David and Goliath

I am sure most of us remember the heartwarming story of David and Goliath. The little boy who defeats the giant with just a sling shot and a stone. I have always loved that story. It reminds me that you can accomplish anything not matter your size or strength. Well the last week and half, God has put the David and Goliath story in front of me four times. Isn't it amazing how he puts things in our path wanting us to study it and use it? Well I began to look at the story in a whole new light after the fourth time. It was talked about in a weekly bible study that I am doing with some friends. As I began to dig deeper into the story, I realized that there is some much more than the underdog beating the giant. It is also about David's lesson in patience. Wow! Did I need to hear that at this point in my life!! Isn't God awesome!! For about a week, I have been going through a sort of depression about our adoption, my bio kids, and some other stuff we are dealing. God knew what was going on in my heart and he placed  just the right story in front of me. When we started the adoption journey we were told 9 to 12 months. We were also told that once we were on the waiting list expect a wait time of 1 to 3 months for a referral. As of today our wait has been 4 and 1/2 months. We started at number 49 and we are currently number 38. Not much movement this last couple of months. With the court closure in Ethiopia, seems like the orphanges have kind of shut down as well. Courts should be reopening soon so we are hoping things will start to pick up. As for now we continue to wait patiently for our time when we can defeat our giant.

New Number

Each month the new updated waitlist comes out. It is usually the first day of the month unless it falls on a weekend or holiday. Starting at 6am on July 1st, I start checking my email. I know we are still far down on the list but it so exciting to see how many referrals and how many spots you move. We moved a total of 3 spots this month. So we are now at 46!! They had three referrals this past month. Kind of a downer since April and May there were over 20 referrals. But our agency continues to keep us in the loop by letting us know there are a 20 more referrals coming. They don't know when but we are all hoping this month.
So for now we continue to wait patiently!!

Patience

It is so hard to have patience!! I have had this problem my entire life. But God is in control. I have to keep reminding myself that it is his timing not mine.
As we wait for our son from Ethiopia, we are reminded again of this patience. I keep checking my messages (phone and email) for any correspondence from our agency. We have been on the waitlist a total of 2.5 weeks and I am expecting a miracle I guess. There are families that have been on the waitlist for over 16 months. Wow they must have amazing patience.
Dan and I have had many conversations about our son. We wonder what he will look like and his story. I can't imagine what his parents/grandparents are going through as they make it possible for us to love and provide for him the rest of his life. Deep down I wish there were no orphans in the world. That every child could be raised by their family but unfortunately that is just not true. So God has placed this situation on our heart and we are ready to follow him.
Adoption is not for everyone especially international adoption. But it is for us and so we are patiently waiting and waiting.

Officially on the waitlist at number ...........

Yep it is official. We made it to the waitlist at number ...................................................................
                                                                            
                                                                    49 !!!

Now the waiting really begins. At this point our prayer is that we have patience. God is in conntrol and we know that he already has our son picked out for us.

Name Change

As you can see I changed the name of our blog. It used to be called Booges and Bubba. Our bio daughter, Madi's nickname since she was born is booges. When our bio son, Ethan was born we asked Madi what his nickname should be and she said Bubba. So our blog has been named after our childrens nicknames.
With this new adoption in the works, I decided to add our adopted son's nickname of BB. Not sure why we call him that but whenever we talk about him we call him BB. Kind of a fun and personal way of conecting to him even though we don't even know what he looks like.
So our new blog shall be called Booges, Bubba & BB. Wouldn't it be funny if his real name starts with a B.

Moving ahead

I got some of our papers state authenticated yesterday in Richmond and then handed off everything in our Dossier to the Assitant Stork Courier service managed by Laura and her husband. It was hard to hand over those papers that I have slaved over and cried over for the last 4 months but I know that God is in control. He had a hand in everything yesterday. It was amazing to watch him work.
As we wait for our Dossier to clear the State Dept and the Ethiopian Embassy we silently perpare for the day that our name is added to the waitlist.

Our timeline that lead up to this day:
January 16 - Official Application filed
January 25- First Home Study meeting
Feb. 4th - Second Home Study meeting
Feb. 7th - Third Home Study meeting
March 20th -Picked up finalized Home Study and mailed into USCIS
March 28th - Received notice that USCIS received application
April 6th - Received notice of Fingerprint appt on April 24th
April 9th - Got fingerprinted (They took walkins)
April 24th - Approved for Orphan Visa
April 29th - Received I-171h Orphan Visa in mail
April 30th - Got Letter of Affidavit and Power of Attorney State Sealed
April 30th - Dropped of Dossier at Assitant Stork in Stafford
May 1st - Assitant Stork delivered Dossier to State Dept.

Our agency, Adoption Associates, has been very busy these past few weeks. There has been 13 new referrals. Woohoo!! How exciting for these new families. We are hoping and praying that this trend keeps up when we are added to the list.

Exciting times are ahead!!

As many of you know, we are in the proccess of adopting a boy from Ethiopia. It is an exciting but nerve raking time for our family. As of now we are not on the waiting list for  a child. That will change once our dossier(Paperwork) has been sent to our agency in Michigan. Why Michigan you ask? Well we did a lot of research with the different agencies our the US and felt a calling to go with Adoption Associates. They have an awesome group of people in their Ethiopia program. Also they have a very strong Ethiopia program. We wanted someone who was familiar with the country and its policies. Because as you can imagine each country requires different things. It can cause a few headaches but it will be so worth it in the end.
Our children are very excited about this adoption. Everynight our son prays for his little brother that he is kept safe and happy. It brings tears to my eyes everytime I hear it.
Our home study social worker commented to Dan and I that our kids were very well educated on the whole proccess. We told her that we have talked with kids extensively to make sure they were okay with this proccess and what it will mean when their little brother is here.
We have been blessed with very supportive friends. But not everyone has been over the moon about our decision. We have ran into some oposition from people. Mostly about our son being of a diffferent color than us. Well our theroy and our children's theroy is that GOD created everyone the same and we should treat everyone the same not matter what color their skin is. That is our belief. We have felt called to adopt from Ethiopia for a number of years now but God is telling us now is the time so we are jumping in with both feet.
We hope you will continue to join us on our journey!!

-Heather-