A Very, Long-Overdue Update!

   It has been quite a while since I have updated any news on our adoption.  Our paperwork has been in Ethiopia for a year now.  In the last few months, the time period has become a little longer due to more intense examination of each family's paperwork before issuing a referral on a child.  We have to trust God's timing and trust the process.  It is definitely teaching us a good lesson that we don't have control!  Our family has gotten to know a family in our same neighborhood who has brought home their little boy from Ethiopia just about two months ago.  We have had opportunities to meet their little boy, so this has given us a small glimpse of what we anticipate when we bring our little boy home from Ethiopia.
   In the meantime, life goes on!  Brock is just about finished with third grade...only 3 more weeks until summer!    It has been a good year, yet very busy at the same time.  Between Ben's college ministry schedule, my teaching demands, and keeping up with third grade, we are all looking forward to summer!  Brock has recently begun a tennis league in Clinton.  He has taken lessons for two seasons and is having fun putting those new skills into practice.  He has a great serve...very powerful and accurate for a nine year old!  We need to continue to work on his control of hitting the ball after that!  This summer, Brock has decided that he only wants to swim for fun...so no swim team this year.  I was a little sad considering I have 10 years of great memories doing swim team myself!  It is his life and his interests, though!  Instead of swim team, we have signed up for summer baseball in a neighboring town (about 10 minutes away).  Ben and I anticipate very hot nights, but this was Brock's choice.
   I will attempt to keep up the blog better with photos and highlights for our family and friends.  I still feel so new to this compared to so many awesome blogs out there!  Until next time.

Immigration Update....

   Still waiting on our approval letters!  That's the updated news!  Ben went last Monday to get his fingerprinting; I had mine taken the week before when he was in PC, FL.  Now, we just wait and check the mailbox each day for our approval.  We are excited with anticipation of mailing the entire group of paperwork to Ethiopia.  Brock continues to help us with planning ideas of his room set-up once his brother arrives home!  It is definitely cute to listen to him share his "vision" for their room!
   I purchased the book Orphanology last night while we were at Lifeway.  I am ready to "dive" into the book after reading bits of it last night on the couches of Lifeway!  What a picture of our family...all three of us with books reading bits from each on the Lifeway couches...I love it!  The book, Orphanology, was co-written by a guy Ben went to seminary with at New Orleans.  Tony Merida is a dynamic speaker/pastor who decided, after his own adoptions, to co-write a book about individuals and churches to become aware of James 1:27 to care for the orphans in one way or another.  It should be good!

Spring Break 2011

   Well, Ben made it back from Panama City, FL, from the Beach Reach Mission Trip with the college students. Brock and I wanted to go very much; however, the sights of PC during Spring Break are not what an 8 year old boy should experience!  During Ben's trip, I was able to complete dossier paperwork!  Brock and I found the Secretary of State's office in downtown Jackson Thursday to get the 17 notarized documents state sealed!  Later that day, we found the Immigration office (in a different section of downtown Jackson) for my fingerprinting appointment.  Ben goes Monday to get his fingerprints taken.  Once those are processed and we are cleared, we can send off our dossier along with the initial payment to Ethiopia!  Getting to this part of the process is exciting to know that within 1-2 weeks, we should be mailing off our papers which gets us even closer to bringing home our little boy from Ethiopia!
   On the other days of Spring Break, Brock and I found little things to do.  This first day we took a very long bike ride/walk the dog and picked up all the trash in our neighborhood - a mini-mission!  The other days were spent with us spending gift cards of Brock's from his birthday a few weeks ago.  We also went to the MS Children's Museum (with, I think, all of the Jackson-area kids and families!).  It was fun!  Here are some pics from our visit to the museum:

STARTLING STATS ABOUT ETHIOPIA

* One out of every 20 children born alive die in their first month of life

* One out of ten die before reaching their first birthday

* One out of six die before reaching their fifth birthday

* There are 4.6 million orphans in Ethiopia

* The median age in Ethiopia is 18

* 1.5 million people in Ethiopia are infected with AIDS

* Per capita, Ethiopia receives less aid than any country in Africa

* Ethiopia's doctor to children ratio is
1 to 24,000

*Half of the children in Ethiopia will never attend school.

* 88% will never
attend secondary school

A little "Glitch" in the road...but God reminds me of something this morning!

   Many of those who are connected to Ethiopian adoption already know of the recent changes in the adoption process; however, if you are not aware, here's the update.  As of last Friday, the Ethiopian courts have cut the number of adoption proceedings from 50 per day to 5 per day.  This is a significant reduction; Ethiopia has expressed their reasons for this reduction.  However, such a decrease in number means a lengthier road for us and many other families as well.  When I found this new information out, I was saddened.  One of many reasons for our adoption is that Brock is so looking forward to having a little brother.  A longer wait in this process definitely was NOT on our list; however, "glitches" are always a part of adoption.  We know that God's plans/timings/paths for our lives are not always what we envision; however, His plans always turn out so much better that we could plan ourselves.

   As I was studying through Philippians this morning, I was reminded of Philippians 4:6-7: 

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, with guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

  God's gentle reminder to me that He is at work for a specific reason, and I shouldn't be anxious through this situation.  We'll keep you posted as we learn new information.  

   The biggest thing right now is to covet the situation with prayer: prayer for the children waiting on permanent families and prayer for adoptive families waiting on acceptance to travel and bring home their child  

Updated Family Pictures from the MC Campus

Fundraising T-Shirt

With the large cost of the adoption and other expenses related to the adoption, we decided to create a t-shirt and ask our family and friends to support our adoption through this fundraiser as well as getting a "cool" new shirt!  One of our college students is currently working to design the t-shirt with some of our ideas and a scripture we have been convicted with through this adoption journey - James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to care for the orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
Once we get our t-shirt design, we'll post the design.  Please pray to consider supporting our journey to bring our son home from Ethiopia with our t-shirt fundraiser.
God Bless!