September Update

We keep moving up! Our official September #'s are # 2's all around! It is like a race to the finish line - I wonder which one will come first??

The wait that was originally supposed to be 9-12 months has turned into 12-18 months. We are now closing in on waiting for 15 months and we are so ready. It has been quiet a roller coaster. International adoption in our chosen adoptive country is somewhat unstable at this point. The changes that have come in the last 6 months have been substantial.. There are families that have lost their referred children. Families in real danger of losing their referred children - that live daily dreading for the phone to ring, afraid of more bad news. There are orphanages being shut down, and other already over run orphanages becoming even more packed with the children from the other shut down orphanages. There are children languishing away while the higher ups battle out the details. It is scary and uncertain sometimes and I wonder if I have it in me to stick it out for even one more day. Then I wonder what it will look like to be granted the amazing privilege of being matched with a child and in the same breath what it would feel like to have that child be taken from us. I cling to the only hope I have. I try to see the big picture. I rely on the promise that the Lord has said that He will not leave them as orphans.

Please continue to pray for not just our process (we are really so small in all of this), but the process as a whole. Adoption, I know, is not the answer to the millions of orphaned children in this world - it really only touches a tiny percentage of them. But, the Lord has given me the hands and feet to do this tiny part for now.

"I long to to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small task as if they were great and noble." - Helen Keller

Remembering Motherhood

Last spring as school was winding down, we made the decision to no longer home school. This was an agonizing decision for me. My other half has always known that we would eventually send our kids to public school. We are both public school kids ourselves, have nothing against public school, and he is all about getting them "exposed" to the world while they are young and in our home so it isn't such a shock when they get older. Me, I just don't want them exposed, ever. I always LOVE to be in control and I wanted to control their environment, as well as their education. So 2 years ago, when our oldest was gearing up for kindergarten, we decided to do a home school cooperative program. The best of both worlds - a few days here, a few days in a classroom setting with other kids. It was a great choice and I am so glad that we did it. But...I am so glad that we aren't doing it anymore :-)

I agree, full out, that the Lord has given us children and that we, as their parents, are the best choice to care for them and to "raise them up in the way that they should go". I loved my family being all together, I loved our slow mornings and afternoons curled up on the couch reading, I loved watching the light turn on as I taught them new things. I do not plan on any of this stopping (except the slow mornings obviously). I plan to continue teaching my children, reading with them and to them, teaching them new things. But what I also plan on doing is becoming their mom again, and enjoying it.

What homeschooling has done to me is make me their teacher...first. I have lost the joy in being their mom. I was so wiped out by the academic education of them that I lost the relational and spiritual teaching of them. I was walking around with a huge rock of responsibility that was taking my joy in them away. I was not being a good mother, because all I had to give them was the teaching. I missed them.

I spent the last half of last year praying that the Lord would change me, that he would make me enjoy homeschooling or give me the freedom to to send them to public school. I felt like such a failure because I thought I wasn't giving my kids the best by not homeschooling. I felt like a failure because I couldn't do what all the other moms around me were doing. So I prayed. I had a friend ask me whose permission I needed to not homeschool. What a great question. So I started asking the Lord to give me permission to quit. It came almost instantly. All I had to do was ask that - and I felt such freedom to release that expectation on myself. I have had many people try to change my mind, but the Lord has always given me a great peace about it.

Now, it has only been a half of a week of public school and I know this is way too early to tell if this is the answer to my sucking as a mom, but man, I have so enjoyed my kids this week. I have enjoyed teaching them. I have enjoyed reading to them, and letting them read to me. I have enjoyed sitting down to do piano with them in the afternoon instead of yelling at them to get their practice done - because by the afternoon, I had nothing left to give them, and a whole days worth of curriculum yet to plan for the next day. I have enjoyed my still at home little guy, because I have some energy left to give him, and a desire to actually teach him something for a change (my daughter started reading at 3, sweet Micah doesn't even know all of his letters).

I feel like I am remembering what it means to be their Mom. I miss them like crazy, it is driving me a bit nuts that I don't know what they are studying each day, but I send them off each morning under God's protection and supervision, praying with them and for them like I have never done before. Trusting and enjoying...

some sweet moments

Just to share a few sweet moments with my kids lately:

My kids do a summer library reading program each year. When they finish and turn in their reading log they get to write their names on a a handprint and put it on the library wall. Kate put her hand on Ethiopia.


A few days ago at the park, I was pushing Micah (just turned 3) on the swing. I started talking to a fellow swing pusher- asking about their kids. They asked me how many kids I had, and if they were girls or boys. As we shared our kid info, Micah chimed in and informed the Dad that he also had a little sister in Ethiopia and that she would be home soon. My heart burst with excitement over bringing our little girl home. He will be such a great big brother!

A year and some days

As of June 26th, we have been on the waitlist for 12 months. We started out as #75 in line for a little girl, and #45 in line for siblings. It has been a long year...but we are closing in, I hope!

So many people ask me why we are doing this? Why add more chaos to your already young family of three kids? If I want to add more chaos, I obviously can carry my own biological children, so why go through this long ordeal of adopting one (or two)? The answer is quiet simple (and complex). The Lord has put it in our hearts to. It isn't just about trying to grow our family (we can do that pretty well - our three precious children are testimony to that). It is about answering a call. A call that the Lord put on my heart ages ago, and Praise God, brought me a husband with that same call.

We sort of always knew that we would, so when it came to a time in the life of our family that we started talking about it, I ask the Lord to show me if that was the right thing to do. He was so pleased to do so, over and over. He still does. On days that I doubt, I ask Him to show me again, and he does, ever faithful.

It has a tough year with waiting. Watching the program change, almost stop, trusting, waiting, hoping, watching. The Lord has stretched and moved me in amazing ways. If this had been about just growing my family, I could have already done that (twice probably!).

So, where are we after a little over a year of waiting (it has actually been well over a year since we started, but only year since we got on the list)? We are getting close! Not close to bringing her/them home...but at least close to getting a referral and getting those first glimpses of who our precious children are. We are around #7 for a girl 0-24 months, and #4 for siblings 0-24 months. Our hope of bringing a child home in the summer has been gone for a while, so I have started praying for a Christmas baby, though that may be a long shot as well.

People ask where we are financially? Waiting...The Lord has told me he will provide this, whether that is through donations, or taking out loans, I do not know...but it will come.
It cost about $30K to adopt 1 child, and about $45 for siblings. We have paid about $15K so far ($6K of that we borrowed - the other we had saved). We have raised through donations, yard sales and t-shirts about $8K, and have been putting money aside into our adoption fund as we can. So, we still have a need here (esp. if we do get siblings).

That is a brief update on the last year. Hoping to have some really good news to share soon!

an unexciting update

Well, for June we are still #13 for a girl and #7 for siblings. The movements has been very discouraging and I feel like I am having to rally my spirits daily. It is hard...so very hard, but I keep trusting and waiting, trusting and waiting. Enjoying the time we have together as a 5 family.

There were about 21 families who passed court and will be traveling back for their second trip to bring their sweet ones home (some are actually there right now). Hoping and praying that will mean that there will be some movement soon.

In other family life...We have closed down shop on homeschooling. We finished the year with a bang and have been loving summer break. We have made the very hard, but exciting decision to send our kids to public school next year. They will go to Ball Camp Elementary - Daniel in 2nd grade and Kate in 1st. It will be a big transition time, but we are ready for it. The journey to come to that decision was painful, but we feel a great peace about it. (and I am SOOO ready to not have the big responsibility of being my kids main educator!).

We had a wonderful and exhausting week of VBS last week, Daniel is in Basketball camp this week, and we are looking forward to a week at the beach coming up the end of June. July will hopefully be a bit slower, with Kate going to cheer camp and probably a week at my mom's while Matthew travels to San Diego. Fun stuff...

Official May Report

We continue to move. For May we are officially #13 on the girls “list” and #7 on the siblings “list “.

It is exciting to be moving consistently. We have been on the wait list almost 11 months now. We were told to expect a 9-12 month wait until we would get a referral of a child. With all the unknowns in the process right now, we were just today told to expect that time frame to be increased to 18 months. A little discouraging, but we are still very thankful to be in it, though the waiting is painful at times.

We continue to pray and wait.

(Bitter) Sweet Questions

My sweet middle child Kate. I love her heart. She is so sweet, so insightful, so perceptive. She is always ready with a joke, a laugh, an encouraging word, a hug (as well as a sassy frown and smart remark!). She is a calm place in the middle of two wild book end brothers. She so longs for a sister.

We have tried (for the past little over a year now) to not talk about our adoption a ton. Knowing that kids realization of time is different than ours (well, not so much as I want most things NOW, or better, YESTERDAY too). We have tried to not live our life around it, because we have no idea when it will happen. But sweet Kate seems to often be reminded of it. Seeing some cute clothes (our baby would look cute in that), a new toy (I beat out baby would love that), an old toy that we are putting in the attic(are we saving that for our baby?) , a new outfit for her (I will get to give this to our baby someday). I am also thinking all these thoughts, just not expressing them.

We have been telling them, and ourselves, that it would be this year, maybe late summer, maybe fall. In my mind planning my next school year imagining that I will have another little one (or two) to put in the mix.

Lately, with all the possible changes to the adoption process, I have tried to talk about it with them even less. As it occupies more and more of my thoughts and prayers, trying to not live my life like I am waiting. Trying to plan my next months as just a family of 5. Breaks my heart really.

Lately I feel like Kate is talking even more about it. Probably because we have friends who are also adopting and have things like pictures of their kids, or have been to meet their children already and are now just waiting to bring them home. The other day Kate climbed up into my lap and said, "Mom, when will I get to meet my little sister? I am really ready to have her here." Oh me too, me too. Then today she was looking at some pictures of bedrooms or something like that and her little eyes got bright and she said, "Oh mom, when can we start decorating my little sister's room?" I didn't want to tell her that it was too painful to do something like that, not knowing how long it could take, so I just said, Not yet sweetie but hopefully soon.

So bittersweet.