Coming Soon...A Court Date!

We can almost see the finish line!  A few weeks ago, we sent the last of the paperwork in and began the wait for a court date.  We really didn't know how long that might take, but after a couple of weeks, we got word from the orphanage that this was where the patience really was needed.

About two weeks ago, we were blessed to talk to the stateside representative from GSF.  He was so amazing!  He gave us lots of tips and information about what to expect and  how to prepare for traveling.  He also warned us that things just take a LONG time on the African side.  If they say it will be a week, expect at least a month.  So, we buckled down and got busy waiting.  And then, we heard this week that a court date MIGHT be imminent.  Like MAYBE even this month!

When we read the email, my mouth dropped to the floor.  All of the sudden, things seemed VERY real!  Only moments after reading the email, Adam asked me what we would do for a bed.  You see, we are having a bed made for the girls to share and it wasn't completed.  A PRECIOUS man is making the bed for us as a ministry for just the cost of materials (HUGE BLESSING), so we were just waiting for it to be completed.  Lilly immediately offered to let our sweet girl sleep in her bed until the other was complete.  Sometimes, I really like my kids!  Anyway, my sister has been planning to come visit this fall and was planning to come in November.  I realized I needed to call her and tell her not to buy a plane ticket because we might not be here.  I sent Adam to get the phone.  He returned telling me something freaky just happened.  We  had just received a voicemail telling us that the bed was ready!  That is NOT freaky, my friends, that is God!

We now have pieces of the bed all over the garage as we rush to try to get it painted.  Hopefully by the end of the weekend, the bed will be totally finished and we can get the girls' room ready for another occupant!

We are so excited, but we also realize that, when adoption is concerned, nothing is certain.  We were hoping to hear Friday whether or not we had a court date and we didn't hear anything.  That is in no way unusual, but that doesn't stop me from obsessively checking the email all day every day in hopes of that elusive message.

So, how can you be praying now?

• Pray that we will be content with God's timing and not try to rush things along or grow impatient in waiting.
• Chris checked this week and plane tickets are twice as expensive as what they have been and what we have been budgeting for.  Please pray that we will have enough money for all the upcoming expenditures or that a miracle will happen and the price of tickets will go down before we travel.
• Pray for us as we prepare our children for some time away from us.  Continuing studies is going to be tough with momma, the main teacher gone for 4-6 weeks.
• Pray for all the family, including our sweet, waiting girl, that our hearts will be prepared to love each other through the ups and downs of the coming weeks and months.  Pray that bonding will happen.
• Pray for our girl as her life is on the brink of HUGE changes.  Pray she will adjust and know that while things will be very different for her, she will recognize the love we all have for her.
• Pray for our children as they adjust to another sibling...especially Cooper as he will have to make a HUGE adjustment to not being the baby anymore.

Thanks to all...hope to give a BIG update soon!

Referral!!!

Yep, for the three of you that do not already know, we received our referral about a week ago (on the 14th).

We had big plans about how we were going to open the referral...get the family around the computer, film it so she could see it later on, etc.  We had already talked to my family in Idaho about Skyping and Facetiming and had talked about going to Chris' mom and dad's so everyone could be a part.  What we didn't expect was that the referral would come on Saturday morning, the day of Chris' parents' 50th anniversary and while Lilly was gone to church camp.

We decided that Lilly needed to be a part of opening the referral, so we would wait to open it until Saturday night when she got home.  We had a super busy but fun day with a reception honoring Chris' folks.  Lots of family came in and we saw tons of friends we hadn't seen in a long time.  We then went and celebrated our nephew's birthday at Jason's Deli.  All of that was great because it made the day pass in a blur!  Lilly met us in town at Jason's so we were all together.

However, the out of town friends and family wanted to visit back at Chris' folks' house, so instead of heading home, we headed back to their house, which was totally fine because it included a piece of "to die for" strawberry cake!  By about 9:30, we were still visiting and Chris just couldn't wait any longer.  As we sat visiting in the living room, he passed me his phone and asked me if I would like to meet my daughter.  He had just gone ahead and read the referral and passed it to me.  Our little girl is a beautiful, chunky 4 year old that we cannot wait to meet.  We have been told she is a little quiet but very sweet and playful...which is good if she is going to be able to hang with Coop!

We called the other kids in and shared her pictures with them and then introduced her to EVERYONE that was at the house and to my family via texts.

So...we have no videos or special memorabilia...but I think it is precious that we got to share the moment on another momentous day (there aren't a ton of 50th anniversaries anymore) and with so many people that are special to us.

We are now awaiting our next step.  We are in the process of retaining an attorney in Uganda and he will get us set up with a court date, etc.  Hopefully sometime this fall, we will be traveling and bringing home our little princess!

Thank you so much for your continued prayer and support!  Please keep our family in your prayers.  Some specific requests:

1.  Pray for Cooper as he will have a big adjustment to make as we bring home a "baby" that is just 6 months younger than he is.

2.  Pray for our sweet girl as her life is about to change VERY dramatically.  We are so excited to be blessed to be her forever family, but we also know that this will be a huge transition for her.

3.  Pray as we get final details organized and as we try to raise the last bit of money for the adoption.  We are ALMOST there but could still use a little more money in our adoption account.  I know that God is a gracious provider...he has been so faithful every step of the way and He will not leave us without provision, I don't doubt Him a bit...but sometimes my human faith is weak.

Blessings to all!

Acceptance!

After several weeks of rather impatient waiting...we FINALLY received the elusive email!  We have checked email rather obsessively, perhaps 137 times per day.  We have fretted over the fact that we might not be approved and quietly wondered what we would do if we were denied.  We only sent one email to the orphanage begging for news...but Sunday night, the wait ended!  We have been officially accepted by the orphanage and are now awaiting a referral!  We have no idea how long that might take but we are  now actively praying, not only for our little girl, but for the leadership team at GSF as they seek to find a child that meets the requirements of our Homestudy.  Please join us in prayer that God would work out all the details and that "at just the right time" we would be allowed to meet the child God wants to place in our home!

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

We reached another milestone on Monday with the completion of our Biometrics Appointment.  In case you are wondering, that is the exact same thing as the local fingerprints they took a few months ago but it involved taking off work, driving to Memphis and paying about 5 times more.  But I digress.

We are expecting Immigration approval sometime next week and we will be ready to get everything together and send to Uganda! Yay!

Except...we talked to our stateside representative yesterday and he did not have a lot of good news.  First, we had been assuming that we had been approved by the orphanage (I guess that is the "no news is good news" syndrome).  In actuality...they haven't even LOOKED at our paperwork yet.  I cannot fault them.  I know they have far more important things to do, like caring for over 90 children.  But I still felt a little disappointment, mostly because we have rushed so much to get everything in and this is something we have NO control over.

He also told us the news that I am struggling the most with.  At this point, there are no children that are adoption eligible to be referred to waiting families.  So, even when we get approval, there will not be a child to refer.  He has been honest with us from the beginning, so this shouldn't have been a big surprise but the sadness I feel is still there.

I have to admit that I have struggled with this a bit since hearing the news.  I tend to live a bit inside my head (very typical for introverted souls like me) so I have this ongoing dialogue and argument taking place all the time.  On one hand, I feel so sad and angry at the fact that extreme poverty has thrown so many millions of children into this very situation...in orphanages because their families cannot afford to care for them and yet no possibility of being placed in a loving family because they are not a true orphan.  I know this is not the fault of anyone in particular, but it is the source of great frustration for me.  I would not want to take a child out of the country if they have any chance of ever being reunited with their families, and yet my heart breaks at the vicious cycle they are thrown into because of the rampant poverty.

On the other hand, our representative told us to join him in praying that more available children could be identified and brought to the orphanage so that they could begin referring them for adoption.  As of yet, I just have not been able to pray that prayer.  In my mind, I am sure that there are children out there that could be adopted...and I want to do that.  I want to bring our little girl home.  And yet, the thought of praying for that feels wrong.  The truth is...I don't want another child to be without a family.  I don't want another child who will always live with the grief and loss and knowledge that they are an orphan.  As unreasonable as it is, I cannot make myself pray in that way.  Yet, I know those children are out there.  So I wonder...where is my little girl?  Is she suffering somewhere right now?  Does she have enough food and is there anyone around that is loving on her?  I have always imagined her in the safety and comfort of Good Shepherd's Fold.  I have imagined her learning about Jesus and being told she is special.  And now, I know that, right now...she isn't there.  Has she already experienced the grief of losing a parent, or is that sorrow yet to come?  I desperately want her to be identified and brought to the orphanage so we can bring her home...but at what cost to her?   Aaaaaagh!  This is the way my mind has gone today.

I wonder, are we doing the right thing?  Have we spent all this money and time for the right reason, or would we have been doing more if we found a way to give money to those 90 children who cannot be adopted?  I just don't know.  So, today, I am not celebrating a milestone as much as trying to figure out how to pray and where we go from here.

It probably does not help that Chris is out of town and we cannot communicate in any way until he comes home on Sunday...that is why the bloggy world gets to see the craziness of my thoughts that I usually reserve for him.

So, how can you pray...clearly, I am not sure.  I guess for God's direction and for his hand to be on the people of Uganda and on the children of Good Shepherd's Fold; that children who are adoption eligible would be identified so that they could be placed in loving families; that children who are not adoption eligible would be given opportunities like being place in places like Good Shepherd's Fold where they will still be loved and cared for and told about a loving savior; that people would come alongside these families and they could find ways out of the poverty that permeates the country so that their families could be reunited; and that I would not have a nervous breakdown before Chris returns on Sunday!  :)

Love you all!

A Quick Update

Hi, all!  Thought we'd share a quick update of where we are along this journey.  We haven't really had any real news to share since we mailed our I-600A form to USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services).  The I-600A is the Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition.  I know, what?  In a nutshell, it's a process by which the U.S. government determines whether we, as prospective adoptive parents, are qualified to continue with the international adoption process.  Our application was delivered on March 19 and we received our Biometrics appointments about two weeks ago.  So, on Monday, April 23, Star and I will travel to the Homeland Security Office in Memphis to do our Biometrics, a fancy way to say that we'll do another round of fingerprints.  Once that's complete, we'll await our USCIS approval.  Then it'll be time to put our dossier together and send it to a land far away.  So there you have it, our journey continues.


We continue to covet your prayers.  Some specific ways that you can pray for us are:
1. Pray for our precious little girl wherever she is in Uganda.  Pray for her safety and good health.  Also, pray that she'll be loved unconditionally by her caretakers.
2. Pray for our upcoming biometrics and USCIS approval.
3. Pray for us as we prepare our dossier.
4. Pray for our fundraising.  We are close but not there yet.  Airfare is very expensive so pray that we'll raise the additional funds to cover that cost as well.
5. Finally, pray for our friends at Good Shepherd's Fold, the children, missionaries, and staff. 


Finally, we'd like to take this time to give a big shout out to some of our special friends who have given unselfishly to our adoption.  You know who you are.  We are humbled by your graciousness.  Know that you are an incredible blessing.  More importantly know that this little girl will forever be a part of your family also.  And to the ladies of the Angels group at Cherry Ridge Baptist Church in Bastrop, LA, your willingness to sell "lots" of paper bead necklaces was unexpected.  We cannot thank you enough.  You too are a blessing and we can't wait to share our little girl with you.  Please know that you have also helped the women of the Kyangwali Refugee Settlement to provide a sustainable income for their families.


In closing, I wanted to share a picture with you.  A simple picture but one that has such great significance to our family because...this is where our heart is.

Approved take two!

We are now REALLY home study approved!  Yahoo!  We received our addendum on Friday afternoon and had it at the post office before closing!

Of course, that was a Friday so, while it had reached the USCIS office Saturday, it could not be delivered until yesterday.  We must have checked the USPS confirmation site 20 times yesterday...not an easy feat since we are having internet issues and only get connected about 1 out of 5 tries.  By 3:00, they STILL had not updated their website and I was getting edgy!

Chris finally called and got confirmation that it had, indeed, been delivered!  Now, we just wait some more.  We have heard rumors that the process is going MUCH faster these days and we will probably have approval within a month.  I refuse to get my hopes up too high, though, because our luck has not been great in this area so far.

As soon as we get immigration clearance, we can begin assembling our dossier and get our paperwork in country, hopefully in time to be considered when they do their next referrals in June.

Please continue to pray for the process, the fundraising, and for the orphans and people of Uganda.

Home study in Hand...Almost

We have reached another milestone!  Sort of!  Last week, we got an email telling us that we should be receiving our approved Home study at any time.  We excitedly (perhaps obsessively) began checking our mail...back door...front door...garage door, etc. for the "golden" package.  Finally, on Friday afternoon, it arrived.  We began to make plans to get it in the mail along with our I600A form to send to USCIS.  Friday evening, Chris finally got a chance to begin reading through it (It may or may not have been during the Science Fair awards ceremony).  Unfortunately, he found a mistake.  Five little words that were left out.  Evidently, five very important words.  Words assuring that he had been cleared in a background check.

Worried that that could cause a problem down the road, we sent an email to our agency.  Of course, it was the weekend, so nothing could be done until Monday morning.  We naively thought that they could just amend the words and email us a new copy that could be switched with the other.  We were wrong.  Because that would be simple.  And if we have learned one thing in this adoption process, it is that NOTHING is simple!  We were told that we would need to get an addendum to be added to the original document.

SO, we are now waiting on our addendum.  We have again been told it should be here any day and Chris got a very sweet call from our social worker apologizing for the mistake.  Our I600A is all filled out and is just waiting on a completed home study so it can be mailed off.  We can ALMOST taste the victory!

As excited as we were to send off our paperwork to immigration, we were also excited to be able to begin applying for grants.  Unfortunately, we have learned that, because we are doing an  independent adoption, we will not be eligible for most grants.  On the upside...we will also have a cheaper adoption than if we were going through an agency.  All in all, what that means is another almost.  We are ALMOST there financially...but not quite.  It would be nice to have about $5000 more to make sure we had all expenses covered.  We do have a couple of other fundraisers planned, but we will probably not be quite there, even then.  We are looking at a couple of possibilities and hoping that, perhaps there is SOMEONE out there who will help support an independent adoption.  I guess that is where prayer comes in.  God has been completely faithful up until now and I know that He will provide in His way in His time.

Hopefully, next time we are on here, it will be to say that we have a mistake free home study in hand and that we are moving on to the next phase.  Thanks for all the support and prayers!