Hope

I love the Internet. I love that people blog about their adoptions. It helps so many get through the drudgery of the paperwork and the waiting! I love reading blogs about Christ followers who have a heart for orphans.

But, today I heard a story about a teacher in an orphanage and her relationship with her students. It was not a heart warming story and it reminds me that these kids are in a position of vulnerability without a voice. These kids need to be loved, need to be cherished and need to know that they have hope. Their hope lies in Jesus Christ. People will fail them every time, but Jesus will love them eternally. God is bigger than their situation and He is sovereign. I want to share the love of Christ with these orphans. I want them to know that they mean something, that they are loved and that God believes they are worth Jesus dying on the cross.

God is bigger than the government here in the States and bigger than any government. He is Lord of lords and King of kings! My hope is in Him alone. These kids need this message. I thank those families who are there now and who have been inside the walls of the orphanages spreading the Gospel. Jesus is their hope.

Update

We haven't posted in a long time and wanted to update you. We are waiting on our I171H to come in. While we wait, we are getting POAs, medicals and other things completed. We truly hope to have the dossier all together by the end of the month. We have no idea if this is even possible, but that is our goal.

God has used the past few weeks to confirm for our family the purpose to which He has called us. We anxiously await the time we are in Ukraine to bring our children home!

Not much happening

This week, we have our fingerprinting appointment with the USCIS. A friend of ours has their appointment on Tuesday. Haven't heard any word on our homestudy. We don't know where it is in the process-still at DHR or been sent to USCIS. Will have to check on it this week.

We are done schooling for the semester. So, we start our preparing for Christmas and travels to Louisiana and Georgia and Dothan, AL.

We pray our paperwork will be ready to send to Ukraine in January and then hopefully to be submitted as soon as our facilitator can get it in.

Fingerprinting appt!

Today, Sunday, we checked the mail after church. And sitting in the mailbox were our letters from Homeland Security giving us our date to be fingerprinted (Dec. 11) and 3 copies of our homestudy complete with our social worker's license- all notarized and everything!! Why didn't I check it yesterday?!?

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with Laura's mom and step-dad, Larry. It was a nice and slow time. We ate alot of food, played, talked and watched movies. A good time to slow down and to thank God for His many blessings. There was a bit of sadness as we spent a holiday feeling our family is not complete. But look forward to our time with them soon. We are working on our Christmas decorations and hope to get them completed this weekend.

If you haven't been following Randy and Valerie Hall's blog (link to the right), then you should take the time to catch up on it. It is a wonderful story and a true blessing to be a part of it with them from afar. God's hand is seen all through out it. When they were unsure if one of their children was going to say yes to being adopted, their friends joined together and prayed fervently for "Z", their family and all involved. God once again displayed His faithfulness and "Z" accepted them as her family. A great testimony to God's glory being magnified through orphans.

Currently, we are following 4 families in Ukraine as they go through the adoption process.- 2 are friends, 1 a friend of a friend, and the other I know of through blogs. Another friend just received their referral to adopt 2 young brothers from Africa. What a blessing to watch it all unfold. There are more set to go to Ukraine in December and January. We learn so much about the process as we follow others' story.

We are in the waiting game for our paperwork. DHR should have our homestudy and hoping they approve it very soon. We have some questions regarding exactly what Ukraine wants for the dossier (in terms of wording), but we have a great facilitator and know he will guide us in this.

Check that off the list.....

Yesterday, we emailed our homestudy to our facilitator in Ukraine to look over. He emailed this morning with a correction. We sent this info to our social worker. She has made the requested corrections and said she will try to get it out today. YEAH! Now we wait for everyone to hopefully approve our homestudy and then we get our dossier completed and send it over---about a 2-3 month process at most, we hope! Happy Thanksgiving.

Going back a bit....

I got to thinking...some you that are reading this may not know how we have got where we are. So I thought I would back track a little...

Every summer an organization called Hope for Orphans of the World brings a group of orphan children from Ukraine to Birmingham, AL where they stay at Randy and Valerie Hall's home for 3 weeks. It is an amazing time for these kids and for those of us that volunteer during that time. Our family has been involved for several summers. But, this past summer, God stirred our hearts to something different. This year, I volunteered just about everyday. I was there and really got to know these kids. It was wonderful. We really connected with alot of those kids!! David, for the first time, came just about daily after he got off of work and on weekends. When they left, it really was quite emotional for me. I hadn't expected that at all.

We began to pray for guidance and we thought God was drawing us in a particular direction. He was, but in a much grander way than we could imagine. After they left, David began talking to others we had met over the summer. In October, God called him to travel to Ukraine for 13 days, without being part of a "mission group." He wanted to see where and to what God was calling him and our family to do in Ukraine. With a friend in tow, he visited several areas, orphanages, rescue shelters, foster homes and met many wonderful people there. While he was there, he chatted with me online. During one of those chats the subject of adoption came up. I am always on board to talk adoption!

After several chats and calls we decided to go forward and start the process for adopting again from Ukraine. Mind you, David was not in Ukraine to seek info on adoption. As a matter of fact, we pretty much felt that we were being turned away from it. We see now that God was turning us away from one situation and guiding us toward another. We are thrilled about this and very eager to add to our family once again. God is so good and so faithful! Not only do we feel God's love in the beauty of adoption but we are also being led to minister to the needs of all orphans in Ukraine. Praise God for His faithfulness, His wisdom, His sovereignty, His mercy and His grace!!