News Update 3/11

If you're not already following this blog via RSS feed or by putting your e-mail in for instant notification when we update, you better do it now.....because things are about to get interesting and you don't want to miss out.

There have been a series of things that have gone on in the last couple weeks that we need to update you on.  And here they are...

-OK to make a LONG story short....we've been working jointly with two adoption agencies to make this adoption work.  Within the last couple weeks, there have been some events that have shifted that a bit.  We will now be getting our referral (picture of our child) through CHI (Children's House International) only.  Because of this shift we have had some phone calls with them.  Because of these phone calls, we have clarified a number of things with them.  Most importantly we have clarified, what they need from us (just a couple documents faxed to them)....and once they get those....we get a referral!  That's awesome.  (as you read this documents are being faxed!)

-You will remember that we recently traveled to Buffalo to get fingerprinted for the I-600....which is the US government clearance to allow us to bring a child into the country to be part of our family.  Guess what was in the mail yesterday?  OUR I-600 CLEARANCE!!!  This means that we can move forward full tilt!!!!

-What does this all mean?  It means that we're waiting around for a picture to show up of our child.  We're not talking months.....we're talking days to weeks potentially.  To clarify in case you missed it, a referral means we know age, gender, cuteness, etc. 

-So what does THAT mean?  Once we get our referral, the ball starts rolling with lawyers and paper-working being translated, and courts in Ethiopia.  We were given a rough time line, but I hesitate to share that....because we've been burnt by such timelines in the past.  Suffice it to say that a couple weeks ago I felt like we weren't moving much and now we're clicking along nicely.


Action for You:

1.  We need your prayers as always.  Obviously pray that the next few steps go smoothly.  Also pray that we are patient and don't jump the gun on what God wants for us in this time of waiting....that we would be reminded of who's timeline we're on.

2.  As I said above, if you're not getting notifications of this blogs update, you'll want to do that over in the right hand column.  I can't guarantee that I'll remember to put notifications up on Facebook all the time when a new blog post appears.  We don't want you to miss something awesome.

3.  From day one, we've felt that we are suppose to connect people with this adoption and with what God's doing in our lives in this time.  Please continue to share with others where we're at...particularly those who are a little less tech savvy. 

The Beard Conclusion

I should've probably posted this two months ago. Better late than never I suppose.

So you will remember that for November and December I put my beard up for auction. There were some pretty specific instructions...which confused a lot of people. Many people believed, that which ever fund had the most in it at the end would win...which was not the case. They were excited because the "Cut It Off" fund was winning by about 2000 dollars for most of the two months.

So here's what happened....with only a few weeks to spare a close friend of ours donated a size-able chunk of money to the "Save It" fund. Not only was this a huge blessing, it also saved a lot of confusion. As you can see as of he end of December when the contest ended, the "Save It" fund had just a slight edge on the "Cut It Off" fund. So for all those confused by the rules and hoping to see my chin....I'm not shaving!!!!!!

Someone jokingly suggested that I personally put in the money to save my facial hairs. Let me put that to rest right now...I didn't....and couldn't have, even if I had wanted to. Did I want to shave? No. But I was prepared to if it had gone that way. I wouldn't have offered it up if I wasn't prepared for that eventuality.

So was it a failure?  Far from it.  We raised more than 4000 dollars!!!!  That is awesome.  That is a nice step toward our goal of funding this adoption.  I would personally like to thank all those who donated.....to BOTH funds.  Thank you for supporting us and walking with us in this journey.  We still have a ways to go, but this really helped us along on our journey.

I hold no grudges to those who wanted to see me clean shaven.  I did feel bad for you though since I won't be bald chinned.  I know this isn't what you were hoping for, but the other day I cut 3 or 4 inches off the bottom.  It's much shorter now.  (actually no one has said one word to me about it....including Marjorie)  So it's not what you wanted, but it's something....


EDIT:  Since I wrote this last week, my youth pastor buddy J, noticed that I had cut my beard.  He's still the only one.

Small Update 2/22

We started posting on this blog like gang busters.  We've petered out a bit.  We need to be better at that.  Sorry.

We don't have huge news to share with you.  I wish we did.

Here's where we're at.  Homestudy done.  Dossier 99.9% done.  We filed our I-600A.

This past Wednesday we drove to Buffalo go get fingerprinted for our I-600A.  The fingerprinting itself was rather uneventful....except that we had to wait a few minutes while some gentlemen in jumpsuits, handcuffs and ankle chains got fingerprinted.  That was different.

The better part of the day was going to our favorite Ethiopian restaurant in Buffalo.  If you're ever in Buffalo you have to go to Lucy's.  The owner is amazing.  We were there around 1 and no one was there....which is rare.  He came and sat beside us, teased Tobiah, and eventually gave us some of his breakfast to try.  We talked about Ethiopia, and food, and everything else.  LOVE IT there.

 So that's where we are....sort of in the same place we were last time.

YOUR action:
1.  Please continue to be in prayer.  We covet your prayers.  For us.  For our family.  For our 3rd child.  Please also remember to pray for our agency as well.

2.  Also pray for stagnation and patience.  I don't know that we feel like we've made much progress lately and it's easy for Satan to use that and attack us.  Pray that we keep pushing forward.  And when it's out of our hands we're patient to wait for what's next.

Quick Update 2/3

I know, I know, we haven't updated in awhile.  Sorry.  No real excuse for it.  Just the daily grind of normal life. So here's a brief update of where we're at in the adoption process.

We filed our I-600A with the US government a week ago.  This is the form that request the US to allow us to bring A child into the country to live with us.  It'll be a few weeks before we get our confirmation that we have that clearance.  We did get a text to say that they have received our packet and will send us our info.  So there's that.

I have been informed by Marjorie that we're pretty much done (or close to done) with our dossier too.  The dossier is the big pile of paperwork that follows our process throughout this process.  It goes to the Ethiopian court.  It goes to the US government after that.  It's full of every minute detail of our lives.  Being done with this is HUGE.

So once we get the I-600A clearance and the dossier done.....we're in business.  Well......we'll see.  The good part though is that we'll be pretty much done doing the parts that we can physically do.  Very little other paperwork to fill out.  The big wait begins.

I've been saying....with Corban and Tobiah, I loved the paperwork part, because I could do something about it, but the wait was hard.  With this adoption, I can't get done with the paperwork fast enough and get on to the waiting.  I want this thing out of my hands into God's hands NOW.  I'm tired of being "in charge".

Lastly.....look for  an update on the outcome of the "beard sell-off" in the VERY near future.

For You:

1.  Pray we get our I-600A back sooner rather than later.

2.  Pray the documents we've done for our dossier are correct and approved.

I Need a Reason to Sing

This morning at breakfast I prayed with the boys. I kind of prayed about our year and the year to come. I prayed for our hope, that #3 comes home in 2013. I got very choked up.

This group, All Sons and Daughters, has rocked my world this year....our house really. On a normal day I wake up to get the boys to school and listen to one of their albums as I'm making breakfast and packing lunches. I find their music to be the songs of my heart.

 This song has been one of many that really strike a chord with me (no pun intended). The bridge particularly.

Will there be a victory
Will You sing it over me now
Oh
Your peace is the melody
You sing it over me now
Oh Lord
Will there be a victory
Will You sing it over me now
Oh Lord
Your peace is the melody
You sing it over me now    For me this has been a prayer. "God I know there's going to be victory here. I know you've called us to this. I know the money is going to happen, that miracle are going to be revealed in front of us. Can you remind me of that? God can you sing your peace over me when I get worried. When I start to doubt. When people say mean things, because they just don't understand what you've called us to. Can you sing your peace to me and remind me who's in charge please?"

Then they end with the reprise (at least on the original EP it was a reprise, now they just jam it all into one song)....

I will sing sing sing
to my God my King
for all else fades away
and I will love love love
with this heart You've made
for You've been good always
God how many times have you shown up in my life? How many times have you rocked my world? Your goodness is evidenced all around me. This is the song that I want to sing. This is the prayer I want to pray.

Will you sing this song with us in the coming year?

Merry Christmas

Better Late than Never.

We didn't send out Christmas cards this year.  Things just got too busy and we didn't think far enough in advance to take a good picture so we could have it printed.  So this is what you get this year.  5 minutes (at most) in an online photoshop editor.

Extra Thoughts from yesterday....

If you haven't already read our One Hurdle Down post from yesterday, you should do that before continuing in this post.  This is kind of an addendum onto that post.

So what I didn't mention yesterday was that one of the big reasons that we were able to get our Homestudy done is because of some of you.  Seriously.

One of the hang-ups we had was that our agency was unclear about our finances.  They wanted to see that we had the money to not only adopt, but live normal lives...even if an emergency happens.  What we were able to show them was that a lot of people have already contributed...and several people have promised money but are waiting until a certain bill comes in.  We were able to say, "look, this is what has happened so far and where we believe we're going". 

We wanted to point that out to say THANK YOU!  Thank you so much for donating to our adoption.  We feel God has called us to this.   It is also clear that God has been calling you as well, to walk along side us in this task.  Thanks for listening to His prompts.  If you had not done so, we would be stuck.  We still have a long way to go, but you definitely helped us get over that hurdle!

Secondly, I just wanted to share an awesome God story.  Even after we got good news yesterday, blessing continued to come.

I went to worship team practice at church last night as always.  Our church has a giant table where people can put Christmas cards to each other, to save on some postage.  So I noticed there was this big jar (of what looked like nuts) on the table.  My thought was "that's awesome that someone gave someone some nuts".  The curious George in me decided to check it out just to see who got lucky.

When I got there, I found two things.  First, it wasn't a can of nuts, it was a pickle jar full of coins and some dollars.  Secondly "REINARD" was written on the top.

When I opened the jar I found two more things.  First, the money smelled like pickles, which was kind of funny and made me sort of hungry.  Secondly I found a small note that said, "Use this toward your adoption.  Merry Christmas.  Pay it Forward when you can."

So today I went to the bank to deposit some adoption money.  I used the awesome free coin machine to cash out the change.  $51+ dollars plus the bills that were in there!!!!!!!

We've been saying this since day one.....small things equal big things.  It was just a small jar full of pocket change....but that pocket changed added up big time.  Would it be awesome if someone showed up and said, we'll cover the rest of your adoption bills?  Sure.  BUT we're convinced that that's not the plan.  We're convinced that we're suppose to get lots of people on board.  We're convinced that individuals, doing little things like our pickle jar full of coins, will get us to our big goal.

THANK YOU pickle jar person.  God is GOOD!