"Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles, and refuse to let the world corrupt us." James 1:27



Sunday, November 28, 2010

Received!

Well the USCIS received our application and now we are waiting for our fingerprinting appt. We'll have to travel down to Portland for that and there is an Ethiopian restaurant down there we can't wait to try.
Getting ready for our cookie sale, my freezer is full o' cookies!! Praying that it will be a successful fundraiser.
We've also applied for one grant already but there suprisingly isn't much else out there. It's hard to believe that in this big, rich country there isn't more help out there to pay a child's ransom. But again, God's economy is not ours-He can and will do this. So excited to watch how He pulls it all together...

Friday, November 19, 2010

Sent!!

Well we've had an exciting few weeks...We got our home study rough draft last week, I reviewed it and got the final draft approved the next day!! Then got the notarized copy of it a few days later!!! This is a huge piece of the process and I am thankful we're done with it. On Friday I picked up the home study report and sent our I600-A that day!! It is a form that once approved means we're allowed to adopt internationally. We will get fingerprinted too. When we get the approval back (called the I171-H) then we can mail our dossier to Ethiopia. Again my goal is to get it across the pond before the end of the year-Lord willing :)
Our home study states that we can adopt a child from 0-3 yr. old and we are approved for more than one child. We did that because we have heard of instances where people get over there to get their child and find out there is a sibling that may have been in another orphanage and even a case where they found out their child was a twin!! How could you leave that other sibling behind?! Whenever I've prayed for our son I would hear sons (plural). Don't know why...we are not looking to adopt 2 but we'll leave that up to the Lord. I know my hubby hasn't felt that leading but again, not OUR will but His will be done. Frankly I want another excuse to go Ethiopia, so I'd rather only get one child this time ;)  I've never been to Ethiopia but there is a piece of my heart there. A son whom I've never met but who God ordained from before the earth began to be a part of our family. How could my heart not ache to be there??
Another big key to getting the home study report back is that now we can apply for grants. We desperately need a big chunk of change to send our dossier to Ethiopia. We're only a quarter of the way to our goal. We have plenty of fundraisers going on right now. I have three friends who are donating a portion of their business sales to our cause. Our cookie sale is coming up quickly. I have many dear friends/family who are going to bake on our behalf :) We'll sell cookies by the pound right before Christmas, how can we go wrong? Pray for this event and God's continued guidance in this process.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

More fundraising :)

We had our auction a few weeks ago. It was so fun!! Our auctioneer was hilarious and such a huge blessing. Quite a few people from J's Dad's church showed up and a few others. It wasn't a huge turnout but God still provided and I think it was a blessing to all involved. We also received a check from his Dad's church for all the change they collected over the past month, and they matched funds for it!! So exciting!! So God has provided for the next step as He promised.
We are STILL waiting to get our home study rough draft back-really thought we would've had it by now but our social worker is really busy. We REALLY want it back because the cost of sending our documents to the USCIS to get approved to adopt internationally is going up Nov. 23 so we're praying we get it submitted before that!! Once we get the rough draft, we'll look it over and send it on to our adoption agency. If she approves it then we'll send it back to the social worker and she'll provide us with the final draft. We have all of our documents ready to send to the USCIS, we just need the finalized home study in hand!! Not so sure if we'll be able to send our dossier to Ethiopia (DTE) by the end of the year though...we'll see. His timing is perfect, so I will not stress. We don't have the money for our dossier to be sent anyway, but we know He will provide that when we need it too. I have embraced the phrase, God is seldom early, never late, but ALWAYS on time.
So now that the yard sales, pancake breakfasts, auction fundraisers are over....I'm moving on to MORE fundraisers!!! I am planning a cookie sale at our church Dec. 5th. A dear sister is doing a fundraiser for us where she will donate a percentage of the sales from her business to us!! http://www.ellieannapurses.com/ is the website, you have to mention that you're doing it for us. She has some beautiful hand made purses, jewelry, etc. Another dear friend is doing a Tupperware fundraiser for us. There are some really neat products that are only available through the fundraiser. We're still selling Gooseberry cookbooks as well. Coffee sales from our site are doing well too. You can click on our link from this page to purchase some coffee.
The other big key to getting our home study back is that we'll then be able to apply for grants. There are some neat programs out there that provide them, we just need to have a completed home study!!! Also our adoption agency has a Waiting Children Program for older children, sibling groups and children with special needs. Once we get our home study we can also apply to adopt from there if we find a child we want.
So that's where we're at...just praying that God shows us direction while we wait. There is always a reason for waiting, something to be learned. So we're just being patient and listening and preparing our home for our new child.
Please pray for God to continue blessing this process, to keep our family safe (Satan hates adoption!!) and to watch over and protect our son in Ethiopia and his family as well.