chuggin' along

I can't help but think of Gibson when I write that title! Man, that boy loves some trains.
So anyway! Not a whole lot to report here. We have busily been gathering papers and making phone calls. We had a small setback on our I600A because of some miscommunication. It is all straightened out now, thankfully. I sent it back out today and was also able to send off a good chunk of paperwork to our social worker as part of our home study. Hopefully in the weeks to come we will be scheduling our home visits. I am ready!
I also wanted to update people on the tshirt situation. Very soon we will be ordering smaller sizes. We have not forgotten! We are finally bouncing back after vacation, and after we get some things together, we will be ordering them! So the status is: tshirts coming soon! That said, if you are interest in a L, XL, or XXL, please let us know and we can get it to you asap.

How you can pray for us:

• Our house has been for sale for quite a while. We are praying it sells soon, but are also considering whether or not to leave it on the market since our home study is beginning soon.
• Peace while paperchasing (that is mostly for me, ha!).
• Future fundraising, grants, donations, etc. that will make our adoption possible.
• Our future child who is probably in his/hers mommy's belly right now! So pray for a healthy pregnancy, their development, and also for their family who must be facing great hardship. Please pray for our child's mother. My heart hurts for her.
• Pray for rain! Ethiopia is experiencing a drought right now. You can imagine how hard that is for the people. Also, because of conservation, it slows down all communication which directly effects adoptive families and their children. Rain, rain, rain!

of progress and blessing

Vacation was truly wonderful! It was such a great rest for our family. We were in need of that possibly more than we ever have been! Phil and I had so much fun together, and Gibson and Maya had a blast. They had been fighting so much before we left and they just had a great time together and really became closer friends.
Now that we are back we are diving right in. I sent in our I600-A today. Tomorrow we will be traveling to do our orientation meeting with our social worker. This will count as one of our face-to-face meetings. We will also pay for our home study meetings tomorrow night. I am hoping later in the week to cross a few other small things off the list like birth certificates, marriage license, etc. There is a lot on the list! If I just look at it as one thing at a time, it is not so overwhelming. I hope that along the process that I can just keep the right perspective that each step will bring us closer to our child. Now that gets me really excited!!!
I just have to put out a big thank you to all of our friends and family out there! The support and prayer that has been poured upon us is amazing. We have been so humbled by the checks and donations that keep popping up along the way. The 10 dollar check means just as much to us as the 200 dollar one. We know people are giving sacrificially and that is truly humbling. So thank you everyone!!!

another step

Today we sent in our signed agreements and paid our first program fee. We are in this, y'all!!! We are leaving for vacation with my family tomorrow morning (that makes me twitch a little), so while we are gone things can be processed and we will be hooked up with our family coordinator. That means that when we get back from Florida we can hit the ground running collecting papers and begin the home study process. I can't wait! But I am ready to relax a little on the beach first. :)

warning: post contains many exclamation points :)

Last night was awesome! Oh my, it was so great. Not only was there amazing music by Charis, Blackburn, and Phil Wing, but we just truly felt so loved and supported by the body of Christ. So many people helped us out and served selflessly to help pull it all off. We had about 250 people come out to celebrate with us. It was great to hear another family come and share a little bit about their own adoption from Ethiopia. It was a joy to watch their little children run around with ours. A little glimpse into the future that got us so excited! We also had a friend come share about the World Vision Experience. It sounds like something you will not want to miss.
Now I have to brag on my husband, because he would never do it himself. His band sounded so great last night! Definitely the best that I've ever heard from them. Their new stuff is great, and the song he wrote about our adoption, To Find You, made me cry for sure. Wonderful. I am so excited for his CD to come out now! I have a feeling it will be my favorite, not just because he's my husband, but because the songs are so good.
Our tshirts were flying off of the shelf! We are going to be ordering more (all you small and medium people out there!) so look for those to be coming to our website soon. We are going to set it up with paypal so you can just buy them right off of here.
People were just so generous. We are humbled. In only one night we were able to raise about 20% of our total costs!!! Wow. We were blown away and moved beyond words. Thank you to everyone who so generously gave! It means so much to us for you to be a part of bringing home our baby! We are overcome with joy.
God is good, good, good!!!