Changes come

It's been an emotional week here at our house.

We got a call from our agency on Tuesday and found out that Thailand is making major changes to their adoption program. They do not seem to be adopting out healthy children. Wait times are unpredictable.

We were encouraged to look into the China Waiting Child program. We did. Our hearts broke over the supposed "special needs" on that list of children. And we discovered the wait time for these kids is not as long as the healthy infant China program.

So we prayed. Cried. Prayed. Talked. Dreamed.

God seems to be directing us to adopt from this waiting child list. We can only adopt one at a time, but because we are interested in an older boy, it looks like we could get a referral very quickly.

When we originally chose our agency, we did so because they worked in Thailand. Now that we're adopting from China, we are planning to switch back to the agency who brought us to our daughter in Ethiopia. We lose our original application fee from the other agency, but we gain a familiar group of people. It feels like we're coming home.

We heard news today that our homestudy is going to be 3-5 months before it is ready to send in to USCIS. Our paperwork is on our social worker's desk, but 5 families are ahead of us. Once she finishes with it and does our training, it will take 6-12 weeks to get the approval of the one person in our state who needs to sign off on it.

It's hard to wait, but we are trusting the process, trusting that God will bring us directly to our son. We are encouraged and excited!!

God stories for Thailand...Counting Fish

So Friday afternoon I was SO discouraged when we received our agency packet. It was a whole bunch of paperwork to fill out and training to do and bills to pay, and it wasn't even our dossier stuff yet! I called our agency and asked some questions, but I'll have to speak with the person in charge this week to answer some of my specific questions. I was just simply overwhelmed. I totalled up what we owe at the moment and it was more than I thought, and I could not begin to figure out where that money was coming from.

This is how God answered when I cried out to Him:

• Our church's missions weekend was this past weekend. Friday night was a jewelry party for Women at Risk International, a group that ministers to and helps rescue women and children involved in the slave trade around the world. I knew they worked in Thailand, which is why I really wanted to go. I had balanced our checkbook that afternoon and had no idea how we would even get through the month, but I really wanted to purchase something small to support them. I don't even wear much jewelry! I got there just as the consultants were finishing their sharing and the group prayed together. I got to talk with a consultant about their connections to Thailand, and then I just walked around, browsed, and chatted with my friends. I noticed one of the tables had some books, so I decided to buy two of those: Sold and Princess. While I waited for the line to go down, I just walked around and talked to other women from church. Later, while I was still waiting, a friend came up to me and said, "I think God told me He wants me to buy you something here. What would you like?" I was astounded! We talked about it for a minute and I showed her the books. She took them from me and walked away, saying, "I'm buying these for you." !!! (If you know me at all, you know how much I love books, too!!)
• A few people came up to me and said they have things for us to sell at the garage sale. OK, more than a few, all since Friday.
• Sunday morning, during worship, we sang two songs from Urbana 2000, which was the convention where we both felt called to cross-cultural adoption. We cried as we sang "Santo Eres Santo" and "Jesus Shall Reign." The guest speaker gave a wonderful sermon on missions as well.
• Today, I sat down with that packet from our agency and actually filled the entire thing out! It really didn't take that long. I flagged a few things for Pete to sign and us to find out. We still need to do the training, but it felt great to get that done.
• I got a hold of the person who will be printing our t-shirts and started the process on that. Hopefully in the next week or two we will be posting on both our blogs how you can order those shirts!
• We got a phone call tonight from someone who has a lot to donate to our garage sale, including furniture! (I specifically told someone on the phone not an hour before that we did NOT have any furniture yet!)
• Tonight I sat down to balance the checkbook with the statements we just received. I found a bank error in our favor that I need to call about tomorrow for about $71. (They sent a charge through 3 times instead of just once.) Then, I realized another error on our own end to the tune of almost $500!!

I was VERY encouraged by this post this afternoon, so we've decided to keep track of these instances for our adoption.

God, you are SO good!

It's the little things, you know?!

Thailand

We are adopting again! This time we are going to Thailand for 1-2 children age 6 and under.

Adoption paperwork is heavily underway. We are about to turn in a stack to our homestudy agency on Monday. It's all completed and notarized and copied, but we just need one more piece in there. We sent in our application to our placing agency, and today we received the next packet from them along with the training we need to complete.

Along with the paperwork comes the bills!! Right now we owe $1000 + $2200 + $670 + $180 + $120. That's $4170!

Since we just paid off our credit card a couple of months ago, we are trying not to use it at all unless we have to for the adoption. So we are praying the money in!

We are having an adoption garage sale on July 1-3 to raise this money. Please let me know if you have anything to donate for the garage sale!!

We will also be selling t-shirts this time, and we're hoping to have a t-shirt table at the sale. I'll be posting a t-shirt blitz on the blog soon!

Please pray for us when you think of it. We're at the next few steps of a long journey, and we'll need you to hold us up!!

Iona is 2!

Iona turned 2 in May! You can see some pics here and here. It was hard to get very good photos because she is always on the move!! She got a tutu that day and some doll accessories, and as soon as she got the tutu on she was off, pushing her baby in her stroller...umm...I mean running through the house behind the stroller!

She is so much fun these days. She says the funniest things! She speaks very well for her age, and she really loves to play with her brother and wrestle him. She can count to 10 and sometimes higher. She loves to help me with chores as well, which can be good and bad! Iona just started swim lessons, and it's all I can do to hold her back from jumping in. She is learning how to sit with her legs crossed on the side of the pool!! It's a hard thing for her! Once she gets in the water, she tries to copy her brother. She is even practicing now in the bathtub. :)

Happy birthday, my sweet baby!! You are getting SO big! You've grown so tall recently and are such a joy to be around! It's fun to watch you take in the world around you, whether you are scared or excited or in awe. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!

PS--I'm planning school for Aidan in the fall, and this week I've been thinking about how to contain Iona while Aidan and I focus on schoolwork. I admit, at times I am terrified of what will happen! I know some people recommend having a box of toys specifically for school time, but I really don't know if that will work for her. I'd love to hear from some of my homeschooling friends about how they handle schooltime with a 2-year-old!