Uganda? You meant to say Ethiopia. Wait... What?

My Dear Brother and Friend Pastor Kevin,  I pray that the Lord has kept you well.  Since 2003, we have been taking care of children from ages 3 and above at Destiny Villages of Hope but in 2008; the Lord convicted me to start rescuing abandoned babies. This conviction became a dream when a certain woman damped her baby opposite to my office one night. She was more than convinced that I would take the baby into my care. Unfortunately, by the time I arrived at my office; the baby was already dead. This increased my desire to see to it that this dream comes to pass and the burden concerning Abandoned babies became so great. But today, I have awesome news for you!  It is with great pleasure that I write to inform you that Simba Wa Yuda a swahili name which means the "Lion of Judah" Babies Home has finally been birthed at Destiny Campus. On 10/17/2011, we took some babies into our care by the grace of God.   We thank God who has caused this dream to become a reality. We sincerely appreciate you for standing with us in every way. The work is challenging but in all things, The Lord is Faithful and we believe that He will bring us to higher heights concerning this new project. Please continue to pray with us as we take on this exciting adventure. We love you so much and we thank you for being our friends.  Blessings, John Michael. This is a letter from Bishop John Michael in Uganda. He is writing to inform a friend of a friend of the opening of an infant orphanage in Uganda. What does this have to do with our Ethiopian adoption? Nothing. It has everything to do, however, with our Ugandan adoption.  The last couple of months have had us on our knees asking our Father "what nowt?" When we found out we were expecting, everything seemed so clear. We would have another biological child and then complete our Ethiopian adoption when things started moving again. Then we lost the baby.  Two weeks after our bad news, Brandon got a call from a friend. He told us about a pastor in Fort Collins who had a connection with an orphanage in Uganda. Through a series of sovereign events, we connected with Pastor Kevin who then connected us with Nightlight Christian Adoption. After much prayer and counsel, we have decided to pursue a second adoption from Uganda. We believe that this adoption will happen quickly. We are scrambling to get our home study updated and complete our Ugandan dossier. Lord willing, we will bring a baby home early next year.  Are we crazy? Can we afford this? Do we really want to pursue two international adoptions? We ask ourselves these questions every day. We don't know the answers, but we do know that God is sovereign and He has brought us down this path. He has a plan and He knows what it is!

He Gives and Takes Away, Blessed be His name!

Psalm 139:13-16 "For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was not one of them.

I have heard so many people take this beautiful Psalm and use it to glorify the creation. And while it is true, we are wonderfully and fearfully made, the beauty of this passage is in the glory of the Creator, not the creation. When we think of the intimacy and knowledge our creator has with every part of us, His creation, we should drop to our knees and worship the God of the universe who "intricately wove us in the depths of the Universe!" Our hearts have been comforted by this and many other truths pouring from friends and family as reminders that the Creator of Life is sovereign, good, and is in full control of every heartbeat.

Our first scheduled ultrasound this past Thursday came with a devastating blow. No heartbeat. Nobody saw this coming except for the One who wrote the number of the days of our child when as yet there was not one of them. We are heartbroken. Yet we cling to the truth that His ways are higher than ours. He is at work in our lives and we consider it a privilege to walk through this fire. We pray that we emerge on the other side as a more brilliant reflection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We are overwhelmed by the love and support of dear Christian friends. Thank you for helping us keep our eyes focused on Christ, the author and finisher of our faith. We covet your prayers as we walk through this dark time. Our prayer is that even through this tragedy, you and I will be more compelled to cling to the Gospel of Christ, and to the promise that He will one day redeem this fallen world and everything will be made right. Until that day, Blessed be His name.

Nobody Saw this Coming!

For those of you who were hoping that I was going to post an update on the 25th of every month while we wait, I hope you are not too disappointed. It is not for lack of excitement that I have not posted. There have been a lot of changes and a lot twists and turns over the past few months. So here's the news.

Shortly after my last update, things in Ethiopia hit a major slow down. To put it in a nutshell there have been some political "issues" taking place with in MOWCYA (Ministry of Women's, Children, and Youth Affairs). Where it was rumored that there would be a possible slowdown in the past, MOWCYA confirmed this as definite truth.

Due to the significant increase in wait times, America World changed one of their policies regarding concurrent family building. Previously, if we had become pregnant during the waiting period, we would have been removed from the Ethiopia program. This policy was in place to protect adopted children from coming into a home where the family was not quite ready to give 100% during those crucial, early days of adoption. Because of this policy, we were beginning to think that we might be waiting years rather than months before our next child. So, needless to say, we were thrilled when they changed this policy to allow for concurrent family growth while we wait for our adoption!

This opened up two options for us. We considered pursuing another domestic adoption and were also excited about the possibility of having another biological child. We decided to "put it in the Lord's hands" humanly speaking (it always has been and always will be there anyway). He answered our prayers immediately and we are excited to announce that we are expected a baby around the 25th of February. Our hearts our filled with joy toward the creator of life. He has known from the beginning of this journey what this would look like for us. Nothing has been a surprise to Him.

*** On a side note, I have many sweet sisters in Christ who I pray for by name on a regular basis who desire so much to blessed with a child. For whatever reason, the Sovereign God has made that dream an abundant reality for me in more ways than one. As I celebrate and rejoice over this new life that has been created in me, I also fall to my knees and pray the same for you. I pray that He would bless each one of you with the gift of children, whether through adoption or birth. And I pray that your joy would be made complete in Him. He has a beautiful plan for you, and whatever it is, it will bring Him ALL the glory! He is good.

One month down!

Well, so far so good. We have been waiting for one month! Fortunately it has been a very busy month. No sitting around, twirling our thumbs, wondering when we will get that call. We celebrated my brother's wedding and Calvin's 2nd birthday. We also had a week of sickness where we all caught "it." So this month has flown by!

We are celebrating with our good friends Matt and Brianne as they passed court last week! I am including a link to their blog because the story and pictures are so precious!!! http://koppweb.com/2011/04/23/hes-ours/

This coming month we are going to really focus on our fundraising. We have tons of coffee to sell! We are grateful to everyone who has already supported us financially and through prayer. Keep it up!

We don't know when we will receive that much anticipated phone call, but we are one month closer!

DTE

It is such a freeing feeling to have completed everything on our end and pass the baton on to the next person. Our dossier spent two weeks in D.C. getting final approval from our caseworker at AWAA, and then being authenticated and certified in the Ethiopian Embassy. It left the US in the hands of a courier on Friday, March 25. This is our DTE (Dossier to Ethiopia). So, now we wait. March 25, 2011 is day one. We trust the Lord knows how many days, months, years (?) we have to go.

The Roller Coaster

Please keep your hands and arms inside the ride at all times. This past week we have gone back and forth on what to do about our dossier. If it is going to be years before we get a referral, then perhaps we should put this on hold, have another bio child and pick things back up in a few years. This was sounding pretty good to me because I have the baby bug! However, I am grateful for the women in my life who have more faith than I and who were fearless to speak truth into my life this week. They reminded me that Lord has clearly walked us down this path to this point, and He is FAITHFUL! We don't know what the future holds... but we know who holds the future! Silly, I know. But true.

Well folks, we have submitted the dossier! The situation in Ethiopia is still somewhat dire and could potentially add many months or even years to our wait. However, we have decided to put our family's future into the capable hands of our God. We mailed the package on Monday and it will be Ethiopia bound by Friday, March 25! If we weren't committed before, we are now!

Thank you for all your prayers as we have labored with this decision. Our biggest desire is that we glorify the Lord through this process, and you have helped us to keep our eyes focused on Him as we wrestled with uncertainty... you know who you are (wink).

A Screeching Halt

Yesterday, March 7th, we received our long awaited I171h form! This is the last document required for our dossier, so you would think we would be elated... But we, along with thousands of other hopeful adoptive families received some devastating news from the Ministry of Women's and Children's affairs in Ethiopia. They are planning to reduce the number of international adoptions by 90%!!! If this is true it that will mean that our adoption will not happen for years.

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/-Ethiopia-to-Cut-Foreign-Adoptions-by-Up-to-90-Percent-117411843.html

I cannot express my heart break. Please join us in praying for God's direction and clarity. Obviously, this will greatly affect our decision to submit our dossier... or to wait.

I am including a link to a petition to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia. Please take a moment to sign it as well as to pray for the adoptive families, and more importantly, the more than five million Ethiopian orphans who will be affected by the outcome.

http://www.gopetition.com/petition/43714.html

Home sweet Home

I know, I know. I am one of the worst bloggers in the history of blogging. I knew I would be.  Let's see if I can get you caught up on the last four months in a paragraph... or two. The paper train has continued to pull forward, slowly but surely. It has taken longer than we have wanted because we have been traveling back and forth between California and Colorado. Earlier this month, however, Brandon's company moved us back home and we are thrilled! We feel like we can now finalize our dossier and prepare to bring a new child into our home. I am probably still a little bit early, but I have been "nesting." The excitement is growing as the light at the end of tunnel is becoming clearer.
We have assembled our dossier lacking only one document, which will hopefully be in the mail this week! We will then be able to submit our dossier to Ethiopia!!! This week, the Lord graciously reminded us of the fact that He is in complete control and that He sees even the small details. We had a paperwork snafu that could have delayed our progress by a couple weeks or possibly even a couple of months! He was ten steps ahead of us the whole time and, in spite of the snafu, we have been approved by USCIS. That  means that we can legally bring our child home to the United States. Obviously very important!
We appreciate everyone's continued support and excitement. We look forward to updating everyone soon on the submission of our dossier!!!