We are Referral Ready!!!!!!

That's right!!!!

On Thursday, we received our letter from U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services with a favorable determination. That means we have every piece of paper, fingerprint, and authorization needed to receive the referral for our child! Now with that being said, we are still on a wait list and it will still be a while. But the great news is we are ready!

And... some other really cool news....

Thursday I also talked with our case manager B and she stated that our dossier is now in Ethiopia at Hannah's Hope in a locked box waiting for the day that we are matched with our child! YAY!!!!

That news made this momma smile ear to ear!!

I hope everyone is having a great weekend!

So far ours has revolved around football and food!

Go Steelers!! Go #43 Polamalu!!!

(Just needed to throw that in!

&

Who can resist that hair!!!)

~ANDREA

Lives ARE Being Changed!

Ever feel helpless when you see others in need?

Ever feel like you don't have enough or couldn't give enough to truly make a difference?

Well I have good news for you. You can make a difference. Each and every one of us can!

A little bit matters, every bit matters in the life of an orphan.

While the numbers and the problems seem huge ...each and every prayer said, moment spent, and dollar given counts.

I can't begin to tell you the number of miracles, blessings, and lives changed that I have read about, been told about, or have seen since we have started this process. I amazed and in total awe of His work. Not everyday for these children or for their parents have been perfect, probably not any, to be honest. But lives are being changed and God's hand is most definitely at work.

Let me share a wonderful example from this week!

Many of you have seen in some of our pictures the Feed 1 shirts that my girls and I have worn. (This is a pic of D wearing hers!)

They are from a ministry called 147 Million Orphans. The ministry helps to feed orphans in Uganda, Haiti, China, Honduras, and Ethiopia and does much, much more. The founders of the ministry are two adoptive mommas. Each have adopted children with special needs and each in the past week have seen miracles happen in the lives of their children. One child was given the ability to hear and another's viral load test came back HIV undetectable.

I won't tell their stories because I am sure I wouldn't do them justice but click on over to their blogs and read.

They are truly the AMAZING work of our creator and an answered prayer for many!

Gwen's blog http://oatsvallteam.blogspot.com/2011/01/josie-love-joseph-they-should-inspire.html

Suzanne's blog http://joiningthejourney.blogspot.com/2011/01/living-life-with-child-that-is-hiv.html

~ANDREA

Our January Number

We received an email last night from our case manager that contained our new number for January.

That's right we are now in the 60s. Moving right along!

My heart jumped a little yesterday, when I saw that everyone's numbers were two lower than we had all expected. What a GREAT surprise!

Now, I am praying that this month there will be many children going home to their forever families and many more being referred.

MAYBE next month we will be in the 50s!!!

Prayer for the New Year

Taking a quick break away from the Christmas posting to share a small image.

I am so hopeful for the 2011. I am excited to see what God has in store for each one of us and for our family as a whole. My prayer is that God continues to challenge us and to move us beyond our comfort zones. I pray that each one of us grows closer and more deeply in love with our creator. As I pray and write all of this I know that He holds the power to completely alter our world and our way of thinking. So I would be dishonest not to say that for every bit of excitement that comes with this prayer there is a bit of anxiousness and fear. In the end however, I know that His plans and desires for my family far succeed anything good that I could imagine.

In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. Proverbs 16:9

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6

This is what the Lord says -your Redeemer, the Holy one of Israel: "I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go. Isaiah 48:17

We received this surprise gift a few days ago from my parents. After taking down decorations today, I placed it on a shelf in our living room. Then I stood back and gazed at the image. Oh how my heart yearns for this to be the living portrait of our family. I feel such great anticipation for the day when it will be so. I am so very thankful to God for the new path that was set before us in 2010.

~ANDREA

Christmas Part 2

As you can see we try to pack as much fun and tradition into the Christmas season as we can. (not the usual shopping, shopping, shopping!) We sooo enjoy this time of the year! I love the lights, weather, community and church events that go with it!

A lot of the traditions we have revolve around discussions of Christ, his birth, his life, his death, his purpose, and the call we have to continue to share each of these things with the world. We want our children to remember Christmas past as a time when great memories were made with family, friends, and neighbors and that some of the best of them were made giving to others.

The weekend before Christmas we attended an open house at Bryant's Miniatures. We have been out to these stables before but never for their Christmas open house. The girls loved it. My children are not only crazy about babies but animals as well!

They even got to pet and feed the camel. The Bryant's have such a neat variety of animals. Delaney was able to name the camel and donkey because of our talk about the nativity.

*Just a quick note...this year the girls were given the little people nativity at the beginning of December. Genna and Delaney played with it often. While they were playing I would tell them the story again and explain who each animal or person was. After a few times D would approach it and say Mary, baby Jesus, wise men, and etc.. It turned out to be a great hands on learning tool for her. I loved it!

After leaving the stables we headed out to get our Christmas tree. I know the weekend before Christmas....we were a little behind, but it was perfect there was snow on the ground and everything!!

We picked a great tree...GREAT BIG that is! The room it was going in only has 8ft ceilings and the tree was a little over 8ft. Josh cut off a little at the bottom and brought it in. He put on the lights and we decorated it. Then Grace got the honor of putting on the star.

That is when we realized a little more needed to be cut off. The girls insisted however that we leave it. So this is how our star remained the rest of the season!

One more post coming up!

Christmas Season 2010 Part 1

It has seemed like forever since I blogged!

Things have been busy around here. However, they have also been great! I hate to say "it has been busy" like it was a bad thing. Most everything that occupied our time in December were things we chose to do or felt God had led us to do..... so no complaining here!

A quick update before all the Christmas stuff.

This month we sold Josh's car in order to get a vehicle with a few more miles on it and to eliminate a vehicle payment. We also were able to sell his 1975 CJ5, for all you JEEP lovers out there you know this was a BIG deal. This was his baby, his project. He decided to sell it though, knowing that his time with "his baby" would be even more limited with another child around and that we could use the extra money....

Last month we had to replace the washer and dryer unexpectedly. So selling both of those were a huge blessing.

Also Josh's new-to-him ride is in the JEEP family, just an FYI for all of you who were feeling bad for the guy!! ; ) I did feel a little bit sorry for him.

Last Thursday we went to our fingerprint appointment at the United States Citizen and Immigration Services. Everything went well and we are hoping to hear back that we are clear. At that point, we will be referral ready, except for the rest of the fundraising!

Now on to some of the CHRISTMAS FUN!

We started off the season with Genna's school Christmas program. She was so excited! I didn't want to send her to school all day in a dress, so I stayed up the night before and made her a Christmas shirt! She loved it!

The girls were in the Christmas program at our church. Genna was Mary and Grace was a modern day girl. Can you tell they both love to sing!! Both their mouths are open the widest!

Grace's program at school had to be rescheduled due to the four snow days we had before break.

They did a wonderful job, even though most of their rehearsal was done a few hours before the program.

The girls love to be in the kitchen and always want to help cook. So we spent a few days making gooodies! On this particular day, we made homemade thin mints, snicker doodles, chocolate chip cookies, and triple chocolate. A total of 16 dozen in all! The next afternoon they delivered the goodies to the neighbors in the snow. Oh what fun!!

And yes in this next picture I am on the floor with crazy braids in my hair letting D stir the cookie dough. She kept climbing from the stool onto the counter where the hot cookies were all laid out. So I sat down on the floor and let her stir with me there. I promise those of you who ate the cookies, none of them touched the floor!

More Christmas fun to come!

Our December Number & Upcoming Appointment

We received our new number today via e-mail from our agency. It alternates each month, one month we receive a phone call and the next an e-mail giving us our official number. We also received our appointment date and time via snail mail for fingerprinting through the USCIS (United States Citizen & Immigration Services). We will be traveling to St Louis around Christmas for the appointment. This is a great feeling because once that all goes through we will be referral ready. Then the only thing left for right now is continuing to fund raise and WAIT.
As odd as it may sound I am very content at this point with the wait. While I would love to have all four of my children here this Christmas, I am thankful for the time the Lord has given us for reflection and continued learning. We are preparing for this child and the work the Lord has in store for us in the future. We know that after our adoption we will continue to be involved in the care of orphans. We are not sure in what capacity that might be, but a burden has definitely been placed on our hearts for them.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchman wait for the morning.

Psalm 130:5-6