Patience, patience, Lord please give me more patience!!

Today We Are DTE!!!!

We are finally DTE, which means we are finally in the shoot for a referral!!
1st step- Paperwork gathering (The Dossier)- That has taken us quite a while but it's finally completed.  
2nd step- Paperwork is turned in, processed at the agency and Dossier is sent to Ethiopia (this is where we are today!!) We are also placed on a list for referrals for children!!!
3rd step- Referral received (We don't know when this part will happen. We are in the waiting stage now) We will get a call from our agency and an email containing the history, a picture and details about children they recommend for adoption by our family. We will have a week to accept that referral.
4th step- Once we accept the referral, we wait for a date to go down to Ethiopia to spend time with the children and go to court where they will officially become ours.
5th step- We return without our children to bring the court paperwork back to the U.S. so it can be processed and all the things that need to happen can happen for them to get visas to enter the country.
  Please pray with us that steps 4, 5 and 6 will be combined soon so there will only be 1 trip to Ethiopia to bring the kids home. Due to recent changes in the process, this is something that could possibly happen.
6th step- Once all paperwork is processed here and sent back to Ethiopia and the Ethiopian Embassy completes all the necessary checks to release our children we will get notification of our Embassy date.
7th step- We return for our Embassy appointment after which we get to bring our children home!!!!

Our Matching Grant Has Been Met

Thank you all so much for investing in the lives of two children in need of a forever family!
The total amount raised so far in our Lifesong for Orphans account is $5,047.76. Lifesong added $3,000.00 to that bringing our totals to $8,047.76. Your contributions are very much appreciated.

The winners of our Kohls Gift Card Giveaway are the LaValley family!!

Congratulations LaValley Family! Enjoy your gift card and Merry Christmas!

Thank you so very much to all the families who have participated in our 3 day gift card giveaway. Your contributions are greatly appreciated!!

$50 Kohls Card Give Away

We are having a $50 Kohls gift card giveaway for 3 days only. 

You will get one entry into the giveaway for every $5 donated to our Lifesong $3000 Matching Grant between Tuesday, December 18th and Thursday, December 20th.
Just click on the orange "Donate" button on the right to donate.

(if you've already donated, you're automatically entered to win)

We will announce the winner on Friday, December 21st. 

Thank you for your support!!

Matching Grant/Both Hands Approved!

We're so excited!! Mount Ararat Baptist Church and Lifesong for Orphans have committed an Adoption Matching Grant of $3,000 to help us raise the funds necessary to complete the adoption of our children. This means Mount Ararat Baptist partnered with Lifesong for Orphans will match “dollar-for-dollar” everything we raise through our Lifesong account HERE (paypal will charge a 1.9-2.9% service fee and the amount received by Lifesong will be decreased by that amount) or by avoiding the fee and sending a check to the following address between now and January 7, 2013, up to $3,000. Either way, your donation will be tax deductible.

Lifesong for Orphans

Attn: Breidenbach #3161 (include also in the memo section of the check)

PO Box 40 / 202 N. Ford St

Gridley, IL 61744

Along with that, we also received approval for our Both Hands Rescue Mission project. Its a chance, not only to raise the funds to bring our children home, but to also serve a widow, just like it talks about in James 1:27. We will assemble a team of friends and family to help us complete the project. Together we will send out letters to ask people to sponsor us for the day as we work on a widow's house. We will have a day of fun working together as we paint, clean, de-clutter, do landscaping, etc. All the funds raised will go towards our adoption. It's just like asking someone to sponsor you for a 5K run. Watch the video to find out more about Both Hands.

Orphan Sunday

God is so good!! It was so obvious this Sunday that the Lord moved the leadership of our church, Mt Ararat Baptist Church to put together such a top notch service for Orphan Sunday. We told our story of how the Lord called us to adoption. During the service, 13 adopting/fostering families were represented on the stage with their children and signs showing where they adopted or are adopting from. It was so beautiful and moving. The messages of "the church's" adoption as Children of God and the call in James 1:27 resonated the entire service.  We have had so many people tell us how the service moved them. We feel so very blessed to have been a part of it.

The church also opened a Marketplace for the adopting families and with t-shirts, bags, prints and donations, we were able to raise $2045.00 toward our goal. Thank you church family for partnering with us on our journey!!!

Why Ethiopia

Ethiopia has a very rich culture and the country, people, and children are absolutely beautiful. When looking for a country to adopt from, those are some of the things we considered but we also found the following statistics that truly touched our hearts:

• Ethiopia is about twice the size of Texas has an estimated 4.3 million orphans
• 46.3% is under the age of 14
• Literacy rate is only 30%
• Average income $380 per year
• Only 26% have access to safe water
• Life expectancy- 59 years 
• There are .022 physicians for every 1000 people

Data collected at these 3 locations:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook//geos/et.html
http://www.awaa.org/programs/ethiopia/default.aspx
http://www.worldvision.org/content.nsf/6d1210430917461d8825735a007e2f2b/world-vision-ethiopia!OpenDocument&Click=

Summer 2012

The school year has started and our summer went by so quickly. I'm so thankful to be able to homeschool our son. He's such a quick learner and I love being able to witness his breakthroughs. I also love the fact that we can put school on pause as the adoption moves forward. Even though I'm excited about our first homeschooling year, I'm really going to miss summer; 90 degrees and all. Here are some shots of summer 2012.

Summer is my favorite season and I love to celebrate it.

  

I planted my first veggie garden.

We had a really good lettuce harvest. It was delicious!

Daddy and son built a cardboard boat.

The boat turned out great and it actually stayed afloat on the river.

VBS was a blast this year! They even had legos.

The guys hiked Schloss Mountain and had a great time.

Peaceful fishing with Daddy. He actually caught one.

We made a human board game in the drive way.

We had a great field trip with friends to an awesome park.

The garden got much bigger and we got tons of tomatoes and cucumbers. 

Besides the face painting, carnival games and free books, we also learned about waste management at the end of summer carnival at the library.

Moving On

We have recently had a delay in our process. The details of the delay are private but God knows why all of this has happened and I am trying my best not to question His plan. I am thankful that we are now moving on.

We had our fingerprinting appointment yesterday. It wasn't at all what I thought it would be. In and out. Bam, we were done. Things are looking up! Don't know if the rest of the process will be that flawless or not... It would be awesome but, either way, we're up for the journey.

Where We Are in the Process

We are still shuffling papers. This stage of the process is commonly referred to as the "paper pregnancy". Our Home Study has been approved!! So now we can apply for grants. Hallelujah! We're also finishing up our Dossier. That's the second chunk of paperwork necessary for adoption. We're waiting for a few of the required documents to come in. You can see the process in detail on our adoption agency's website here. 
Lots and lots of paper folks but we know it will be well worth it!!

I'm Back

It has been a great couple of months. We’ve had awesome time with family visiting our nation’s capital, enjoying Easter and enjoying the break from school. Now it’s time to get back to normal. Things are moving along on the adoption home front again. We just got everything lined up to get our physicals signed and notarized today!!!  Now we can turn in our Home Study and keep trudging on. During our hiatus from the blog, my husband and I both read this blog post http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2011/09/06/after-the-airport and really want to encourage everyone in our lives to read it as well. Jen Hatmaker is an incredible author and she’s so very real. I love it. The post is so phenomenally revealing.

She really tells it like it is and after reading her post, it’s amazing that we’re not shaken, we still want to do it. We’re excited because we know we’ve been praying for God’s best for us. And we know ultimately, that’s what we’re going to get.

Children Of God

When we first felt we we're going to adopt, Jason was out in Oklahoma on business and spoke to a co-worker about it who shared that he was adopted. Then he showed Jason how to send this video to me. I watched this on my cell phone and it melted my heart. As Christians, we have all been adopted into the kingdom of God. I am so thankful to be adopted. It feels so very right to do the same with His abandoned children. Thank you Jason's co-worker for passing on this video.

About Our Journey

When we first got married, we had a great plan for our family. 3 kids, spread out evenly a few years apart. Perfect right? Maybe not...After we had our son, we waited a while and then struggled for 5 years to have more. We now understand just how much control we have over how our family is meant to be...None! 

God is in control and He has opened our eyes and hearts to those who are innocent and lonely and longing for a family to call their own. He placed it on our hearts to reach out to the children of Ethiopia. Why not America, we looked into that, we also looked into other countries but that's not where He has called us. We know we've been called to adopt. We know we've been called to pursue adoption in Ethiopia. But that's about all we know. We are in constant prayer for His guidance during our journey. This blog was created so we can share our journey with you. 

Thanks for joining us :-)

Tonya