Our Christmas Gift

As many of you know, lately the wait has been increasingly difficult. From around the beginning of November on, with each day that passed and no word, our chances for meeting our precious boy before the end of the year were depleting.  The thought of not seeing him before Christmas and him not having a family to spend such a special day with was so hard to think about.

As our hope was fleeting, another family from our agency was heading over there at Thanksgiving, and we were able to send him a small package for Christmas.

We were so glad his court date on the 5th went smoothly, but also very discouraged when we didn't receive our court date. Often times I read from the devotional Jesus Calling. This is an excerpt from December 11th-
"I am working on your behalf. Bring Me all your concerns, including your dreams. Talk with Me about everything, letting the Light of My Presence shine on your hopes and plans. Spend time allowing My Light to infuse your dreams with life, gradually transforming them into reality. This is a very practical way of collaborating with Me. I, the Creator of the universe, have designed to co-create with you. Do not try to hurry this process. If you want to work with Me, you have to accept My time frame. Hurry is not in My nature. Abraham and Sarah had to wait many years for the fulfillment of My promise, a son. How their long wait intensified their enjoyment of this child!"

Ever feel like God is speaking directly to you? Wow.

Wake up 12-12-12 to an email from our director-we have our court date: December 25th. Well played God, well played.

I am so incredibly humbled by our Lord. We will be celebrating the birth of Christ on the same day this precious little boy will be transformed from orphan without a family, into a SON, brother, nephew, grandson, and great grandson.

What an awesome God we serve.

Hard to Sleep...

Some of you have been texting and calling to see how court went? And we don't want to leave you hanging anymore!

For us, this felt kind of like a kid waiting for Christmas morning! We had a count down going and the days dragged by, until finally the time had arrived. Yesterday was the longest day ever! A dear friend reminded me of Philippians 4:4-7, I tried not to worry but to trust that even though this important case was happening a half a world away from us, the LORD was near. He knows our heart and He knows what is best for this sweet boy.

Our little family had some special time together in the nursery last night. We decided to do Emory's bedtime routine in there. She picked some of Baby G's books for us to read together. The first one was "God Found Us You." If you know anyone that is or has adopted, I highly recommend it. It is a children's book, but it spoke to me in such powerful ways as it talked about how much the mom waited and longed for this precious baby. And even when days got long and hard, she knew that God planned perfectly. Here I am, thirty years old, and taking life lessons from a kids book! Thank you Jesus!

We figured the case would be between midnight and 7 am our time. It was so hard to sleep!...

This morning, every time I turned over in bed, I checked my phone for an email from our agency! We broke down and emailed them at 9:30, to find out they were having communication issues getting in touch with their representative. Finally, a little while later they were able to get an email through to tell us that everything went well in court! PRAISE THE LORD! Unfortunately, we are awaiting a letter from the courts before we will have our court appointment date. Bummer. Not exactly what we were hoping for. They are thinking they will get this letter in the next few days and we will know our date!

So thankful things went well and we are another step closer to this baby joining our family! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your prayers, support, and encouragement!

Court Date...Kinda

Wanted to give you all our most recent news! Once we were submitted to court, November 14, we thought we were waiting to hear when our court date would be. Instead we got an email telling us things have changed a little. Usually, change is not a good thing in adoptions, but this time it isn't that bad.

Apparently, there will be two Ethiopian court dates for baby G. The first one is for the orphanage, any living relatives, and our agency to be present for. The second one is for the adoptive parents to be interviewed. These take place on two separate days. In the past, they have given the agency both dates at the same time.  Recently, the judge has decided to wait until the first court appointment before they are scheduling the date for the adoptive parents.

So, Baby G's first court date is December 5th! That's right a week from tomorrow! Wohoo! No, this is not the date we will be going to, but it is a very important day in the life of our little one! Hopefully, after this court appearance, we will have the date that we will be going over to Ethiopia to meet our sweet boy and stand before the judge ourselves!

To say that we would appreciate your prayers is a massive understatement! Ethiopia is 9 hours ahead of us, so the appointment will take place in the middle of the night for us on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning-please pray for our family!

Case Submitted.

Wednesday morning we got the email that we have been waiting, praying, begging and pleading would finally come-Baby G's paperwork was completed and submitted to court! PRAISE THE LORD! We are so incredibly thankful that our family is one step closer!

Thank you so much for your prayers, encouragement, and support! We cannot thank you enough for that-it truly has meant more than you will ever know! These past 5 months, since we have had a name and face to go with our adoption plans, have been difficult, to say the least. As we have seen him change and grow, each day we aren't with him gets harder, but the Lord has heard your prayers and ours helping us and him along the way. We are forever grateful.

What's next? Next, we will be getting an email with our court date! This will be our first trip over there-where we actually get to meet him, hold him, give him lots of hugs, kisses and attention! It will also be when we go to court to make the adoption official on the Ethiopian side of things. When? That's a tough one. I hate to put a time-frame on it since the last one was so far off! "Typically" you hear back with your scheduled date 1-2 weeks after submitted. Then it can be anywhere from a week to usually 6 weeks before your actual court date.

Please keep the prayers up-we are still hopeful that we may be able to make it over there before the end of the year! Please join us in those prayers!

Questions and Prayers

Since we have started sharing the news of our little one, we have gotten a lot of questions. I mean A LOT. I am so glad people are interested in being part of this journey with us! I thought I would take a minute to answer those FAQs!

1. Are you sure this baby is the one you are going to adopt? Most people have asked this of our parents. Understandably-just wanting to know how sure we are this baby is going to be part of our family. The harsh truth is it isn't 100%, nothing is with international adoption. I would say at this point we are 90% sure. We are waiting on paperwork-which is taking much longer than we would like! In our minds, he is our son. We love and pray for him as if he will be.

2. What is his name? Are you going to keep it? We can't quite share his name on here yet for the safety and protection of the adoption. I can tell you, we do plan to keep his Ethiopian name as his middle name, and it means "wonderful."

3. Is he still in an orphanage? Yes and no. He was actually moved from his orphanage to what is called a transition house because the orphanage simply couldn't care for infants that young. This is an answer to prayer! The transition house, although still full of orphans that need and deserve families, does have more resources. When I spoke with them Saturday-there were 12 infants in this house along with  20+ older children.

4. What's next? The first thing is his paperwork being officially ready for us. We are hopeful this will happen in the next couple of weeks. Then, our case will be submitted to court. From there, we will receive our court date. That is when we will make our first trip to meet him and go to court to adopt. Then, we will come back to the states as our case is submitted to the US embassy. When we pass the embassy-we make our second trip to Ethiopia and bring him home!

5. And the most asked question-when will we get to bring him home? The truth is, we don't know. I wish we did. This is where we are asking begging for your prayers.

How can you specifically pray?
-Pray for his paperwork and those that handle it
-Pray for his health and that he is getting the nutrition his body needs
-Pray for his nannies that he is picked up, held, and loved on each day
-Pray for us-that we will have peace and patience during this trying time of waiting
-Pray that we can have him home before the end of the year-most days it feels like this would require a miracle, but we still believe in miracles!
Join us in praying that the Lord would hold and care for this precious son of His until He can use us to show him that love!

We truly cannot thank you all for your prayers-they mean more than anything else! If a picture would help remind you to pray for our little guy, message me your address and I would be happy to mail you one!

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7

GOD...in IKEA

I am so thankful when the Lord speaks to us. No, I haven't ever heard his voice, and I don't know anyone that has, but I am confident he speaks to me. This can come in many different forms-sometimes the awe of his vast creation,  His powerful, loving words in Scripture, that worship song that says exactly how you feel, or through the mouth of innocent children. Throughout this journey, God has definitely used amazing friends and family to comfort, encourage, and speak his words of grace and love to me. These people have been a reflection of the face of God for our family-and I am forever grateful for them.

One day though, God actually used the fantastically priced, home super-store IKEA to reach out to me. Unfortunately, we do not have an IKEA in Nashville, but Jonathon has had to go to Atlanta a couple of times this summer. Emory and I tag along so we can enjoy time as a family and take advantage of a good hotel swimming pool! This last time we went, I was having a rough week. When we got the call about Baby G, they thought it would take 2-3 weeks for our paperwork to come in. We were on week 5 and still no word. I was growing more anxious by the day.

We had done the thorough tour of IKEA and all of its ginormous self in our last trip to Atl, but they had been out of the one item I was looking for. I had seen these spice racks they sell used as book shelves that I really wanted, but apparently they go like hotcakes! I checked online and they were in stock this time! Don't worry that's not the God-thing I am writing about!

When we got all of our pics of baby G a lot of them had a baby doll beside him. It was like they wanted to give us something to compare him to for size purposes. That only works if you are familiar with the item it's being compared to!

Emory and I ran to IKEA for the sole purpose of getting these spice racks. We weren't looking for anything else, and she definitely wasn't in the mood for me to be browsing. But if you have ever been in IKEA you know you can't just run in and out! After we got our spice racks (wohoo) we were following the maze to get to the checkout, and we had to go through the children's section to do that. Emory's eyes lit up as she was taking in all the cool kids stuff they have and I was trying to rush through, when I saw the doll...THE DOLL. They have 4 or 5 stuffed dolls, and one of them was the doll from all of the pics with baby g! I thought I was either going to burst into tears or run through the aisles telling everyone!

Now ikea is all over the world, but NOT in Africa, and definitely not in Ethiopia! The same doll from a little orphanage in a tiny village in Ethiopia, was now right in front of me. To many this may seem silly, but I know the Lord was using this doll to reach out and comfort me that day. When you are in the position we are, you want so desperately to be connected to your child on the other side of the world in any way possible!

Of course we bought the doll! The African-American guy that checked us out, definitely gave me a funny look like-"you do know this is a black doll right?" But I didn't care, I was on cloud nine, amazed by our new discovery! When we bring the baby home, he'll have at least one familiar thing in his room!

We Got the Call!

We got the call!!! The one we had been waiting 18 long, hard months for!

It was Wednesday, June 27th, and I had just picked Emory up from her Mother's Day Out program. On the way home, I got a call from a number I didn't recognize. Usually I just let those go to vm, but for some reason, I answered it-and I am so glad I did! The voice on the other end was our agency director, and she said those precious words we have been longing to hear..."we have a baby for your family."

I was so shocked that a lot of what she said after that was kind of a blur. At this point I had pulled over on the side of road. I do remember her saying that she would be emailing us pictures in the next few minutes. When I got done with her, I immediately called Jonathon. I held it together on the phone with the agency, but I totally lost it when I heard Jonathon's voice. I am sure it completely freaked him out when he answered the phone and heard these loud sobs! By this time, Emory was crying because I was crying! I quickly told him everything was okay and explained the thrilling news we had just received.

He left work to meet us at home. Believe it or not, I actually had the restraint to wait for him to see the pictures of this sweet baby for the first time together! It was a moment we will always cherish.

Unfortunately we can't share a name or pictures online because it could interfere with the adoption. For now, we will call him "Baby G." Yes, that's right, it's a BOY!!! And another surprise for us was how young he is. When we got the call, he was only a month old! We were thinking we would get a child 1 1/2 to 2 yrs old, we couldn't believe how little he was. In fact, we actually have pictures of him before his cord stump had fallen off! If you know much about adoption, especially international, this is very rare.  An unexpected blessing.

Why we waited so long to tell you? When we got this call, we wanted to shout it from the rooftops! But, there is a reason we haven't said anything. Baby G's paperwork isn't ready. When the agency called, they expected it to be ready in 2-3 weeks. It has now been 7 weeks. And it still isn't ready. Lately, if you have asked us how it has been going with the adoption, we probably answered that we are still waiting. That has never been more true. The waiting has been more difficult than we imagined. Now we have a name and face, but still an uncertain future.

We wanted to share this with you now, in hopes that you will join us in praying for this precious little boy. Our heart yearns to be with him, show him love, hold him, and take care of his needs. Right now, all we can do is pray and trust-leaving him and our family in the Lord's hands.

First Runner Up Never Felt So Good!

A LOT has happened since my last post! I am going to try to give you the shortened version. About 2 months ago, we went through a very discouraging time with the adoption. Through a series of events we came to find out that after 10 months on our agencies wait list, we were still somewhere between #60-70. AND they were not getting many referrals a month (avg. 1-3), sometimes none at all! Now some of you may be thinking, "Does that mean there aren't as many orphans anymore?" Oh, how I wish that were the case. There are still MILLIONS of children growing up in orphanages in Ethiopia! The slow down is caused by government issues, famine, and the simple fact that is is a 3rd world country and they are on a different time-table than we are.

As you can imagine this pretty much devastated us. It meant it would still be years before we would meet our son or daughter. We prayed desperately that the Lord would comfort us and guide us, and He did just that. We had been with a very well respected agency that helped pave the way with international adoption, BUT that also meant a ton of other people used them as well. Obviously, by the length of their wait list!

We started to look at other agencies, and we discovered a smaller agency that many people in this area have used. We called them and were thrilled with the time and effort they made for us. This agency was started and is run by people who were formally missionaries, and went into this field when they saw the prevalent need world-wide. The director actually met with us when she was visiting Nashville, and her passion for these children was obvious. She frequently makes trips to Ethiopia to see how things are running and to meet the children. We prayed about it and decided to make the difficult decision to change agencies.

That meant redoing a TON of paperwork! We could use some of the stuff we had, but most had to be redone and updated since it was over a year old. If you know me, I only saw that as a challenge! My goal was to get it all done in a week! We got our part done that quickly! We officially got our dossier to them April 29! Now let me tell you the best part of this story-because they are a smaller agency, guess what number we are on their wait list???

That's right we are #3 on their girl list!!! AND...

And #2 on their boy list!!!

We are still only planning to get one for right now, but whichever list moves faster determines which gender and child will be part of our family forever! As Jonathon said, "I've never been so excited to be first runner up!"

So basically this means we could get a call in the next couple of weeks that we have a referral! Or it could be a few months before all the paperwork is ready for our referral. Either way, we have hope! We are thrilled!

 Thank you all so much for your continued prayers, support, and encouragement!

Preparing Emory

I am doing everything I can to get ready for this adoption. I have a stack of books on my nightstand about attachment, biracial families, international adoption, etc.

During this time, we have also been preparing Emory as best as possible. Obviously, she is very young, but as she starts to understand more, we explain more.  She is a very smart little girl with quite the vocab! We have been reading books like "A Mother for Choco" and talking to her about every baby needing a mommy. She loves the show Dinosaur Train, which I think has an adoption theme, but Jonathon doesn't think so at all!

A new sibling is fun and exciting but it can also be hard on little ones. We have been talking about and praying with her for months about her sister or brother in Africa. And if you ask her, she will tell you she has a brother or sister in Eth-e-o-pia! We talk about what a great helper she is going to be. But, I am afraid she isn't grasping the brother OR sister part, because she keeps telling me she will take care of the girl and mommy will take care of the boy!

We always wanted diverse dolls and books, etc in our home. So Emory has had a black baby doll for a long time now, in fact she has two of them! She constantly switches which baby she takes around with her because she has so many! Lately it has been one of her black dolls (which does get us some funny looks when we are out in public!) Recently she has just gotten to the point where she is naming her dolls. The other day, I explained to her that her sibling will have dark skin and hair like that doll, so later when I asked her baby's name, she said it's "sisterorbrother." What have we done?!?

Today, as she gathered her purse and belongings to pretend she was leaving, I asked where she was going. Usually she answers work, church, or shopping. Today it was, "I'm going to Africa to bring sister or brother home." Oh, how I wish it were that simple.

No News is...

good news a bummer.
I am sorry it has been such a terribly long time since my last update. The busyness of life and especially the holidays combined with the fact that we don't have anything good to really update you on has made it tough for me to want to write on here.

I do want to keep you "in the know" since so many of you have been great supporters asking about what's going on, and I know many are praying. Right now we are still waiting. Honestly, lately most days we are waiting impatiently.

We started this process almost a year ago, and at that point were under the impression we would have our new little one home before the end of 2011. Since then there has been an incredibly devastating famine and major changes to the government department that handles adoption in Ethiopia. Here we are almost a year later, and we still have a long wait ahead. In fact, we got an email Friday, and according to the way things are going right now, it doesn't look like we will bring our little one  home in 2012 either. Bummer. Really big BUMMER. Not gonna lie, we did not take this very well. Usually when one of us is having a hard time, the other is doing well. We balance each other out. This time we were both disappointed and discouraged.

We gave ourselves time to be upset. And then we were reminded our lives and plans are not our own. Our plans are not always the same as the Lord's. Even on the hard days, we have peace and confidence in Him. That doesn't mean those days don't include tears and impatience, it just means we can rest in faith and hope.