Police Station Visit

Things are moving along for us in this long and tedious process. We have gathered all of our necessary paperwork for our home study, and have our home visit on Tuesday the 29th of June. We are so excited that this leg of our journey will be finished. The visit on Tuesday will be a lengthy one to say the least. Our social worker will arrive at noon, and visit with us and our three girls as well. This portion will take approximately 30 minutes. She will then spend the next three and a half to four hours meeting with the two of us. Not sure how much there will be to talk about, but apparently that's how much time she needs! I guess we will find out

Gathering all of our paperwork for the home study as well as for our dossier (the BIG packet that eventually gets sent to Ethiopia) has been fairly comical. Adam and I and all the girls went to our local Sheriff's station here in San Martin to get fingerprinted. To call it a station is a bit of a stretch though. Let me just say, mobile homes in a dirt parking lot. Yeah, we are pretty ghetto out here in hick town:)! Our next field trip took us to the Sheriff headquarters downtown. With kids in tow, we went down to get our clearance letters. Unfortunately, we had to get our letters notarized, so we had to hire a notary to come to the station. The girls did great and planted pretend banana trees outside on the grass. When we left though, I think they were wondering why we made such a big deal about the police station. It definitely did not live up to the fire station that they are accustomed to visiting.

We are really looking forward to the day that our baby joins our family. Please join with us as we pray for our child, that God would keep him/her safe, free of illness, and that emotionally and psychologically he/she would be ready to be loved by our family. We are reading books on attachment issues, and this seems to be the biggest hurdle that adoptive families face. We also would appreciate your prayers and support for our upcoming fundraiser. We will be selling our fresh produce at our farm on Saturday July 17th from 12:00-5:00.

Working Hard

Well, we just thought we should give you a little update as to where we are at in the adoption process and what we have been up to.
In our "spare time" we have been trying to get all of our home study paperwork completed, as well as scheduling various appointments and completing online adoption courses. Luckily, we don't have a TV, or really anything better to be doing in the evenings, so I think we are getting through the paperwork process relatively quickly. Plus, as most of you know, when Adam and I decide to do something, we like to dive right in and get it done! Hopefully by Wednesday of this week we should have most everything done for our home study packet that we can do, and hope to be able to have our second home visit. Since we have already adopted before, we didn't need to do the first visit, so we are already one down, and three to go!
In addition to completing piles and piles of paperwork, we have joined a yahoo chat group for families adopting from Ethiopia thru our adoption agency, America World Adoptions. This has been exciting for me, as it is a great way to meet other families in or finished with the process. It is a huge source of encouragement to be able to "talk" to other families doing the same thing, and hearing how God has provided. I can already tell, this year is going to be an awesome year of spiritual growth, and learning to completely rely on God's mighty power. Thinking about this gets me completely excited!
Adam and I have also been trying to come up with various ways that we can fund raise this summer and fall. If you have any suggestions, we'd love to hear them!

Just when we thought our family was complete...

Adam and I were sure that Capri would be our last baby. But, God has other plans in mind. April 13th Adam and I began to seriously discuss the idea of adopting a baby (again) but this time, from Africa! We have always had a connection with East Africa, and quickly learned that Ethiopia has one of the highest orphan populations in the world, at roughly 4.3 million! Our hearts broke.

We believe this is something God is calling us to do, and we have two choices. We can either choose to ignore God, and continue living life content with our family the way it is. Or, we can choose to listen to God, walk through the doors that He is opening, and see what amazing things He has in store. For us, the answer is obvious!

Even though we know that we are in God's will, it still seems overwhelmingly scary at times. God is good though, and he is putting just the right people in our lives to lift us up and encourage us at just the right times.

One of the scariest things for us, is the cost that is involved. Adoptions are very expensive, and Ethiopia is about $30-$35,000. God has already started providing, and we are trusting that He will continue to do so.

The adoption process takes about 12 -18 months, and right now we are in the very beginning stages, just starting to fill out the insurmountable pile of paperwork. They call it the "paperwork pregnancy"! We are so excited to welcome a new member into our family!

Thanks for Praying!