I171

There is not much to update except that we got a call late Friday from the USCIS saying our application for advance proccessing of orphan petition (I do not really know what that means but we have to have it to adopt from Ukraine!) has been approved and our I171 should come in the mail late this week or early next week.  That is the last piece of our dossier so we are very excited.  Maybe soon we will have a more definite idea of when we will be going to meet the boys!  One step closer.  :)

Moving forward again

Our three older kids all have finger print appointments this week so we are once again moving forward.  It seems we have been at a stand still waiting for these appointments.  So hopefully, we will have our I171 form in the next couple of weeks.  Very exciting!  In the meantime, there are a few minor changes in forms the Ukrainian government wants that means we will be redoing some forms we did months ago in the new format.  We certainly want everything to be ready when that I171 comes in!

Emileigh updated our Etsy shop while she was home last week, so there is more jewelry to look at on that site.  And we have lots of t-shirts left if anyone is interested.  This weekend will be a big fundraising weekend as we have a craft show where we are selling jewelry, tshirts, and sun catchers and a store here in Brandon has offered for me to have a trunk show featuring our jewelry to help with our adoption.  That will be this Saturday, at Stella and Co. from 11 - 2:30.  Such a generous offer by the owner, Meredith, and we are really appreciative!  We are excited at the opportunity to get a little closer to having the funds to complete our adoptions and to have the opportunity to spread awareness about adoption and orphan care.

We have also started getting the room ready for the boys.  We started moving stuff out of the room that will be theirs last weekend and are ordering beds for them tonight.  We want to have it ready for them before we leave for Ukraine so we can take pictures to show them what their room looks like.  Collin and Ali are home now and are already such a help!  It should not take us long.

I had a pet scan on Friday and got the results today showing no signs of cancer.  Praising God!  When they were sliding me into the tube, the song Live Like You Dying was playing.  While I am not a fan of country music, I thought that the timing of that playing was quite interesting.  But it did get me to thinking about how I want to live out the rest of my life, and this adoption is a big part of that.  Skydiving does not appeal to me, :),  but providing a family for Sasha and Vitalik and sharing God's love with them is a very strong desire for me.  I do want to love deeper and speak sweeter, and I do want to live like I am dying.  All of a sudden your perspective and priorities come into a much sharper focus.  Try taking a minute to think about what would be important to you if you knew you only had a few years left.  What would you fill your time with?  Things with eternal value seem much more urgent, don't they?

If you would continue to keep us and the boys in your prayers, we would really appreciate it!

Fingerprints

We are at a standstill....waiting on more fingerprints.  The USCIS has decided before we get our I171, which we need in order to submit our dossier, that our three college kids also need to get fingerprinted.  Very frustrating and very bad timing.  They all have finals coming up and they will all have to drive to Little Rock in order to be finger printed.  That is if their appointments get set before they come to Mississippi for the summer.  So many ifs.  We know that all things happen in God's timing and we are trying to rest in that.  We had hoped to be getting our 171 soon and this will delay it possibly significantly.  So we wait, some more.  Meanwhile, we are busy fundraising.  We are selling jewelry still and we still have t-shirts for sale.  A very sweet woman has the jewelry at her office this week and it is selling very well.  And our second daughter is selling t-shirts on her college campus and is doing really well with that.  We are so very grateful!  I have made an unexpected trip to Tulsa and will be here for about two weeks.  So that means Scott is holding down the fund-raising front.  So contact him if you need a shirt or a bracelet or some earrings!  I am still making jewelry and will be shipping it to him every few days.  We appreciate all of your prayers.  It is very important to us to be able to travel to Ukraine this summer so our college kids will be around to help with our little girls while we are away.  We have no idea how we will work it out if our adoption stretches into August.  So a specific prayer will be that we are home by the time school is starting up this fall.  Caroline (Carlie) will be starting at Mississippi State University in August as a freshman and I would really like to be home by then to help her move in to her dorm.  Please also keep Sasha and Vitalik in your prayers, that they feel God's love and that they do not give up hope of having a family soon.  All of your support means so very much to us.

Garage Sale

Our garage sale was a success!  We had many wonderful things donated for us to sell and the shopper turn out was great.  I was up until midnight and Scott was up until 2:00 a.m. setting up and getting ready and there were cars in our driveway at 5:30 this morning.  So we did not get much sleep and are exhausted now, but we had great friends bringing by breakfast for us and others helping run the sale.  We are touched by how generous people are with their time and money.  Many many thanks!

A sweet family, Marty and Christy Puckett, just recently completed the adoption of a precious boy from Uganda.  As one of their fund raisers, they sold necklaces made from paper beads in Uganda.  They are really beautiful and meaningful.  Well, Christy donated the necklaces she had left for us to sell to help with our adoption.  Here are pictures of some and we will be selling them for $20 each.  Limited number will be available so let me know if you want one or more!  Thank you so much Christy and Marty.

Fingerprints

It is amazing how God works things out.  Today was the day Caroline was scheduled for her biometric fingerprints required for our I171.  Scott and I were both scheduled for next week but we went with her in the hopes that they would go ahead and let us be fingerprinted as well.  I know it is just a few days difference really, but we want to move ahead as quickly as possible.  When we signed in, we asked if the tech could print us as well and she said no - very definitively.  She was really not a happy camper. "If we lived 3 hours away then maybe, but since we are local we would just have to come back next week," is what she said.  Then she said, "Take a seat, sir,"  to Scott.  Carlie and I had a good laugh at that one.  Bummer though on having to wait.  But by the time she had finished Carlie's prints, she had changed her mind and her entire attitude.  Carlie has that effect on people.  :)  So we all ended up getting ours done today!!!  It must seem silly but we are very excited to have that done. 

 Then, our t-shirts came in today and we have them ready to ship tomorrow to all who pre-ordered.  We ordered 100 extra shirts so if you are wanting one, just let us know.  :)   We will have a set number of sizes so let us know soon!

A special thanks goes out to our friend, Camilla, who has taken our jewelry to her office this week and had great success selling it there.  It is so touching to have friends like that who care so much.  In addition to helping us finance our adoption, she is helping raise awareness of the needs of orphans in the world, which is so very exciting to us.  

We have been overwhelmed by the generosity of everyone who has donated stuff for us to sell at our garage sale.  Our carport and house are quickly filling up with awesome stuff.  I am looking forward to Saturday!  Just with things I have pre-advertised on facebook and craigslist, we have already raised half of our goal for the entire sale.  Very exciting.  If you live in the area, you should definitely come by and shop!!

It is amazing how God works things out.  But I guess it really should not be....

I AM EXCITED!

I am so excited.  In fact, Scott is calling me an orphan nerd.  But that is ok with me, I am excited.  In the fall of 2011 when our church was starting an orphan ministry, we started contacting DHS to see how we could help and/or be involved in foster care.  We were hoping to be able to support the social workers, provide duffel bags for kids being taken into custody, provide diapers, bottles, formula, blankets, etc for the families taking in babies, offer training classes at our church for foster families, anything really.  But we were met by a stone wall.  I can not even tell you how many phone calls and letters I have made and sent.  Nothing.   I am a foster parent and still I could not get through.  It has been such a frustrating experience.  I have been praying about how we should proceed in this arm of our orphan care ministry.  Well, today, I received a phone call asking if I would be willing to meet with  Rick Valore!  I know most people do not know who he is, but to me, this is better than meeting with any celebrity!  He is the executive director of Project 127 in Colorado.  What an amazing organization.  Equipping the church to care for children in need right in their own backyard.  The number of children waiting in foster care to be adopted in Colorado has dropped dramatically.  The church in Colorado is taking care of business.  It is very exciting.  I have watched videos about this group and have read about this group and now Rick  is coming to Mississippi to talk about the state of our foster care system and how to get the church to care and get involved.  And....I get to go to the meeting!!!  Really, have I mentioned that I am excited?!  There are so many kids languishing in our foster care system.  Kids who deserve a family.  Someone to care for them.  Someone to show them God's love.  Yet, we are failing them.  We are scared.  We are turning a blind eye.  Well, watch out Mississippi.  I think things are about to change!  We need young parents, we need empty nesters.  There are infants needing homes.  There are teens needing homes.  There are teen moms who need a home for themselves and their baby/babies.  They need someone willing to show them a different lifestyle.  They need someone to be the hands and feet of Jesus.  It is time for us to step up.  We are all so very loud when it comes to abortion, yet strangely silent when it comes to the children who were not aborted.  Let's back up our words with some action!  How awesome would it be to be shutting down orphanages instead of building new ones?!  In the U.S. we like to call them group homes.  Sounds so much prettier.  Let's shut them down.

Project127.com   -   check it out

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.  James 1:27

Happy Easter

Happy Easter!  I hope all of you have had a wonderful day.  It has been a different kind of Easter for us.  Last Easter, I absorbed everything, wondering if it would be my last Easter.  This Easter, I absorbed everything, wondering how Sasha and Vitalik would enjoy our future Easters.  Will they understand the significance of the holiday?  As I watched Jocelyn, Ellie Grace, and yes, even Carlie hunting eggs in our back yard, I thought of how different next Easter will be with two boys out there too.   Will they enjoy dying and hunting eggs?  I wondered throughout the day how they celebrate Easter in their orphanage.  I wondered if they had someone to tell them that they love them today.  Or someone to tell them that God loves them.   Or even someone just to hug them.  It makes me want to go now.  I am not a patient person!  It is a bittersweet experience, enjoying your children's joy in the celebration yet grieving for the children who are not with us yet.  Sasha and Vitalik are never far from our thoughts and prayers.

We have finalized a path for those who want to contribute to our adoption in a tax-deductible way.  If you are interested in donating to our adoption, you can mail a check to:

Share the Hope
P.O. Box 85
French Camp, MS  39745

You just need to write in the memo section that it is for the adoption fund(not our personal fund). Then let us know that you have sent a check so we can let the board members know to be on the look out for it and to apply it to our personal fund.  This organization is run by volunteers so we need to make it as easy for them as possible!

We have been so blessed with people contributing things and money to help cover our adoption costs.  When we started this process, we were not sure how it would all work out, but it is, slowly but surely.  Thanks to all of you for your support and praise God!  We are getting closer!  What a wonderful Easter!!!