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.

Hoops that Help!

Lots of people have asked if there is any way they can support our adoption...this morning we got news of a great way you can show us support!

Lipscomb University has an amazing program this year for their basketball season. They are selecting an adopting family for each home game to receive a grant from all the ticket sales of that game. Jonathon applied for this Adoption Rally, and we were selected! Let me say that again-we were selected!!! They picked us!!!We are so excited!!!

We will get all the ticket proceeds from the game!!!! What an incredible blessing! The game we were selected for is Saturday, December 3 at noon! They will recognize us during halftime and award our grant then! We need you to be there! Please come if at all possible! If you don't live in Nashville-tell anyone you know that does live here!

Here is a link to order tickets online or you can get them the day of the game!
http://lipscomb.streamlineticketing.com/web/section.asp?eventId=82

We got class!

Adoption classes that is!

In honor of our classes, here is a picture of Emory from her first day of "school!" Really just mother's day out that she started back in July, but she calls it school! Sorry it has been forever since my last post! Lots of busyness around here and not really any exciting adoption news.

Part of the adoption process is mandatory adoption education classes. We have been taking these for a few hours the past 3 Monday nights.  We were happy to go to these because it felt like one step closer to that precious baby! Each night we went in pumped and thrilled to learn, but came out feeling like someone had just burst our balloon.

One of the reasons these classes are mandatory is because they want you to know what you are getting into. Their job is to prepare you for the worst. Usually adoption is painted in a good light, and it gives people warm fuzzies. I am so thankful that over the years the concept of adoption has transitioned into a very positive thing in our culture, but the truth is it is difficult for all involved and there is a tremendous amount of loss.

The biggest topics we covered were adoption expectations, attachment & bonding, race & culture, and losses & gains. They gave us so many resources and information to equip ourselves and be prepared.

One of the best things to come from these classes was being around other adoptive families. These classes were specifically for international adoption, and there were various countries represented. It was so nice to be around other couples that are in the same boat! Each country program is different, but they also have a lot of similarities. We made connections with other people in our area to keep in contact with as we all go through the process!

Jonathon and I still haven't quite decided how much of our adotion story and details we will make public knowledge through this blog, but one thing is for certain-we will always be honest. And honestly speaking, we are scared and uncertain about how everything will go when we meet our child and bring them home. BUT what we are certain of is that we are called to this, and no matter how difficult the days ahead may be, we feel blessed that this is part of our story. We have complete confidence in our Heavenly Father that He will be with us every step of the way!