An invitation to share in the miracle...

One of the biggest challenges in international adoption is the financial piece of the the picture. Many adoptive families share in the sentiment that "our Lord owns the cattle on a thousand hills" now he just needs to sell a few cows to make it happen! Aaron and I have been blessed in this process so far, and the Lord has been selling the cows along the way. We are getting very close to the end, and yet have some major expenses ahead. As we've prayed through how to face these next hurdles we have come up with a few answers: #1 we have begun to plan a 5k walk/run in our local area and #2 we have placed a donations button on this blog to allow our friends, who are not in the area, to share in the miracle of our adoption. We are hoping to raise enough to pay for the direct costs remaining to finalize our adoption. Anything that we raise above and beyond our direct costs we will be donating to:

Show Hope 
http://www.showhope.org/ This is an organization founded by Stephen Curtis Chapman that provides grants to families who have financial needs in the adoption process. We hope to bless other families seeking to adopt.  

and

Adoption Avenues Ethiopian Foster Home http://www.adoptionavenues.org/ This is the adoption agency we are working with. They recently started a foster home in Ethiopia, working to find more Ethiopian orphans permanent homes.

God has placed the desire for adoption on our hearts, and He alone will bring us through this journey. Thank you for considering coming along side of us, and further blessing the adoption process.

Dossier on route to Ethiopia!!!

Well, second time's the charm in our case. The paperwork debacle has been sorted out. IL secretary of state fixed and turned around a paperwork in a timely fashion. Our Washington DC courier then got them authenticated by the state department in DC. And then this time when our paper work was brought to the Ethiopian Embassy it was accepted rather than rejected! YAY! Oh and P.S. it only set us back an extra 120 dollars which was not near as bad as they said it was going to be! So... I was told it was being sent to Ethiopia Today. Once it is there it will be translated into Amharic, and then registered with the MOWA. MOWA reviews our documents for completeness and creates a dossier about us. The Claims and Authentication Section of the Protocol Office at the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Addis Ababa authenticates the dossier and returns it to the Adoption Team in the Children and Youth Affairs Office (CYAO) for approval. Once all those steps are done we just wait for a child to be matched to us! I've discovered that in this adoption process the key to getting through it all is to celebrate every small victory. So today I am thanking the Lord that our hiccup in our paperwork is over, and we are one step closer to knowing who little Sophie is. Hang in there little one, we'll be there soon!!!

Stilll not quite resolved.... but getting there!

Hello, from a very content Sarah who is currently sitting under a heated blanket with my kitty at my feet, drinking coffee, and enjoying Saturday morning to the fullest! Thought I would give you all an update on our little setback.... Monday I tried to call Secretary of State department in DC. I couldn't get through, left messages and sent emails. Still hadn't heard anything by Wednesday, so I called again. I got through, explained what I thought was the situation, and they were pretty rude with me, telling me there is no way they could have made that mistake. So I called Radu (our agency person) and told him. Apparently there had been a major miscommunication between Radu and I in the first place, it wasn't the DC office that had made the mistake it was IL who had messed up on 2 of our documents. Radu said he was really upset about this because as a notary if you make 3 mistakes your notary license is revoked by the State department, but they make mistakes all the time and no one looses their job there.

Anyway, so Radu also gave me a bit of a ball park figure on how much this was setting us back in extra charges, which is why this mistake frustrated him so much. So, he basically wanted me to call the IL state department to chew them out.... I called, and tried to explain the situation nicely. They basically blamed Radu for not catching their mistake. This frustrated me a bit, and I told them that 2 wrongs don't really make a right, or let them off the hook for the mistake they made in the first place. At about this point the lady told me she didn't want to talk to me because I didn't know what I was talking about, and she wanted the number of our courier service in DC who was taking care of getting the paperwork back to them. So, I gave her the number. Later that day I called the courier service and asked if they had heard from IL SOS. She said they had, and they were trying to resolve the issue together (apparently even though I "didn't know what I was talking about", something I said got through to them so they are trying to fix their mistake), and it should be resolved early next week. This was reassuring, but I am still not sure how much it is going to set us back...

I'm hoping next week goes a little smoother than this last week went in general. Although, I am thankful for the lessons I am learning in faith and trust. At this point everything is really completely out of my hands! There is nothing I can do to speed things up, so I just need to let it all go. One of these days my little girl will be in my arms and all of the waiting and worrying will seem like nothing. Happy Valentines day little one, wherever you are. This Valentines day my heart is out there with you, will you bring it back to me soon?

Trying to stay calm...

Hi....
I write this entry with a bit of a heavy heart, and the remnants of a migraine. Last night I got some rough news. The Ethiopian Embassy had sent our agency an email saying they rejected our dossier. The reason being: the Secretary of State Department messed up our authentication on 2 of the documents in our dossier. There are 2 types of certificates and on 2 of our documents they gave us the wrong type (I don't know how this happened). So, they wanted to know what to do from there... either send back our dossier, or have the courier bring it back to the Secretary of State in DC and have them fix it. Of course that is what we are doing (and of course it is an extra charge). I am really hoping that this all gets smoothed out within the week, but to tell you the truth it really put me in a tale spin last night, which probably caused my migraine... which put me in immediate care today to get a shot of imitrex.

Please pray for me over the next few days, that I can rest and trust. I just feel a bit overwhelmed by all this right now. Thanks!

Dossier in DC

Just a real quick update:
Got an email from our agency just now saying that our dossier has been through the Oregon senate and has been sent to Washington D.C. for authentication!

Also, I was happy to find out that the US embassy in Ethiopia is working to enable the wait time between court and Embassy interview (to finalize and be cleared to travel home) to be a lot shorter! This is great for Aaron and I who are hoping to be able to stay in Ethiopia for the entire time between court and exit interview. This would mean 1 trip (big cost saver), not having to leave our baby after meeting her, getting immersed in the Ethiopian culture etc. We are really hoping that the timing will work out for this summer, it would be ideal for us as teachers to be able to wrap it all up in the summer!

Please pray:
-That it gets through US state department with no trouble
-Then for the translation and registration with the Ethiopian Government
-Next for God's timing on the referral of our child!

He's got the whole world....

I've been putting off writing this blog entry for a few days. I am still sorting out my own feelings. On Wednesday we heard from our agency on a few questions we had asked them. We had been waiting to find out if Radu had made a match for us on his trip to Ethiopia. He hadn't. He told us it would probably be about 4 months before we find out who our child is. In the world of international adoptions this is still VERY soon, but it was hard to hear when I had been expecting to find out who she was any day! When we signed up for the program the wait time between submitting the dossier (paperwork) and receiving a referral was about 9 months to a year. So 4 months is AWESOME!!! But, it's still 4 months.

Aaron and I have been having a rough couple weeks in general. There is a lot going on in the school district that we both work in right now. It looks as though I will for sure loose my job since I am not tenured and they are making major cuts. This isn't the end of the world, as we were planning that I probably wouldn't be working once we get Sophie anyway, but if it is longer than we expect then I am going to have to find work in the in between time. Our big concern is Aaron's job and salary. The teachers are going through contract negotiations starting this spring. The superintendent's saying that if they do not take some major cuts in salary and benefits then she is going to have to make major cuts in jobs, tenured people included. Since Aaron hasn't been tenured long (only 1 year), this could mean that his job is in jeopardy. I am not too concerned about this, because even if he did get cut, he is an amazing teacher with many, many principals who have said they will recommend him (since his school has had a different principal every year). I know he will have a job next year, but he is stressed! And there is concern about the teachers having to go on strike... usually this wouldn't be a concern, we would live on savings, but that has all gone to the adoption.

There have been many nights of concern in our house, but I keep coming back to Matthew 6:26 "Look at the birds of the air, they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them! Are you not much more valuable than they?" I feel that this last month (and probably the next year), is one big lesson on trusting God's provision and plan. Some days I feel as though I am getting an 'A' in this lesson, but then the next minute my grade slips to a big fat 'F'. I will not give up, I may get discouraged, but I will keep pressing on. The Lord is with us, He will not fail us, He will not let go of us through these hard times.

As I write this I am reminded of a Swedish song we used to sing at Holsby (the bible school I went to in Sweden):
Du omsluter mig pa alla sidor
och haller mig i din hand.
Du omsluter mig pa alla sidor
och haller mig i din hand.
It comes from Psalm 139:5 "You hem me in - behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me."
The Swedish translation is: You surround me on all sides, and keep me in your hand.

Known by God

A devotional I read today by Kerry Hasenbalg:
"The Lord will work out his plans for my life - for your faithful love, O Lord, endures forever. Don't abandon me, for you made me." Psalm 138: 8

Statistics like "143 million orphans worldwide" and "every 14 seconds another child is orphaned by HIV/AIDS" can be overwhelming and paralyzing. Yet, it is critical to remember that God knows each one of these children individually - knows their specific circumstances- and that He has unique plans and desires for them. Thinking that helping one child will not do much to alleviate such great suffering is a lie. It makes a profound difference in that child's life and affects everyone whom she touches. Let us imagine God's perspective. When someone adopts one of these orphans, it is as though God is saying, "Little one, you are so special to me. I knew where you were, and I picked you out and placed you here - I knew you would be here from the beginning of time."

The King of  kings is serious about being the father to fatherless. Orphans are members of God's royal family, and He has a plan for each one of his princes and princesses. The nameless and faceless orphan found in statistics is by no means nameless and faceless to God! In the world of adoption, we can be confident that nothing surprises our God, and what may look like "plan B" for us or our children may in fact have been God's "plan A" all along. 

I loved reading this today! It reminded me of the fact that God has a plan for Aaron and I, and our little one. The timing will be perfect. The specific child will be the one God wanted placed in our family! Even though there are so many things that we can sit and fret about: timing, money, paperwork, government agencies etc. There is really no point to worrying. As scripture put it: "who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" Who of you by worrying can add a single dollar to his bank account, or a single thing to help speed up the process, or a single way to identify the child sooner. What can my worrying do? Only cause me to be miserable throughout the process (and others around me for that matter!). So today, instead of worrying about all of this, today I will simply thank the Lord for bringing us this far in the process. I'll praise Him for having the timing and control in His hands, and rest in the fact that there is nothing I can do! God's got this one...