Stuck

Stuck is a documentary that advocates for orphans.

A MUST watch documentary that will open your eyes to international adoption & the orphans around the world.  It is currently on tour through out the United States.  If you missed it in your area, you can buy it for $12.99.  Get your closest friends together, grab a box of tissues, and download the documentary.  You will have great discussions after.  I'll guarantee that it will change the way you feel about international adoption.

Please check out the free trailer and/or download the documentary here: http://buy.stuckdocumentary.com/


Nothing new is going on with our adoption, just waiting on our number to lower.  Please continue to pray for the millions of orphans world wide.  I wish that our family could do more than adopting just one.  We have been praying how our little family can help the nation's orphans.  If we are going to help the world's orphans,we have to do it through our action.  Please pray about opening your own home to another child through adoption, or please help a family who is currently in the process.  Every child deserves a loving, forever family, and it takes multiple people to bring one home.  



 

Referral Update!

So, where are we with the referral number you ask?  First, I just wanted to clarify that once we receive a referral it doesn't mean that they are our child until we attend & pass our court appointment in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  Only then will the child be officially ours!  Unfortunately, even though they are officially ours we will be required to leave them at the orphanage until their paperwork is completed (birth certificate & passport). Only then we will be able to travel back to Addis Ababa to bring our beauty home! 

So, to answer your question, our girls were scavenging around the house in an attempt to cleverly update you with our current referral number.  This is what they came up with......

A Boom Whacker & Spiky Ball

Daddy's Shaving Cream

M&M's~ they were disappointed I didn't let them eat all of them

Yummy & Healthy Apples!!

Great job ladies!  Very creative!  Hopefully soon we will be out of the double digits!  Please keep praying that we receive our referral soon, and that we get a court date quickly!  

This week we have been spending a lot of time with our favorite Ethiopian American little friend and his family.  Makes me miss our little Ethiopian girl.  Praying for our friends.  They are out of their house, & moved into an apartment.  Both parents have now quit their jobs, and are getting ready to spend the month of May at Missionary training in Colorado.  We will miss them while they are gone.  We love you guys!!  

They are still in need of monthly donations to make their move to Ethiopia possible.  Please consider a monthly donation to a great family and an awesome cause. Don't forget to watch the video that I posted on04/08/2013.

What is going on??

Tonight is a big night for all the little girls in our area.....THE PRINCESS BALL!  It is an evening full of wearing frilly dresses, going out to a nice diner, and dancing with the man all little girls look up to...their daddies!  Tonight, Mama is thrilled because Daddy will be taking two of his princesses!  What a great date night to show little girls how special & precious they are to God & to their daddy! 

While I am laying out sweet dresses, adorable pink shoes, and little white panty hose (it's a chilly Ohio evening), I began thinking of the awful things that have been happening in this great country we call home.  We live in a country where there is plenty of food, running water, and electricity.  We do not have child soldiers, parents don't typically abandon their children on the streets to fend for themselves at a tender age, and there is not a ravening war in the country.  Our infant mortality rate is relatively low, and our country has access to some of the latest life saving medicine.  God has truly blessed us, when many countries go without.  With all of this to our advantage, why are people so angry that they want to kill random, innocent people?  What has happened to these individuals that they have so little regard to human lives?  Was it the way they were raised, the lack of God in their lives, or something medical?  This I just do not understand, and it makes me very scared for our daughter's futures.  Please pray that this nonsense stops. 

He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing ~Deuteronomy 10:18

Waiting, waiting, waiting

Nothing to report, still #12 on the referral list.  In the meantime, spring has finally made it to Ohio!  It's time to get outside and enjoy the green grass & fresh air!  Time to pull out the flip-flops, bubbles & sidewalk chalk (things that keep little hands entertained)!  

Nothing new to report, just trying to be patient while waiting for our referral number to decrease.  Waiting has never been my strong suite, my style is typically take charge and get things done.  

                Our two year old patiently waiting to be a big sister! 

The Crisis in Ethiopia

Currently there are 84.7 Million native people living in Ethiopia.  35 Million Ethiopians live on $100.00 or less each year.  OUCH!

How do we help the beautiful people of Ethiopia?  By making monthly donations to those who are completing mission work in the country.  We have close friends who have quit their jobs, sold their house, and will be taking missions training in May so they can listen to God's calling and serve the people of Ethiopia.  To help stop the cycle, they will be helping children attend school (as I have said in a previous blog school is expensive, most parents are unable to afford school fee's,  and it is not mandatory).  They will be there for a minimum of two years.  

Why should we help?  First of all, God created EVERYONE in His own image (Genesis 1:27).  Everyone is important & precious to God!  Second, we are to love with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:33).  Third, that is where our little girls is from, and it is so important to help her biological family.  Basically God tells us to help the poor & needy.  

Please prayerfully consider helping our friends with a monthly donation for the next two years.  Please understand that mission work is not paid employment, the missionaries are required to find their own funding.    If interested in knowing more, please email, facebook me, text me, or respond to the blog.  We are on their sending team, and can answer all of your questions.  

With your help, they can be God's hands & feet!  Copy & paste the following You Tube video. It's a short documentary  of the conditions of Korah, which are the Ethiopians they will be serving.  It is well worth your time. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4pgQvgdNqs&feature=em-share_video_user&noredirect=1

We Made THE List!

We are now on our agency's referral list!  This is exciting, because it's further than we got with our previous agency!  We are officially moving in the right direction! God is good!!

For those of you who are not into the adoption lingo, a referral list is your place in line to receive a referral.  A referral is a child who has been abandoned, and the Ethiopian Government believes it will be in the best interest of the child to be adopted.  This coveted number is very important to people in the adoption world.  Each agency has their own list, and our current place is #12!!  

Thank you everyone for your support and prayers!  We are overwhelmed by how God is working through our new agency!  Please pray for Ethiopia, our future daughter's biological family, and that intercultural adoptions remain open so more children can find forever homes. 

                (A precious gift from our 7 year old.  This parenting stuff is challenging, but awesome!!)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to  him,and he will make your paths straight (NIV)   ~Proverbs 3:5-6