Updates

Hello everyone!! I know it's been a while since we've posted anything. It's amazing how fast time flies. Friday we received the finalized home study in the mail... praise the Lord! I was just saying the day before that I was going to start sending emails to everyone I could to try and find out where it was and then the very next day there it was in the mail! God is always faithful! Today I mailed a copy of the home study to the USCIS (immigration) as they need that to complete our application. Hopefully that is what they've been waiting on and is the reason they haven't set up our fingerprint appointments yet. I'm going to try and contact them later in the week to make sure they received the home study and see where we are with our fingerprints.

We are going to get background checks done at the local police station this week and write a cover letter for our Dossier and that is it. We'll be done except for the fingerprints. Then we can send everything off and hopefully be on the waiting list by the end of December. Pray, pray, pray that this timeline works out! If it does, then I think that by Thanksgiving next year we'll have our little one. Wow that sounds like such a long time. I'm sure the time will go quickly though, just as it has been so far. :-)

So what have we been up to lately? Well we spent some time with family for Thanksgiving which was lots of fun, put up our Christmas tree and put the lights up on the house and we are just about ready for Christmas. We went to the Parade of Lights downtown last Friday and watched them light the 54' Christmas tree. It was very festive and put us in the holiday spirit. We had a really good time. I just love Christmas! Ben's gearing up to start all of the rehearsals at church for the Christmas Eve service which is supposed to be really great this year. I'm really looking forward to it!

On the adoption front, since the courts opened back up in Ethiopia in October we've seen about 15 - 20 families go over to pick up their babies. It's been such a blessing to watch and read how their journey is going and to see them finally joined with their child they've been praying for for such a long time. It keeps me encouraged just knowing that one day that will be us. I have to say that I am so thankful for my family. For their support and encouragement and prayers. I don't know what I'd do without them. I'm so thankful for our friends and church family too. It's so evident to me that God is right here in the middle of everything; involved and moving in our lives every day through each person that He has strategically placed in our lives for a special purpose. More and more He's showing me what really matters in this world...each and every person, those we've already encountered and those we have yet to meet...forming relationships and loving them they way Christ loves us. Honestly this is not always an easy thing for me, developing relationships, but I know that as long as I stay faithful to His will, God is molding me and making me into the person He needs me to be for His glory. I say I'm a slow learner but it's all in the Lord's time, and His timing is perfect. :-)
So I guess that's it for now. More later!
L

Prayer Request

To those of you out there who read this, please pray for us this week. We are having issues with the immigration office as far as getting an appointment to get our fingerprints done as well as getting our money back that we overpaid by mistake. This adoption process is very expensive and the $80 we overpaid will help towards more upcoming expenses...if we can get it back. We sent in our application and fee to them in August and what seems to be the common practice is that you get your fingerprint appointment within a month of sending in the app. We'll it's been almost three months and we haven't heard anything. I tried to contact them last month, the only way to reach them is by mailing a letter, but have not heard anything back from that letter either. Our social worker is trying to help us find some phone number that we can call but I'm getting worried. We are almost done with our home study...our social worker is putting the finishing touches on it... and then all we have left is to get background checks done, write a cover letter and get our fingerprints and a form back from immigration. Then we can send our dossier to our agency to be certified and authenticated and then sent to Ethiopia. I'm so ready for this baby and I'm feeling nervous that things are going to be held up a lot longer than expected. I know God's in control, I just feel a bit helpless right now, not knowing what to do to find out what's going on with our application. Please pray that I can quiet my own mind and hear my Heavenly Father's voice right now and allow Him guide me.

I call on the Lord in my distress, and He answers me.
Psalm 120:1

Love, L

Halloween Fun...

Every year at Halloween our church has a festival for the neighborhood kids so they have a safe place to go and play and get candy. Our Life Group runs a booth each year and this year we had the Velcro Wall. It was so much fun watching all of the little kids and big kids (I mean the adults!) get into these scratchy velcro suites and throw themselves against a wall to try and stick!! I laughed pretty much the entire time. I've attached some pictures of Ben trying it out.

We also had to make a sign for the booth so Ben and I volunteered to do that because we thought it would be fun. What we didn't know is that is would be so emotional! We decided to have little people stuck to the letters on the sign to make it look like they were actually on the velcro wall. I found this really cool kit at the store that had little bodies, different colored shirts, pants, shoes and hair pieces. We had fun putting together these little people and decided to make one that looked like each of us. We realized we needed more than just two people on the sign so we decided we'd make another one that would look like our little boy...this is were it got emotional.

We picked out the hair piece and clothes and Ben went to work gluing it all together. Now at first I thought the smell of the glue was getting to him and that's why his eyes were tearing up but then I realized it was because he was thinking about our baby!! We placed all three figures - the two of us and the baby - side by side so that it looked like they were holding hands...and I know this probably sounds silly but we both started tearing up! Seeing the image of the three of us, even though they were foam cut outs, it was just really neat. They say that having kids makes you more emotional but we don't even have our little one yet! It really was the sweetest thing though. It makes me so excited to know that my wonderful husband is ready for this baby as much as I am. :-)