Nine Months DTE!

Who would have ever guessed that we would have already had a referral by the time we made it to being nine months DTE?!?!  God is so good!

Needless to say, Jonathan and I are having an incredible time shopping for our little girl! We realize that we should not go overboard, as we do not want to overwhelm her when she comes home, but it is hard not to : ) Have any of you spent five minutes in a Toys ‘r Us lately? You could go into debt in the baby doll aisle alone!

Below are a few pictures of some items we have purchased so far – thought you may enjoy seeing them.

The main thing we are holding off on for the moment is clothes. We will buy a few things for care packages to her and for our first trip, but will do the majority of that shopping after we have a chance to meet her in person : )

As always, please continue your prayers for the process to move smoothly and for our little girl to know how much she is loved.

No Specific News

No news on a court date yet.

Just wanted to let everyone know that our home study visit went well yesterday morning and we should have our updated home study to send to USCIS soon. That will allow us to obtain an updated I-171H form, which authorizes us to bring our little girl into the U.S. This is a very important document that we need in order to pass court on our first trip, so the sooner we get it, the better, to ensure we are prepared for that visit (in order to hopefully avoid any unnecessary delays).

At the moment, it seems very unlikely that we will receive a court date before the courts close for the rainy season, but it is never certain. Even if we were to get a court date soon, it would be unlikely that we would have our I-171H from USCIS, which would cause us to not pass court (which actually occurs commonly) the first time. That would cause a delay between trip #1 and trip #2, which we would prefer to avoid. It seems like it would be better to have a bit more time before trip #1 to get all of our paperwork together so that we have a better chance of passing court the first time and getting to travel for trip #2 sooner. That would be good for all of us, I believe, as the time between the two trips will seem like an eternity as it is : )

We will continue to keep you posted. Thank you for your prayers and support!

Acceptance Paperwork Sent

We still feel like we are in a whirlwind!

Jonathan and I were able to speak to Dr. Gray at the International Adoption Clinic in Chicago on Friday afternoon. He reviewed the referral with us and provided his insight, from a medical standpoint, on her history. We enjoyed talking with him – he was very thorough and helpful with our questions.

Since there were no surprises from him, we sent our acceptance paperwork to AWAA on Friday afternoon and are currently waiting to hear back from one of the Africa Coordinators (our family coordinator is on vacation this week!). She will submit our information to the Ethiopian courts to request a court date, which will tell us when we will travel for our first trip! Again, the goal at the moment is to get a court date BEFORE the courts close for the rainy season in August.

Please continue to pray that the process moves smoothly and we hear back soon about a court date. Most importantly, though, please continue your prayers for our little girl : ) She is absolutely beautiful and her information & pictures indicate that she is a happy, outgoing little girl. Even while we cannot be with her to love on her during this time, we know that God is always with her. We pray that she can feel His peace during this uncertain time.  

WE HAVE A REFERRAL!!!!

Oh my goodness – our lives have changed drastically in the past several days. Everything is great, but we are just a bit overwhelmed!!

We have been prayerfully considering expanding our child request, as we are currently in the process of updating our home study (it expires in July). This is the best time to make changes and we realize that so many people would like to have a baby. We finally decided that we just want to be parents and help a child(ren) have a family & place to call home. So, we chose to change our request pretty drastically. In fact, just last Thursday we received approval from our social worker to request 1 – 2 children, 0 – 5 years!

So, as though this were not a big enough change in and of itself, we received a phone call from Jennifer (our family coordinator from AWAA) on Monday afternoon. She had a referral for us!!!!! Although we anticipated that these changes would slightly decrease our wait time, we would have never guessed they would have made this big of a difference! Just 2 weeks ago, we thought we still had 10 – 16 months!

At this point we cannot post too much (due to strict restrictions on confidentiality), but we would like all of you to know that we have received a referral (pictures and medical & social information) for a 5 year old little girl from Ethiopia!! She is absolutely beautiful : ) One of my favorite features of her is a small dimple on her right cheek – I have a dimple on my right cheek that I inherited from my Grandpa Cunningham. Because I am the only grandchild that inherited this trait, I have always been so proud of it. I think it is so amazing that God allows us to share that feature : )

So, we are currently waiting to hear back from the international adoption clinic in Chicago and then we will mail in our acceptance paperwork. We hope to receive a court date before the courts close for the rainy season in Ethiopia, but there is a chance we may have to wait until after the rainy season. We will certainly keep you posted : )

Thank you for your continued prayers!!

Upcoming Spaghetti Dinner

Final preparations are being made for the spaghetti dinner fundraiser that Highland Compassion Orphan Ministry is hosting for Jonathan and I this coming Saturday. Please continue to pray for a successful event – that many who were unaware of the orphan crisis before come to know and feel a call to help. We pray that He is glorified through this dinner and ministry launch.

Stay Connected

We wanted to let everyone know that we added a new “gadget” to our blog that allows you to sign up to receive e-mail notifications each time we post something new to the blog. Since there is not too much happening at the moment, we thought it would be a great way to stay connected during this period. Thanks for following our adoption journey : )

Eight Months DTE!

Time keeps ticking away...

We have not heard of any specific changes to the Ethiopia program at this time, but continued efforts are being made to smooth the process. Please continue your prayers.