Cinco

I don't know if anyone is still checking this blog.
We are a family of 5 now.

How do you spell stressed?

Wow! Getting ready to leave has been crazy. We have so much to take! We ar so nervous and excited all at once. The new blog is up and running, so I will post most adoption information on that blog. But keep checking, I will put some adoption stuff on here too!

Brent may use this for a devotional blog while we are gone.
If you want to join him in this devotional, pick up A Call to Die by David Nasser. I think you can get it anywhere.
It's a great challenge to go deeper with God. Hope you choose to do the study.

Pray for us.

Saturday, 9:58 AM

That was the time of which we received an email from our agency saying that WE HAVE BEEN APPROVED TO TRAVEL!!!!!! WE ARE GOING TO BE LEAVING VERY SOON!!!! AAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Any travel advice??? :)

Sitting still is not an option.

It's 10:30 at night and I can't sit still. I haven't been able to sit still for 2 days now. Friday night there was a women's conference at church and I finally had to leave for a second and ask God to help me calm down enough to listen. On Saturday, work was good, but the 4 hours lasted forever. Then I locked my keys in my car! ha! So I just paced around in front of the bookstore waiting for the locksmith. My mom and I went to Huntsville and then her car started smoking! Not a good car day! It also rained all day, but I love the rain. So I didn't mind at all.

But I can't seem to stay in one location very long. I gotta keep moving.
Why? Because we have the MOST BEAUTIFUL pictures!! They keep coming! I wish you could see them! Big brown eyes, adorable smiles from all three kids! Every picture is filled with laughter and smiles!
WE CANNOT WAIT TO MEET THEM! We wish we could have left yesterday!

Brent and I went through our pictures on our facebook last night trying to look at them through the eyes of people who haven't ever met us, WOW! The picture of us HILARIOUS! We laughed till water was pouring out of our eyes!
Brent is always making a funny face or being silly. I love him. :)

I feel like I have been attached at the hip to the computer looking at pictures over and over, waiting to see if there are new ones. I guess I think if I look at the pictures enough, we will magically be beamed over to Peru! haha!!

Sitting still will not be an option for awhile. Ecclesiastes 3 says "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens." Well this is definitely a time to LAUGH and a time to DANCE!!

"Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.”
Psalm 126:2

"He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy." Job 8:21

"Not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness" Psalm 115:1

"..so that people may see and know, may consider and understand, that the hand of the LORD has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it." Isaiah 41:20

Thank you for rejoicing with us! Keep dancing!

A story while you wait part 2

So we drove home December 15 feeling pretty low. What happened? Did we hear wrong? What was going on? There was not a booming voice from heaven with an explaination. So we just waited. We didn't really do anything with the adoption for the next few weeks. Christmas and New Years kept us busy!

Then one day, we got an email from our agency. It contained a list of children waiting for a home. There was very little information. Just names, ages, and a sentence or two about the child/group. One group of 3 caught our eye. Honestly, it was because of their ages. So we decided to inquire about them. About a week later, we got a bit more information. A reference card if you will. Containing basic, non-detailed information about each child.....and a picture. Whoa. Cuteness was everywhere! We thought for a while and decided to tell our parents that we were considering these kids. By now it was the middle of January. The snow came and went and Brent's hand had been bothering him greatly for a few weeks.

We decided to send a letter of intent. Our updated dossier was translated and re-submitted. This took about a week. The consejo for January was the last weekend. We were told that our dossier was held up and did not make it to that consejo. We were pretty thankful for that. The doctor scheduled Brent's surgery for the middle of February and recovery was either going to take 1 month or 3 months depending on what he found during the surgery. According to the MRI and the doctor, Brent had DESTROYED all the cartilige in his wrist. He could not even pick up a bottle of water and was in EXTREME pain and had not slept through the night since before Christmas. He usually only got about 2 hours of sleep a night. We were both having a very hard time spiritually and emotionally, Brent physically, we were struggling really bad. In fact, moving to Antartica was very appealing! So if we had been assigned the kids in January, there may not have been enough time for Brent's recovery nor our spiritual/emotional recovery.

So we were ready set for the February consejo. :) We decided not to mention to anyone except our immediate family that we inquired about the 3 siblings. Just wanted to keep it on the down low since the last time it didn't go so well. It was hard when everyone would say, "well how are things going with the adoption?" My usual response was that we were just waiting. Which was true, we just didn't specify that we were waiting on a certain 3 kids.

My birthday came - I am now 30! Wierd! Brent's surgery was the next day after my birthday. That was the best day. Ever. He was instantly out of pain (except for normal surgery soreness) and he has slept through the night since the 2nd night! PRAISE THE LORD!! Also the Sunday before our pastor preached on Psalm 55. It was great. In the Psalm, David says he wants to have wings like a dove so he can fly away. Funny - so did we! Then at the end David still places his trust in the Lord, even though his own son is trying to kill him. God used that in our lives. Hope was reborn!

This brings us to present day! Sunday came and we told our Sunday school class - hey we might get kids Wednesday. So we had a few more prayer warriors with us. Then Wednesday came, the day of the consejo. I was off from work and headed to the doctor. Wow. I didn't even know what to pray. The only thing that kept coming to mind was "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." There were 2 other families in our agency who had requested children and Peru does not like to show favortism by giving children to more than one family in the same agency. So we knew there was a possibilty that we would not get placed with the children this time around. Then Brent got an email around noon saying it was very possible that we were getting them. Then at 4:55, I got a phone call. It was not my area code, so I debated on whether or not to answer it - could have been a wrong number and I have our agencies in my phone and their name was not popping up - but I answered. It was P from our agency! What?! She had just gotten a call from her daughter! Peru had just posted everything on the site! It was offical! We had the 3 kids. They never post anything early - it's usually the next day. P said she and her daughter usually have a race to see who can check the site first the day after the consejo. Wow! Amazing! I called Brent.

We had to print off our acceptance letter. So we also printed the picture we had a few times and after church headed off to our parents to show them the picture of their new grandchildren!

I emailed P today, just to make sure it was till official and that they had not changed their minds. It's official! We got the docutments today.

We are so excited. We don't have a clue what to do next. The next few months are going to be a whirlwind I think. Thank You Lord!

"Tonight’s the night......Two worlds collide in a beautiful display
It’s all up tonight
When we step across the line.......We can sail across the sea"

A story for you while you wait.....

My friend Sharon and I have been chatting a bit the past couple of days. She and Tim are adopting from Ethiopa. They will be adopting 2 for sure. We both realized that it takes a while to get where you are going in adopting. You can read about her experience here.

But here is ours:
When Brent and I started all this it was 2008. We were getting ready to leave seminary and staying with some friend for a couple of weeks. They were also considering adopting. An adoption camp from the Ukraine was passing through the church we attended. We also found out that Brent's mentor and his wife were starting to adopt from Nepal. It's so neat how God puts you on the same road with other people, even before you know that you are going on that road! Brent finally told me that during his time with God he was really being impressed upon to start adopting. I was just waiting on him to tell me. I had been praying for a few weeks about it myself. But I did not want to tell Brent and then have him just agree with me. It needed to come from the Lord.

We arrive here in August and I called the pregnancy center that I volunteered at for some months years ago to ask if they knew of any adoption agencies. I only knew of one and their office was in Texas.
They pointed us to Lifeline. We made an appointment to meet with a domestic social worker and an international social worker, just see what all this adoption stuff was about. :) I can't really remember anything about the meeting. I guess I knew this was where we were going and we just had to figure out a place. At the time Lifeline only worked with about 5 countries. We weren't old enough for China, the Ukraine wasn't for us, Guatemala is closed, so there were just 2 left. Should we go with a different agency with more countries? I asked Brent if he could adopt from anywhere in the world where would it be? His answer: Brazil. Brent has been to several South American countries and Mexico several times. So we landed in Peru. It was the only South American country that had a contract with Lifeline.

We finally mailed in our application in May of 2009. A social worker called me the next day and we talked about a few things on the application. A few weeks later talking with the social worker for Peru, we thought there were some red flags and maybe we should consider a different route.

Enter the domestic portion of our adoption.

We began our home study meetings in August of 2009 with Renee. We loved our domestic social worker, she is a fabulous social worker. But Peru would not leave us alone. October came and we were headed to Lifeline for the last meeting for the home study. We made it through the last of the normal home study meeting and took break. Next we were to begin discussing the information that was just for domestic adoptions. After the break, we took a deep breath and told our social worker that we really needed to switch back to Peru. Whewww! That was actually more nerve-wracking than you would think! But you must understand, we felt very wishy-washy. We had just switched from Peru to domestic and now we were changing back? What was going on with us! But our social worker was incredibly understanding. She even told us that through-out our whole home study with her, she thought there was just something not quite right.

Enter the Peru home study. We pretty much did our entire home study again, only this time with our Peru social worker! We worked with her from October 2009 to March 2010. Unfortuantely, we did not really click very well with her nor the director of the program. We usually left very discouraged from the meetings with them. So we made the decision to switch agency and we have a new placing agency. We instantly fit with them! It was great. They helped make the switch and getting documents sent over very easy and understood what was going on. They have also had a Peru program for 23 years! They helped us with our dossier documents.

After all the switching around our dossier finally made it to Peru in August 2010! A few weeks later an email came to our inbox with the information of 4 siblings needing a home. I sent the email to Brent as a joke asking him if he wanted 4 kids. He took me seriously! So we pondered and talked and emailed our agency telling them yes, we would take them. Our agency was very excited. I thought they would tell us we were crazy, but they went to work, emailing the lawyer in Peru and getting information.
But we discovered that we were too young. In Peru, you must be 18 years older than the oldest child you adopt. In our case, we would have only been 16 years older than the oldest child. We were totally okay with this information and went on about our business.

Fast forward to November 2010, another email hits my inbox. This time Peru is telling us that if we still wanted to adopt these 4 kids we could. WHAT!?!?! This is crazy! Wow! So for some weeks, we thought and prayed and thought and prayed and discussed this idea with our parents and some other families who adopted 4 or 5 siblings at one time. We made the decision to go ahead. Our letter of intent was submitted on December 1. That same night we received a phone call from someone saying they wanted to make a donation to our adoption fund. Another person set up a page with information for our friends to give to our fund as well. We thought, "surely this is the Lord blessing this decision! We are headed in the right direction."

With updating the home study for 4 kids, we also had to have a new psych evaluation (i think to make sure we really weren't crazy! haha!) We drove down on December 15 to meet with the psychologist. The meeting went well. She asked for pictures when we got the kids and we walked across the hall to our agency where they told us an email was sent to them from Peru that morning saying our letter of intent was rejected and we could not have the kids. I really didn't understand was she meant when she told us. I thought okay, so we just submit it again. Then she said it again and I realized - "oh, we can't have them at all. Okay. Well now what?"

Too be continued........

OH. MY. WORD.

So tomorrow is the consejo. Oh. my. word. We could have kids. WHAT!?!?!?! This reality hasn't hit me until now. My heart is pounding with excitement! Calm Down! :) The crazy thing about adoption is that you totally have to trust the Lord. There is absolutley no control over anything. So....I'll let you know soon. =)
Psalm 46:10.

Here's the Deal......

So here's the deal....we almost adopted 4 kids...again. The same 4 as before. We had a to have our medicals updated. They added a few tests and and x-ray. When we sent in our medicals, it was necessary to have our dossier reviewed again. This time we were told if we wanted the 4 siblings we could have them. What? Shock.

So okay, we thought and prayed about it for weeks. I mean sincerely prayed. Sometimes I say I pray about things and then I really don't. This decision affects too many lives to count, mainly 4 or 6 if you count us, and I have learned my lesson about not praying about things in my/our life. I am perfect at messing up my own life, so I didn't want to mess up four other lives. Especially since thier lives have been such a mess already! I was even doing Pricilla Shirer's study "Discerning the Voice of God" during this time. Everything Brent and I were reading and talking about seemed to lead to make the decision to adopt the 4 kids.

This brings us to December 1. We drove down to our agency to talk with them and tell them we had decided to move forward. This meeting set all kinds of things in order. Write a letter of intent, get a psychology update, print off a few forms to fill out, find a organziation in which to send tax deductable donations, etc. Even that night we had a man call wanting to know where to send their donation - we hadn't told him that we had decided to go ahead in the process. A few other events were happening that we thought was confirmation from the Lord. Everything is going smoothly, except, my spirit is twisted. That's the only thing was so weird. It was not the feeling I expected after saying yes to them. I literally felt as though my spirit was being twisted around inside me. I couldn't figure it out.

Fast forward to December 15, we are meeting with our psychologist. The 15th just happened to be the last appointment she had open for the year.
It was a cold, snowy, rainy day. I love days like that! The meeting went so well. I actually thought she would say we were out of our minds! haha!
Our agency is right across from her office, so we stepped over to say hello. Pat saw us through the door and motioned for us to come in. It was the kind of motioning where you instantly know something is wrong. We walked to the office and Anne told us that our letter of intent had been rejected. At first, I wasn't sure what she meant. I just thought, okay, so we write another one? No. That was not the meaning. There were some changes in Peru. Without disclosing all the details, there seem to be some political moves when our letter of intent was submitted and it was rejected. We had been told this was a done deal. But now there was no deal at all! We weren't really sure what to think about the news. What do we do now? We didn't know, we still don't really know.
Confusion was the main feeling of the day. Had we "heard" wrong? What about all the things we thought were confirmations along the way? What does this mean? It is still confusing and sad that children's lives seem to be in the hands of political parties. However, I know the secret: children's lives, all lives, are really in the hands of the Creator. He holds this world. Nothing happens unless He says yes. Charles H. Spurgeon has great quote:"Wherever God in His providence guides you, let it be your joy to know that He is too wise to err - too good to be unkind." ---
You, we, must believe God. So what did we decide?
We decided to keep our home study update the same - adopt 1- 4 children (siblings) and change the ages to 0 - 11. Who knows what will happen next? We just keep going and waiting and sincerely praying.

We still have the organization set up in which to give tax deductable donations. If you would like to give, please leave me a comment and I'll send you the info.

I know this is long! Just wanted to let you know what was going on with the adoption.

Christmas

I am unusually excited about Christmas this year. I have been for awhile. This is unsual because Christmas is not my favorite holiday. I would much rather celebrate the fourth of July. But this year, I can't wait to enjoy each Christmas party.
We received an email update this week from some friends who are adopting from Ethiopia. In their email they highlighted some Christmas traditions in Ethiopia. I thought that was a good idea, so I went in search of some traditions in Peru.

This is what I found (from the random websites that I came across):

First of all it is the summer season.

Peruvians have midnight mass or they wait up till midnight - Noche Buena - and then the celebration really begins. Feasting and dancing with neighbors, friend, and family can last till early morning. Lighting fireworks add to the festivities.

Some communities perform plays.

The Nativity may be set up for a month before Christmas, but Jesus is not placed in the manger until after midnight on Noche Buena. Symbolizing that He has been born.

Another Christmas tradition in Peru is the chocolatada. A chocolatada is usually organised by churches, businesses or shops. The people there give hot chocolate, some bread or biscocho (a sweet bread with dried fruits inside), some sweets or maybe a toy to poor children (some websites included elderly people too)

Hmm.....Jesus, fireworks, and chocolate :) I think I will fit in.

A Little News

Okay, not really, but it was a more uplifting title than no news!
We actually did hear from our agency in a group update. The Peruivan consejo meets once or twice a month to place children. This time around no one from the United States was chosen! We will possibly wait a year. This okay with me. I do know that God has His timing, so it could be early than a year, but let's face it, Abraham waited 13 years to have Issac!! It could be longer. I am okay with God's timing. I do not feel impatient right now. I do think God has lots to work on me before a child comes to our home!

Sometimes the adoption can consume our entire world. Our thoughts, financial decisions, our conversations, this blog, etc. Other times I feel like any moment now, we will just say "Suprize, haha, just kidding, we are not really adopting!" What I mean by saying that is, sometimes it doesn't seem real that there is a little girl or boy somewhere in Peru that is coming to our home some day. It seems more like a dream. I think, this is for "real" adults, people who know what they are doing and have children, (even though adopting a baby is way different than having a birth child - so I've heard! ha!) or people know more and have prepared more, something!!

We have friends who have adopted or are in waiting, like us, but I do wish they were closer. There are several churches around our area who have adoption support groups, however we are so busy at our church, we have not taken the initiative to get connected to a support group. I think I would like for us to do that soon.

Plus, I thought the other day that while I'm glad we have chosen to adopt a boy or a girl and are approved for 2 children from the ages of infancy to four, I have no idea how to get ready. What size clothes should we buy, what type of toys, bottles or sippy cups, pink or blue, baby blanket or toddler bed, and the list goes on........ According to what we have seen, there is only about 30 days from the time of acceptance to travel to country! 30 days to get physically ready for 1 or 2 more lives in our house! WOW!! :) But God makes all things possible, so I don't think I'll worry about that, until the day comes!

We have been busy the past few months. I counted the other day and between now and January, we have 2 weekends where nothing is scheduled! I hope to post a little more often and a little less serious!

My fantastic sister-in-law, April, is pregnant! May 20 will add another niece or nephew to our family! They are super excited and it is so fitting that she is pregnant at this time. I am so glad for her!

Well this is far too long. Gotta run.....leave some love!

Update

I love fall. I am glad it is coming up and I hope that the weather cools off so that it actually feels like fall!

Our dossier is now in Peru. It is being translated and legalized there. It should be ready and submitted this week. The wait continues. But it is okay. Please pray for the Lord to keep moving in Peru. For all families involved.

We actually almost adopted 4 kids. In fact we were making very, very tenetive plans to add on to our house! I know, we were shocked too!! But mostly excited. Our social worker was really hoping they would make an exception, but the answer was no, too young by two years. Then a five week old baby was left a hospital in a town nearby and some friends asked if we would consider adopting this baby, however it would completely halt everything going in Peru. I am truly thankful that the Lord is directing our steps and that His plan will succeed. I know that this baby in the hospital has another family waiting somewhere. I pray that someone will adopt those 4kids who need love and a home. The need for adoption is so great.

Premier Designs jewelry shows are going well.

We really need a week's vacation, but alas I do not think it is to be this year. However, we are going somewhere before traveling to Peru! haha.....we hope! :)

Happy Fall!

Mission

Last week Brent and 4 other guys from our church and another church in town returned from Peru. They left August 3rd. Brent and Jeremy returned home early to attend the funeral of Jeremy's grandfather. The others returned yesterday.

I hope that Brent will blog about his trip this week.

Our dossier is on it's way or should be at the consulate now. The next stop is Peru!
I am getting worried that we are going to wait longer than anticipated. By longer I mean 18 months - 2 years. I don't know why. To Brent, longer is February 2011. But that seems a short time away for me. I know God has things all in His timing. It's been my experience that when God decides it time for something to happen, it all comes about very quickly!! So if we could all pray 2 Chronicles 29:36 -
"And Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced because God had prepared for the people, for the thing came about suddenly."

The jewelry sells for our adoption are going very well! I hope it continues to go so well. I don't have any parties booked for September, but it's just the middle of August. Perhaps, you would book a party?

Rather randomly, I've been considering a masters degree in psychology. What do you think?

Dream a little dream......

"Dream a little dream, dream a little while, dream with me of how you think it might be....." (words from a song by Avalon)

Sometimes I like to think about what might be going on in Peru.
Because somewhere, a million miles away, there is a little boy or girl who will be coming to be apart of our family in a few months! I get excited when I think about it. There are a million possibilities of what that child could be doing. Running around and chasing another child, eating with the hopes of being done before the food is taken away, maybe they have been stapped in a chair or left in their crib for hours and hours, maybe someone is holding them and singing to them or perhaps they are laughing at toy. Maybe there will be two! Who knows!?! God does! He's getting everyone ready for transition time! Even it takes months and months.

Keep praying everyone!

It takes a villiage to adopt a child. Thanks for being apart of it!

Switching Cabinets!

Well. We switched cabinets! We are now in the dossier cabinet at our agency!
Pretty soon we will switch cabinets again.

The psych test went very well. I am pretty sure we are not crazy! Hooray! We had an hour interview and then 2 one page tests about depression and our marriage. Then a personality test that was 567 questions. These tests took about an hour and half to complete. The personality tests was really interesting. And it was all true or false! I kept second guessing myself. I thought well if I put true here does that mean you think I also think that way, so should I put false, but in the end you just have to be honest. I think I should have been a psychology major. I find all this stuff interesting. They never should have let me pick a major at the age of 20! And I thought I was all grown up then! HAHA!! Well hindsight is 20/20 or 20/15!

The fingerprints were well fingerprints. Nothing new to report there.

We have almost completed all paperwork for the dossier. We have some to notarize, our phsycials to take, our approval from USCIS to arrive, our agency will have them legalized. Send a letter to the consulate in GA for legalization, then it goes to PERU! Hopefully all of this will be complete by the end of July!

In order to help raise a few more dollars, esp. for travel, Brent and I decided that I could sell Premier Designs jewelry. I know there is at least on of you with her jaw on the floor or perhaps laughing. I did the same thing myself. Who would have thought!! I know I can't believe it myself sometimes. :) Tomorrow is my second show. I hope it goes well. Someday I might post some pictures. Maybe I will get some this week.

P.S. if you want to host a show....post a comment! :)

Check List

Home study arrived at USCIS? CHECK!
*Hooray! We are awaiting instructions for our biometrics.

Psych tests set for June 23? CHECK!
*Who is the crazy one? That is the question!

Paper work being gathered? CHECK!
*again!

Receive first "big" bill from agency? CHECK!

All funds in place to pay bill? CHECK! CHECK! CHECK!

Praising the Lord? DOUBLE CHECK! DOUBLE CHECK! TRIPLE CHECK!


I love that we are adopting from Peru. It's just right!
God has really just made all of this happen.

I don't really know where to begin. It's been a really thoughtful week. It all started last Sunday when we took personality tests in our class....and I failed. Did you even know you can fail a personality test? Well you can. According to the test we took, the 2 personalities that were highest for me are unnatural, meaning that I have a mask. So apparently I cannot tell the difference between who I really am and who I have learned to be. Brent took it for me and so I kinda know who I am now.

We did however send our home study to USCIS!! Now we wait for 2 weeks or 60 days (90 at the most - our friends waited 4 months!) for our approval. We are praying for a fast review and approval. We do have a Father who parted the Red Sea and can bring the dead to life, so controlling the government is not a big deal. But if we wait 90 days then God is in control of this adoption and there is a reason. But I know that this timing is right. I just know it. We feel as if we have been on the road since 2008, but technically we decided on Peru in October of 2009.

I have been reading "Adopted for Life" by Russell Moore. This book is amazing. I told Brent the first 2 chapters are completely about Christ and our spiritual adoption! I wanted to put a few quotes in here for you to get a taste, but then I realized I would have to re-type the entire book on here and I figured you would rather read it for yourself - whether you are adopting or not!

We always knew adoption is the gospel. However I did not know it so throughly until I read this book.

Russell and his wife adopted 2 boys from Russia and along the chapters he shares
different experiences about their adoption. It's so nice for him to write about the things that we have felt and spoken about and have had people say to us! Just the other day a lady told me that most people who adopt cannot have kids. I almost laughed in her face. I know it would have been rude, so I controlled my tongue and did not laugh nor did I respond to her.
We have also been asked "are you going to have your own children?" and "most people get pregnant after they adopt". All of these are spoken in kind sincerity. I know it. It doesn't even bother me. Why? Because this child or the children that we are adopting are our children. It's okay if other people do not understand this, maybe one day they will and maybe we will be apart of that process. Adoption is also not a manipulation towards God to get Him to give a pregnancy. The adopted child is not second best or an after thought any more than a birth child is.
Russell once asked a couple who was infertile if they wanted to parent a child or just carry on their genetic line? Then his wife scolded him for being so harsh. He realized that it did sound harsh and apoligized, but also knew it was true - he had just come to terms with parenting and raising children to love and serve the Lord is the goal....not just carrying on your genetics.

Okay, enought of that.....just go read the book. :)

We cannot wait for the day when we land in the US with our child/children! Brent will be getting to visit Peru in a few months with a mission trip. And God just keeps providing financially (we have $15,000 more to raise), emotionally, and spiritually! We believe this is the journey God has called us to, we know He is faithful to finish what He started.

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see." Heb. 11:1

SUPPORT OUR ADOPTION

As you all know we are adopting a little girl or boy from Peru!
Along with this adoption comes a huge amount of fundraising.
The Lord has been incredible by bringing funds in quickly! Praise Adoni!

Recently, we learned of a company call Just Love. It is a coffee business that also supports adoptions! You purchase coffee or another product on our site that we have created in their site and part of the proceeds come to us for our adoption! The link to this site will remain on the right hand side of the page. You may visit our site by clicking on the flag. Or here is the web address: www.justlovecoffee.com/coleecasa

We hope that you will visit this site and make a purchase. Please feel free to pass it along to your trusted family and friends.

We have read that "it takes a village to adopt a child"! Thank you for being apart of our "village"!

Adoption update

Well we have offically, yet sort of unoffically finished our homestudy!! FINALLY! oh my goodness - I know that God's timing is perfect and everything happens right when He wants it too, but sometimes I do not understand it. For instance why in the world did we send in our application in May 2009 and just now February 2010 finish it! That's ridiculous - of course we did not help the process by changing to domestic and then changing back to Peru and then changing placing agencies! And now that it has taken forever we will have to get our medicals over again and wait for the child abuse forms to come back from Alabama before our social worker can offically send off our homestudy to DHR!

Once our homestudy is sent off, we can begin working on our dossier!
In the meantime we have so much reading to do! It's like the paperwork - it never ends!
But that's okay, it helps us to be prepared. And some days I do not feel prepared for raising a child and then some days I wish we were on the way home from Peru!

I have just finished reading a blog of some friends from Texas who are in the beginning of adopting from Ethiopa. They were talking of all the paperwork they were doing and amazingly enough was encouraged! Who knew paperwork could be so encouraging! :) But along this road of adoption, there can be much frustration and waiting. And listening to other people stories gives me encouragement and reminds me that we are on the right path and this will all come to completion.

As a side note continue to pray for our friends adopting from Nepal. They are so close to end of their journey!

We recently visited the International Adoption Clinic for an all day seminar. It was amazing! I loved learning all about what we might face with adopting internationally. We heard all kinds of the information about traveling to the country, medical issues, developmental delays, emotional stuggles (for the child - and us), but also hearing about the love, and the joy and excitement of adopting children and raising them!

I have mostly been learning about hope the past few months and not only with the hope of adoption. Hope is a such a vital part of our life. Without hope, all seems lost. Hope bring life!

This week has been a much quieter week for my soul, more peaceful. Until this weekend. Just let me say if evil plans to come on our land, it will be met and defeated by the host of angels that are standing, armed with flaming swords and shields because they are surrounding our land and home. I know this because I have prayed that all weekend! And now we must pray for them to surround about a mile or two radius around us to encompass our friends who live around us! CRAZY weekend. :)

1 Thessalonians 3:16 - "Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you peach at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all."

I hope you are able to follow this. I think I have talked all over the place!

Orphan Sunday

Today is National Orphan Day! And Brent was asked to preach - well not because it was this day, it just happend to be that MJ was out of town. But I thought it was a neat circumstance. :)
I think God makes cool details happen like that.

Also we finished our fund-raiser of selling Boston Butts for our adoption. It was so great! Our goal was to sell 100! I knew it could happen, I was just wondering if it would, and IT DID!!! YAY PRAISE THE LORD!!
Actually, the cut off was 96 because of the way we had to cook them, but some people gave more than just the price we set for the boston butt, so we raised as much as if we had sold 100 and maybe a few more! We are so excited! We can almost pay for our entire home study! This is a great encouragment to us! Especially since the last fund-raiser was a wash - literally too -haha -it rained that day. We almost wanted to give up on everything and move back to Texas!!

But perhaps it did not go well because we had not yet changed our adoption back to Peru.
We are so excited about adopting from Peru. It's so right. I just know it!

We have future fund-raisers planned for January - April. Please pray for the Lord to prompt people to give. We cannot do this without the Lord or without others giving for a sweet child in Peru! But God never starts something that He does not finish, so I just have to be patient - which really stinks. I'm no good at being patient.

But back to Orphan Sunday. His Voice for Sudan is a non-profit that our friends Vernon and Amber have been blessed to start some orphanages there.

Here are the links for their sites:
http://www.vimeo.com/1875783 - this is a great video that Amber made.

http://www.hisvoiceforsudan.com/-this has all the info you need about Vernon and Amber's non-profit, plus videos and pictures.

http://www.hisvoiceforsudan.blogspot.com/-this is their running blog. It is fun and current!

You may be wondering, what are Brent and Marianne doing?

Here is our summer:

VBS was last week
Wedding last Saturday
We go to Texas for a short 2 1/2 days for a wedding this weekend
Church picnic Sunday
Leave for youth camp Monday
Mission week the first week of July
Baby Charleigh Reese Colee will be born - this is Britt and Drew's baby girl.
Then MAYBE, MAYBE, MAYBE we will be able to start our home study!!! :)
We go to World Changers in July as well!
And Chris and Christy are coming 4 days after we return!!!! I am totally stoked about this!

So in short, I will see you in August! haha! Just kidding. I will try to blog a bit here and there.
Enjoy the summertime!