CJ called my today while I was at Walmart…he forgot to tell me this morning that he had a dream about our daughter last night! I thought I would share it with all of you (with his permission of course)…
We were in a large building and our daughter was somewhere in the building too. The person said we could go see her, but not together. When they left I said to CJ, “Come on let’s just go sneek in (of course I would!). She’s never seen you before so I’ll walk up to her and you just act like you are a stranger and just walk by.” When we walked in the room our daughter wasn’t facing us. She turned around and was all dressed up really cute and looked so beautiful! CJ was suppose to act like he didn’t know her, but instead, when he saw her, he couldn’t help himself and started crying because she was so beautiful and had to run out of the room!
What a beautiful dream God gave him. He is preparing our hearts for our new daughter!
Who knew so much could have happened since my last post, but I shouldn’t be surprised cause that’s how God works….mysteriously! This morning we had our last home study meeting, and in a matter of 3 days, we spent about 8 hours with our social worker digging into our marriage, childhood and basically the most personal parts of our lives.
To make a long story shorter here’s the amazing news…. instead of taking 2 months to draft the home study, she thinks it should be done in about 2 weeks!!!! Woohoooo!
In the meantime, we are heading up to St. Paul, MN on Monday to be fingerprinted by Homeland Security and will start diligently finishing up our dossier so that when the home study is complete, our dossier will be complete as well and can be looked over and translated by the Ethiopian government!
All that to say, we are one step closer in this long, tedious process to adopt our daughter!
We have already had many ups and downs in this adoption process thus far, but I won’t get into all of them. I think I’ll start with the good news first…
We should be done with our home study this Thursday! We have been so bummed because our last 2 appointments have been cancelled, leaving over a month between meetings with our social worker, and now this coming Thursday we will have a 5 hour appointment and hopefully finish up our home study….Amazing news!
Here’s the bad news….
Our social worker is very backed up and won’t be able to write up a draft of our home study for about 2 MONTHS! This is so disappointing!
CJ and I try to keep reminding each other that this process……all of it…..is in God’s hands, not our own. And so, we’ll wait……and wait some more.
I’m reading a book called “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan right now. I just finished chapter 2 and I decided to flip back to the foreword written by Chris Tomlin. Here’s what I read…
“The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. What I find interesting is that Christians didn’t name themselves, but rather, they were called (or named) Christians by those watching their lives. I wonder if it would be the same today. Could someone look at your life or look at my life and name me a Christian? A humbling question for sure.”
“As Francis so brilliantly illustrates, the life that Jesus calls us to is absolute craziness to the world. Sure it’s fine and politically correct to believe in God, but to really LOVE Him is a whole different story. Yeah, it’s nice and generous to give to the needy at Christmas or after some disaster, but to sacrifice your own comfort and welfare for another may look like madness to a safe and undisturbed world.”
So I’m finally blogging…..a blogger if you will. The purpose of this blog is to keep family and friends up to date with details of our adoption. For those of you who don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, CJ and I are adopting from Ethiopia! I guess I’ll start by giving you a bit of an overview of the past couple years.
God began moving my heart to start supporting missions in some way. So I called up one of those infomercials one day and pledged some money, but that wasn’t enough. I really wanted to start sponsoring a child and make a difference. A few months later some friends of ours started an orphanage in Ethiopia called Kingdom Vision International, better known as KVI. I was so pumped and we began supporting their vision! Maybe a year later I wanted to go visit these orphanages (by then there were 2…one in Addis Ababa and the other in Nazareth), so this past June 2009, I flew to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with 3 other people from our church.
While in Ethiopia, my heart really went out to the older children who have been at the orphanage awhile. They see kids coming and going from the orphanage getting adopted and they wait and wonder when it will be their turn….when they will be chosen. My heart breaks for these kids that not many families are willing to consider adopting.
I met a girl (we’ll call her Kallie) who is about 10 or 11 years old. She’s been at KVI since they opened their doors in January 2008, and I e-mailed CJ and told him all about her. When I got home we talked and prayed about adopting her. I remember taking a walk early one morning and asking God to please tell me if we are suppose to adopt her and so clearly I felt Him whisper “I already have”….. That was all I needed to hear, so we started the adoption process!
In August we began our home study. It’s not moving as quickly as we’d like, but we’re trying to sit back and enjoy the ride, which is easier said than done. Thanks for being interested in our journey!
We’ve finally have our store open on our page!!! We are selling T-shirts and bags to help us pay for the adoption! All proceeds will go to the adoption….. so please tell your friends! Continue reading →
I am ready to do whatever it takes to make a difference.
