Other Huge Blessings

Just wanted to let you all know that we recieved another huge blessing. We just recieved a donation that will cover our intire homestudy fee! God is truely blessing us through people willing to follow him. Thanks again to all those who have contributed in ANY way.

Another great thing that happened is we got our State Certification papers back on Friday with no problems (sometimes it can be a difficult process). Now that the holidays are winding down we are excited to get going again. We also got to talk very briefly with the family from our church who just got home with their Ethiopian daughter. It was one of those moments when you feel like you are dreaming. Sometimes it is hard to remember that one day we will really be holding our little baby, but seeing this little girl made it more of a reality. She is beautiful and sounds like she is adjusting well. They said they took a lot of pictures and videos of the orphanage and children so we look forward to seeing those and talking with them about their trip. When we were introduced to the little girl I was filled with joy and peace about what we are doing, it was wonderful!

Blessings from above

A few days after Christmas Jared and I got a call from a friend-of-a-friend who has been praying about helping us with a fundrasier. She is very talented at quilting, and feels like God has told her to make us a quilt to sell or auction off. She has made several quilts in the past and is donating an antique quilt to us as well. The best part of this blessing is seeing how God is working everything to the good of this plan. It is very humbling to see Him use other people's talents to help us. We should be getting the quilts around the end of January. We will post pics of them on our blog and we might be selling them on Ebay if any of you are interested in bidding on them.

(RED)

I just thought I'd let you all know I added a link to www.joinred.com so you could check it out. For those of you who have not heard of it I have posted its description here:

What (RED) Is
(RED) was created by Bono and Bobby Shriver, Chairman of DATA to raise awareness and money for The Global Fund by teaming up with the world's most iconic brands to produce (PRODUCT)RED branded products. A percentage of each (PRODUCT)RED product sold is given to The Global Fund. The money helps women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa.

What's the meaning of the parentheses or brackets? Well, we call them "the embrace." Each company that becomes (RED) places its logo in this embrace and is then elevated to the power of red. Thus the name -- (PRODUCT)RED.

You, the consumer, can take your purchase to the power of (RED) simply by upgrading your choice. Thus the proposition: (YOU)RED. Be embraced, take your own fine self to the power of (RED). What better way to become a good-looking samaritan?!


I just though it would be very fitting to have this link on my page since this is one of the things that inspired me to do something in Africa. Little did I know that it would take me this far. I hope you will all visit the website and see how your purchases could help save lives. The products make great gifts too, perfect for last minuite Christmas shopping.

We sent off our Power of Atourney forms today to get state certified, and other that that the only paperwork for our dossier that we have left is a police clearance... moving right along.

Paperwork, blogs, and prayer

We received our dossier packet the day after I blogged last. Since then (Thursday the 6th) I have been working like crazy on all the paperwork. I ordered birth and marriage certificates, found a physician and scheduled physicals, put together a 5 page picture "album", filled out and printed around 15 personal info forms, made copies and sent of many of those to our Social Services agency, and sent off 6 requests for letters of recommendation. So, we are cursing right along. The biggest thing we will be waiting on now is getting some adoption books read and on-line classes done. So far things have been going very smoothly except that Jared’s name was spelled wrong on our marriage certificate. My hope is to have almost all of our paperwork complete by the end of next week. Jared will be home for a few days around Christmas so we are hoping to get at least one book read during this time.

Since we are now “official” AGCI adoptive parents, we have access to an on-line group of other AGCI families. It has been really fun to check out other families’ blogs and see their stories. It is also nice to have such a large support group of people going through the exact same thing at the same time we are. If you get a chance you should check out the new link I posted under our “links” heading called “Another AGCI family’s blog”. This family is selling cute T-shirts to benefit the orphanage that we will be adopting from. Even if you don’t want a shirt their blog is fun to read, and might give a new or better understanding of what we are doing.

We are asking for prayers for a family from our church who is traveling to Ethiopia to pick up their child right now. They will be there for a little over a week to finalize legal stuff and then will return home. Please pray for a safe trip there and back and for the little girl as she connects with her new family. Other prayers that would be appreciated include, prayer for the pregnancy and birth of our little boy if he has not been born yet, and for a safe and healthy first few months of life for him. It is hard to think that we have no control over how he is cared for in the early months, but God does, so please pray for that. Thanks, and we’ll keep you posted on the paperwork process.

Homestudy Application and Inspiration

We received our homestudy application in the mail yesterday. Looking through all the paperwork and documents to be completed seems very overwhelming. We should also be receiving our dossier packet from AGCI anytime. I'm hoping to be able to get a good jump start on some of the paperwork this week and next before the holidays get too crazy.

I just finished reading a book that came with our adoption packet called The Strength of Mercy by Jan Beazely. This book spoke straight to my heart. It is the story of the adoption that started the whole ministry of All God's Children International. God confirmed over and over through this book that this is what we are supposed to be doing, and that he has done the same work in many other people's lives. Many of the same verses that have given me strength and comfort concerning our adoption were quoted in this book. The way the Lord put the heavy burden of love on the mother's heart was exactly the same as he did for me. It was so great to get a big picture view of the whole process, emotions, trials, ups-and downs, and ultimately a very rewarding journey with God to end in a blessed new family member. I can only hope that our story is as great as that one. I can't wait to see what is in store for us along the way. One of the neatest parts of the book was a letter that the mother wrote telling what God had spoken to her:

"My holy hand of protection hangs over this child. You have been chosen and called for such a time as this. Be persistent and do not be distracted by other people's opinions. Walk in faith believing that I have a plan. I will make a way where there is now way, a path where there is no path. Obedience is better than sacrifice. Will you dare to live dangerously? Will you trust Me completely to do only what will ultimately be the best for you and your family? I see the cries. I will take you a new direction, and many lives will be touched as a direct result of your obedience. Remember, as you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me." Jan Beazely

After reading this book and a blog site of another AGCI couple who just got their daughter in August I'm more than anxious to get started. I just hope I can be patient enough. Keep checking in with us because we should start to have more updates now that the process is moving along.

Contracts

Wow, I can't believe it has been a month already since I last wrote. We have spent the past month reading our contracts (5 long legal documents) and trying to come up with our financial plan. The first half (about $10,500) of all fees is due with the signed contracts. We are not able to apply for loans or grants until our home study is complete, so for now we have a credit card with 0% interest for 12 months to make the initial payments with. While this is not our ideal plan we are praying that God will provide through our fundraising efforts so we wont have to keep a large balance on it for long.

We got all the contracts notarized yesterday. A lady at Jared's office is a notary public so that is going to come in very handy since we have to have like 25 documents notarized by the end of the process. The best part is she is donating her services so we don't have to pay for it at all! Our hope is to get the contracts finished up and sent off tomorrow the 29th. Then comes more paperwork. Also, we have sent in our request for an application to our Social Service agency. Hopefully we can get our home-study going soon.

The other couple who is adopting at our church just got their travel dates and will be heading over to Ethiopia in a few weeks. They will have their child home for Christmas, and we are very excited to talk with them when they return. They are going to take pictures and videos of Hannah's Hope (the orphanage) and children there, so there is a chance that our little one would be there already. It has been fun to have them to talk with and will be great to fellowship with when we both have our children. That's all we know for now. Thanks for the prayers and keep in touch.

Application Aproved!

Yeah! We got an email saying that our adoption aplication was approved right away. I had never been too woried, but as Jared started reading the email to me I had a nervous moment thinking "what if we weren't aproved." Anyway, we are off and running now. We will be recieving our orientation packet in the mail soon, and then the paperwork will start. Also, I was blessed with the opportunity yesterday to talk with a friend-of-a-friend who spent her childhood in Ethiopia as a missionary's kid. I learned so much and now feel like I have a little better understanding of the Ethiopian culture and people. It is so exciting that our journey is offically underway! Now that fees are coming due we will be updating you shortly on our fundraising goals, so if you are feeling God's lead please keep us in mind. Thank you all for your prayers and gifts.

Application

Well, we have officially applied to All God's Children International as of yesterday 10/25/07. Once that information is processed we will have an orientation call from AGCI and then start on our dossier (paperwork). We are also going to get our homestudy going soon. There are two homestudy agiecies in Montana that we can use, one is Lutheran Social Services and the other is Catholic Social Services. Catholic Social Services is far less expensive than the other so I think we will be choosing them unless something changes. It feels pretty good, but also scary to have the application sent off finally. Prayers that the process would start out well would be great. Also prayers for our loan application would we appreciated as well.

Agency Change

Well, after some praying we have decided to go with All God's Children International instead of Christian World Adoption. We like both very much, but AGCI was wonderful in pursuing us and communicating with us above and beyond. We also like that fact that they are a little smaller and more personal, and everyone we work with in Africa will be actual AGCI employees instead of subcontractors. We have also decided that God is calling us to take that leap of faith that we were praying about and go ahead and apply now. He confirmed our answer in a very neat way through both Jared and I's daily devotionals. This was a double blessing because not only were we praying for an answer about whether to apply now or not, but we have also been praying that this would grow us spiritually both individually and together. We are currently getting ready to head to Florida for a week and when we return we will start the application process. We are very excited, but a little bit nervous at the same time. Not much new has come about with fundraising since the last blog except that we have had a few more letters come back, thanks for those. I'll write more when we get back!

Wait on the Lord or Take a Leap of Faith?

Our ice cream social was not nearly what we hoped it would be. We did have a couple friends and a few neighborhood kids come, but that was all. Unfortunately it seemed everyone had other plans, but the good news is that we still made a small profit and didn't loose money on it. We are still hoping to put on another much bigger fundraiser, but we have not gotten permission to do so at the church yet. Please pray that they would allow us to do something there. A wonderful friend-of-a-friend is going to make a quilt or two for us to raffle off and has offered her time and materials for free, what a blessing! As far as letters go, we have only received three back, but are very grateful for those who responded, thank you. Jared has been offered some drafting "side jobs", we are looking into getting a paper rout for a few months, and all of the money I make from personal training is going to go strait to the adoption fund. So, hopefully with all of that we will earn what we need. That is the update on fundraising, but we do have some other interesting news. After talking with the couple in our church who is adopting from Ethiopia as well, we found out that the agency they used will let us apply now. This came as a surprise to us. Now we have some praying to do about which agency to use and whether to wait on the Lord for more funds or take a leap of faith and apply now. Prayers for that would be appreciated as well. That's all the news for now.

Garage Sales, Ice Cream and New Friends

Well, our second garage sale was less than productive so we are going to pack everything back up and try again next spring. Tomorrow we are having our ice-cream social, please pray for good weather and good sales. We do have some good news...we just learned that another couple in our church is also adopting a child from Ethiopia. One of our pasters got our support letter and emailed us with the couple's info, so we are hoping to get in touch with them this weekend or next. It will be really nice to have a couple so close to talk with about the adoption. They are adopting a little girl who is older I think 6-8 years old or so, but they are going over this fall to get her so that will be very exciting to see. It is also nice that they have already been through the process and will be able to give us pointers along the way. Thats about it for now. Check out the new links we have and if you have time watch the great video on Ethiopia by clicking this link http://www.allgodschildren.org/about/videos/ and then click on"Hanna's Hope Ethiopia" Thanks for all your prayers!

Fundrasing Update

We have a few new updates on fundraising. Community Home Dairy here in Missoula graciously donated six gallons of ice cream for our ice cream social; what a great blessing. Also, our first garage sale did okay. Saturday we made a decent amount, but the fun thing was, one of the couples who stopped by was a Christian couple needing someone to draft/design a new entry for their house....how convinet uh? Sunday, however, we only had one person show up so Jared decided to calculate our dollar per hour pay for Sunday and we only made $1.36 an hour. I told him that next time we should maybe skip that statistic. haha This weekend we have another garage sale, but this one we actually have an ad for. The ad is in a smaller local paper since the Missoulian costs $26 for an ad, but hopefully it will bring in a few more people. Several friends have been donating things for us to sell in the sale and that is greatly appreciated. Also, Jared just got an email from a friend of ours who has been interested in buying some left-over tile we had from building our house, and it seems they are ready for it. Good timing uh? These have all been nice small but very helpful contributions, but I've saved the best for last. The other day I went to the mail box and found a piece of mail from our Medical Center. I figured it was just a bill for Aspen's latest check up, but instead it turned out to be a refund check for $657.00! I had no idea that it was coming so I called just to make sure it wasn't too good to be true and apparently our insurance came back and paid a huge claim that they had denied at first so they owed us money. Unfortunately we can't use all of this for the adoption, but a large portion of it will cover our application fee; yeah! God is so cool in His timing. I knew He would provide for us, but it is so fun to see how creatively it happens. That's about all for now, but please keep praying for our next two weekend fundraisers. Thanks for all your support.

Fundrasing

Jared and I are now in the beginning stages of the adoption. We have sent out support letters, and are planning two garage sales and an ice cream social in September to raise funds. We have only a few short months to do fundraising before we officially apply to our adoption agency. CWA (the agency) requires that parents be 25 years old before they apply for an Ethiopian adoption. Since I (Whitney) turn 25 first we will try to have all paperwork ready to go in February. We might be able to do some preliminary paperwork two months prior to my birthday, but with all the holiday craziness in December we will probably buckle down starting in January. We are also hoping to have our benefit concert towards the end of January to get some last minute fundraising done before all the fees are due upon application. We are glad you all are here to join us on our journey even if it can only be virtual. Enjoy the site, and don't forget to comment or sign our guestbook at the bottom of the page. God Bless.

Our mission

Dear family and friends,

As most of you already know Jared and I have decided, through God's leading, to adopt a child from Ethiopia. We are very excited about this calling and are happy that you can experience it with us throught this blog. We will do our best to keep info posted along the way not only so you can be up to date, but also as a reminder that we will need lots of prayers and support along the way. We thank you for taking the time to visit our site and we pray that God would bless each of you and the plans he has for your lives.

Jared, Whitney, and Aspen