Fundraiser: Spaghetti dinner

As our paper work is slowly coming to a close we are gearing up for some serious fund raising. We are joining with another family from our church to put on a spaghetti dinner. The Rogers are also adopting from Ethiopia using the same agency, and are at just about the same spot we are in the process. We have been so blessed to meet them through our journey and we are so thankful God has brought them into our lives.

So, if you would like some tasty spaghetti, Olive Garden salad, and bread. You are more than welcome to join us after each of the Apex gatherings this weekend Oct 9-10. We will be serving you this awesome meal for a low suggested donation of $5/meal. Both families are working on getting our funds together to send our dossier (all this paperwork stuff) to Ethiopia. The cost is approximately $7,700 for this part. So we are praying that God blesses this event in a big way. Thanks for being in prayer with us and if you can make it to the dinner that would be awesome.

Oh so awesome news!

I am very behind in posting some great things that have happened lately regarding the adoption. We received our home study and mailed it out to USCIS. The next step is that we go to Cinci and get fingerprinted. Then we wait. Well, yesterday we got a letter in the mail letting us know we have a finger print appointment! We have to wait a few weeks until we can go, but this is the last major step in our dossier proccess. We still need to go to the county and state to get a few papers certified (I'm not sure exactly what that entails). But we are nearing the end of our paper chase phase.

I heard it compared that the paper chase is the first trimester of adoption pregnancy. I will say it is much less miserable for me than my other first trimesters, but it is longer. One of the awesome praise report we have is that Dan and I's finger print appointments are at the same time. We have friends that this is not the case...Praise the Lord for his goodness. Just another step closer to our little girl.

Home study complete

We got an email tonight letting us know our clearances we have been waiting on our final done. So, that means our home study is complete. Our social worker is shipping it priority mail tomorrow! We are so excited. Praise the Lord for his faithfulness!

wishing and hoping

We received an email today from our social worker. She is hopeful we will get our child abuse clearance by early next week. We update when it comes it. Once this comes through it will allow us to finish the rest of our paperwork. Also, we can start applying for grants once our fundraiser is complete. I am so excited to finally see some movement. :) Please pray for us that this does go through soon. I don't want to have my hopes up too much, but it is hard not to get excited.

Nothing new

Ok, so there isn't a whole lot going on in our adoption news. We are still just waiting. I think that is the name of the game for the next few months. I praise the Lord while we wait though because he knows our baby girl already, and he knows when she needs to come home.


For now we are staying very busy. I have been babysitting once a week. The boys (except Levi) started Tuesday school today. We are loving our house church and the amazing group God has put together. Awana starts next week on Wed nights at the church in our neighborhood. We are super excited for the boys to start. Student ministry is back in full swing this Sunday.  Dan will be officiating a wedding of one of his good friends since middle school in only a few weeks. I will be traveling to see my family in Arizona very soon. We are planning a few other short trips here and there. Along with all our normal craziness that keeps us busy any way. I love the chaos that is our life. God is so good. He knows I need to be busy to keep the wait less hard.

We will be doing lots of great fund raisers coming up. Our next fund raiser will be a spaghetti dinner at Apex. We will have dine in or carry out options. Stay tuned for more details to come. So that is what's new here. Not much moving adoption wise, but we are definitely not bored. I will leave you with a first day of school picture of two of my cuties.

Passports!

Well, in recent news our passports arrived today! Yay, one step closer to having all the needed papers to go get our baby. I'm so excited to get a stamp saying we've been to Africa. My birth certificate has not returned yet so hopefully we will see that soon or I will need to order another one.

It is amazing to me how excited I am getting even about traveling. I will be honest that the idea of foreign travel has never really appealed to me. I like to have an idea about where I am going and what I am doing. I like knowing there is always a chicken option on any menu. I like knowing that chicken is fresh, but not just grabbed out of the back alley and killed, fresh. I don't do different foods. I hate not being able to communicate. I hate feeling out of my comfort zone. Obviously God is pulling me out of that comfort zone in many ways with this adoption.

Getting our passports today is the first time I felt excited about the traveling side of things. I am really looking forward to seeing where my daughter is from. I am anxious to learn more about her heritage and be able to later teach her what I learned. I have no doubt she will be an American girl who loves Dora and Disney Princess (or Thomas if Asher has anything to say about it), but I want my daughter to be proud that she was born in Ethiopia.

All that to say that we are that much closer. Still waiting on child abuse clearance. So please keep praying. Hopefully I will have more good news soon.

Here's the deal...

Well, we met with the social worker yesterday for our final "home study visit". She is so sweet I just love chatting with her. However, the only down side was that our child abuse clearance is still not been processed. The news only got worse because it sounds like the one lady who does them for the whole state just said she will be out for AT LEAST two weeks. Meaning she is probably on some type of medical leave.

The sad part about this is the fact that we can't move forward with out this one piece of paper. It is amazing to me how one person can hold so many up. I know of several other families that this is effecting. I am sure this person is not to blame it is just silliness to me that there are not more people to help. So long story short...we wait. The good news again is that just means our little girl isn't ready for us yet.

I had a friend encourage me a few weeks ago to be very specific about my prayers for our little one. So if you feel led to join me here are a few of our specific prayers for our daughter:

I am praying for her birth mom. Just that she will feel peace over her decision to give up her baby. I am praying for her health that she is well nourished while she is pregnant. I am praying that if it is the Lord's will we will be able to meet our daughter's birth mom and that she will allow us to take pictures and possibly video for our daughter to have when she gets older. Most of all I am praying that she either already knows Jesus or comes to know him.

For our daughter I am praying that she is held and loved while we are unable to do so ourselves. I am praying that she is not hungry. I am praying that when we bring her home that she will mold instantly into our family. Because of our lifestyle I am praying our daughter is exposed to groups of people and that she is not easily scared by having lots of others around her. Of course I am praying for her heart. That God has huge plans for her, and that she will be not only my daughter, but my sister in Christ.

For Dan and I; I am praying for wisdom in how best to raise our daughter. I know having three boys I am not the most compassionate mom. My parenting style has been set by three rowdy boys who move on from injury quickly, and emotions are not usually something I have to contend with. I realize so much of how I parent my daughter will look different. I am praying God gives me wisdom on how best to train her heart.

Then of course there is the prayer that God will provide financially for all the adoption costs. We did the math last night and on the low end we need around $26,000 still. God is good and so much bigger than any amount of money. So we just pray that he gives us peace and grows our faith through this experience. I'm so excited to tell the amazing ways God took care of the bill when all is said and done. He has already provided so much!

We so appreciate your prayers! We are blessed to know there are people out there praying for us. What a blessing. Well, time for me to go get a few things done while my boys nap. It is a special time of the day.