Andrea left to visit our friends Curt and Elizabeth in the Persian Gulf country of Qatar (ku-tar). She called me and we were able to talk and see each other on Skype before she went to bed the night she arrived. That was great to see her and talk to her after she had spent 30hrs traveling to the other side of the earth. All of her flights went well and she arrived with all of her luggage, which isn't always the case. She emailed me this morning and told me that she was having a great time so far. Her first day was scheduled for a lot of fun activities including sand duning and riding a camel. She was also able to visit the school Curt teaches at, which helps train children to become Olympic athletes (the facilities Curt showed us previously were incredible. I can't wait to hear from her again to see what else she has been able to experience. I also can't wait for her to come home and to see all of her pictures.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Andrea left to visit our friends Curt and Elizabeth in the Persian Gulf country of Qatar (ku-tar). She called me and we were able to talk and see each other on Skype before she went to bed the night she arrived. That was great to see her and talk to her after she had spent 30hrs traveling to the other side of the earth. All of her flights went well and she arrived with all of her luggage, which isn't always the case. She emailed me this morning and told me that she was having a great time so far. Her first day was scheduled for a lot of fun activities including sand duning and riding a camel. She was also able to visit the school Curt teaches at, which helps train children to become Olympic athletes (the facilities Curt showed us previously were incredible. I can't wait to hear from her again to see what else she has been able to experience. I also can't wait for her to come home and to see all of her pictures.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Malaria Outbreak
We just received an e-mail from 4Him last night stating that there has been a malaria outbreak at the orphanage. One of the male staff members, Bob, and several of the children are very sick right now. 4Him will be helping them obtain the treatment that they need, but please pray for the children and staff at Wellington Orphanage that God will provide the treatment that they need and ultimately, quick healing. Please pray that God will protect their lives and provide the needed rest for everyone who is helping to take care of those who are sick. Malaria is contracted from mosquitos, and the symptoms are like a really bad case of the flu, but it can be fatal. So, please remember Wellington Orphanage in your prayers. Thank you!
A Niece!
Gary and Kathy, Kevin's older brother and wife, told us all last night that they are having a baby girl! We are all so excited to have a little girl in the family. They have our sweet little nephew, Caleb, who will be 2 in November, and so now he is going to be a wonderful big brother to a sweet little sister who will be here in February. The pink is already coming out!
Monday, September 22, 2008
Nashville
We were able to go visit my sister, Adrian, and her husband, Brian, and their sweet child/dog, Benny, a couple of weeks ago and had a great time! We were able to go with my brother, Adam, his wife, Jennah, and my two sweet nephews, Nic and Nyle. My youngest brother was not able to go; he just moved to Los Angeles. So, we missed him. This was our first trip to Nashville, so we had a lot of fun running around and enjoyed getting to see Adrian and Brian's world. Nashville is a great city! Adrian's blog is listed at the side. She is an amazing photographer, so you'll have to check out some of her pics on her blog. She is getting to accomplish one of her dreams this week. She is in Mexico photographing mission work being done by the International Mission Board. So, I am excited for her. Well, just thought I would share a few pics from the trip. Kevin was enjoying his time at the Wildhorse Saloon as you can see. Jennah, Adrian,
and I ha
d just finish
ed taking our line dancing lessons in this picture. Adrian and Brian took us to some housing additions where some TV and music stars live, and Nic really liked looking at the big houses because "they matched him." We're not really sure what that meant, but he had fun. Sweet little Nyle did really well on the trip; he is such a good baby. We were glad that we got to spend this time together because Adam and Jennah are getting ready to move to Eastern Europe with the International Mission Board in January. We had a great trip!
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Sierra Leone
Well, I told you in an earlier post that I would tell you more about Sierra Leone. So, I wanted to start doing that now; it will definitely be an ongoing process. We started this blog, so we could keep our family and friends informed of the status of our adoption, especially while we are in Ethiopia. As we talked more about it we knew that the blog had to also keep you updated on the sweet children in Sierra Leone that have become such a significant part of our lives. We truly have a family in Africa, and we are anxiously awaiting the time that we get to bring our sweet child home from Africa, so we felt the appropriate title for the blog would be "Our African Family." We just love those sweet faces and smiles that you see above in the picture.
Sierra Leone is listed as the second poorest country in the world and noted by the UN as one of the most difficult places to live due to human suffering. When you think about those two things alone, then this is definitely not a place that you would probably jump at the chance to go and visit. However, we will never be the same after visiting Sierra Leone. Words could never express what it is like to be around these children. The Lord is using them in amazing ways to impact their country and the mission teams that go to Sierra Leone from the US. We just have to tell others about their amazing testimonies. My friend, Jen C., put it best when she titled the CD with the children singing, "The World Should Know." You should definitely check out their website at the bottom of the blog page. As I mentioned in my first post, I was able to go to the Wellington Orphanage in Sierra Leone in the fall of 2006 with 4Him to do some trauma counseling with the children. I met the president of 4Him, Steve, at a friend's going away party, and our friends got Steve's wife and I together because we had missions in common. Well, here we are heading back to Sierra Leone in November. We are very excited about this opportunity. After our trip in March, we knew that we needed to go back when we could, and with our adoption coming up later next year this seemed to be the right time. We are ready to go back and spend time with the kids.
So, I wanted to tell you more about the orphanage. Seventy-eight children live there at this time due to a twelve-year civil war that began in the early 90s. The war was started by the President of Liberia over the diamonds in Sierra Leone. Many innocent people were killed as control over the diamonds was sought. Families and countrymen were forced to turn against each other, and the country's economy and infrastructure was completely destroyed. The children at the Wellington Orphanage lost their parents during this war and many of them witnessed their parents' brutal murders. So, Hassan Manssary felt God calling him to take in the orphaned children throughout the war, and he, his family and fellow believers continue to love and care for them today. The children are housed in a building that was built by a bank in Sierra Leone a few years ago. It provided them much needed shelter because they had a very difficult time finding a place to live. These are the most amazing group of children I have ever met. God has used 4Him mission teams to bring them to know Him. When you see them smile, hear them laugh and sing, watch them play and dance, you know that they have truly experienced complete healing from the Lord. When we are around them, we see the joy of the Lord. When you hear them speak of forgiveness, you hear and understand like never before the true meaning of the gospel. When you worship with them, then you truly get to experience worshipping in spirit and in truth. We love these children, and we are so thankful that the Lord has allowed us to have the opportunity to know them and learn from them. Please visit the websites below to read more about the children and 4Him ministries. 4Him stands for His Healing Helping Hands International Ministry. We strongly believe in this mission organization and what they are doing around the world. 4Him currently has a lot of amazing projects going on in Sierra Leone from building churches and schools, to assisting with individual businesses starting up and continual support of the children at the orphanage, just to name a few. 4Him operates completely on donations, and it is a great way to make an impact around the world! Their link is at the bottom of the blog page.
Sierra Leone is listed as the second poorest country in the world and noted by the UN as one of the most difficult places to live due to human suffering. When you think about those two things alone, then this is definitely not a place that you would probably jump at the chance to go and visit. However, we will never be the same after visiting Sierra Leone. Words could never express what it is like to be around these children. The Lord is using them in amazing ways to impact their country and the mission teams that go to Sierra Leone from the US. We just have to tell others about their amazing testimonies. My friend, Jen C., put it best when she titled the CD with the children singing, "The World Should Know." You should definitely check out their website at the bottom of the blog page. As I mentioned in my first post, I was able to go to the Wellington Orphanage in Sierra Leone in the fall of 2006 with 4Him to do some trauma counseling with the children. I met the president of 4Him, Steve, at a friend's going away party, and our friends got Steve's wife and I together because we had missions in common. Well, here we are heading back to Sierra Leone in November. We are very excited about this opportunity. After our trip in March, we knew that we needed to go back when we could, and with our adoption coming up later next year this seemed to be the right time. We are ready to go back and spend time with the kids.
So, I wanted to tell you more about the orphanage. Seventy-eight children live there at this time due to a twelve-year civil war that began in the early 90s. The war was started by the President of Liberia over the diamonds in Sierra Leone. Many innocent people were killed as control over the diamonds was sought. Families and countrymen were forced to turn against each other, and the country's economy and infrastructure was completely destroyed. The children at the Wellington Orphanage lost their parents during this war and many of them witnessed their parents' brutal murders. So, Hassan Manssary felt God calling him to take in the orphaned children throughout the war, and he, his family and fellow believers continue to love and care for them today. The children are housed in a building that was built by a bank in Sierra Leone a few years ago. It provided them much needed shelter because they had a very difficult time finding a place to live. These are the most amazing group of children I have ever met. God has used 4Him mission teams to bring them to know Him. When you see them smile, hear them laugh and sing, watch them play and dance, you know that they have truly experienced complete healing from the Lord. When we are around them, we see the joy of the Lord. When you hear them speak of forgiveness, you hear and understand like never before the true meaning of the gospel. When you worship with them, then you truly get to experience worshipping in spirit and in truth. We love these children, and we are so thankful that the Lord has allowed us to have the opportunity to know them and learn from them. Please visit the websites below to read more about the children and 4Him ministries. 4Him stands for His Healing Helping Hands International Ministry. We strongly believe in this mission organization and what they are doing around the world. 4Him currently has a lot of amazing projects going on in Sierra Leone from building churches and schools, to assisting with individual businesses starting up and continual support of the children at the orphanage, just to name a few. 4Him operates completely on donations, and it is a great way to make an impact around the world! Their link is at the bottom of the blog page.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Our Timeline
August 2007-January 2008 – This time started with sharing with our family and friends about our plans for adoption. We are so thankful for their excitement and support. We also spent this time researching organizations and countries from which we could adopt. We were looking at Central/South America due to the location, Spanish being a valuable language to know and the culture being fairly prevalent in our area. There were definitely some frustrating points in the process since we were having difficulty locating a country in this region that we could adopt with. During this time, Ethiopia began to surface, but we didn’t feel a complete direction to pursue Ethiopia at this moment. We discussed Ethiopia as a possibility for our second adoption, where we to adopt again.
January 2008- We discovered that Peru would be a viable option. The process would take about two years, and our child would be about 18 months to two years old, and we would be in Peru for about a month, possibly longer. We could only find one adoption agency in the US that was licensed for a family from our state to adopt from Peru so we chose Children’s Home Society & Family Services out of Minnesota. We would soon find out that this would be a great agency for adopting from another country besides Peru. We completed and mailed in our initial application to be placed in the program to adopt from Peru.
February 2008- We began gathering all of the required documents for our home study and we completed our initial home study meeting at the end of the month.
March 2008- Kevin and I went to Sierra Leone, West Africa to the same orphanage that I had the opportunity to work at in 2006. It was an amazing week! When we returned, we really began sensing that God was leading us to adopt from Africa. We completed our second and final interview for our home study right after returning from Africa. We took the rest of March and beginning of April to seek the Lord on what we needed to do.
April 2008- We felt a peace and direction to adopt from Africa. Only a few countries in Africa have strong, reliable adoption programs, and Sierra Leone is not one of them. As I mentioned earlier, Ethiopia had been surfacing for several months. So, we did a lot of research and praying, and we decided upon Ethiopia. We notified our agency and our social worker so our home study and paperwork could be changed. We were transferred from the Peruvian to the Ethiopian program within the same agency. The process for Ethiopia takes about 9 months to one year to complete the paperwork and receive our referral. Our child will be about 6 months old give or take a month or two, and we will stay in Ethiopia for one week. We do not know what gender our child will be. Our agency stipulates that if you do not have children, then you must be open to gender, which is fine with us.
May 2008- Filed our I600A with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Our home study was approved and we were approved to begin the process with adopting from Ethiopia. We received our information packet for our dossier (legal documents that are required by the international government) for Ethiopia.
June 2008- Completed and mailed in our dossier on June 17. On June 20, we received confirmation via e-mail that our dossier had been approved, and would be sent to the Ethiopian Embassy and US State Department to authenticate specific documents, and then it would be on its way to Ethiopia! So, WE ARE OFFICIALLY ON THE WAIT LIST FOR OUR REFERRAL AS OF JUNE 20, 2008!!!!!!! Currently, if nothing changes with the time frame, then we can expect to know who our child is between December and March. Once we find out, then we will travel 2-4 months after that.
August 2008- We received our CIS approval on 8/1!!!! We were very excited to receive this approval from US Citizenship and Immigration services. This means that once we receive our referral that we are approved by the US federal government to go and bring our child home. We also got to meet the local group of parents who have adopted from Ethiopia and meet at a local Ethiopian restaurant. We had a great time, and we look forward to spend more time with them on a monthly basis in the upcoming months.
September 2008- On 9/8 we received word from our adoption agency that our referral time has extended due to anticipated referrals slowing down while the Ethiopian courts are closed for August and September. This was obviously very disappointing news and not at all what we wanted to hear. However, we knew it was a strong possibility and the more friends that I have talked to that have adopted experienced increased wait times with their adoptions as well. That did provide some encouragement that this adoption will happen. As I said, we knew it was a possibility, but when you get a certain timeframe in mind, then it is definitely discouraging to hear otherwise. So, at this time we are expecting to receive our referral somewhere around June of 2009. This was the initial timeframe that I had in mind before we completed all of our paperwork, but it still seems far away right now. So, we will just continue to wait as patiently as possible....
January 2008- We discovered that Peru would be a viable option. The process would take about two years, and our child would be about 18 months to two years old, and we would be in Peru for about a month, possibly longer. We could only find one adoption agency in the US that was licensed for a family from our state to adopt from Peru so we chose Children’s Home Society & Family Services out of Minnesota. We would soon find out that this would be a great agency for adopting from another country besides Peru. We completed and mailed in our initial application to be placed in the program to adopt from Peru.
February 2008- We began gathering all of the required documents for our home study and we completed our initial home study meeting at the end of the month.
March 2008- Kevin and I went to Sierra Leone, West Africa to the same orphanage that I had the opportunity to work at in 2006. It was an amazing week! When we returned, we really began sensing that God was leading us to adopt from Africa. We completed our second and final interview for our home study right after returning from Africa. We took the rest of March and beginning of April to seek the Lord on what we needed to do.
April 2008- We felt a peace and direction to adopt from Africa. Only a few countries in Africa have strong, reliable adoption programs, and Sierra Leone is not one of them. As I mentioned earlier, Ethiopia had been surfacing for several months. So, we did a lot of research and praying, and we decided upon Ethiopia. We notified our agency and our social worker so our home study and paperwork could be changed. We were transferred from the Peruvian to the Ethiopian program within the same agency. The process for Ethiopia takes about 9 months to one year to complete the paperwork and receive our referral. Our child will be about 6 months old give or take a month or two, and we will stay in Ethiopia for one week. We do not know what gender our child will be. Our agency stipulates that if you do not have children, then you must be open to gender, which is fine with us.
May 2008- Filed our I600A with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Our home study was approved and we were approved to begin the process with adopting from Ethiopia. We received our information packet for our dossier (legal documents that are required by the international government) for Ethiopia.
June 2008- Completed and mailed in our dossier on June 17. On June 20, we received confirmation via e-mail that our dossier had been approved, and would be sent to the Ethiopian Embassy and US State Department to authenticate specific documents, and then it would be on its way to Ethiopia! So, WE ARE OFFICIALLY ON THE WAIT LIST FOR OUR REFERRAL AS OF JUNE 20, 2008!!!!!!! Currently, if nothing changes with the time frame, then we can expect to know who our child is between December and March. Once we find out, then we will travel 2-4 months after that.
August 2008- We received our CIS approval on 8/1!!!! We were very excited to receive this approval from US Citizenship and Immigration services. This means that once we receive our referral that we are approved by the US federal government to go and bring our child home. We also got to meet the local group of parents who have adopted from Ethiopia and meet at a local Ethiopian restaurant. We had a great time, and we look forward to spend more time with them on a monthly basis in the upcoming months.
September 2008- On 9/8 we received word from our adoption agency that our referral time has extended due to anticipated referrals slowing down while the Ethiopian courts are closed for August and September. This was obviously very disappointing news and not at all what we wanted to hear. However, we knew it was a strong possibility and the more friends that I have talked to that have adopted experienced increased wait times with their adoptions as well. That did provide some encouragement that this adoption will happen. As I said, we knew it was a possibility, but when you get a certain timeframe in mind, then it is definitely discouraging to hear otherwise. So, at this time we are expecting to receive our referral somewhere around June of 2009. This was the initial timeframe that I had in mind before we completed all of our paperwork, but it still seems far away right now. So, we will just continue to wait as patiently as possible....
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