Just keep swimming....just keep swimming.......

Sometimes it does not seem like a lot of progress....but it is progress...so I just keep swimmimg.....

Remember the saga about the Child Clearance Letter I needed from the DOJ? Well after a couple months and hair pulling and fingerprinting twice...I found out today, I did not need to do ANY OF THAT!!! My social worker said today, they already had everything they needed and they would include the information in my homestudy regarding this.

!!!!!!!

Sigh...not sure WHY someone could not have told me that on one of my 25 calls before.....but....at least I know now. Just keep swimming....

So I had my first homestudy meeting. Went well. We laughed a lot. and the home visit is scheduled for next Friday! yea! I was hoping the homestudy would be done by the end of April. (or sooner). I found out today, they say 8 weeks!!!!! 4 WEEKS for my social worker to write it and 4 weeks for the home office to review and approve it.

sigh. She admitted it does not take that long to write one homestudy, but the fact is I am not the only one, so it is more the "queue" wait, than the actually writing. And we laughed over the fact that, yea, I realize it is not all ab0ut me!!! (Truly, yea, ok, I know, it is not. :) )

So I am contend with us moving at the pace we move at. God has his timing. So with this timing there is not telling if my dossier will get to Ethiopia and through court in enough time for me to get custody before the courts close for the rainy session...with is mid-July until October...or close to it...a couple months or more.

I would rather travel during summertime, yet on the other hand, having the kids in school when I travel and being settled on the home front, may be a better tme for all involved. Either way, God has it covered and I...well ..... I just keep on swimming....

I bought some goodies for a little package to be taken over to Olivia with another family that is traveling ...with an album of the family. The kids are going to draw some pictures to put in it!

This is the fun stage of the whole adoption journey. Putting a face to our dream, praying for her at night, thinking and talking about her with the kids.....

God is good!

Just keep swimming......

YES!

I said YES! (With God's permission!) I accepted today the referral of a precious little angel from Ethiopia..... "Olivia" Mame (or Mamea...not sure of the spelling or pronounciation.)

Just perfect for us..... I pray we are perfect for her. She is lovely, cute, smiley, happy. Due to Ethiopia law, I cannot post pictures of her in a public setting until she is really mine, after the court date...so I am sorry...because she is lovely!

She is around 6 or 6 1/2...and loves pink, (as I mentioned the other day!)

So I have my first homestudy interview tomorrow. I am hoping my homestudy will be done by the end of April, or sooner. Then I get it all authenticated at the Secy of State...then off to Assistant Stork to be checked and send to the Ethiopian Embassy and the US Consulate..then on to Ethiopia. Then it gets translated and hopefully approved by the MOWA. Then a court date is set. Once I pass court, then I travel.

Easy as cake, no? (LOL!) ok, not so, but !! Big step...we found OLIVIA!

God is good. But we all knew that, huh?

Why must we care about orphans?

There are some 143 million children around the world who are considered orphans through losing one or both parents, according to the United Nations. Moreover, every 14 seconds a child loses a parent due to Aids – the leading cause for a child to lose both parents.

Yet between 1971 and 2001, US citizens have adopted only over a quarter million children, according to the US Department of State.




Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27

Well, only if it is convenient. Only if it won't put you out, or financially cause a challenge. And only if you can still afford those new soccer shoes and daily latte's. And only if they are cute and well behaved. OH yea, and only if it does not cost much and the paperwork is easy. Oh, and only if someone else does it and I can pray for them. ..... Only......


I was thinking...there are many ways we can become polluted by the world. But one way, that cries out to me most, especially in the culture in which I live, is the myopic view of our lives and what we think we can do or bear, and what we think is not for us...ie Adopting may be for some folks, but not for me because : _____________. Fill in the blank.

But yet, there are 143 million children needing families? If not the Christian community WHO is God calling on do adopt? If not us, than WHO????
Like the froggie in the boiling pot of water, for so many years I became desensitized to what I had become, what I expected from life, what I was ENTITLED to... yet, God, all the time is crying out for His faithful to step up to His heart cry.

The children.

Our children.

Why would we not? Is there any reason good enough? Can I look Jesus in the eye and say, I could not Lord, because ________________ and then look down at His nail scarred hands?

Pretty in Pink...

2 months 3 weeks and 6 days.

I may have found Olivia today. I think I have. I will have more information tomorrow...but today may have been the day when I laid eyes on her for the first time...

Wearing pink and a beautiful smile. Will she want to be my daughter? Will she want to be in this family that looks different from each other and different from her?

Abba, if this is our Olivia, make it so.

I have about 8-10 pictures of her, thanks to some families that just returned from Addis Ababa and took lots of pictures of all the children, and in each of them, she is wearing pink! :) And in one a pink Minnie Mouse! Minnie Mouse was Mary's favorite when we adopted her.... How cute that they may have this in common!

Now I just wait for more information...tomorrow........

Half a Step Closer

My First Home Study Appt is Scheduled!

Wheeeee! I have my first appt scheduled for next week, March 28th. It seems like it has been so much scurrying to get to this point. Paperwork, appts, reading...and I know I am not all the way there, but.....at least I am half a step closer!

And since I have been through all this homestudy stuff before, I am not worried.

Half a happy dance!

God is good and loving beyond comprehension....

I just love God. He is so caring. I was troubled, not doubting my intent to adopt, but wanting to be open to questions posed to me. Like others who walk with God and get a call to do something..."different" and then get hit with obstacles or at least a bumpy road, I too can either bully through and wait on God...

I asked God, still feeling peace over my adoption plans, if He would in some way that would mean something to me...He would know best, reconfirm to me that I was walking the path HE would have for me.

And then I just restfully sat that request at His feet, not knowing for sure what He would show me or when.

That very night He showed me not once, but twice.

First, I have been reading Stepping Heavenward, by Elizabeth Prentiss, written in 1869. That night I picked it up to read where left off. Katy, the main character, went with her children to spend the summer on a farm. She was talking to the farmer's wife, Mrs. Brown, about children. Katy had four. Mrs Brown none. Mrs. Brown said children were fine, if you could afford them, but that she was lving month to nmonth and trying to pay off her mortgage. Katy agreed their is worry and care of children, but that is only half of the tstory...that there is pure joy and delight as well. (How often am I smiling over my little ones and like Katy, as God works in me and I become more at rest in Him, less selfish and less upset over petty things - the more joy and delight I experience.)

Katy went on to say, suppose you do have nore money comin in and less going out and you pay off the wole mortgage...what then? (temporary concerns, is this my eternal calling to pay off a mortgage....) Who will enjoy it with you? Who willyou leve it to> Who will car for you when you are old? (grin)

Here is the clincher, she said:

"I want to see little children adorning every home as flowers adorn every meadow and every wayside. I want to see them welcomed to the homes they enter, see their parents grow less and less selfish and more and more loving because they have came. I want to see God's precious gifts accepted, not frowned upon and refused."

Yes Lord...

Later I was doing my Patriarch homework and reading about Abram and Sarai in Genesis...about following the path God sets for us. That He bless me and makes me "many".

So I am at peace and thankful to my Abba who reinforces the path He leads me on.

Slightly Despondent...

I am slightly despondent, but I will recover....

I was planning on my tax return to fund a big chunk of my adoption. Every year for the past 6-7 years I have gotten a return about the same amount, so yes, even though it is counting those eggs before they hatch, I WAS counting on it.

I just fund out it is about 5000 less than normal. Not sure why. Something to do with selling stock. (Although they hold out taxes on stock, and my stock was not worth much....)

So part of my gut says go double-check the stock part, that they don't have it wrong. And another part says, boy, wow, I was counting on that...now what do I do?

But the biggest part says, God knows all this. And if He is blessing the adoption, He will bless a way to fund it.

Thoughts on Adoption..by John Piper

Before the world, in love adoption has its origin, from God....and through Him...the reason: Grace - bringing praise to his name.

John Piper at 50 adopted his daughter. God's grace is put on display most beautiful through adoption.

God planned from eternity to fold my children into our family.

Eph 1:3-6
In love He predestined us unto adoption....

Fingerprinting...

So another click on the train.... I was fingerprinted today. My last piece of paper (other than my home study) for my Dossier requires that I submit my fingerprints to get a clearance letter.

It won't be the last time I am fingerprinted..(Still need to be fingerprinted by immigration), but at least it is a day where it feels like I did something tangible to move forward.

Hang on, Olivia, we are coming.....

Something Happen, something happen, something happen....

Hurry up, fill this out,, ok wait...wait, oh gosh, hurry, ok ok

wait....not hurry. wait.

sigh...

outta my hands

God's timing....

sigh....

Sometimes you just want SOMETHING TO HAPPEN. :)

ok that's ok. I will go get some coffee..... to Calm down.! ha!

Another Clack on the Track....

Well I hit another milestone today on my journey to Ethiopia and Olivia. I mailed off my last requirement for my homestudy pre-work. So now I get assigned a social worker and the homestudy interviews and visits begin. Yea.... I had such a funny story from my homestudy when I adopted from China...but it is too long for me to retell this am. Nothing can top that one though.

So...if I could just get Alberto to call me back on my clearance letter.....it has been three days and a weekend. Think I should bug him?

Quite a Lifestyle

I have a blog at work that is only available to other employees and focusing on topics pertinent to the workplace. Many employees post blogs at this same site.

Since so much of what I am about is NOT work related, I put a comment and link on my work blog to my adoption and family blogs.

A few days ago, I was walking through our gray-walled cubicle halls and a co-worker that I know very slightly, we pursued an undergraduate degree at the same school, same program 10 or so years ago, bumped into me and mentioned that he had read my blog. (I was not sure if he meant the work one, or one of the others. After his next comment, I figured out which.)

He said something about me adopting, don't exactly remember what, then he said: "Quite the lifestyle."

I smiled, yep, and moved on. But those words stuck with me. I do not think they were intended to be a compliment. More a declaration as to my questionable frame of mind to make this type of lifestyle by CHOICE. :)

Lifestyle: the typical way of life of an individual

Life: the sequence of physical and mental experiences that make up the existence of an individual.

Style: a distinctive manner or custom of behaving or conducting oneself, also : a particular mode of living

Quite: to an extreme

So, thinking about it. I get his point of view. He is older, single, (divorced) grown children. Lives alone. A different lifestyle than mine.

But I now like the thought that I have "quite a lifestyle" with my children. An extremely distinctive way of experiencing our existence.

Yes, I can live with that.... and am blessed to be on a journey to add another to our extremely distinctive way.