Adoption

So, we have completed a couple of fund raisers with one to go. We are, I think, finally making some progress inching toward our home study. In order to be assigned a Social Worker we had to complete physicals, get 5 reference letters turned in, and finger printing done. We have most everything finished, we are just waiting on a couple of reference letters to be submitted and then we can begin the interview process with our Social Worker. I am incredibly anxious to get it started.

Tonight Avreigh (our 3 year old daughter we adopted from Ethiopia a couple of years ago) and I were watching The Little Couple. In this episode Bill and Jen are in China finalizing the adoption of their son, Will. I was very surprised at how interested Avreigh was in this show. Watching this little boy struggle to come to grips with what was happening, Avreigh was concerned for this little guy and kept talking about her own adoption and for the first time I could really see that she understood a little bit about adoption. She recognized that Bill and Jen were his new parents and they loved this boy just like we love her. I cried. We went on to talk about Matthias and what kind of big sister she will be. 

We are thankful for the donations and for time that so many have spent on helping us raise money to bring our little guy home. I am hoping that we have our dossier (paperwork) submitted by October though one  thing I learned from our first adoption is that I am not in control and the sooner I let go and let God, the better!

Isaiah 55:8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD

Let The FUNdraising Begin!

Adoption is financially costly, having said that, it is worth EVERY penny! We have officially began our  fundraising. We didn't have to do fundraise with our first adoption and frankly, it's quite humbling for me to have to do this time around. I hate, HATE asking for money! Even though with fundraising you are getting something for the money you give, most folks just don't want to part with their money and that makes it difficult. I have planned for several funraisers throughout the summer beginning with our popcorn sale, which we have just started. We will be doing a garage sale the first weekend in May, I have requested donations from local friends on facebook but so far have only received donations from 2 friends and I need a lot more in order to make it successful. In June I will be hosting a pampered chef party, and sometime after I will do a car wash. I am planning a bake sale but may include that with the garage sale although, I think having one outside of our local Walmart might bring us some considerable cash too. I am going to get some t-shirts together and sell those as well, and I have added a donation button for anyone interested in helping us bring our son home :) I will post pictures of the shirts when I receive them so remember to check back periodically if you're interested. All this said, at least we are moving forward with our adoption process. If you think of us will you please pray for us, we have a long way to go and could use all the prayers we can get!

Stuck

If you haven't taken the time to watch this please do! "Stuck is a new award-winning documentary, produced by Both Ends Burning that uncovers the real-life stories of children and parents navigating through the international adoption system".

You can purchase a digital copy at http://buy.stuckdocumentary.com/

View the trailer at:  <iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/59302895?color=00cc99" width="400" height="225" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe>

Adoption #2

We are finally moving forward with adoption # 2. Although we have not officially applied with an agency yet we do have one selected and I will be getting our application into them in the next week or so. We have had a few personal changes since our first adoption. My husband has a new employer and I am now a stay at home mom taking care of our 3 year old daughter and our 2 year old granddaughter while my daughter works so this time around we will need to fund raise. I am preparing to do a car wash, a garage sale or two, and sell t-shirts. One of my daughter's recently got a tattoo of Africa on her wrist and I am planning on using that on our shirts, it's original and hopefully we will be able to sell a lot of them.

The process in Ethiopia has really slowed down since we brought Avreigh home.  When we submitted our dossier back in 2010 we only had to wait 5 months to receive a referral, the wait time now is expected to be up to 3 years! This time we are requesting an infant boy and we are open to speical needs. I have felt for some time that we need to be open to receiving the least of the least of these. We have been so blessed with our daughter and I cannot wait to meet our son! If there is one thing that I learned in the process of our first adoption, it is that the Lord is in the details and we can trust him to carry out His plan for our family. I am looking forward to taking this journey with Him and cannot wait to see the face of our son, Matthias.