We are official!

Today we were quite excited to see that we are officially listed on the "committed families page" for Reece's Rainbow.  Those of you that know us, know that perhaps we should be committed for other reasons, but what this means is many other adoptive families can now track our progress and status as we move through our home study and dossier prep towards an official travel date.  It also means we have a "family support page" where people interested in helping sponsor such an adoption can do so safely, anonymously and in a tax deductible way.  Donating this way also guarantees people that the money will go towards this childs adoption even if for whatever reason we were not successful in completing the process. 

Each day brings new challenges as we get our backgrounds checked ten different ways, have four different kinds of fingerprints taken, and are generally scrutinized in every way imaginable.  But the tasks keep getting checked off, and we know each one takes us another step closer to the little face we long to bring home, and she has been waiting long enough.

Little milestones like this are an oasis along the way in the arid desert of adoption paperwork.  Keep us in your prayers, and chip in to  Jenny's fund if you are able. 

If you have an account with Paypal, the process is as simple as this:
1) Click on the "Bring Home Jenny" picture to the left
2) Follow "Click HERE to donate to this families adoption"
3) Click on the "Donate" Paypal button
4) List our family name and Jenny's name in the comment field for the donation

Or just send a check to Reece's Rainbow as mentioned on the family support page listing our name in the comment field on the check.

She and we will be forever grateful.  May God Bless you and yours!

On the road again

The changes a week can bring. We've dedicated ourselves to a path and now the sea of paperwork begins. Our home study team is onboard and is scheduled to meet with us in the next couple weeks.  We're quickly compiling the documents we can on our own, and kicking off the things we need others to do for us (references, employment letters, medical reviews,...).  The pile of home study and dossier paperwork on the official "work table" is quickly growing.

With a child identified at the end of this journey, this feels so different then our last two adoptions.  Then we didn't know if the child we were to adopt was even born yet, so the pace was a little less frantic.  This time there is a little girl out there that has been in an institution for too long, so every day we have to wait is one too many.

We know this process is in God's hands, and there is no guarantee she will still be there when we get there, but we are hopeful.  We can't wait until we are official enough to share her adorable little face with you.


In the meantime, we hope, we pray, we photocopy, we notarize, we fill in more forms and we wait.  What a complicated process.  And it is all different then when we did it all less then two years ago, partly because it is a different country, partly because US and international adoption requirements have just gotten that much tougher.

Keep us in your prayers - we sure can use them!

To adopt or not to adopt, that is the question...

Adoption #3 began in the strangest of ways as you might surmise from our Adoption Timeline.  We started with a concern for children in eastern European orphanages, and a desire for a little girl based on our family makeup and bedroom logistics.  We found a girl, then lost a girl and had to regroup.  We considered a different country because of concerns of travel requirements and other country restrictions.  We considered a boy since demand is so much higher for girls.  We found a little boy and began reviewing his case in detail.  When certain facts came to light about the program and additional medical conditions, we had to reconsider. 

At this point we thought, we wondered, we prayed.  Are we supposed to do this at all?  Where and when?  Our hearts were drawn  back to eastern Europe where we had begun.  But what about this two trip requirement.  Could we really get that much time off from work?  Could we afford it?  Two little girls faces came into view.  One was getting close to aging out of her orphanage and needs to be brought home soon.  The way became clearer.  We figured out a way to deal with the two trips we hadn't considered before.

We stepped forward and said "Yes, we will do this, with the Lord's help".  There is peace.  The destination seems clearer tonight then it has in a long while.  We know who our angel is, we just have to get to her, and hopefully soon.

This has been in a mother's heart for a long time.  We've been seriously engaged in searching this out for just about a month, but it seems like so much longer, like it was always the plan.  I think in fact it was - just His plan and we didn't know it yet.  We are at the beginning of this journey.  There will be crazy fingerprinting, document preparation, signing, copying, certifying, mailing again and again to get it all together, but it will get done.  Who knows, if all goes well, by Christmas we could have the best blessing ever, another child beside us in front of the manger at the feet of Jesus.  But now we are really getting ahead of ourselves.  Back to the paperwork!

Welcome

We are just your average family of seven, with a little bit of experience in international adoption (twice). We look something like this.



In Thanksgiving 2009 we were enjoying time with our family, having brought home our second adopted child in the previous July. We became aware of an adoption advocacy group called Reece's Rainbow, specializing in support and fund raising for special needs adoptions.

Over the next six months we followed the stories of many inspiring families bringing home these little blessings from around the world. God began moving our hearts that this was a special group of people that we needed to get involved with and support in some way. We began by becoming a prayer family for a child. Then we donated some funds for other families to pursue such adoptions.

Next we decided we would run a garage sale to raise money for these children. Now you have to understand we are not "garage sale" people. In fact, we are not sales people at all - we're just not that good at it or interested in haggling over the price of a broken bicycle or one armed sweater. But this was different. This was a worthy cause. We canvassed our friends and family for donations to the garage sale and items started pouring in until our garage runneth over. We made posters, baked goods for a refreshment stand, etc.

Truth be told, there were members of the family that had been feeling urgings towards another adoption for months. There were others (let's say Dad for example) who weren't feeling that calling, or perhaps were too preoccupied with other things to hear much of anything. But as we worked and prayed for the fund raiser and this ministry, something happened. As we prayed for one or more families to join the effort and come alongside these children, a small voice whispered to Dad "what about you?". Where one second it seemed there might not be enough time, space, money for another child there was now a small voice saying "I will provide if you have the faith to take one small step and say yes - trust me".

We did a sale and it was very rewarding.
Garage Sale

We don't know what road this adoption will take, but we know God will provide and it will be ok. We'll share more in the months ahead as this miracle unfolds.

And it all began with a Mom and some kids with big hearts open to adopt, again.

Earlier Adoptions

Our 2nd adoption led us to Ethiopia.




For video of our little Ethiopian lion, check out:




Our very first adoption from Guatemala:

Guatemalan Blessing

Once upon a time we had three little angels: