are totally blessed by all we have and that our dossier process is going so smoothly so far. I just don't enjoy house maintenance problems:) Thanks for letting me vent!

Big Day!

I sent our I-600A form in today and sent a document to the Secretary of State to be certified so those are the two big things in the dossier to mark off our list! The I600A is a form for the United States government that petitions to allow us to bring an immigrant into the U.S. for adoption. Next they will review our file and send us an appointment to be fingerprinted (yep, more fingerprinting!) and then after the FBI reviews our fingerprint we will get a letter that says you may proceed or the 171-H as it is called in adoptionland.

Everything else is notarized and ready, just waiting on a few little things and our passports:) I'll let you know when I resurface from this pile of paperwork!

Dossier Orientation Call!

this is just the planner not a picture of our child!

That's right! Our Adoption Planner came in the mail today and we had our Dossier Orientation Call today! I am super excited because (and I say this with hesitation) it doesn't look as bad as I thought.... I mean just the word dossier gives me goose bumps because you don't exactly know what that is until they actually send you the requirements. So I am officially apart of the club. I KNOW what exactly goes in a DOSSIER! whoo hoo! ya, I know I am a nerd.

So here's a rough timeline for those who aren't adoption savvy.

Homestudy visit is complete, just waiting for our social worker to type it up. (about 3 weeks she says)

Right now I am compiling all the necessary paperwork:) I am not sure but shouldn't take me more than a couple of weeks.

This includes sending some forms and money to the U.S. Citizens and Immigrations Services and then ever so patiently wait for them to assign us a fingerprinting appointment. Then they will send us a nice letter saying that we can bring a baby to the U.S. This could take a couple of months:(

Then we submit our Dossier to Washington D.C. to be authenticated (I'm not sure exactly what that means) and translated. Then they send it to Ethiopia.

THEN we get on the waiting list for an infant girl 0-12 months. However we could possibly be on the waiting list before we get our letter back from the U.S.CIS but I'm not 100% sure.

Then we wait. How long? I think 4-6 months is what they are quoting right now but I am going to be a pessimist so I can be happy when it's sooner and say "I knew it" when it's longer:)

Then we will travel about 2-3 months after we are "referred" a child. This is the time period when you go through court and everything gets all legalized.

So in summary, I really don't know. It could be 8 months, it could be 15 months. It could be longer, you just never know with these things.

We will just have to pray and wait:) Our girl is out there and God has chosen her to be in our family so we will just try and be patient!

Thanks to everyone who is prayerfully following our journey, we appreciate it and would not be able to do this without you!

July 4th and Homestudy:)

We just got back from our road trip to Chicago and let me just tell you, I am exhausted! We drove up Wednesday night, went to The Taste of Chicago on Thursday with Aunt Sarah and saw Uncle Dave for a little while. We ate so much food, it was ridiculous! Then on Friday we went up to Paul's cousin's lake house and hung out with all our family. Jackson drove the boat and stayed up extremely too late to watch the best fireworks show ever! We were so close that I was actually scared! It was a great time. Then on the way home we went to the arch in St. Louis which was quite an experience as well. Here are some pictures of our trip!




On the train ride into Chicago.


Hanging out with Aunt Sarah.




At the Lake with Daddy.






Driving the Boat:) He honked the horn continuously, people loved us!


"swimming"


ahh playing in the sand.....


Nothing like climbing into your cousins' sand pit.








This is the TINY elevator. It barely seats five people but it's not enough room for one person comfortably....I was super nervous.











We also stopped and saw Daniel and Whitney in Peoria on the way home! Ellie, who just came home from Eagle's Nest in Guatemala, is soooo beautiful!!! Hannah, Austin, and Noah are growing up so fast and they are the cutest kids ever! I miss being near them. Of course I forgot my camera in the car so no pictures but just imagine 5 kids and Popsicles:)

Then we had our homestudy yesterday! It went great! We also sent in our orientation packet and big check into our agency, so it definitely feels real now! I am so excited:)

Can You Relate?

Ok, so I thought I would post on something that has kinda been bugging me lately to see if my wonderful readers could not only relate but possibly offer some insight and suggestions....

So here I am, a couple months into the adoption process, and more and more people (not close friends, just people we come in contact with) have been finding out and wanting to talk about it. That's cool. I love spreading the word about adoption. Until the person hears a little bit about where we are in the process then tilts their head and says, "You are such a good person! That baby is going to be so lucky to have you!" Yada Yada Yada, then some more of how great I apparently am.

So, obviously I know that we are the lucky ones getting this child and will be completely blessed by having her...and I try to articulate that in between showers of gratitude and expressions of my so-called greatness. AND most importantly I want any and all glory to go to God in this and not to us. But I just feel so weird when people just start going on an on about what great people we are and how wonderful it is that we are doing "this".

I am not sure how I really would like people to react when they hear about our adoption. I guess, ideally, I would want them to be instantly interested in the plight of the orphan and immediately want to do whatever necessary to help them. You know, then I could quickly respond with many resources and then we would unite in a power mission to save orphans and children in poverty everywhere!....but I live in the real world where people would rather talk about how great I apparently am instead.... Did you know that only great people can help children? no just kidding. This is all to say, I AM NOT GREAT. I am just a simple girl who loves her God and wants to serve Him in all the ways He calls me to.

If you are one of these people who do this....please don't take offense to this post. I am pretty sure I was doing this before also. I realize people are probably just inspired and excited to see ordinary people trying to make a difference. I only post this because I just feel weird when people just go on and on about me when I want it to be about how awesome God is.

So if you can relate to being put in this super awkward position or if you have any suggestions to bring the focus and glory back to where it needs to be, comment me. I see that as we progress this will be a great way to show people Christ's love, I just have overcome the weirdness of diverting people away from my awesomeness over to Christ's....