A chance to make a difference for an orphan

To all of you who are not at a place to take on the journey of adoption but would still like to have an impact on the orphans, here is your chance. Our adoption agency is sending staff members over to their Ethiopian orphanage, Hannah's Hope, and will be taking much needed supplies. If any of you have something you would like to donate or if you would like to make a monetary donation they would be truely blessed. You can look at the list of needed supplies under our links list. All donations must be sent by Friday Febrary 8th. Any donations can be sent to:

All God's Children International
3308 NE Peerless Place
Portland, OR 97232

Thanks and God bless you all!

Prayers for our boy and his birth mom

God has been laying on our hearts and the heart of one of our friends lately that we should be doing a lot of praying for our little boy and his birth mom. We would appreciate prayers for their health, safety, birth if he isn't born yet, and that our homestudy would get going so we can turn in our dossier on time. I have also been praying specifically for God to take care of our baby just like we would until we get him home.

Got it!

Not much to report except that we finally got our letter, so our dossier is complete. We are still waiting for our last reference letter to make it back to our homestudy agency.

Still waiting to start homestudy

I thought by now we would be starting homestudy interviews, but one of our reference letters had still not come in (almost a month over due now) and I didn't know that until I called last week. We decided to have another couple do one for us so we can get moving. I know that there is a good reason for this delay, but I'm ready to get moving. Our Dossier is done, minus the homestudy and technically our last letter of recommendation that is hiding from me at the Post Office. I was supposed to receive the letter on Wed. of last week, but it came in a day late. Then this happened...

I saw the mail man on my sidewalk with the letter in hand...yippy...wait why is he turning around? Why is he going back to his truck? Why is he driving away with my letter?! So I called the Post Office and the said they would check it out and get back to me...they didn't. So I go in the next day and they say "It isn't here, he must have it and will try to deliver it again today" Great, except he is probably there right now and I'm not. So I get home and find the nice little pink tag on my door that says I can pick up my letter at the PO after 6pm M-F. Okay fine, I'll just get it Monday I think to myself. So this morning I load up some packages and my pink slip and head to the PO and as I walk in I see that it is closed. Why is it closed I think? Oh yeah, it's a holiday. So this darn letter that is waiting to complete my dossier should be coming home TOMORROW! For those of you wondering why the guy left, apparently he slipped and fell before I noticed him. My thinking was that he could still have thrown the letter onto my porch from there...after all it was sent PRIORITY! :) I know all you other adopting Moms know how I feel...I think I am now officially a part of the "Stalk your Mail Man Club" Anyway, that's the update for now.

I HAD A DREAM!

As I was thinking of a title for this blog I realized that today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day and I thought how fitting...

I had a dream...a wonderful dream last night of a beautiful Ethiopian boy about 3 years old. As we wandered the dusty roads of his village barefoot he rode on my hip and clung tightly to my neck. We passed several roadside vendors and he would translate the language for me in a sweet little voice. Our connection felt so natural and he seemed completly content to be my child and call me Mom. There was a deep love and trust present, the same that I feel for our daughter when she smiles up at me and says "Hi Mommy." What a beautiful gift of peace this dream was. I had many dreams like this when I was pregnant with our girl as God carefully prepared my heart for the amazing daughter he gave us. I look forward to more of these dreams as we get closer to bringing our son home.

I hope you all have a Dream!

Homestudy Docs

I wanted to post a picture of all the homestudy documents we had to fill out. This is most of them excluding four that we had already sent off before I took the picture. I will try to do the same thing for our dossier once it is complete.

Radio Program

A friend of mine called me up yesterday and said I should turn on my radio to listen to a radio program about adoption. I was so blessed by the program that I wanted to share it with you all. I have placed it in my links and it is called Focus on the Family-Adoption podcast. There are two wonderful stories about adoption and they are nothing short of miracles. Enjoy, but you might grab a tissue first.

Dossier almost done!

Today we got our criminal background checks done...we passed! :) Not that I was too worried. That was the last thing we had to get done for our dossier. We are still waiting for one recommendation letter to come in and we have some of our forms to notarize still, but that's it. As far as the homestudy goes we are just waiting for them to call us and get the interview process going. I am still in awe of how easily things have been going. Usually Jared and I run into problem after problem when we are trying to do something like this. Maybe our struggle will come later, but for now praise the Lord for the smooth sailing we've had. I also want to say thanks to our friends here who paved the way and gave us tips on how to get our background check done. Now the wait begins.

NEW-Frequently Asked Questions Page

We added a link to a FAQs page about our adoption. We wanted to answer some general questions about this journey we are on. Feel free to take a look and let us know if you have any other questions! I also added a map of Ethiopia and a link list of some other adoption blogs we read. These are fun to look at and some of them have their kiddos home already and have posted pictures. Hope you enjoy all the new features.

We got notice yesterday that our homestudy documents are in office, so we will hopefully be starting interviews soon. Prayers for that would be wonderful. We are also going to be getting our criminal background checks done this week which will complete our dossier...yeah!

Quiz

Happy New Year! I am so excited to see what 2008 has in store for us. My hope is that by the end of the year we will be home safe and sound with out little baby boy from Ethiopia. It is hard to believe that it has been 7 months already since God first layed this call on our hearts. Here's to a great year of many children coming home to forever families!

Now, on to the quiz part, I was just reading through some of my favoirite adoption blog sites and came accross this fun little quiz about famous people who were adopted as children. I thought you all might enjoy taking a look at it. I scored 5 out of 10. Can you beat that? Just click on QUIZ under links to get started.