Getting a little closer

The last few months has been very emotional!  There has been little to no movement,and everyday that goes by the wait gets harder!!  We have now been waiting 29 months, WOW I can't believe it's been that long.  And then on top of no movement 2 weeks ago our agency sent an email with another huge disappointment!!! Our US Embassy has now decided to change the way they do things.   Our paperwork will now be reviewed by the US Embassy before the Ethiopian Courts.  And they will add a few steps to their process also!  And due to this change it will add 4-6 months of waiting on the back end.  So from referral to bringing your child home it will be 8-10 months :(.  This devastated us because the reality of bringing home a baby was now shattered!!  We struggled on what to do next???  Should we drop out of the program? Should we pursue a different program? Should we increase our age?? Should we look into foster care??? I prayed that The Lord would show us what he wanted for us!   My heart was breaking.  It took us a good week to think about things clearly.  After talking to our family coordinator it eliminated a few of our options!  We were just too CLOSE to quit now!!! I kept hearing a voice tell me I would have never brought you to this if I didn't want you to finish it!! How easy would it be to just quit, but we have to have faith that The Lord will fulfill his promise to us!

2 weeks later after praying hard for a sign, someone received a referral and we finally moved up after 3 months!!!  We are now #3 for 1 infant and still #1 for siblings. In the meantime we were still praying about whether or not to increase our age.  This past week we felt the push to increase it just by a little!  Maybe The Lord didn't want us to have a tiny baby?!?! So last Tuesday night we took a huge leap of faith and increased our age!!  We are now requesting 1 infant girl 0-16 months, twins up to 2 yrs old and or 1 infant girl with a sibling up to the age 5!

Today we received more WONDERFUL news!!  Today we received our "On Deck" email!!!!!! Some of you would ask what is that?? That means we are now at the top of the list and we will be the next few families to receive our referral!!! YEAH!!!!!!  I have waited and dreamed about the day we receive that call and get to stare at our baby girl(or two) picture!! Hopefully our next update will be
the great news!!

We are so excited to soon have a picture to go with a her Name!!! Please pray with us that day will come soon for us!  This wait has been the hardest thing we have had to do during our marriage!  We also pray that after we receive our referral that the new process won't take as long as they think!!  Staring at that picture for 8 months is going to be harder than the wait so far!!

Thanks so much to our friends and family for being there through these tough times!! We can't wait to see what The Lord has in store for our family!! We are so ready for the next phase of this journey!!

Another year gone by...

A lot has happened in the past year, since my last post, movement with our adoption has been slow and spotty at times.  We are blessed to know that we have had some movement and now sit at #11 on the waiting list, we were #31 this time a year ago.  Moving up 20 spots in a year is a lot to be thankful for!!

We have tried to keep busy, and the boys are growing fast.  They are keeping us going between church, school, and soccer, but we don't let this distract our thoughts from the our future with Rayne! (Rebecca is looking forward to dance/gymnastics and whatever other girlie things she can be involved in!)  We know that it will all work out in God's time, but it is also hard to not be selfish and want her home now...

The past year we have celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary, took the boys to Universal Studios, everyone turned a year older, gained some weight (Danny), lost some weight (Rebecca), and Danny started a new job.  Triston is now 14 and has surpassed Rebecca in height.  The twins, Colin and Caleb, are now 10 and Eli is 7.  The age gap has widened farther than we had expected but the boys are all still excited and continue to ask for updates on our status.

We "celebrated" tonight with a nice big chocolate cake, with a candle for each family member including Rayne.  We lit the candles, spent a few moments praying and thinking of Rayne, and blew out the candles...each making a secret wish for Rayne! I can't wait for them to come true!  It was really special and significant for all of us!!

We have had some positive information coming from the adoption agency.  They have said that the State Department is working on expediting the Visa processing.  This would result in only having to travel to Ethiopia once and would not require leaving Rayne behind while waiting for her Visa to be approved...we are cautiously optimistic and hope this is the case.

We are getting anxious to be in the TOP 10!! Hopefully it will be soon.  In the meantime will will be busy updating more paperwork that will be expiring AGAIN!  We are praying that 2013 will be the year but are reserved because the unknown can always happen.

Today was bitter sweet and has been really hard for us.  Our hearts are so heavy.  But we are faithful that the Lord will show us his will for us as a family.  Please continue to pray with us as Rayne finds her way to her FOREVER Family!!