Give the Father some Praise!

Check out what happened today!

Adoption and Orphan Care Resolution: Passed

A Prayer for the Fatherless on Father's Day

When waiting is painful

Check out Dan Cruver's post on "Waiting"...on the Together for Adoption website.

Final Homestudy Interview

Well, we finally made it to the end of our Home Study! Our last interview was yesterday and it went really well. Our Social Worker came over to our house to inspect it and to ask the boys some questions and a few other things. It didn't go like I had been anticipating all this time. It was alot easier! She didn't ask the questions we prepared for and she didn't go into the rooms I cleaned the hardest....oh well. It's over and now we can put one big thing behind us on this adoption journey!

Now, we wait for our social worker to actually write the entire home study. We will then send it to our International agency for review and then we will submit our finalized home study to USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services). This process is to determine our eligibility and suitability to adopt a child from a Hague Convention Country. Once this is approved, we'll be sending home study and Dossier documents to India. This process could take up to 90 days. I pray that it doesn't, but we'll see.

Can we just get a baby already?!

Please be praying for us during this process.

One Love Coffee Adoption Fundraiser

To all you families out there that are in the adoption process or about to be....You need to check out "One Love Coffee Adoption Fundraiser". Spread the word!!

One Love Coffee Roasters’ two primary focuses are coffee and orphans. Rob Webb, founder of One Love Coffee Roasters, and an America World adoptive dad knows personally how expensive the adoption process is. The thought of having to raise tens of thousands of dollars to adopt a child is staggering to many. It can be the obstacle that stands in the way of a family’s commitment to adopt, and many times slows down the process of bringing an adoptive family’s child(ren) home. Many people don’t know where to start. One Love Coffee Roasters wants to be that starting point for raising money to help unite families with their children. (quoted from AWAA blog)

"We try to make it as simple as possible. One Love does not ask or require you to purchase anything. We handle all of the order processing: we set up a web page specifically for your family with the coffees you have chosen to sell, fulfill the orders, collect payment securely online, and then send you checks for your portion of the sales for each month. All that the adoptive family needs to do is to fill out the application to validate your adoption process, send the link to their One Love web page to as many people as possible to generate sales for the fundraiser, and notify us when your adoption is complete!

When the adoption is complete, your friends and family who purchased One Love Coffee can continue to do so on our main storefront and continue to support orphans with a portion of the proceeds of all One Love Coffees going to the AWAA Transition Home in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.It’s that simple!

Our current goal is to sign up 100 families before September 2009, when we will officially open our doors for business. Just visit http://www.onelovecoffees.com, click on the “Sign Up” link at the top menu, complete the form, and your store will be ready to go when we launch in September."

But Then There's Jesus

But Then There's Jesus: A must read excerpt from Russell Moore's new book called "Adopted for Life".

I have not gotten my hands on a copy of the book yet since I am currently reading 3 other books at the moment.....but it is on my list to read next! Have heard nothing but wonderful things about it so far!

Read what others are saying here.

You can learn more about Dr. Russell Moore at his website and blog here.

On Adoption and Orphan Care: A Proposed Resolution

On Adoption and Orphan Care: A Proposed Resolution




Posted using ShareThis

Might He Want More Praise?

I have been lagging behind on the blog and not giving the LORD His due Praise! You'll want to check out our second financial goal tracker! God is providing!

We will have a couple more goals to meet once this 2nd goal is met. So, we are about half way there in our financial goals overall. This is wonderful news!

Please use the comment button to give God some glory!!

Progress!

Hey everyone!

Just a little update here. I had my second Home Study Interview today! It went so great. I really love our social worker. She is fantastic. Very helpful and thorough and is really easy to talk with . She has made this home study thing a really easy thing for us. I am so thankful for that. Jeff gets to meet with her next week and then she'll come into our home shortly after and do the final interview with us and the boys.

On another note, things seem to be coming together very quickly! All of our documents continue to come in ahead of schedule. I received my passport today! Yea! Jeff's should be here in a day or so. Also, we hope to have a rough draft of the home study in a week or so and will then send it on to our International agency for review. All of our Dossier documents are coming together and we hope to have everything on its way to India in a month or so. I can't not tell you how exciting I am!

I know the really hard part is just ahead of us...the waiting for our baby referral. But, just knowing that we are really making good progress is encouraging for me right now. I can not tell you how the LORD has had His hand of protection over our family in preparation for this adoption. Protected upbringings, protected marriage...even the number and gender of our children are all working together exactly for the India Adoption requirements. Thrilling.

That is about for now.
Thanks for sharing the journey with us and thank you so much for your continued prayer support. We are so grateful.

Living Upside Down Through Adoption

a must read post on how adoption has turned this family’s life upside down and how the Gospel calls all of us to live upside down in some way.

Click for Article here

Some India Stuff

Hey all!

Wanted to share my heart for a minute. I have been so broken for a week. For starters, I have been following a group of Bloggers on a trip to India with Compassion International. The LORD broke my heart over India several years ago and I have been praying for that country and the people from that time on. But this past week while following the bloggers journeys, was a fresh reminder of the reality of the extreme poverty in this country and the desperate need there. As if their piercing stories weren't enough, I heard some more news Monday that broke my heart yet again. I want to share it with you, but want to give some India Adoption facts first so you'll see where I am coming from.

While researching adoption in India before we got started I learned the following things:

It is difficult to adopt from India due to popular opposition to the adoption of Indian children by foreigners.

Once a child has been abandoned, the orphanage they are placed in will make many efforts to find the birth family. They must attempt to find an adoptive family in India 3 different times. If that search fails, the baby will become available for International adoption.

However, non-resident Indian applicants are being given preference in intercountry placements.

If the baby is not placed in a non resident Indian home, then they will be illegible for adoption by Non-Indian families.

Because of this process, babies usually don't come home until they are 10 months or older. In most cases they are older because the length of adoption and process is more complicated for applicants who are Non- Indian.

India leans towards adoptive couples with infertility issues.

Can not have more than 2 children already in the home. ( in some cases they will allow 3)

Parents with two children of the same gender are expected to adopt a child of the opposite gender.

See how it can be seem difficult to bring home all these babies?

Check out these recent Adoption numbers from India:

• 2008: 307
• 2007: 411
• 2006: 319

Seem fairly reasonable?
Then check out China adoption numbers:

2008: 3911
2007: 5453
2006: 6493

We are talking 25 Million orphans in India here!

Maybe I should say that again. 2 5 M I L L I ON babies that need homes! How hard should it be?

The news is that the India government agency that oversees adoptions, CARA (Central Adoption Resources Agency) has proposed new (positive) guidelines for Indian adoption. We have known about this for awhile now, because a lot of the Adoption Agencies have put their India program on hold until these guidelines come through.

But the new guidelines have been delayed since 2007. We have been praying that they would move forward this year in order to get more babies adopted and home quicker!

But, today they are still delayed. Which brings me back to my heart ache mentioned above. I inquired again Monday as to why the continued delays. One of the answers I received was that the religious groups (Hindu) view orphans suffering a positive thing because it will help them in their "next" life.

WHAT?

Gut wrenching!

25 Million Orphans suffering with little care and food and this is a good thing?

It has caused me to hit my face and begin fervently praying over these precious little ones even more!

So, this is what we are up against. We have been watching a few families bringing home their babies from India. So it's still moving....but its not an easy thing.

Please continue to pray! Not just for us bringing home our baby.....but for the 25 Million babies that need a mom and a dad, a place to call home and love, love, love!

Some random new happenings

Hey everyone!

If you have been checking in with us, you will have noticed that we just about met our first goal of $5,000. Wahoo! Isn't that exciting?! Thanks to all of you very much that donated money and have been faithfully praying. God has been so gracious through all of you and we are truly appreciative!

Here are some new updates since the last post.
We got our medicals done, passports sent off and signed our life away on our International contract and payed the first program fee. It has really been a whirlwind of emotions for me lately as I wrap all the paper work side up and begin to just wait on the LORD to work it all out.

Currently we still have a couple more home study interviews to go, wait for everything we sent off for to come back and then when all that is finalized in the next couple of months, we'll send it all off to India and wait for our baby referral.

Which brings me to my next comment.... At the time we send off the paper work to India, there will be a whole new set of fees. So, I have removed the donation tracker from the first goal and placed a new donation tracker up for our second goal. I have posted a deadline of June 15th, but this could change either way.....we could need it sooner or later, depending on how fast the LORD pushes all the approval through. I'll keep you posted.

For now, we wait to see how God moves to provide the next financial goal.

as a quick side note, several of you suggested that I set up a way for people to make online donations. I have provided that opportunity on the right hand side of the blog. You can click the donate button and use your credit card right from the blog. This is a handy and convenient tool for those of you that are looking for "quick and easy".

This is it for now.
Many blessings to you all,