"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved." Ephesians 1:3-6

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Yard Sale Update


First of all, a HUGE THANK YOU goes out to all of the people who donated items for our yard sale.  Thank you also to the Frazey family for letting us invade their garage for a couple of weeks and for all the work sorting, pricing, and selling.  We could not have done it without you!!
We are so excited to report that with all our donated items we were able to raise......
$799.86



Thank you to those that prayed for this to be a successful fundraiser.  We had a great turnout and never expected to raise this much for our adoption! We are overwhelmed by the generosity of those that donated.

THANK YOU!!!

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Approved!

Today we received a phone call from West Sands to let us know they have looked at our application and we are approved!  We continue to be very impressed with this agency.  We mailed the application to them on Monday and they call us on Thursday! Angela and I chatted on the phone for several minutes about all sorts of things. I thought it was nice they called us rather than emailed.  
 Once we send them more money (of course!) they will send us the dossier (more paperwork) and the process will continue.  In the meantime, we still wait for our fingerprints and look forward to our meeting on Saturday with the social worker.  She said we are ahead of most at this stage because we already have the home study completed rather than waiting for acceptance then getting the home study done. 

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

A New Direction

"The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." Proverbs 16:3

If you have been following our adoption from the beginning, you know that we wanted to do a domestic adoption.  Not that we were opposed to international-in fact, from the beginning we said would love to do that someday.  We really wanted an infant and we still do.  It is pretty much impossible to get a newborn into your home with an international adoption. We also thought it would be less expensive to do a domestic adoption. But were our reasons for wanting a newborn from the United States selfish or selfless? This conviction, along with some other factors, are what God has used to change our direction to Ethiopia

We wanted a newborn so that we could have it in our home from the very first days of life.  That would help us to bond, right?  We want the child to be in our home from the youngest days for training and disciplining.  It is much harder to train a one year old than if you start from the beginning.  But don't one year old children need homes too?  Adoption is not going to be easy so why fool ourselves to thinking it is?  Adopting a child that is a little older will have its challenges. No matter where the child is from, there will be challenges.  There are challenges when the child comes from your womb, aren't there? But I'm pretty certain the Lord didn't promise things to be easy and we cannot ignore His call and His leading us to the other side of the world.  He commands us to deny ourselves and take up our cross to follow Him. 

We may still get a young child, but it is not likely.  We have sent in our application to an agency in Utah and we indicated that we would like an infant 0-6 months.  So this means that when the baby is referred to us, he or she will be this age.  However, from the time of referral to the time the baby comes to live in our home could be another 3-4 months, and this is why the age will be increased.  But maybe the Lord will grant us a very speedy process of a newborn.  We do not know what He has in store for us!

So where do we go from here?  We are waiting to hear back from the agency for acceptance.  Once we are, Lord willing, accepted to their program, we will receive a dossier packet to be completed.  We did have our home study done but that was for a domestic adoption, so now it needs to be updated and changed.  We have a meeting with our social worker this Saturday.  This doesn't put us back at all because we are still waiting for our fingerprint clearances.

On our application we indicated that we would be open to either a boy or a girl.  The woman on the phone told us that girls are in higher demand so if we do not have a preference we may not have to wait as long for a boy.  She said that we would be #32 on the list (this was last week).  This means that we are #32 of all families they are working with.  This agency does not break down the categories any further than that.  So, for example, we could be #32 on the list but truly be #5 for a 0-6 month old child.  So we will just have to be ready at any time!  I will post more about the agency we chose and why we chose Ethiopia soon.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Adoption Yard Sale

We are looking forward to our first fundraiser!  We are having a yard sale the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  Brent and I are both raiding our closets and clearing out all those clothes that we are holding on to because "I'll wear that again someday" that we haven't worn since high school.  (Maybe Brent doesn't do that, maybe it's just me!)  We don't have a lot other than clothes to sell, but they are in great condition, so hopefully we will raise a nice amount of money to put into our adoption fund.  I will be reporting the amount raised after the event!

If you have anything that you would like to donate to our yard sale, we would appreciate it! Just let me know and I'll come pick it up from you.  Every little bit helps! Thanks:)

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Dear Orphan,

Dear Orphan,

I saw your picture today and heard about your plight. Your face is so beautiful and sad, and it tugs at my heart.


I hear you don't get enough to eat, and that there isn't always medicine if you get sick. You sleep in a room with many children, but you still feel alone.


You have never had anyone wish you a "Happy Birthday", give you a gift, or even sing you a lullaby goodnight. No one has ever told you about Jesus or that He loves you.


I wish we could adopt you, but....

It is such a long way to travel, it would cost so much money, and it involves so much paperwork.
Our home isn't very big, and we already have children. Adding another child to our family would mean they would have to share a bedroom as well as our love and attention.
What if you have health issues or special needs that are not yet diagnosed?
You might have a hard time adjusting to a family after never knowing one, or have "issues" from years of neglect, malnutrition, mistreatment, or abuse.

I'm sorry, it just feels like too much of a risk and sacrifice. Adoption doesn't really feel like our "calling". Maybe there is another family....


Written by Amy B.
http://justamomofseven.blogspot.com/2011/11/i-wish-i-could.html