Gratitude

I never try and say anything that someone before me has already said better than I ever could, so I am praying this Jewish prayer of gratitude on behalf of Sharon and Karen and the wonderful miracles God worked in their lives. Their babies are officially a part of their families. Only God could have been behind the miracle that happened today. I am glad he is on our side.

If our mouths were filled with song as the sea,

And our tongues with praise like the rolling waves;

If our lips were as full of devotion as the sky above,

And our eyes shining forth like the sun and the moon;

If we stretched out our hands in prayer like the wings of soaring eagles,

And if our feet possessed the swiftness of gazelles----

We would still be unable to thank you and praise you enough,

Our God and God of our ancestors,

For the smallest portion of the countless

Hundreds,

Thousands,

Millions of blessings

You have given our ancestors and ourselves.

and one of my favorite Psalms

Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders you have done. The things you planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare. Psalm 40:5

May all the glory of this event belong to God!

Congratulations...

Kendra and family on their referral of a baby girl. God is a great big God and has been matching children with families at amazing speed recently.

We will get our monthly call next week with our updated numbers. I have been going crazy trying to figure out how far we have moved down the list. I know we are at least #15 and there may be a possibility that we are down to #11! How crazy would that be!?! Referrals come when they come, there is no uniformity to there speed and so we could still be waiting until December for ours, but at this rate it may come by October. We can't wait to see the little girl God has chosen for our family and she never leaves our prayers.

On this day of fasting and prayer

we can also celebrate the referral of a sweet baby to Michelle and a little girl for Karey. Take a second and congratulate each of them on their new additions.

One of the things I love the best about our AGCI family is that even as some families are having difficulty with the adoption process and we are uplifting them in prayer, we can also celebrate the good news of referrals and travel calls. God is in each of these situations, with each of his children throughout this process. We praise Him for His never ending love. He will not forsake us.

For the LORD your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you...Deut 4:31

The LORD is the one who goes ahead of you; He will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed." Deut 31:8

A day of prayer and fasting

Several of my friends (especially Karen, Sharon, and Robin) have recently had complications to their adoptions. They are desperately longing to bring their children home. Some people in our agency have decided to pray together, and fast together, and ask God for a miracle to deliver these children. Of course it is in the best interest of these children to be united with their families, and also, for the parents who long to meet and hold the children they have prayed for for years. Specifically, for a few of my friends adopting from Ethiopia, there is a possibility THIS WEEK they might squeeze through a loophole. Would you join me in prayer and fasting for these families?

Here is our plan:

FAST from 8pm Wednesday(PST) to 8 pm Thursday(PST), which would be 6am Thursday (Addis Abba) to 6am Friday (Addis Abba)
PRAYER at 5am Thursday(PST) or 8 am Thursday(EST) or 3pm Thursday (AddisAbba)

Please join us however God may be calling you.

Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them. Matthew 18:19-20

Praise God for the referrals!

It looks like a trickle of referrals has begun. I pray that God opens some floodgates and unites these children with their families. There are dozens of children at Hannah's Hope. Let's bring them home Lord!

(I know of three referrals so far: Carrie (boy), Michelle (siblings) & Karen (girl) had info about another on her blog. That puts us unofficially at #22!)

Can you wrap your mind around a number as large as 143,000,000?

Beep! Beep! Beep!

That is the sound I will be awakend with tomorrow at the very ugly hour of 3...in the morning. Jason and I are headed off on another road trip for the adoption. We are leaving at 3:30 for Yakima and the CIS office there to get our final set of fingerprints taken (I think) and to file our I-600a. The office there has had a policy of letting people walk-in without appointments, so we never mailed anything into them and will just drop off everything and be fingerprinted all at once.

I will also be mailing in our dossier tomorrow and the tree we had to cut down to make all the required copies! After it has been received and processed by AGCI, they wll send it off for authentication in D.C. (which takes about 1-2 weeks), then it comes back to AGCI, then they get it ready and sent off to Ethiopia where Almaz (The fabulous woman who runs Hannah's Hope in Ehtiopia) has it translated (another 1-2 weeks) and keeps it at the office in Hannah’s Hope until we have accepted a referral. At acceptance of referral, our paperwork is submitted to MOWA (Ministry of Women’s Affairs) and it is another 3-5 months before they issue the court date so we can travel.

Resources

The most fabulous social worker in the world turned us onto the Adoptive Families magazine, which I highly recommend. In the Jan/Feb issue, there was a whole section on parenting African-American families. They included everything from hair to heritage. Their website has a lot of other great information if you have the time to check it out, including a section on Ethiopia as well as other countries. Also check out Culture for Kids for more great language and culture resources. You can order a catalog online also.

The immortal words of the Pointer Sisters say it best...

I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it!

Our home study is done and in Portland waiting for review!! It has been there since Monday, but the Ethiopian Program Director was out Monday and Tuesday. She takes anywhere between 5-7 days to review it and send corrections to our social worker, who them finalizes it, notarizes many copies and mails them to us. Once we get it in the mail (I might have to start checking the mailbox everyday, instead of waiting for J to get home), we will take the next Friday off and head to Yakima for our fingerprinting. I also will finally get to send my dossier in to AGCI. The home study is the final piece of it that I have been waiting for.

I have been really worried about what I am going to do to keep busy during this waiting period, but God finally gave me an answer. More to come on that in the future.

Cleaning

In another world this would be me right now...

But instead this is how I feel...

I do not use the word hate often, but dislike is not strong enough of a word to describe how I feel about cleaning. I literally hate, abhor, detest, loathe, and can’t stand cleaning! In my dream world I would hire someone to do it for me. It is the one responsibility that falls on me by staying home with my children that I would trade off to someone else in a heartbeat!

Our impending home visit this Saturday, was enough motivation to get Spring Cleaning done and even finished in record time.

3 down, 1 to go

We headed up to Bellingham the past two days for 2 more meetings with our social worker. (We had an "unofficial" one last month at the AGCI gathering.) Anyway, I had this image of those police questioning scenes in movies when they are sitting in the chair with the spotlight on them being hit with a barage of questions. Luckily for us, it was nothing like that at all! It was much more like sitting on the couch with an old friend talking about your life experiences. Our final meeting is scheduled for the March 1st. She will come down for the home visit and meet the kiddos. It sounds like we should have our home study complete by the middle to end of March which would be fabulous, since we can't move forward until it is done.

The first Friday after it is complete, we will head to Yakima to be fingerprinted again. This time for the Department of Homeland Security. Once we get our FDL (Favorable Determination Letter) from them, we can offcially be a number on the waiting list. Our time spent waiting for a referral can be anywhere from 2-6 months, although it is averaging about 3 1/2 right now. After we receive and accept the referral, we can wait from 3-5 months for the adoption to go through the courts and for us to travel to pick up our daughter. Our Daughter! Oh, that sounds so amazing. AGCI lays it out much more clearly in their Ethiopian Program Overview if anyone is interested.

The wait begins already

DEFINTITON: Waiting upon God is exercising confidence in God's timing and help during difficult times.

Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired,They will walk and not become weary. Isaiah 40:31

I am not good at waiting. I don't want to wait on God. I want things to happen when I want them to happen!

Today I ask God that this time of waiting is used to bring me closer to him. That through this waiting I become more dependent upon God.

I know waiting is not easy. My heart will cry out in pain, but I know that God uses this time to remind me that I must depend upon Him so that I know it is only He who does wonderful things in my life. Ultimately then, God protects me by waiting, because when I wait I must deepen my trust in Him, seek His way and bring Him the glory through it all.

I can't get the spell check to work, so please forgive me for any mistakes!

Yippee!!

I just finished my 51 page personal profile! (J only has a couple of pages left in his.) I can't tell you how many hours we have put into them and it feels great to be done. The profiles are for our home study and they are full of questions that ask about EVERY aspect of our life. Once we get these turned in and our references in, our social worker can begin the interview process. It feels good to see the process moving forward a bit.

AGCI Gathering

Yesterday, J and I attended a potluck in Seattle for AGCI families. We had such a great time and met so many wonderful people. There were families who were already home with their adopted children, some waiting to travel, some waiting for referrals and some chasing paper like we are right now. We were very happy to meet a couple who are just starting the process for Ethiopia like we are and they live pretty close to us.

It was uplifting to see so many kids home with their forever families and doing so well. There were 5 adorable babies from Ethiopia, twin girls from China and two little boys from Guatemala.

We also got to meet our caseworker, who we are talking to weekly as we get through all the requirements, and our social worker. Both who are so helpful and will make this process as easy as it can be.

The paper chase begins...

We had our orientation phone call on Friday. AGCI (All God's Children International) led us through the steps in the adoption process.

Right now there is plenty to do and a place for us to focus all our attention. We received our Home Study packet on Thursday and are beginning the process of getting everything together for it. A Home Study is something all adoptive and foster parents complete in their state of residence. Once completed, it basically states that we are fit people to parent. Why you don't have to go through one of these to have a biological child I don't know! Some of the requirements are very simple like getting fingerprinted and gathering copies of birth certificates. Others are a little more daunting. J and I have to separately complete a 50 page personal profile. It feels kind of like taking a test that you really don't want to fail, because the stakes are so high.

We have signed all the paperwork and one of J's lovely sisters is coming to notarize them all this afternoon before I drop them in the mail tomorrow. Once AGCI receives this round of paperwork, we will be assigned a case manager and receive our Dossier (more paperwork). Our dossier includes the home study, and is basically a set of legal documents that will include our marriage license, birth certificates, financial statements, medical records, etc.

I know that for us the hardest part will be in several months when all this paperwork is done and we have to begin the waiting game. Once everything is approved and translated, we will have 2-6 months to wait for a referral for a child. Once we accept the referral, we wait 3-5 months for it to reach the Ethiopian courts. The courts approve the adoption and then we are invited to come and pick up our baby. We will try to keep ourselves busy during this time by focusing on fundraising. We plan to do a car wash or two, have a dinner of some sorts and a garage sale.

We are overwhelmed with the support we are receiving from our family and friends . Thanks for being excited for us and for keeping us in your prayers. We are so thankful that God has blessed us with such wonderful love and support!

A new journey begins

J and I have always talked about adopting internationally. Over the past 6 months or so, God kept putting the idea on our hearts and with E getting older it seemed like the right time to start the process. God brought several families into our lives that were in various stages of the adoption process, but all of them had used the same agency and had good experiences with them, so we too will be using All God’s Children International (AGCI).

J and I had always talked about adopting from China, but after investigating the process in the countries AGCI works with and the countries themselves, we really felt God leading us to Africa. AGCI has an orphan care and adoption program in Ethiopia. We have just completed our application and I am mailing it today. It will be 10-13 months before we can travel to pick up our child. There are papers, interviews, fundraising and waiting to go through between now and then, since we are at the very beginning stages of a long process.

We are very excited. For us this is just like being pregnant, only the labor pains will be a little different this time around! We are also a little nervous, but know that we are being faithful to what God has called us to do and with Him on our side nothing is impossible.