Waiting to Travel

It has been almost 6 months since we accepted our referral of our son. With all the new policies that were put in place in January, we are still not close to traveling. It is very disheartening to think that our son is sitting and waiting for us. We have cleared all the hurdles on the US side of things now we wait for two Ethiopian Signatures. One from the regional director and one from the Minister of Women and Children. It is frustrating to know that our paper has been sitting on the desk of the regional director for a couple of months now. We pray that she will sign within the next week or two so that we can make it to Ethiopia before court closure in August. We are getting down to the wire. Please pray for our situation as well an many others who are exactly where we are in this process.

A Referral !!!

Yes finally the call we have been waiting for. I received the call around 10am on January 22nd. When I realized it was Sally, from our agency, it really did not hit me that she would be calling with a referral. A couple weeks before we had looked into a 7 year old boy that was on the waitlist. He was not "referral ready" yet but we were given some of his information. On Monday, Jan. 20th we found out that he was not 7 years old but much older. Somehow his birthdate was wrong on his paperwork so unfortunately we would not be getting him. So when Sally called two days later I was not expecting a refferal, I assumed she was calling about the 7 year old. So needless to say when she said she a little boy for us to consider I was over the moon. Madi and Ethan happened to be home from school that day, due to the recent snow, so they were able to see his picture and read about him. It was awesome to share that with them. Unfortunately, Dan has been working out of town during the week so he was not home with us. We did facetime that evening with him and agreed wholeheartedly as a family that he would be our son/brother. We had to wait a few days for the adoption contract to be finalized then all our paperwork was sent to USCIS. Now, we wait for a paper called a PAIR letter. Without this letter we can not travel for our first trip. Meanwhile we found out this past week that our Birthmom courtdate is March 10th. This court appearance is for his Birthmom to agree to us adopting him and taking him out of the country. We pray that she will have peace about this process.

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.