The decapitated frozen fish came out at dinner….eeekkkk!!

Yes, my 6 year old did run to the freezer in the garage to pull out the decapitated frozen fish from her catch a few weeks ago. Yes, right in the middle of dinner! This happened shortly after we got onto Libbie for biting the end of baby tomatoes off and sucking the juice out. Her defense, “I like tomato juice!” Grady managed to not catch too many head jerks from us other than the few karate moves he illustrated in his chair over dinner. 

Other than these short moments of terror, it went really well! Adela (pronounced Uh-day-la) is from Lubbock so she wasn’t in total shock at the lack of trees or the crazy wind here today. Plus, it was a bonus that she was raised in this general area so the dead fish and Grady’s detailed story of hunting with his BB-gun weren’t probably too foreign to her! Please God, let that be true!

There weren’t any grueling detailed questions. Just expectations explained and lots of questions answered. Our kids were able to ask and tell whatever they wanted which was great. I hugged her when she got here and I’ll hug her when she leaves. We will see her more frequently once our 4^th gets here.  She will be a big part of a positive transition. For that, we are grateful. 

Just a few details because a lot of you have been asking…Our request for a child states we would prefer a child whose age is between a newborn and  5 years old, boy or girl. We know God’s driving this train and we won’t pretend otherwise. After this step, we have some more paperwork (of course!), fingerprints, police report, etc. and then we will send our dossier to AWAA. They will make sure we got it all right, translate everything, and forward on to Ethiopia. Once it is logged in the Ethiopian government’s system, we will be available to have a match, or a referral. From this point to the point we receive the referral could be up to 18 months. We hope and pray not near this long!

We know so many of you were praying today and we certainly felt it in the peace and ease with which everything flowed today. We can’t thank you enough for that. We are so very grateful for you taking the time to lift us up in your prayers.

So excited to share what God is doing in our lives....

Well, I’ve definitely been hesitant to even start blogging because it is very intimidating to me but I have realized that putting our feelings, motivations and updates in a written format may be the only way I get this down on paper to remember and share later! Things have been moving so quickly for us (praise God) that I feel like we haven’t had time to even write about it. After talking to several friends I realize that you may want to know what’s going on with us and this amazing journey we are embarking on and keep up with our progress. So, we are going to give this a try! This initial post (??) is going to be long because I want to tell you how we got here and where we are at right now. 

First of all, we are adopting!!! From Ethiopia!!! I feel like we are finally past the first trimester and I want to tell everyone we see…”hey, guess what, we are adopting!!!!” Barry and I have had numerous conversations over the years about adopting…someday. It was never anything concrete or planned out. We just knew in our hearts we were both open to it and if God ever brought us there, we were on board. 

Well, that’s exactly what happened a few months ago. I don’t know if I can pinpoint even the sequence of events. For one, we had been to a fundraiser at the Amarillo Globe News Center featuring Michael Regan, who was adopted and wrote the book, “Twice Adopted.” He was mainly discussing his adoption story from the perspective of foster children. We were deeply moved by this and God was definitely stirring the pot. I was reading at the same time a book by Jen Hatmaker, “7”, http://jenhatmaker.com/home.htm in which she discusses at some points in the story her adoption of two children from Ethiopia. Not the major theme of the book but caught my attention and God was again stirring. Then and probably what spoke to us most poignantly were the prayers of our precious Libbie, she wasn’t quite 10 yet. Every night she started praying for the orphans. “Dear God, please help the orphans find homes and family that love them.” Oh wow… Amen, precious girl. Of course we tried at the time to figure out what worldly show had formed this thought in her head and concerned her. It didn’t take long for God to knock us on the head and set us straight. God’s little children usually do hear him first and they are often times more open to hearing his direction. There was no doubt in our minds that God was talking to and through ALL of us. 

It was at some point during this time, that Barry specifically said, “I think it’s time”. I remember my response being simply “okay, I think it’s Africa”. He came back home from work the next day and said “I think it’s Ethiopia…did you know there are more than 4 million orphans there.” No, I didn’t but our future child is there. Neither of us has ever more fully felt the presence of God and His guidance in our lives. Once again, I can’t help but totally praise and love God for this. Barry and I never once doubted this path and the direction God had planned for us. Wow…when does that happen where it so clear what His plan is. Maybe we were just open and ready to hear it so we didn’t muddle it up with our own “stuff”. We jumped feet first onto the path He had planned and obeyed. I also want to interject my upmost respect and adoration for my God-loving and God-fearing husband at this point. He was on board, he was listening to God’s direction, and when he needed to during this time, he stood up and declared that we will obey where God is leading us. I love you and I am with you till the end!!

Ok, so it didn’t take us long to find the agency we planned to use. We did a lot of internet searching, reading, etc. and it was very clear we loved the agency, America World Adoption Agency (AWAA), http://www.awaa.org/default.aspx . A Christian based agency probably most famous from one of their adoptive families, Steven Curtis Chapman. We felt very comfortable from the beginning and again so blessed that it didn’t take us very long to find an agency.

So, our application for Ethiopia was approved towards the end of July. We then worked solidly for about a month to gather all the documents and work on the questionnaires, etc that we had to complete for the home study. We submitted our home study materials about one month later. Our agency’s only office in Texas is in Dallas. Barry is going to training September 9-12 in Ft. Worth and we managed to arrange for one of our interviews to happen while he is there with our social worker. Then she turned around and has her flight booked here for September 17^th and 18^th for our home study! Wow!! Things have truly moved fast and we can’t believe it! This part of the process can take up to 6 months and we have blazed through so far. During this time we have had to complete a 10 hour training course online and we each have 6 books we have to read before our home study can be finalized. Lots of work but so grateful they are preparing us for all that could potentially lie ahead. 

We would humbly ask that you keep our family and this entire process in your prayers. We have lots of adjustments ahead, lots of money to come up with and I’m sure lots of waiting. We know God is sovereign over all and He will have his hand on everything.