Waiting Already

And so, the waiting begins.  I know that this process is going to be full of waiting, and God is going to grow my patience through this.  We sent in the application on Tuesday, AGCI got it on Thursday and our contact person said everything looks good, we're just waiting on one piece of paper.  That paper will now not be arriving until probably Monday, which means, there's a good possibility we won't be approved on Monday like we were hoping.  We are dying to let everyone know what we're doing.  Sure we've told our family and a few close friends here in NC for support, but I want to be able to call my friends and share the good news with them.  I want to make this blog public so that everyone can hear our story.  I've had to stop myself from telling a few people here over the last week.  Not that it would be a bad thing if I did, but we just don't want to get ahead of ourselves and we want the for sure go ahead that this is happening before we let anyone else know.  We are so excited for this baby already, we keep walking around telling each other we're going to have a baby! I'm already dreaming of the day when we get that call that there's a baby waiting for us.  But I know that before that happens there will be lots of waiting, we're waiting already and the process hasn't even officially started yet. Right now I'm just resting in the fact that God is with us in the waiting, and every little delay or wait brings us one step closer to child he has picked out just for us!

Application Mailed!!

Today we mailed our official application in to AGCI!  We were on our way back from a wedding weekend/anniversary getaway and we stopped at a random post office in SC to get all of our info in the mail! We were so excited to officially get the process started! Hopefully we'll hear back from them at the beginning of next week and we can begin telling people.  We've told a few close friends who have/are going through the process so that we can have their support and have them pray with us and we also told our family while we were home this weekend.  We thought it would be something they would want to hear in person and they all took the news really well! They seemed pretty excited at the thought of being grandparents! So, the ball is officially rolling now on our journey to our baby! We're brainstorming ideas for fundraisers right now so there will be more to come on that later, we're going to get started right away! The first thing we have coming up is the craft fair at SEBTS on Saturday, November 6 from 9-3.  Originally I was just doing this for fun but now I'm going to use it as a kick-off for starting our fundraising. So if you're in the area, come out and see me, along with several other adoptive families from our church! What better way to kick off the Christmas season?

Why Adoption? Why Now? Why Ethiopia?

Many of you are probably wondering why? Isn't it expensive? You haven't had your "own" kids yet? Won't it be hard? What will it look like for an African baby to grow up in a white family? Those are all questions that we expect to come our way, and we are prepared to answer them.

Why adopt now you ask? Before having biological children? Because we want our family to be a clear picture of the Gospel.  Because we too were once orphans.  Not in the sense that we didn't have a family with a mom and dad, but spiritually we were orphans separated from our heavenly Father.  We desire for others to see that just as God adopted us into His family unconditionally(Ephesians 1:5), we have done the same for a child who had no one. We want to share the love that God has given us with a child that might not otherwise know about Him.  Aaron and I both have had the desire to adopt since before we were married. However, we always thought it would be something we did later on down the road.  Lately though, through an adoption ministry our church has started, and watching several of our friends go through the process, God has really been pressing on us that the time is now.  So after much prayer we're stepping out in faith and answering the call. We want our child to know that they are wanted, they are chosen, that we came for them, that this wasn't a "last resort" but a choice we made to give a home to the fatherless.

Why Ethiopia? Yes, we know that there are plenty of children here in the US who need homes, but we feel that we are called to an international adoption.  For us right now, this makes the most sense.  I would like to have a spiritual answer for why we chose Ethiopia out of all the countries available, but I don't.  After researching agencies and country qualifications(age, income etc), we were left with only one agency, which happens to be the one our friends have all used, and two countries: Ethiopia and Bulgaria.  After looking at the country profile for both countries, Ethiopia was where we landed.  Not only were they less expensive than Bulgaria, it allows us to get as young of a baby as possible, and the need is staggering.  Here are some quick facts about Ethiopia:
*There are an estimated 5 million orphans in Ethiopia
*Only 24% of households have access to clean drinking water
*1 in 10 children there die before their 1st birthday
*1 in 6 die before their 5th birthday
*Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school
*60% of children in Ethiopia are stunted because of malnutrition
*1/3 of the population lives on less than $1 a day

You would have to take all the kids 18 and under in New York, Massachusetts, and District of Columbia- remove their parents, and you would have the number of children who are orphans in Ethiopia.

We want to make that number 5 million minus 1!

Expensive you ask? Why yes, it is.  We have no idea how we are going to come up with the money to complete this adoption, but we're resting in the fact that God does and He will provide. He has ordained this adoption long before we were even born and He loves this little baby more than we could even imagine. We're going to be doing lots of fundraisers along the way so keep checking back with us for updates on those. Also, if anyone has any creative ideas we're open to them!

Lastly, yes, adopting from Ethiopia means we will have a black child, and we're a white family.  We know that there will be issues that arise from this, and we're prepared to deal with them.  The best way I have seen this put is on another blog I've been reading and the mom answered this same question this way: "we know this will have its difficulties, but we consider them miniscule in comparison to the difficulty of being an orphan in a devastated country like Ethiopia."

So please join us in praying as we start this amazing journey to bring our baby home!

Pre-Application Approved!!

Yesterday we got the call that out pre-application has been approved! We were so excited to get that news, God's hand is already apparent in this journey to our baby! The next step is to fill out the formal application and send that in along with a worksheet breakdown of our income and a few letters. The representative I talked to said she didn't forsee any problems with our application getting approved, which is such a praise because we weren't sure if we would even qualify income wise.  We cannot wait to start telling people! We're going home this weekend so we'll be able to tell both of our famlies in person, we're excited to get their reactions! God has ordained this adoption before we were even born, that's so awesome, so even though we don't know how we're going to raise all the money, God does, and we trust Him to provide!

Pre-Application

Well, we did it! We sent in our pre-application to AGCI to get started in the adoption process! We are totally trusting God in this, with Him all things are possible, and we're just following His call.  We should hear something in the next day or so to find out if we can move forward with the actual application.  We're so excited and have been talking about it non-stop, we're already thinking of ways to tell friends and family when we get the good news.  There will be more to come, so follow along with us as we start this amazing journey!