Almost done with paperwork!!!

We've got our appointment for our fingerprinting, only a little paperwork left and we will be done and waiting on our referral.  It feels like it has been a long time coming but it will be a wonderful day when we mail off our dossier.

And the winner is...

Congratulations to Eve Clevenger who won the iPad in our raffle.  Thanks to all who participated. We were able to raise over $1100 to go towards bringing home our angel.

Ipad Raffle Fundraiser

I have decided to hold a raffle for a 16G Wifi enabled Ipad.  If anyone would like tickets please let me know.  They will be 1 for $10 or 3 for $20.  The drawing will be held December 15th, this would make a great Christmas present.  All proceeds will go towards Rayne's adoption.

Home Study Visits Complete

We finished the Home Study visits with the Social Worker.  All went well, now we just need to wait for the report so we can move on to the next step...fingerprinting.  Can't wait.  I will be spending the morning copying and faxing a myriad of paperwork to our AWAA Coordinator.  Hooray!!!

Rayne

Rebecca and I have struggled with finding a fitting name for our daughter to be.  We both want her name to have a special meaning and we want it to be unique.  Each of us came up with our own name and it seemed like for our own reasons we couldn't agree.  But as the head of the household I have made an executive decision and our little angel will be named Rayne (Rebecca's choice).  The meaning of her name is "abundant blessings from above" and we know that is exactly what she will be.   So, with that said, we can stop calling her "little sister" and start calling her Rayne...Rayne Danielle Wilson...I believe it has a nice ring to it!

Current Status of our Adoption

I am a little late starting this blog.  We are currently a couple months into the paperwork process.  We are working on completing the necessary paperwork for our Dossier and we hope to be done with it and waiting for our referral by the end of the year.  We should be wrapping up our Homestudy in the next couple of weeks so that we can get our appointment for our fingerprinting in New Orleans.  I will be using the blog to try to keep everyone informed of where we are in the process and as soon as we have any news we will let everyone know.

The Beginning of our Journey...Praying for Rayne!

Welcome to the beginning of our journey.  This has been a long time coming and we couldn't be any more excited than we are as we move through this process to finally add an angel to our family.  Adoption has always been on Rebecca's heart and I was always quick to dismiss it.  I always made excuses to try to con myself into believing that we did not need to pursue adoption. (Why should we, we already have four boys of our own, wasn't that enough?)  That all changed a few months ago when God placed us in the middle of a mission trip that would change our lives forever.  Going into the trip I had no idea what to expect, I truly had no expectations on what would happen and I certainly had no idea how God would use one little girl to change my life forever.  It was the second day of the trip and we had started to make connections with the kids at the apartment complex we were visiting.  My job, as I saw it, was to play games with the kids to keep them entertained between the crafts and the Bible Stories, this was easy enough I could do this no problem.  On the second day while we were waiting to start the morning activities, while sitting on the grass a tiny little girl, Ria, crawled up into my lap and looked up at me and just started telling me all about her life and asking all kinds of questions...why my lap?  There must be a mistake I thought.  I have three brothers and four sons, why did this little girl seek me out to talk?  It was the most humbling moment of my life, to see this little angel looking for someone, anyone, to talk to and share her most intimate thoughts with...and she chose me.  Ria opened my eyes and my heart that day, through her God showed me that there are many of God's children out there looking for someone to talk to, someone that will listen, and love on them.  That was the moment my eyes were opened and the idea of adopting a little girl of our own was finally an idea Rebecca and I now share.  I still don't know anything about little girls, and I am honestly a little scared.  But I know that this is God's will for us and he has blessed us and we are all called to care for the widows and orphans of this world.  So welcome to our journey as we are praying for Rayne.