December 2014 Update

Brad and I have been busy the past month gathering the required information for our domestic adoption.  It is all stuff we've done before but in the world of adoption, anything with a date on it has to be updated yearly, especially if your adoption plans change.  We have gotten new copies of our driver's licenses and insurance cards.  We realized we couldn't find our Social Security cards (likely lost in some adoption-related paperwork) so we got to go sit at the local Social Security office one day during lunch to request new cards.  We had to get new original copies of our birth certificates and marriage licenses.  We had to go to the police station for new letters stating we are not local hooligans.  We had to request yet again that 5 of our friends and family members write us letters of recommendation.  We had to get updated employment verifications, W2s and 1040s.  This week we went on Tuesday for our labs and then back on Thursday for our medicals (physicals).  We had to explain to our doctors that we realized there was no medically necessary reason for us to be tested (yet again) for TB, HIV, syphilis, and diabetes (A1C test), but it was required on the form.  We've done 10 hours of online training for domestic adoption and completed various questionnaires about transracial and biracial adoption and how we will integrate our child's heritage into our lives.  We've also completed 5 adoption agency applications, each slightly different and some with their own set of questions.  We've taken some casual updated family photos and written rough drafts of our "Dear Birth Mother letter" and information pages for our profile book.  We've selected potential photos for our profile and come up with a general "design" plan.

So what is left?  We are waiting for our FBI and Child Abuse clearances to come back.  Hopefully, then our home study will be completed and we can review it and get copies of it.

We also have to scan all the paperwork to FAC, including the adoption agency applications.  We have to make our profile book and then get copies of it printed.

I am relieved to know we are done for now with the paperwork aspect and can focus on our profile book.  It has been so hard to do all this in December with all the added busyness of the holiday season (and  Brandon's birthday thrown in).  Hopefully, we will be ready to start presenting our profile sometime in January.

I am trying to watch out for good deals on baby items we would need immediately.  We bought an infant car seat, but there are a lot of items we will need to wait on, especially gender-specific things.  We have started trying to narrow down our potential baby names.  There is a chance we could get basically no notice if we get picked by a birth mom who has already delivered, so we are just trying to prepare for anything.

We are getting excited that we will have a new little one(s) in our arms soon!



Change

Change in life is inevitable.  Often it is a good thing, but sometimes it is not.  One thing we have learned on our adoption journey the past few years, is that adoption is full of the unexpected.  We have sort of learned to "roll with the punches," not because we always like it, but because it just happens so often.  Adoption is messy and heart-breaking and hard. . . even in the best of circumstances. 

A year ago in August, I had a "vision" that something was "beginning" and that another significant event was going to happen in November 2014 (15 months later).  At the time, I thought maybe it meant we would get our referral, so I have prayed and held on to this month for over a year with hope.  Things didn't exactly turn out as I had prayed.  What I do know is that last August, Ethiopia was implementing new policies to make adoptions more ethical.  These changes have caused a dramatic slow down in referrals to the point that our agency can no longer even guess how long our wait might be.  At the rate of referrals over the past year, we could be looking at MANY years of waiting.  The past couple months each bit of news we received has been less and less encouraging to the point that it led Brad and I to reevaluate our adoption plans.  Our biggest fear (besides waiting for years, which we've already been doing), is that the program could collapse completely before we ever got to bring our kids home.  Eighteen months ago, no one would have foreseen that possibility, but now it doesn't seem so impossible.  If adoption is anything, it is full of risk and uncertainty.  Each type of adoption has its own risks, and that was something we considered when first attempting to adopt a waiting child in foster care  and then with international adoption.  We started with what we considered the least risky form and were unsuccessful.  Apparently for our family, God really wanted us out of our comfort zone, which we have gradually been moving from since we began in 2011.

Earlier this year, I met another adoptive mother at an adoption conference who was also on the waiting list to adopt from Ethiopia.  She was starting the process of a concurrent domestic adoption using Faithful Adoption Consultants (FAC) while they waited on a referral from Ethiopia.  The next thing I knew, her family was bringing home their beautiful newborn baby girl.  I started following FAC on Facebook and was impressed by what I saw.  They are a small Christian company that networks with adoption agencies and attorneys around the country.  They work only in states where the birth mother signs consent within 72 hours, and they screen each situation to determine the risks.  FAC prays constantly for their families, the birth moms, and the children.  They have had 100% success in their families bringing home a child within the year contract.  This fall I noticed they posted they were taking applications for the upcoming year.  In early October, they had 2 slots remaining.  Midway through the month I contacted the woman I knew who'd used FAC to find out more about her experience.  After hearing her input and more prayer, Brad and I decided to send them an inquiry email, and we got a response the next day.  A few days later, we spoke with Courtney, the owner of the company.  We were very encouraged when we learned how FAC helps adoptive families find placements and advises them throughout the process.

Brad and I prayed and talked some more and decided to submit an application to FAC.  They only work with a certain number of families at a time, so once they have filled their quota, any remaining families get put on a waiting list.  I figured that we would be waiting due to the time that had passed since they started filling their list for 2015.  We submitted our application and letter of recommendation from our pastor on November 6.  Over the weekend, I prayed that God would make His will clear.  If we were to stay with Ethiopia, let us not be accepted into FAC's program or at least put us on the waiting list.  On November 10, we received an email of acceptance into their program.  Immediately after that email, we received an email from our Ethiopian adoption agency with more bad news.  That was our "sign" from God.

What happens now?  We have to update our home study for a domestic adoption.  We were due for an update anyway, so hopefully this will not be a huge ordeal.  Lifeline, the agency who did our home study for Ethiopia, will be doing this for us.  We also have to prepare a profile book about our family that will be shown to birth moms.  We are on yet another "paper chase" for original birth certificates, marriage licenses, letters of recommendation, and various clearances.  We also have to get new medical physicals.

The plan at this point is to "go live" with our profile at the beginning of the year (or as soon as we can get all our documents together).  Hopefully within a few months (or even days/weeks which is not unusual for some FAC families), we will have our newest addition.  Domestic for us is by far the riskiest form of adoption in terms of the chances of a failed match and the financial requirements.  Maybe this was God's will all along and He just knew we weren't ready (or desperate enough) for that plan 3.5 years ago.  And He is right.  We had quickly nixed the idea of a domestic adoption in the past due to the risk and our lack of knowledge about the process.  Even when we are matched with a birth mom, she can change her mind at any point up until she signs those legal documents.  We can't plan too much for the baby we are expecting until we know for sure that the birth mom will stick with her decision to place her precious child for adoption.  I cannot imagine how difficult such a decision would have to be for a mother.

We do know we will not be adopting in Alabama (due to AL's adoption laws).  Because we will be out of state, we will not be able to bring our baby home for 1-3 weeks until the legal paperwork comes through allowing us to leave the state.

I am SO weary of the paperwork, questionnaires, requirements and the waiting.  Literally, when I saw the required items needed for FAC and then the items needed by Lifeline (many of which were identical), THIS is what immediately went through my mind:


"Worn" by Tenth Avenue North

I’m Tired I’m worn
My heart is heavy
From the work it takes
To keep on breathing
I’ve made mistakes
I’ve let my hope fail
My soul feels crushed
By the weight of this world

And I know that you can give me rest
So I cry out with all that I have left

Let me see redemption win
Let me know the struggle ends
That you can mend a heart
That’s frail and torn
I wanna know a song can rise
From the ashes of a broken life
And all that’s dead inside can be reborn
Cause I’m worn

I know I need to lift my eyes up
But I'm too weak
Life just won’t let up
And I know that you can give me rest
So I cry out with all that I have left

Let me see redemption win
Let me know the struggle ends
That you can mend a heart
That’s frail and torn
I wanna know a song can rise
From the ashes of a broken life
And all that’s dead inside can be reborn
Cause I’m worn

My prayers are wearing thin
Yeah, I’m worn
Even before the day begins
Yeah, I’m worn
I’ve lost my will to fight
I’m worn
So, heaven come and flood my eyes

Let me see redemption win
Let me know the struggle ends
That you can mend a heart
That’s frail and torn
I wanna know a song can rise
From the ashes of a broken life
And all that’s dead inside can be reborn
Cause all that’s dead inside will be reborn

Though I’m worn
Yeah I’m worn

 

 

I know that IF this ever ends, the struggle will totally be worth it in the end.  We are so excited to bring home a baby (or two)!  Please pray with us that we will finally complete our adoption in 2015! 

November 2014 Update

Things have been tough the past few weeks, or months really.  There have been no referrals we are aware of since early August.  Our waiting list number has not changed since September.  Our agency director made a trip to Ethiopia about a month ago and the report he made after the trip was discouraging, though not necessarily surprising.  Basically, the slowdown in referrals since new policies were implemented a year ago is the new norm.  Ethiopia is a third world country, so obviously underfunded, understaffed, under-everything that is needed to make adoption for orphans a smooth, relatively quick process.  Brad and I have been on the waiting list for a year this month.  The timeline we were originally given is totally out the window and at the rate things are going now, it is potentially years more of waiting before we could get a referral.  The scary thing is that there is no guarantee Ethiopia (or any foreign country) will still have an international program next year so the prospect of waiting several years is risky, to say the least.  Most of the progress we made on the waiting list the past year was really due to families ahead of us on the list dropping out.

That being said, Brad and I have some decisions to make.  We have been praying for discernment in this area.  Do we stay with Ethiopia for the long haul, no matter how long it takes, or do we consider other options?  Our agency reminded us that we can switch to another one of their programs without losing any of the money we have paid in so far.  That doesn't mean there wouldn't be any additional expenses, but it wouldn't be the same as starting over completely.  We did our "free" update on our fingerprints for international adoption in September (they expire every 15 months) and we are due to an immigration update before March of 2015.  This is our other "free" update that must be done every 18 months.  Brad and I realize that with the immigration update, we are going to have to update our home study anyway (which is very specific to the type of adoption we are doing), so that would be a good time to make a change, should that be the direction we choose.  The home study update will have fees associated with it regardless of what we decide.

Please continue to pray for our family.  We still very much feel called to adopt.  This isn't just Brad and I casually deciding we want to have more kids or feeling pity for orphans.  It is a direct call by God on our lives.  It is honestly a call on all our lives to "care for orphans and widows in their distress.". It doesn't mean everyone is called to adopt but all Christians are called to orphan care.  It IS the gospel.  We didn't choose this necessarily but are joyfully pursuing it (though there is not always joy in the process).  We don't know why we have had so many roadblocks and definitely the tendency is to question "why?" but no good will come from that.  We have invested a lot of prayer, time, money, and heartache into this, but wouldn't you do it over and over again for your children?  Micah still prays every night for her "baby brother or sister" and she now also prays for  all the people who are "sick and hurt" here and in Ethiopia.

As always, please keep in mind that our adoption information needs to remain confidential so as to not jeopardize the adoption process for everyone.  We anticipate having some news by next month or two about what the future holds for our adoption plans.

September 2014 Update

We moved 6 spots!



Dear Government Agency

Dear Government Agency,

My wife and I are currently waiting to be matched with our adopted children from Ethiopia, and we needed you to know a few things. I started to write this letter in anger.  This very letter almost included the phrase “pissed off” (well, technically, now it does, but you understand).  I would’ve used the words “ashamed”, “ridiculous”, “inept”, and “livid”.  I will not do so.

I could’ve made this a sarcastic piece, kind of like those open letters to people who made your burrito wrong or to Wal-Mart executives who don’t treat their employees properly.  Honestly, I enjoy and appreciate sarcasm immensely, and would’ve reveled in the bile of each jab as I bled you with a million tiny cuts.  After all, Americans are good at that now, right?  We savor each creeping word, each phrase turned just so, in order to ridicule and entertain, all in one glorious swipe of the pen.  As much as it pains me, I’ll pass on that letter as well.

Let me make one more clarification before I write the actual body of my letter. When I say “Government Agency”, I mean you:

-          United States State Department, which would issue our adopted children’s citizenship, granting them safe passage into our country.

-          USCIS, which would grant passports, allowing our family’s ability to leave our country, spend time in Ethiopia, and grant our newly expanded family’s ability to enter the U.S. again.

-          Ethiopian Ministry of Women’s, Children and Youth Affairs, which would grant release of our adopted children from their current technically legal families, officially declaring them orphans, and allowing them to become eligible for adoption.

-          UNICEF, which has advised Ethiopia and various other countries in order to strengthen their current adoption procedures, with the intention of providing the best care for the children involved.

-          Hague Convention, which provides guidelines and protections for all parties involved in the inter-country adoption process, from birth parents to adoptive parents, to (and most importantly) the orphans awaiting families.

-          Any other federal, state, or county agency whose systems and regulations are set up to support and promote orphans, which, in fact, like the previously mentioned agencies, ultimately do almost the exact opposite thing.

This is my message to you.

You are instruments of God.  Seriously, you are.  Romans 13:1 tells me so.

“For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God”

Please don’t forget that.  You have all worked together in thousands of instances to make inter-country or domestic adoption a reality for families all over this country.  I know you innately know this, because you use such appropriate language in your descriptions of your work. You use words and phrases such as the following on your websites.

“advocates”

“justice”

“welfare”

“equality”

“protection”

“supportive environment”…all of these for “the children”.

That is an awesome task, and in Ethiopia (at least)…and you’re blowing it.  Between 1999 and 2010, inter-country adoptions from Ethiopia grew at an amazing rate.  The numbers rose from literally 42 to 2,511 in that time.  This is the type growth that shows a response to the heightened need from forever families for the estimated 4.6 million orphans in this country.

Since 2010, however, this number not just creeped down, but plummeted, summing 993 adoptions in 2013.  I know folks who aren’t involved in adoptions are curious as to why.  You would probably answer that you want more families in Ethiopia to be able to keep their children, so you provide subsidies to them.  You might even answer that corruption has tainted the process, making for longer lead times to confirm the orphan status of these children.  You might even have enough pretense to say that it’s better for a child to grow up in his or her country of origin, regardless of whether he or she has a family or not.

My answer would be that you’ve confused your divine calling with political laziness, based on a secular worldview.  My only evidence needed is shown in the amazing documentary “Stuck”.  You can purchase your own indictment, and even watch a trailer at  http://buy.stuckdocumentary.com.

  I would encourage you and anyone else to watch this spectacle of shame and compare them to how well we support adoption as a whole in this country, because in a sense we do; it’s just focused on an ironic skew. Read these numbers and see how you feel about those ASPCA commercials and benefit galas, which successfully place upwards of 35% (2.7 million out of 7.6 million, average, annually) of all orphaned animals in the U.S. each year.  All the while, in Ethiopia, 0.02% of orphaned children were adopted to U.S. families in the year 2013.

Yes, while failing to heed your divine calling to be an instrument of God’s grace, you have (for many) become instruments of God’s wrath against this fallen world.  You have become evidence that Romans 1:18-23 is true.

            “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.  For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.  For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.  So they are without excuse.  For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images….”

You don’t recognize God in your work, and your image of idolatry has become political idealism.  Here are a few examples from “Stuck” and our family’s own experience.

“Should this process be governed through checks and balances?” Yes, of course. 

 “Should they go through them 3 times?”  No.

“Should children be bought on the black market? “ Absolutely not.

“Should it take legal action and over 3 years to make an inter-country adoption possible?”  What do you think?

“Should you protect children from predatory behavior of evil people?”  Without question.  

“Should families with multiple background checks have to get fingerprinted every 15 months to confirm their identity?”  Probably not.

“Should children be matched with the right forever families?”  Yes.

“Should these children be left in orphanages until they age out at 16, only to be put out onto the streets?”  I’ll let you make that call.

Again, I would remind you or your unique and beautiful potential.  Consider these words from the Bible.

            “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” – Galatians 4:4-5

                “…even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.  In love, he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace….” – Ephesians 1:5

                “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”” – Romans 8:15

Hence, when you do your job properly, and as it was intended (because adoption is God’s idea, afterall) to be done, you become a key part of possibly the most potent display and image of the gospel we can see in this world of ours.  Adoption is the gospel, and this is the real beauty in it.  It’s not about bringing a poor kid into our middle class lives.  It’s not about condescending to a lower class, and thus, showing how “generous” we are.  It’s not about just having another child, because we could’ve conceived and born multiple children in the time we’ve waited.

It is about displaying the glory and the grace of God, through obedience to His call.

Honestly, this is all we are trying to do.  It is a simple thing, but it is a huge thing.  All we ask is that you focus on the truth behind your vocation.  Even if you don’t care about Jesus, could you at least re-focus on your stated intent – to help children?  I’m starting to feel guilty while pointing to the Church and asking “where are you?” when there are 4.6 million orphans in Ethiopia alone.  Sometimes, I get the feeling that even if everyone in the Church would step up, you’d not allow the dream to happen.

My last reminder of your place is this.  Even if you ignore this need, all my words, and all the pleading of the adoption community, rest assured that you are STILL instruments of God.  This may sound odd, but you are instruments of God in that you are (whether you like it or not) producing suffering.

Your lack of action produces suffering for adoption agencies which are forced pull out of countries, due to lack of funds.  This produces suffering for the local citizens, who must endure hundreds of thousands of orphans (mostly uneducated and unskilled) who age out of orphanages each year, thus weighing on the social system of said country.  This produces suffering for that agency’s employees, as they (potentially) lose jobs.  This produces suffering for the families who await a referral, as they wait and wait and wait.  Lastly, this produces suffering for the ones who deserve it the least.  The children, for whom you advocate, whose only hope is a forever family, sit in the orphanages.

And they sit.

And they sit.

And they sit.

What does God do with suffering of His people (regardless of nationality)?

“It is for discipline that you have to endure.  God is treating you as sons.  For what son is there whom his father does not discipline…. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” – Hebrews 12:7 and 11

            “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” – Romans 5:3-5

I know and understand that this is not persecution of me or anyone else you want to help, for the authors were writing (at least in part) about religious persecution in these passages,  but when you takes your eyes off of your goal (and off of God), your lack of progress causes everyone involved pain, and yes, suffering, regardless of the degree.

Yes, your failure to do your job ultimately produces hope.  It is produced in, around, and within the adoption community.  Sadly, this is often the only thing we have left to cling to.  In our worst of times, we come close to despair, hoping in doubt, that this will ever happen.  In our best of times, we cling in faith, hoping in expectation of what God can and will do despite this fallen world.

I leave you with this.  You are instruments of God.  Will you be instruments that reproduce the image and message of the gospel?  Will you be instruments that display God’s righteous wrath against this fallen world?  Will you be instruments that produce hope through suffering?

Only God knows.

 

Our hope is in Him, and that is hope enough.

Sincerely,

The Adoption Community

August 2014 Update

Things have been discouraging the past few weeks with no referrals since early June.  Thankfully, there was an infant referral right at the end of July (as well as a referral of an older waiting child).  Our agency also corrected me on something I wrote in my post last month.  Although referrals typically are much slower during rainy season, the courts that close are federal courts and not necessarily regional courts.  The regional courts actually approve a child for adoption so there could still be referrals during that time, which we expect to last about 2 months from early August to early October (we have not had confirmation on the official dates yet).  Still, it is hard to see our wait list number and not get discouraged.  I know people who started out at just over half this number who have now been waiting 2 years.

Our newest number is:



Brad and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary this weekend.  Our anniversary is August 14 but since school starts next week, we decided to celebrate early before our schedules got hectic.  We spent the night in Huntsville and enjoyed some (rare) time alone.  He surprised me with a beautiful arrangement of orchids:

 

 

Before heading home on Saturday, we stopped at Toys R Us.  When we were parking, I noticed some empty spots at the front closest to the storm marked by this sign:

 

 

 

It was sort of bittersweet. . . not because I really wanted or needed to part that close to the store front, but because as an adoptive mom in waiting, I AM an expectant mother and have been for 3 years now.  Tonight Micah fell asleep while we were watching a movie, and I got to hold her in my arms.  I looked down at her little face and remembered how much she still looked like the day she was born.  I hugged her little body that is growing bigger by the day and wondered when and even IF I would ever get to do this again.  Despite our wait and all the uncertainties that come with adoption, I am still so grateful for the family God has given me.  And I still have hope that He isn't done yet. . . .







July 2014 Update

We got our first taste of Ethiopian food in June when our family made a trip to Nashville.  We ate at Gojo Ethiopian Café and Restaurant.  Funny thing. . . I had heard about the laid-back lifestyle/culture in Ethiopia and we got to experience that in planning this day trip.  I had researched our options for lunch and had actually chosen to go to another Ethiopian restaurant.  According to their website, they were open all day, but when we pulled in, straight from a 2.5 hour drive, it was closed.  Brad called from the parking lot and was informed they were opening at 1:30 pm.  It was 11:30 am at the time and we were all hungry so we quickly got on our phones and found another place that was only about 5 miles away.  We got there and were afraid it was closed as well.  It didn't have the best curb appeal.  The parking was behind the restaurant, but we had to walk around to the front (which bordered a busy street) to get inside.  Once inside, Gojo was decked out in African décor.  They had a lunch buffet, and we decided that was the best way to taste a variety of dishes and not risk a potentially long wait if we ordered food.  The food was really good and even the kids all found things they liked.  I have to say the injera (spongy flat bread that is a main part of meals) was not at all what I was expecting.  Our waitress was a sweet younger woman from Ethiopia.  She asked us how old Micah was and told us she had a 3 year old daughter whose birthday was the day before Micah's.  She also had an almost 2 year old and was a little surprised when we told her we were planning to adopt from Ethiopia.  She mentioned we must be planning a big family--ha!



One of my "plans" for preparing for our adoption that I finally got around to starting this month was reading more books about adoption.  I read the A Christian's Guide to the Connected Child, Fields of the Fatherless, Brown Babies Pink Parents, and I am almost finished with Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew.  In July I plan to read There is No Me Without You and Parenting the Hurt Child.

I am grateful that we did move 2 spots on the waiting list but a little discouraged it wasn't more.  We'd been led to believe that once the referrals started again in Ethiopia, there would be a "flood" of backlogged children waiting to be matched.  So far that hasn't happened.  On the brighter side, the post-referral process is supposedly working well.  Currently, the time between a referral and court (official adoption) is taking about 5 months, and the time between court and Embassy (bringing the child home) is taking around 2 months.





I am praying for a big month of referrals in July because courts will close for the rainy season in August and will likely not reopen until October.  During court closure, no children can be approved for referral for adoption so there are very few, if any, referrals.  Until next month. . . 

June 2014 Update

I got what I wanted (besides an actual referral) for our June update! 





We moved 5 spots to 140, which I had arbitrarily picked as my goal number for this month's update.  I knew there had been 2 referrals in May, so I was prepared to only move 2 slots.  We don't know exactly how we ended up moving 5 slots but we are still grateful for it!  As usual now, I looked up Psalm 140, and while most of this psalm is dark, I found the last 2 versus to be so appropriate!

 

 

   Our case worker calls to check in every couple months just to see how were are doing, to make sure we don't have any major life changes, and to answer any questions we may have.  She called in May, and I told Brad afterwards, I almost thought she was fishing for information to see if we would consider a referral outside our current parameters.  The case worker and I reviewed our children's current ages as well as our adoption parameters, and she asked if we would consider expanding our age parameters.  I told her we would consider it potentially in the future as our children get older, but not necessarily at this point.  We chose our parameters because we wanted one child younger than Micah and a potential second child younger than Brandon.

 

So a little weird moment:  in our email update this month, our agency (Lifeline) listed some waiting children affiliated with the agency who represents us in Ethiopia as well as waiting children with a second agency Lifeline contracts with.  There have been some occasions where Lifeline families on the same waiting list we are on are offered a referral match with the other agency if a referral is not matched with any of that agency's waiting families.  It would require updating all the dossier paperwork and some additional expenses to change to the other agency, but we would certainly consider it for a referral.  On the other agency's waiting children list (which has never been revealed to us in the past), there was a healthy sibling set of 2 boys aged 5 and 8.  I now believe that the day I spoke with our case worker, she may have been considering telling us about that sibling set!  Honestly, when I saw the info on the sibling set, I even thought maybe we should consider them and Brad agreed.  At this point, we are just praying for more guidance and discernment, but it was exciting to think we were sort of "close."

 

 

There is RARELY a day that goes by that I don't think about our children in Ethiopia or am reminded of our adoption plans.  It is so hard to feel like part of your family is missing.  About every month or two, I get particularly overwhelmed and EVERY time, God has been faithful in giving me hope.  Whether it is encouraging reports about the status of adoptions in Ethiopia, news of a referral from our agency, hearing God speak to my heart, or even a "close call," there is always something.

 

 

 

 

I am still hopeful that we will get a miracle and receive a referral by the end of this year.  For now, I look towards next month and am thinking the number 130 (or lower) sounds good :)

 





May 2014 Update

We got our new number yesterday:



Upon learning our new number, I immediately looked at:

Psalm 145

A psalm of praise. Of David.

¹ I will exalt you, my God the King;
    I will praise your name for ever and ever.
² Every day I will praise you
    and extol your name for ever and ever.

³ Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
    his greatness no one can fathom.
⁴ One generation commends your works to another;
    they tell of your mighty acts.
⁵ They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty—
    and I will meditate on your wonderful works.^[b]
6 They tell of the power of your awesome works—
    and I will proclaim your great deeds.
⁷ They celebrate your abundant goodness
    and joyfully sing of your righteousness.

⁸ The Lord is gracious and compassionate,
    slow to anger and rich in love.

⁹ The Lord is good to all;
    he has compassion on all he has made.
¹⁰ All your works praise you, Lord;
    your faithful people extol you.
¹¹ They tell of the glory of your kingdom
    and speak of your might,
¹² so that all people may know of your mighty acts
    and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
¹³ Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
    and your dominion endures through all generations.

The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises
    and faithful in all he does.^[c]
14 The Lord upholds all who fall
    and lifts up all who are bowed down.
¹⁵ The eyes of all look to you,
    and you give them their food at the proper time.
¹⁶ You open your hand
    and satisfy the desires of every living thing.

¹⁷ The Lord is righteous in all his ways
    and faithful in all he does.
¹⁸ The Lord is near to all who call on him,
    to all who call on him in truth.
¹⁹ He fulfills the desires of those who fear him;
    he hears their cry and saves them.
²⁰ The Lord watches over all who love him,
    but all the wicked he will destroy.

²¹ My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord.
    Let every creature praise his holy name
    for ever and ever.

Our agency issued 3 very surprise referrals over Easter weekend.  Turns out, children in Ethiopia who had already passed the regional court to be referred for adoption will not be subject to the 2 months of local advertising for a family.  This means many of the children who have been "paperwork ready" for the past several months will not have to wait 2 more months for their referral.  We've also been told that there is evidence that all agencies involved are working hard to process paperwork for the adoption of orphans, from the orphanages, to the regional courts, to the federal courts, and finally the embassy.  Several families were informed of court dates this week and are finally getting to meet their children, many of which they got referrals for last year.  We still have no idea when we could get a referral, as there are likely several families ahead of us on the waitlist who have similar profiles for a sibling group, but at least we moved up on the waitlist!



Between our income tax returns, donations, and frugal savings for Lent over the past couple months, we were able to save over $9000 for our adoption!  We now have the required $15,200 for 2 referrals and $3000 for foster care fees.  We still will need at least $15,000 to cover travel expenses (2 trips), post-adoption reports from our social worker, and required updates to our home study and immigration (around $2000 which will likely be due before we get a referral).


We look forward to what the upcoming months will bring.  Please keep praying for our family to be complete! 

A little more info our wait. . .

I was so excited at our new number the first of April that I didn't take the time to make a new Africa with our number.  Now, almost 2 weeks later, here it is:

 

We found out a few days after our monthly update that although adoptions are expected to officially continue, another step has been added to the process to ensure orphan status.  In addition to the previous steps required before a child can be referred for international adoption, the orphanages must now advertise for at least 2 months to see if a local suitable person in country is interested in adopting the child.  This is great and obviously I have no problem with exhausting all avenues for a child before they are adopted out of country.  The only distressing part of this is that all the children who have been "paperwork ready" for months to be referred for adoption now have to wait at least 2 more months before they can be matched.  I hate that children who have already likely been in the orphanage for almost a year are now having to wait even longer.  This means there will be another 2 months before we can expect to see referrals pick up.  The bad news is that referrals often slow down or stop when courts close for the rainy season, which is August to October and quickly approaching.  We have been told this entire process from the time a child comes to the orphanage until they are eligible for referral could be as little as 4 months eventually (and under ideal circumstances).  So, we continue to wait.

It is Holy Week (today is Palm Sunday).  As part of our family's sacrifice for Lent, we have tried to limit our spending of "frivolous" items, such as eating out, entertainment, and other things we simply wanted at the time, rather than needed.  That amount, combined with our income tax return and a couple generous donations, is going to almost double our current adoption savings!  I will give more details on the next post!



The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly about Orphan Care

The GOOD:

We made $173 at our yard sale last weekend.  The day was actually cold and rainy, so we sold more than I would have thought, given the weather.  Despite the weather (and leftover junk in our garage that I refuse to bring back into the house), it felt good to do something for our adoption after these long months of waiting.

We got our monthly update today.  We were very surprised to see that we moved 10 spots this month and our new number is:

148

Another adoptive family had given me the idea to pray and study on the psalm that corresponds with your waitlist number.  Until this point, our number was too high to do that.  I really never thought this month would bring us to Psalm 148, whose repeating theme is "Praise the Lord"!

The BAD:

We didn't move 10 spots because of new referrals.  It has now been 8 months since a new referral.  I suspect the reason for our movement this month is many families have left our agency or the Ethiopia program.  People are getting anxious with each passing month and understandably, there are families who have dropped out or chosen to pursue other adoption routes.

The US Department of State released a statement in the past few days confirming what our agency had been telling us: the slowdown is due to some issues with changes in policy regarding adoptions in Ethiopia.  The Ethiopian government is now claiming they have resolved the issues and that adoption referrals should now proceed "as normal."

We are still hopeful that referrals will resume soon (as we have been the past few months).  Our agency has made some changes as well.  They do not have a transition home anymore for adoptive placements.  Children will now remain in the orphanage until their family brings them home.  I am disappointed by this, but I assume it was getting difficult to financially support the transition home with no referrals.  Our foster care fee (to pay for our children's care once they are referred to us) is doubling from $750 per child to $1500 each.  The good news in all this is that the newer policies seem to mean a shorter time frame between court (official adoption) and embassy (when child can come home).  Instead of waiting 3+ months, families are now typically waiting 6-8 weeks between those times, which means less heartache of being an ocean away from our child(ren).

The UGLY:

Brad and I have always thought a lot about and prayed for our former foster children.  Even if they weren't in our home for very long, they still touched our hearts permanently.  Our last foster child, T, was 17 when he was with us.  We had heard last fall his grandmother had been awarded custody of him so he was no longer in the foster care system.  Brad saw him out walking in Tuscumbia this morning so he stopped and asked if he'd meet us for lunch.

It was so sad.  He told me right off that "nothing good had been happening" in his life lately.  When T moved back in with his grandmother last fall, he had to change school districts (for the umpteenth time).  T didn't have the best grades as he hadn't typically had any support or encouragement in school and had changed schools multiple times.  When he went to transfer from Sheffield to Muscle Shoals (both schools he has attended prior), even though his grandmother was in district, he was told he could not enroll.  They told him he would end up dropping out anyway and if he wanted to fight their decision, he could get an attorney.  So of course, T dropped out of school :(

We asked him if he was currently living with his grandmother,  He told us his grandmother had told him she didn't want him living with her anymore.  He "defended" her decision by telling us she has dementia.  We asked where he was staying, and he said he didn't have a permanent place to stay and drifted between a cousin's house, friends, and admitted he sometimes "stayed outside."  We asked T how he eats (he looked thin). He said he buys food from the grocery store he works at part-time (where he doesn't even get an employee discount).  His job provides irregular hours but he is limited with employment because he has no transportation and has to walk everywhere he goes.  T says they approached him about becoming manager, but with no high school diploma or GED, that is not possible.  He looked into getting his GED but would need to attend classes across town, which is difficult with no car.  He is honestly stuck in his circumstances.

It made me so sad because a lot of that could have been avoided.  When T was with us (in foster care), he felt he was old enough to take care of himself.  He would have had opportunities to get a good start on life, but he just wanted to go back to his biological family.  His family has been unable or unwilling to help him.  Brad and I reminded T today that we are here for him if he needs anything.  We hope he will take us up on the offer the next time he plans to spend the night outside.  We are treading lightly at this point.  We hope to maintain communication with him and help him realize we do care about him and want to help him.  Please pray for him!

My Adoption Retreat and a Fundraiser

This past weekend, I attended Created for Care, which is a Christian weekend retreat north of Atlanta for foster and adoptive moms.  It was good for me.  I have really struggled the past few months with all the discouraging news coming out of Ethiopia regarding international adoption.  There have been no referrals in months and we are so far down on the list, even if there were regular referrals occurring currently, we would likely be looking at years of waiting.  Even though we've only been on the waiting list for Ethiopia since November, this month makes a year since we started the process.  Combined with the time spent trying to adopt through foster care care first, we are approaching three years since we first got the call to adopt.

I chose a word as a theme for this year and it is: HOPE.  I've been seeing that word a lot in my life, and I need it as a reminder when I start to doubt that adoption will ever happen for us.  I see the word in scripture, hear it in songs, see it on T-shirts (including in Amharic-the official Ethiopian language).  I had hoped to hear God speak to me this weekend about our adoption journey, and He did.  He told me to "WAIT" and I was reassured that we are right where we should be.  So for now I will continue to wait in hope.

One thing that has helped me is to stay busy.  This has been easy really since we got on the waiting list with the holiday season, Brandon's birthday, my half marathon, our marriage conference, Micah's birthday, a trip to Disney World, and then my Created for Care (C4C) conference.  Now that my schedule has cleared a little, I was wondering what I would do next.  I quickly found my next "project" when I got home from C4C and had a flier about a neighborhood yard sale the end of this month.  We have not participated in these in the past simply because I didn't have the motivation to go through all our stuff to get things together to sell.  Now with unused items piling up and a need to save some serious cash, we will be having a yard sale March 29 starting at 7 am.  The great thing is many others in our neighborhood are having yard sales that day, so it will hopefully attract a lot of people!

The fact is, we need to save approximately $20,000 more for our adoption (in addition to what we have already paid and have saved).  The referral fee alone for 2 children which is due immediately upon accepting a referral is $15,200.  There are other expenses, such as $2000 for foster care fees (care after referral before they can come home).  We also need money for 2 trips to Ethiopia, which could be $10,000 or more depending on the price of airline tickets.

If anyone has anything they would like to donate for us to sell, please let me know!  We really appreciate it!  Mostly, please keep praying for our family and our adoption journey.

No change :(

We found out yesterday that for the second month in a row, our wait list number did not change.  For families at the top of the list, this has actually been the case since August 2013.  It is becoming more and more difficult to wait and trust, particularly in our case, since we are SO far down on the list.  I did finally send off our immigration update to get official approval to change our status from 1-2 children and to change our age range up to age 8.  February was a very busy month for us between the Forever Marriage Conference Brad and I planned to Micah's birthday and party and then a family trip to Disney World.  I squeezed in mailing the immigration paperwork February 20 and was told it would arrive February 24.  We'll see how long the wait is this time (we were told not near as long).

Our adoption agency, as well as the agency who represents us in Ethiopia remain hopeful that adoptions referrals will pick back up "soon," but we were told that we should expect to wait an additional 6-12 months for a referral.  Considering the only wait time we were told was 15-18 months once we were on the list, and the list grew considerably before we completed paperwork, AND we have now changed our parameters to possibly include siblings, we have NO idea what our anticipated wait time should be.

Because of some changes that were made to ensure adoptions were ethical, a lot of children who were ready for referral have had to get entirely new sets of paperwork.  In addition, the Minister of MOWCYA (basically the government agency that regulates adoptions in Ethiopia) has made statements implying she is personally anti-international adoption.  While others are in support of adoption, she is somehow single-handedly holding things up by fighting with the regional governments over who has the final say in approving children to be referred for adoption.  Apparently she has been making quite a few "controversial" statements about various topics lately, so we have been asked to pray that either her heart is softened towards the orphans and adoption or that she gets reassigned to a different position.  In the meantime, the orphanages are under a great deal of stress and strain with more and more children who are not being referred for adoption as well as the task of gathering new paperwork on children who they believe are eligible for referral.  I'm not sure how well the Ethiopian government supports the orphanages.  I get the impression a lot of the supplies and resources come from outside agencies, such as relief organizations and adoption agencies.

Please do not "broadcast" this information as the adoption environment is so unstable right now, even well meaning posts can be viewed as negative by those who make decisions in Ethiopia.  This is combined with recent allegations against IAG, an adoption agency that is being charged with multiple illegal and unethical adoption practices in Ethiopia, and creates a lot of doubt in the people of Ethiopia about the future of international adoptions there.

I am excited to be attending Created for Care (C4C) this weekend north of Atlanta.  It is a Christian retreat for adoptive and foster mothers, and I have heard WONDERFUL things about it!  It is a time for prayer and education, as well as a chance to connect with other women in similar circumstances.  I don't personally know anyone going, but I know several women via Facebook who are attending, including several from our adoption agency who are waiting to adopt from Ethiopia.  Adopting can feel very isolating as others who are not in that situation really cannot identify with all the emotions and stress and everything else that comes both before and after placement.  I look forward to all I will learn and the women I will meet!  I will try to update when I return from C4C.

Please keep praying that referrals will resume soon in Ethiopia, and the true orphans will be matched with waiting families!

The Latest

We will find out next Monday what our new wait list number is.  We know our agency has had some waiting children referrals, but there were probably not any infant referrals (which is what most people ahead of us on the list are approved to get).  We are not anticipating a big jump in our number, but we can always hope!

We did get the official word this month that our home study update (done in early December at our request) has been approved by our agency.  Let me explain!  Last summer, our agency started a "push" to encourage those adopting to consider waiting children.  The orphanages are overloaded with children, but one reason people have to wait so long for a referral is that most want an infant/toddler.  Most of the children in the orphanages fit into one or more of the following categories:medical issues (most often HIV+), older children, or part of a sibling group.  When Brad and I began our adoption journey in foster care, we actually expected to adopt an older child.  We were approved for up to 2 children and our age range was up to 16 years old (by our choice).  We honestly felt a call to adopt and didn't want to "limit" our family to a child who was an ideal match simply because he or she was older.  I actually found a 14 year old boy on the Alabama waiting child list who sounded like a good match for our family, but by the time we were far enough into the process to learn more about him, he was already matched with another family.  Our biggest hesitation with a child from Ethiopia was the additional adjustments that would need to be made learning a new language and catching up in school.  Because we both work, staying home for prolonged periods to deal with these adjustments is not an option for us currently. 

When our agency started talking more about older children, I was able to read about the experiences of several families who had adopted older children.  I was able to see how they had dealt with some of our concerns, such as the language barrier and education.  By no means am I saying an older child will be "easier" because it most likely will not be.  But I really felt a call to consider an older child.  Brad and I began discussing and praying about it.  This was all occurring while we waited for weeks for our immigration approval to come back.  Unfortunately, our immigration approval specifically matched our home study at the time, which was approval for us to adopt 1 healthy child from Ethiopia aged 0-3 years.  So when our immigration approval finally came back, we spoke with our case worker about mailing our dossier to be authenticated (sent to Ethiopia to put us on the waiting list).  During the conversation she actually asked about our current child parameters and if we had considered making any changes.  We told her what we'd been considering. 

That discussion took place in October.  The first week in December we had another meeting with our social worker to do an amendment to our home study.  We discussed with her all the additional difficulties of bringing home 2 children versus 1 as well as other things to consider with adopting an older child.  Our agency had become very cautious about approving families for multiple children due to the added difficulties that come with that.  She wasn't able to scare us off (ha!), and we felt we had carefully considered this decision and how we would handle different scenarios.  Mostly, we felt this was something God was calling us to open ourselves up to.  So in January we got the official approval from our agency to allow us to adopt a sibling group of 2, with the first child being aged 0-3 years and the second child aged 0-8.  After much consideration, we decided that it would be best to keep Brandon as our oldest child.  We also felt like a younger school-aged child would be more reasonable for our family situation in terms of language barriers and schooling. Any referral we get must meet the first child criteria, meaning we could still get a referral for only one child aged 0-3 or we could get a referral for 2 children.  We are excited to see what God has in store for us!

While referrals are currently REALLY slow, we have been reassured that adoptions are continuing in Ethiopia.  Due to a need to ensure all adoptions are ethical, things are taking a lot longer right now.  So while we could wait quite a while for a referral, like a couple years (I don't want to even think about longer than that), our new parameters also make us a little more unique and could result in a quicker referral.  Basically, our referral timeline is even more unpredictable but in a good way.  A second child will add to our adoption expenses, among those being a second referral fee and additional travel expenses.

We are now updating our I-600 with our new parameters, but this doesn't affect our wait list number.  My game plan is to stay busy (so I don't think about the waiting) and enjoy my family.  I alternate between letting it all go and leaving it in God's hands to my heart aching for my child(ren) who I don't have here with me.  The busier I stay, the less I tend to think about our adoption.  Isn't it sad that I have to try not to think about my own (unknown) children?  This isn't about wanting more kids because it would have been easier for me to birth another child (even though one of us is currently sterile) than it is to adopt a child.  Sometimes I think it may never happen and I try to convince myself to be content in just following God's call for my life.  I'll just end this post by asking that you keep praying!

Melkam Gena! (Ethiopian Merry Christmas)

Today is Christmas in Ethiopia so we had a mini celebration.  We very much Americanized it, but we did the best we could with our current resources.

The traditional meal consists of doro wat (spicy chicken stew) with injera (flat bread used to scoop up the wat).  So our substitution was Brunswick stew with naan bread.  We ate it with hot chocolate (in place of coffee).

For dessert, we had a traditional snack food in Ethiopia: popcorn!

 

 

Gifts are not a big part of Christmas in Ethiopia and if given, are typically clothes.  Lucky for me, the Disney shirts I ordered for our upcoming trip arrived the day before, so we presented them to the kids after dinner.  We hope to eat at a traditional Ethiopian restaurant sometime this year (requiring a trip to either Nashville or Atlanta).

Soon I hope to try a recipe I found recently for Ethiopian spiced honey bread.  It has ingredients I can purchase in our stores and I hear it is wonderful!

 

Merry Christmas (round 2)!