Meetcha Day!!

Yesterday, December 11, we met the newest additions to the Cheney family!! All THREE of them! They completely took our breath away. I, Heather, was a nervous wreck! Our kids had woken up at 4:00 that morning due to jet lag, and I was worried that they would be clingy, whiny, and plain old tired when we went to meet our kids. But God totally gave us a PERFECT moment in the day and they did awesome! They were all just as excited as we were.

Meeting for the first time, was exciting and scary, for all of us I think. Our littlest screamed and cried in my arms for at least an hour. Which, I kept reminding myself, was a GOOD thing. We wanted him crying, because this meant that he has formed attachments with others, is able to attach, and will be able to transfer that attachment. However, since he is most attached to his oldest sister, it was difficult for her to see him crying. We kept telling her that he would be okay, and she could go play. Once he calmed down, she was able to really relax and play as well.

Eventually our littlest fell asleep (in my arms--which I SO loved:) and when he woke up, he didn't start crying immediately! And, he was letting my snuggle him, kiss him, and sing to him without crying!

Today, our second day visiting the transition home, was much better. Our littlest didn't cry nearly as much, and I got to feed him a bottle and snuggle him right away. I even got a few little smiles. And, he was able to sit with me, with his oldest sister in the room (yesterday he screamed every time he saw her, so we tried to stay out of sight as much as possible). Plus, our oldest seemed genuinely happy to let me take him today so that she could go do writing and drawing in the notebooks we brought.

Adam got a chance to hold the littlest today as well. He cried at first, but then settled right down. I got a chance to play with our oldest, which was so nice. I feel like we had a few bonding moments today.

Our middle child seems to be smiling a lot more than I had anticipated from the pictures we had received, which is nice. She is not quite as serious as I first thought. Bonding with her is going a little slower because she doesn't understand English. Luckily, our oldest understands quite a bit and is able to translate.

We will be going to COURT on Tuesday morning, Ethiopian time (so that's MONDAY NIGHT AT 10:00 PM CALIFORNIA TIME)!! PLEASE PRAY that the judge will see all of our paperwork completed, and give us custody of our kids.

6 hours....

In about 6 hours we get to go to the transition home that are children are living in and meet them for the first time! I can't sleep. I know that part of the lack of sleep is due to jet lag, not eating dinner right now, and the club music that has been going on all night long. Some of it actually sounds like a po-go stick bouncing. However, I mostly can't sleep because of thinking of how our lives are changing in the next 6 hours. I feel like a kid on Christmas eve! I want to sleep, but am wide awake.

We found out here from some of the staff that our girls are SO excited to meet us as well. That they have been counting down the days from 21 just like we have been.:)

I love being back in Africa. There is just something right about it. Something that has been missing. We also have learned how to correctly pronounce our kids names. We are trying to get our girls to quickly learn the new way as the way that we thought, is actually a different name.

Our kids really did amazing on the flight. We are super impressed. Thank you for your prayers. The only really hard time came at the last 30 minutes when we had to put away the ipad and headsets to watch the movie. We have not met any other families here yet. Though I am sure they have met us as we were the ones arriving to the guest house at midnight with 3 kids crying and yelling loud due to excitement.

The body of Christ

This last month has been incredible. We have been constantly amazed as we have watched the Holy Spirit use the church body to come behind us and support us in our adoption. We accepted our referral just over two months ago. We estimated that the additional expenses of adopting more children was going to cost us about an additional $15,000. The month of October we mostly prayed about it, knowing that to our God, money is nothing. This last month of November we have watched the floodgates open. We wanted to have as much of that money before we traveled as we could. We leave in 4 days. Well, in only ways that God can provide, we are fully funded. We have literally had an average of $500 come to us in various forms over the course of one month! All glory to God! We thank each and every one of those that have come behind us and supported us. Thank you for being a part of this with us.

We have received some bad news this week. We were told that the letter that needs to be written by MOWCYA and submitted to the Ethiopian court was written, but it was a negative recommendation. This was due to them using our previous submitted paperwork for just one child instead of our new paperwork that is for 3 children. They are supposed to write a new one by 12/20. Our court date is on 12/13. This means that we are not likely to have a approval letter submitted to the court by the time that we go before the judge. Which means that we are going to Ethiopia prepared to fail court. We were really hoping that things would work out a little better than this. We fully trust that this does not take God by surprise and that He has a perfect plan.

Please pray that our approval letter will be submitted this week prior to our appearing in court on the 13th. We would LOVE to be able to pass court on our first attempt. If we fail it could really delay things for us.

Also, we leave in 4 days! Pray that we utilize our time wisely. Pray that it will be an awesome time for us as a family. Pray that it will be a great time meeting our new children. Pray that we can meet the needs of our new children. Pray that we will find time to keep in the Word. Pray that God is glorified in all that we do. Also, we don't know where we are going to be staying for the long term. We have a place for the first week, but don't know where we will be after that.

Blown-away!

We have been blown away! We can't believe the generosity of those around us. We serve an amazing God. We can't express our gratitude enough to everyone. Thank you.

God is meeting our needs completely. To even type that makes me pause. Really. All of our needs. Think about some of the depth of our needs. We are bringing three kids home. We needed bunk beds, (we were given one). We needed clothes, (we were given bags and bags of clothes.) We needed basic items like toothbrushes, towels, etc. (we have been given them as well.) He is providing for every dollar that we need financially, (so for we have spent $44,000).

People have given to us so sacrificially this year. We are speachless. Some have even given up their Christmas presents this year.

Yesterday, our church family threw Heather a baby shower. Wow. The presents completely filled the back of the car and I think that I have counted over $600 in gift cards alone!

We can't wait until we can show our children how many people have had a part of bringing them here. We are so blessed. For all of those that have been a part of this process with us we want you to say thank you. Thank you for your prayers, for your gifts, for your time. This adoption can not be done alone.

We are leaving in one week from tomorrow! We are getting super excited. There is a ton of packing to do and a ton of cleaning. However, today the kids are off to Christmas in the Park with Grandma. So, we are going to take a few hours and have a little lunch date (it will be the last one in a looonnnnggggg time) We are then going van shopping. We are in the market for a larger car:)

Happy Thanksgiving

We have a LOT to be thankful for. Here is a short list.

We meet our kids soon!

We have watched as God continues to pour out his blessings on us in too many ways to count.

We leave in two weeks! We are super excited. Our kids are excited. We are surely in for an adventure.

Seeing the provision of God as we have complete trust and dependance on Him has made us grow more and more in love with Him.

As we celebrate this year, go and be a blessing.

oops, did we mention we have a court date?

This last week has been a whirlwind kind of week. Things are moving so fast around our house it is getting very difficult trying to keep up. It started last Monday morning on my way to work. I got "the call" that we had been waiting for at 6:45 am! We have received our court date! It is on Dec. 13th! WE KNOW!. That is really coming up soon. Which is why the phone call had to be placed before 7am. We need every minute possible for preparation.

We can't believe it. One month from yesterday we go to court in Ethiopia. We have booked and bought our airfare already. We leave on Dec 8th, and return on Feb 10th if all goes well.

Things are racing through my mind right now so quickly that it is hard to stay focused and not so random. Sorry. Have we mentioned that we are bringing our children with us to Ethiopia. Our 5, 4, and 2 1/2 (almost 5) year old. There is a lot to do.

Here is where we stand on our fundraisers. Our garage sale was very successful and we are glad to be done with it:)

We are having a dinner this Saturday for a ton of people and are super excited about being able to share with others the process that God has been leading us through to this point.

Heather is getting the cookie dough fundraiser rolling.

We are canceling the date night/babysitting night fundraiser as we just don't have the time to be able to do it before we leave now:)

We are AMAZED at God's continual blessing. Over and over again, we are shocked and silenced by the generosity of those around us. God, our provider knows our needs. In fact, He knows them better than we do. It has been a blessing this last week to speak with multiple men about the real potential of them adopting. I love it.

For those that have given sacrificially. We thank you. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We want you to know that you are apart of this adoption with us. We can not do it without you. Thank you for loving our children with us. We have never been on the receiving end of things before, and it is not easy for us. It is hard to swallow our pride and let people know our needs. But, this is God's way. It is the way that He has chosen for us, because in it we have had to learn to trust and lean on Him. If we had all the finances we needed just sitting in our account, there never would have been this leap of faith. For that we are grateful.

We have had people ask about the Eternal Family program. I have tried to post a link up on our blog for it but I was unable to. Essentially, our agency, AWAA states that you need to speak with you tax professional regarding the tax deductability aspect of this program. You will be given a receipt by AWAA for all donations that are made in our name. However, there is a form that must be filled out in order to do so. This is what I have been unable to post. For those of you that have mentioned this, please email us @ heathernadam@yahoo.com and we can send you the form to fill out.

How you can help pray for us.

Pray that we can utilize our time wisely as we prepare our family to leave.

Pray that we pass court without a hitch.

Pray that we can move quickly through the embassy process.

Pray that we can blend well as a family, and that our three current kids adjust well.

Pray that this is an awesome time for our family to see God.

Pray that we give God the glory in all things.

Pray that we find a nice, cheap place to stay while we are there for a couple of months.

Pray that we find time to enjoy our family of five right now. We are trying to be very intentional about spending time with the girls right now.

Let's be real

Let us be real and authentic with everyone right now.

We are beat up. Spiritually. Physically. Emotionally.

As we approach getting a court date and getting to travel to Ethiopia we are more exhausted than ever. I am not going to bore everyone with the list of everything going on, but we are feeling attacked in numerous ways. As drained as we are, our girls are feeling it just as much. There is so much going on right now for them that they are trying to just keep up as well.

Their worst tantrums ever have come this last week. Here is an example. We were in a store when they started to fight with each other. (That is normal) Then came the defiance to us. (That is somewhat normal.) Then came me carrying her out of the store like she was a football as she was kicking and hitting me the whole way out. (That is way abnormal.) I thought that security was going to stop me because it looked like I was kidnapping her. It actually was fairly laughable at the time but showed how hard things are for her right now.

We got our first monthly update on our kids a couple of days ago. Our baby boy "Y" is walking now. We have pictures of him walking with his big sisters:) It is exciting and awesome to know that he is progressing physically. However, we missed it. We are not able to experience that with him. Two of our kids there are sick right now, and we are not able to be with them and comfort them through the illnesses. This is hard.

We knew that once we had pictures and names and faces the waiting would get much harder. Even though we knew that, it is not any easier. We long to be with them. We long for our family to be completed.

We have been getting lots of support lately. It seems that just about everyone has taken their turns watching our kids. We have been supported in numerous ways. Thank you. Now, we seek you prayers.

We need to be healed.

We need to be recharged.

We need God's peace.

Today, after coming home from church early, we are going to have a "rainy day" pajama day. We are going to play games, read books and hang out with the kids.

Ephesians 6:10-13

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.