What I Did Today ...

Left my house @ 8:15 to drive here ....

To get these documents certified ...

So that we could go here ...

To mail this ...

To America World Adoption Agency.

In other words, our dossier (all the paperwork) is on the first leg of it's journey to Ethiopia!!!

Next big milestone will be receiving our referral ... the picture of the actual child that will become a part of our family.  Becoming more real, each day.

What's In Your Heart?

Read a great blog this morning that asked this question ... using a necklace she received at Christmas as the starting point.  Here's the link http://mycrazyadoption.org/whats-in-my-heart-2.  Feel free to go read it.  She writes a great deal about international adoption as well.

I love the question ... especially at the beginning of the new year.  Are the things in my heart this year, the same as last?  Am I making room in my heart for the things that God wants there by clearing out the old things that should not have a place there. 

The new things that I have made room for this year .... our new child who we will hopefully meet this year. I find myself longing to see this face, hold this child, love this gift that God is bringing to our family.  The second thing that is taking up more space in my heart than ever before, is my ministry with Saint Child.  I have served this organization for almost 4 years ... and for much of that time, it was service, obligation, one more thing to do.  Don't get me wrong, I believed that what this maternity home was doing mattered.  Taking young women who have nowhere else to go ... giving them a safe place to stay, immersing them in a loving family ... giving them a chance for a fresh start in life while they are growing and giving birth to a new life ... this is big stuff, important stuff.  It's just that my heart, my emotion wasn't always in it.   It is a blessing and a curse for me to be able to separate my heart from my actions much of the time.  But when those two line up?  There is a powerful change ... in me and in those that I am privileged to serve.

What's in your heart this year?

The Blind Side

I realize that I'm a little late to this party.  Knew from the first moment I saw the trailer for this movie that I would love it.  My oldest son wanted to see it so badly, and it has taken us this long to find a time when we could both go.  Took my 12 year old as well.  I could have done the ugly cry so many times throughout ... ok I did.  The reality of opening your heart to love someone .... someone so different with hurts that you can only imagine. Our adoption plans obviously made this so real.  Things that made me sob as I thought of our child in Ethiopia ... Michael saying he's never had a bed.  Stuffing food in his pockets at Thanksgiving.  Flashbacks of painful memories from his childhood.  LeeAnn's (the mom) conversation with Michael's birthmom.  Things that made me smile ... first Christmas photo and the family member calling and saying did you know you have a black child in your family picture? ... black and white skin reaching across the table to hold hands before praying for the meal ....  the true love and acceptance given this child.

Favorite line ... "You're changing that boy's life," spoken by a friend.  "No, he's changing mine."  says Mom.

Left me speechless ... and crying ...

New Year's Resolution

I really thought I would be a better blogger ... since I love reading blogs so much. I guess I just haven't made it a part of my routine. So my goal for the new year is going to be to blog at least once a week. Feel free to remind me if I drop the ball.

We had a wonderful Christmas as a family ... most likely our last as a family of 5. E. is very concerned about what we are going to do about our stockings next year. Our current stocking holders spell PEACE.  I assured him that him that we would either find stocking hangers that spell out a word with 6 letters or would get a whole new style. Gift-wise Christmas was a bit subdued given that we are making every effort to save for the adoption. We explained that to the kids, and they seem to understand and were very delighted with all that they received. However, I could tell my teenager was struggling a tiny bit with all of his friends who received an I-Touch for Christmas. We are so blessed to have all that we have, and preparing for the adoption gives us opportunities to remind each other of that fact.

In some ways I wish that we had chosen a gender and specific age for our newest family member. It would have made it fun to buy a Christmas gift for our child and it would make planning a bit easier at this point. We truly decided to leave it in God's hands because I can make a case for why a girl or a boy would be best for our family. I would rather not have to rely on my own reasoning. Should cut down on second guessing myself afterwards. :-)

I'll give an update on where we are at with the adoption in my next post.  Thanks to my friend, April, for helping me figure out how to post pictures.  I hope that you all had a blessed Christmas!

Abundance

I went to Winco today ... Monday before Thanksgiving ... might not have been the wisest move. There were more people there than I had ever seen before. I marveled at the variety. There were old people, young people, people who looked like they had plenty of money, those who looked like they had much less, different ethnic backgrounds, but the one thing that everyone had in common was the ability to go up and down aisles filled with so much food ... and from the looks of it, buy what they needed and much of what they wanted. The abundance of our life is simply staggering.

It made me think of our child in Ethiopia. Since we are not asking for a baby, our child is alive right now .... somewhere ... If he/she is fortunate to be in the orphanage by now, then he probably will have food enough to fill his stomach tonight. If he or she is still living with their family, then they are probably living in desperate poverty ... and most likely will have known hunger and will continue to know it until they make it to the safety of the orphanage ... and ultimately our arms.

I am thankful for the abundance that we have been blessed with ... but sobered by the lack of so many.

YAKIMA?

So, I'm sure Yakima, WA is a lovely town ... I may have even driven through it before (though I don't remember it), but I'm just wondering why it is the home of the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security's Citizenship and Immigration services office. Yep, that's where we had to send all of our paperwork for Immigration for our adoption. Which I did today!! Seems like Portland or Seattle might make a bit more sense. How many immigrants does Yakima really get? Just wondering.

PAPERWORK PREGNANCY

For those of you have never adopted, I thought I'd give you a brief run-down of the process and where we are at so far ... and of course, as we are adopting internationally, I have no idea how it differs for a domestic adoption.

When you apply and are accepted by an agency, the paperwork pregnancy begins. There are 3 stages, and they can be worked on simultaneously. The first is the home study. This involves proving your financial stability, getting reference letters, letters from your employers, official copies of birth certificates, marriage certificate, police reports that say you don't have a criminal record or if you do, a letter explaining what happened, being interviewed by the social worker ... and since our kids are older, each of them had to be interviewed as well, as well as several other documents. Lots of details and all of them have to be done just right.

At the same time, you can be working on the dossier ... even more documents and almost all of these have to be notarized. So if you're thinking of adopting, I'd suggest making friends with a notary. (Thanks, Kevin!) Once the home study is complete, you can enter the 3rd stage which is Immigration. You have to send your home study, and application, $$, and eventually we will get fingerprinted and have the documents that we will need to enter the country legally with our child.

Once we get our documents back from Immigration, then we will combine that with the Dossier, and send all of that to our agency. They will work on it for a couple of weeks, and then it will be sent to Ethiopia for translation and submission to the government there. There are more details .. and I will probably laugh when we are done with how brief I made this, and how much I left out. There is still much to learn.

At some point once our dossier is complete and sent to the agency, we will receive our referral ... which is the picture and brief history of a child that we can choose to accept or not. Our age range is pretty broad, so I don't expect that we will not accept our first referral. Plus, we have a pretty strong faith that God has a child planned for us, so why would we turn one down that was recommended.

As to where we are at in the process right now? The answer is ... our home study is done. We will pick it up this week ... after we pay more $$. (Did I mention that international adoption is not cheap?) We will then send it off to immigration ... and then wait .... I'll keep you posted. And I'm planning on learning how to post pictures to this at some point. That might make this blog a bit more interesting.