Welcome to Uganda!  It has been an interesting few days.  There isn't much to say about the flight except it was LONG!  All went smoothly and we purchased the all important stroop waffles in Amsterdam...they definitely lived up to their reputation!  We got into Entebbe, Uganda about 10:30 Wednesday night.  We stayed in a beautiful guest house and got a good night sleep.

Thursday morning, we got up and headed toward Kampala.  We exchanged money there, bought phone minutes and wifi access, had our first unsuccessful trip to the embassy (no adoption business on Thursdays), and went grocery shopping.  We then headed toward the orphanage.  We stopped once at a nearby market for vegetables.  I think this is a must when traveling to Uganda.  We sat in the car while a mob of vendors swarmed us with their goods.  Claudia was amazing...evidently having LOTS of experience in this area.  Which was a good thing, because I truly believe I would have ended up  somehow purchasing the whole market!

We arrived at the gate at GSF and were welcomed by singing, dancing and drumming.  It  was here we were privileged to meet our sweet girl for the first time!  She was a bit shy and not sure about us, but we did get a smile or two out of her!  We tried a fresh, organic pineapple that was amazing and I had my first ever mango (I know, I am sheltered)...it was not yet ripe and not so amazing, but I am told that I HAVE to try again when they get a ripe one.  We have also been told that it is grasshopper season in Uganda and that we cannot leave the country until we have tried one.  They have assured us they are delicious!

Thursday night we got settled in and went to one of the missionary's houses for dinner.  Then we headed back to the guest house for bed!  We slept in Friday morning and took a nice FREEZING shower because we are not smart enough to figure out how to get the hot water heater to work!  The
bathroom is the epitome of the Ugandan experience because not only do we get to enjoy freezing showers, there are some "pet" lizards that like to hang out behind the toilet.  Every time you flush, one of them jumps out and runs up the wall.  I know it is going to happen every time and it still scares the begeebees out of me!

Yesterday we walked around and toured the orphanage  and spend some time with our princess in the toddler house.  There is really no way to describe the toddler house.  Think of the scene in Toy Story 3 when the kids come in from recess and find new toys.  That is about as close as I can get to the experience of a muzungu (white person) entering the room.  The kids go NUTS!  They crawl all over you.  They love Chris' bald head and they love my long hair...what is left of it after they have taken the "necklace" (rubber band) out of it and "washed and fixed" it for me.  Believe me, a part of me IS staying in Africa!

We also got to eat lunch on the porch while watching monkeys jump and run from tree to tree...amazing!

Today, our girl is sick! She is running fever and not feeling well.  One of the aunties in her house had all of the other toddlers sing to her and pray for her.  This afternoon, we are going t o help get a building ready for a church plant that some people from the orphanage are starting.

Next week, we will have our first court date and we are going to start helping at the orphanage.  I am going to be he helping to home school some of the missionary kids and I may get a chance to teach some classes in the primary school and Chris is going to help get a mentoring program started.

We will try to keep posting but the Internet here is very temperamental so it may be several days
between posts.  Thanks for the continued prayers!

We are Leaving on a Jet Plane

In less than an hour, we will begin the journey to bring our little girl home.  I cannot even begin to tell you the thoughts going through my head, but they sound something like this:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I really do not have time to even be sitting here.  But I cannot leave without just praising God for all He has done to get us here.  We have been blessed beyond measure by Him and His church.  If you are reading this, you are probably among those.  We have people schooling our kids, bringing meals, transporting and just loving on them while we are gone.  We  have had people donate money, give much needed advice and best of all pray like crazy!

Thank you to every one of you.  In the craziness, I have probably not written a note and I may not have adequately expressed my gratefulness.  But the kindnesses have not gone unnoticed or unappreciated.

Please, do not forget us now.  Keep bombarding Heaven on behalf of our sweet girl so we can bring her home.  And, please pray that we would be bold and faithful in pointing people to Christ throughout every step of this process.  It is because He took me, an orphan, in that we have the power to do this ourselves.  This is not about us and I never, ever want that to be what is noticed.  There is NOTHING good in us, so any good, any blessing, any smile, any chills....they come from Him and to Him be the glory!

Blessings, friends and we will try to keep you posted...from AFRICA!

9 Days and Counting

For those of you who are Facebook friends with us, you will know that the last week has been full of uncertainty.  We have gone back and forth on whether to keep our court date or wait until January.  We have been back and forth on how long to stay in Uganda, what tickets to buy, where our children will stay....you name it.

I finally got tired of calling people back and telling them we had changed our minds again and just stopped giving updates.

So, we have finally settled on a plan.  Chris and I will begin our travels on Oct. 30.  Chris will stay in Uganda with me for about two and a half weeks and will then have to come back home.  HOPEFULLY, by that time, we will have been granted guardianship of our sweet girl and possibly have been to immigration.  I will stay until the beginning of December.  The director of the orphanage feels like we may be able to complete everything by then and bring our girl home!!!  However, it is possible that our case could be sent to Kenya for review.  In that case, I will probably return home and will return when we get immigration approval.

Chris' parents will be coming to our house to stay with the kids.  If you really want to see the Christian community rally around you...adopt!  We have had love completely lavished upon us this week by so many people that I cannot even begin to describe.  I have had friends step up to home school my children while I am gone, friends offer to keep the children, people offer to transport them where they need to go (not an easy task with four kiddos), I have even been loaned long skirts to wear while in Uganda.  We have even had precious friends offer to bring meals three days a week to our house to ease the burden on my mother in law.

Even total strangers who have been through adoption have offered support, advice, prayer and love to us this week.

This weekend has been a mad rush of travel preparations.  Our bedroom is beginning to look like a small department store with bags covering most open space.  And our to do list seems to grow by the hour.  Each time we leave a store, we think of three or four things we should have gotten while we were there.  Walmart is going to LOVE us!

Despite all the crazy.  I feel so incredibly blessed.  We serve such a mighty God, and in those moments where I feel I cannot hold up under the stress anymore, I know I can just cling to Him.  None of what we are doing or will do has taken Him by surprise!  He isn't worried!  He doesn't tremble in fear at what might be!  His timing is perfect and His love is eternal and as undeserving as we are...He just keeps pouring it on us.  So, I am trying to just relax and enjoy the ride (somedays are a lot more fun than others)!

How can you pray this week?

Pray for us as we continue with last minute preparations.  I am scattered under the best of circumstances  so if I am supposed to call you back, send you a message or remember anything you tell me...odds are against it right now (just being honest here, folks).  Praise God for a detail oriented husband that makes a list and then remembers to look at it!  We may at least make it to another country with all our paperwork in order.

Pray for our lawyer, our judge and the immigration people.  Pray they would have wisdom, clarity, humility and a willingness to put our child before their pride.

Pray for our sweet girl as she faces many, many new experiences and life changes.

Pray for our children and Chris' parents while we travel and they try to keep rolling along!

Blessing to all of you!  We will try to keep you posted while we travel!

We Have A Court Date!!!

I went on a Faithwalk weekend this weekend.  As a side note, it was AMAZING! and I highly recommend anyone who has never done a Faithwalk type experience to sign up!  Anyway, part of the weekend was no phone, no computer, no watch, etc.  Chris was actually able to get one piece of info. to me.  Our court date.

Having the date was amazing, not knowing anything else, not so much!

Anyway, let me tell you what we know.  We have a court date for Nov. 5.  They have asked us to be in country four days early...that means we will be traveling on Oct. 31, Halloween, wow!  We have two and a half weeks to buy plane tickets, find substitute teachers for...everything, get our girl a wardrobe, gather documents, get money, plan school, figure out how to keep the kids home schooling while we are in another country, find Halloween costumes for kids, find people to take the kids for Halloween, gather costumes for the musical Lilly will be in (that we will not be here to watch), etc., etc., etc.

We may or may not be slightly overwhelmed!

We are super excited and cannot wait to see and meet and hug and love on our precious little girl.  However, I would be lying if I didn't confess to being both scared to death and stressed out completely. Our biggest issue is when to set up travel dates.  I know this is going to sound crazy...but Nana and Papaw's Christmas to the family is DisneyWorld.  The tickets are for Dec. 10-17 which means we are to leave town Dec. 8.  Nana and Papaw were so gracious to do this for the children and the children are so excited.  However, the stateside representative for the orphanage has told us to expect to be in country 4-6 weeks and he has NEVER seen it happen faster than 5 weeks.

So, here is our dilemma.  If we postpone the court date, it will be no sooner than the middle of January due to the courts taking a break (something they evidentially do quite frequently).  Doing that will mean we will be out of the country for Lilly's birthday.  If we keep the court date, we will get to meet our sweet girl and spend time with her, but there is no guarantee she and I will make it back to the U.S. in time to go to Disney.  I know that seems like a very small thing, but Chris' parents were SO generous in getting the tickets and the thought of just not using them is awful.  The older children are also very worried about me not going (they know I will ride the scary rides with them)  Usually they are trying to get away from Momma so the fact that they really want me there makes me want to move mountains to be there.  The third alternative is to go for the original court date, return to the states and go back (again the middle of January) and get our princess once immigration stuff has cleared.  This is a tough option because I cannot imagine leaving that sweet girl once we have been granted guardianship AND it would add quite a bit of expense that we have not budgeted for.

So, we have decided to go forward with the original court date and start praying.  The possibility of getting guardianship AND immigration and getting back to the U.S. by the beginning of December is, in reality, not very possible.  BUT, we do not serve a God who is limited by possibility.  We serve the God of the impossible.  So, we are asking our friends to start praying for us.  We are praying that the judge will listen to our case and rule favorably and quickly...we have heard that sometimes they purposely drag things out.  We are praying that an immigration miracle will take place and that our paperwork will go through quickly, be approved and we will be able to travel by the first of December. This will be unheard of, what an opportunity for God to show up!

If things do not work out, I will probably fly home the first of Dec. to be with the family at DisneyWorld and fly back to Uganda in January.  This, of course, is not our favorite choice and will require some additional fundraising, but it is a possibility...I just don't want to miss Lilly's birthday!

So, prayer warriors, wanna be prayer warriors, future prayer warriors, and anyone else who prays.  We are asking you to bombard Heaven on behalf of our family for a miracle.  We are asking you to plead our case before the Judge of all things, King of kings, our Father in Heaven.  No matter what happens, we know He is faithful and His mercies are new every morning and His timing is SO much better than ours.  So we pray that His will is done and in all things all glory and honor and power belong to Him!

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!