Fervent Prayer in Anxious Waiting

As you can imagine, December has been a whirlwind of many family gatherings, shopping trips, and lots of fun watching Olivia experience this time of year. It's been kind of hard for me to bring myself to post an update on here because, well, there just isn't much to say... we are in a waiting "limbo" of sorts... waiting for one last form, waiting to have enough money... but I can say is that the Lord has blessed us so much during this time, revealing to us that He is with us. We are still trying hard to save and raise a lot more money in order to be able to send in our dossier and we still need about $5,000. But this month we were greatly blessed by family and friends as they generously gave us money toward our adoption... so we keep getting closer and closer! It is both humbling and blessing to receive such gifts from those we love. I just can't even explain in words right now how grateful and blessed I feel.

I don't mean to focus on the money part of this journey... it's just kind of a big part right now... this all takes a LOT of money... but I'm really not worried about it. It can just been discouraging when money is what holds you up from moving forward... all I want is to get on that wait list so we can start counting down the days!!!

In the meantime I know that there are many children waiting and praying for mommy's and daddy's and my little one is one of them... I think about the possibility of what has taken place or will take place for them to become mine.... and so I pray for my little one, and I pray for those who are involved in his or her life ... I pray that the Lord will be with them and that His peace and love would be around them. I pray for Grace to be poured out upon their lives. I pray for the momma and daddy mourning and full of guilt. Lord pour out your Grace.

So as I wait anxiously... I pray fervently...

Phil 4:6-7 "do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Steph

Adoption and the Gospel

I just saw this video on another blog for the first time and cried like a baby... I couldn't delay to share this with you! Please watch, it's so incredible the love God has for us! (Eph. 1:5)

(P.S. you will want to pause the music at the end of the page to listen to the video)
The Stewarts from Together for Adoption on Vimeo.

I-600A is on its way!!!

Yep! Our homestudy is done and our I-600A form was put in the mail on Monday! What is an I-600A? Well, first of all it is the last thing we need before we can send our dossier to Ethiopia... It's basically a form that we send to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for their approval to adopt internationally. The reason this wasn't already done is because they require a copy of our completed homestudy before we can send the form.... so now that our homestudy is done, the form is on its way! 

It is estimated to take between 6-12 weeks before we get the approval form (called I-171H form). Sometime within those 6-12 months they are going to call us and schedule for us to get fingerprinted. Then sometime after fingerprinting we will receive our I-171H form! 

Then.... (dun dun dun) we will be able to send all our paperwork to Ethiopia and we can start the countdown!!!! YAY!!!

So, in case you were wondering how long this countdown was going to be... the current wait time for a male child is from 10-16 months, the wait for a female child is between 11-18 months. 

Right now my heart is anxious and excited! And I am rejoicing in the Lord that He has been directing our steps and has gotten us this far... However, I know the waiting is just beginning and will get harder... So these two verses have come to mind and are ones that I will be meditating on going forward as we enter this long wait period....

Psalm 46: 10 "Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!"

Philippians 4:4-7 "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Steph

1 down, 2 to go!

We had our first homestudy visit yesterday with our case worker! She is incredible! So nice. So comfortable to talk to! God is so good to lead us to such an awesome agency. I feel so blessed and I praise God that we have them on our side helping us!

1 visit down, 2 to go! Tomorrow we have our second visit. Then the 7th we have our last one! I can't wait to move on to the next step (the hard one) and get on the wait list! Though I'm dreading the wait already I know there is something (probably patience) to be learned during this time! (God seems to always be trying to teach me patience... wonder why?) Yeah, I'm not a patient person.. I'm surprised I don't have gray hair at 26 from my impatience...  ;)

On a more serious note... God has been doing so  much in my heart... showing me many areas of my heart and life that I have not completely surrendered to Him. I'll just be honest, I like control. I also like the approval of people (sometimes more then God).. ouch, it hurts to even say that. I can't stand that people would think anything bad of me or disagree with me. God first revealed this to me on Sunday at Church when Bryan and I got up in front of the church to update on our adoption and ask for their prayers and support... I didn't know that God was going to use it as an opportunity to humble me... Because, in pride, I really didn't want to ask for help. I "feel bad" asking for financial help and for expressing our needs.. nope, its not just feeling bad, its down right pride. I'm afraid someone is going to be upset with us because we are asking for help... that's it. Pride. I don't want anyone to take it the wrong way.. Really, I just want everyone to like me!

John 15:18-19
"If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you."

I know that God is using this chance to conform me into His image... I'm SOOO not there yet! And I'll NEVER be there on this side of life.. BUT He is at work in my heart and to be honest it feels a little painful. There are dreams, desires, feelings I just need to give up to Him. Ones I've held onto so hard. Ones I've convinced myself are God's will for my life (like my desire to have many children and my impatience in that I want more NOW).... But He's showing me that maybe His plans are different... maybe His plans look different then mine... maybe my plans are a part of His plans and maybe I'll have the house full of children that I so desire... maybe I'll only have 1 or 2 children. But only God knows... I need to wait and be patient..... be patient.... be patient.....

Jer. 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."

I want HIS plans, not mine. I know His are better, even though I can't see them, I know His ways are much better.... I will wait on the Lord!

And really,  it's NOT about ME anyways... if I don't have a lot of children, let the LORD be Glorified! If I have many children let HIM be Glorified! Or even if I only live for one more day, ALL FOR HIS GLORY! 

1 Cor. 10:31"So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."

It doesn't matter what my agenda is or what I think will make me happy in life... I must do everything for HIS Glory and I must love Him will all my heart and I must make disciples of all nations.

I'm not really sure who all is reading this but I do know that God is SO good and that He has a plan for our lives... I pray that you too would give up your agenda and your idea of how your life should look. Give it up and let's see what God has in store... He is Awesome God!

Goodnight :)

Stephenie

Getting Closer!

I know it's been a while since I posted ( I really need to get better at this blogging thing, I'm terrible at journaling too, but I'm working on it)...

We are getting closer! All of our homestudy paperwork is done... we have our homestudy visits scheduled (2 next week and our last one on Sept 7th!). After that we just wait for our homestudy report to be written up (I believe) and then start finishing up our Dossier paperwork!

Most of our Dossier paperwork is done too... I need to work on getting our family photo sheets made up... and we need to do a couple small things but we are mostly done. We also need to raise about $7,000 in order to send in our dossier.

(FYI - for those of you that don't know what the term dossier means - It is basically just a set of required legal documents, paperwork, and information about our family. This paperwork is sent to Ethiopia and must be properly authenticated and translated. After this is sent in it is my understanding it is then that we can get on the waitlist for a child)

 One requirement for our dossier is to send in family photos of ourselves. An awesome friend of ours from Church who does photography offered to do our pictures for us... here is a sneak peak at our summer family pics!

Being silly as usual ;)

Daddy's girl

Our favorite children's bible... we ALL love it!

Our pup, Cara

 

Isn't she an awesome photographer!? (We were so blessed by her!)

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Have a blessed week!

My hearts cry tonight - 

Psalm 139

O LORD, you have searched me and known me! 

You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. 

You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. 

Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether. 

You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. 

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.

Motherhood Is a Calling (And Where Your Children Rank)

So I stumbled upon this awesome article by Rachel Jankovic today as I was reading one of my favorite blogs "Girl Talk". They shared a portion of this article on their blog which lead me to reading the entire article. I have to say I was very convicted and also encouraged! I know that there are many times when I grumble and complain about things in my home not going right because of the many small interruptions I receive as a mother. For instance, potty training... it is really one thing that I have been struggling with! I mean, I REALLY don't want to be spending hours in the bathroom every day, waiting, and waiting, and waiting for "something" to happen... I have chores that need to be done, e-mails that need to be sent, bills that need to be paid... And  I am really sad to say that this has been a struggle for me to help her in this new learning experience... (I actually decided that I would clean the bathroom today since we were obviously going to be in there for a while, just so I can feel productive)... and I actually lost my patience as I asked her for the third or fourth time if she was done and I heard once again a "no".

Well, this article really hit home... I mean, this is my calling, my God-given job. To sit in the bathroom as long as it takes. To be patient. To lay down my time, my life, my "to-do" list to give my child the attention and care that she needs and to be patience with her as she learns new things (I mean I know I should be thankful that she actually WANTS to sit on the potty and go).

I really pray that God continues to change my heart and to give me the patience I need. I pray that my beautiful daughter would not rank below any of my own wants or desires and that she would know without any doubt that I believe her to be the most beautiful gift and an incredible blessing in my life! I also pray that though this that her little heart and my own heart would receive and understand the gospel of Christ again and again. Remembering that Jesus laid down His life and His agenda for my life.

Anyways - I hope you read this article. I thought it was great. I'll probably read it again a few times to let it sink in some more.

Motherhood Is a Calling (And Where Your Children Rank)

Paperwork...Papperwork... Paperwork!

With our Garage Sale & Car Wash fundraisers now behind us it's now time to focus on our Homestudy & Dossier documents. There is TONS of paperwork that needs to be signed, notarized and checked, inspections to be done, appointments to be made... Just to give you an idea, here are some of the things that we are currently working on and some we have already accomplished... these are for both our Homestudy & Dossier.

Done/Working on: 

~ Medical Forms - Dr. appointments are set to get these done

~ Copies of Marriage License (picked these up today!)

~ Copies of Birth Certificates (requests for these in the mail today)

~ Passports (applications were sent in the mail last week)

~ Family Photos (making an appointment with our family photographer soon)

~ Letters of self-employment (our accountant already sent these to us)

~ 3 Reference  (already sent)

Still to do:

~   Proof of Medical, Life & Car Insurance

~ Financial Statement

~  Police Reports/ Background checks/Finger printing

~ Power of Attorney

~ Tax Forms (1040)

~ Reading Agreement

~ International Disclaimer

~ Gardianship Statement

~ Fire Inspection

So that is just an idea of what we are going to be working on for the next few weeks! I know it will all get done in God's perfect timing....

With that said - here are a few pics of our awesome garage sale this past weekend. THANK YOU to everyone who helped us wash cars! And THANKS to everyone who stopped by! We were very blessed! And we raised $380!

Car Wash Funraiser Tomorrow

We are having a CAR WASH Fundraiser

Tomorrow, Saturday - July 16th  

At Chic-fil-A

North Olmsted

11am-2pm

Come get your car washed and enjoy an awesome chicken sandwich or something else yummy!

 We hope you can make it!

 

 Also - Today was the Last Day of VBS at Church and I just wanted to share some pictures... 

Olivia had her face painted and enjoyed her blue snow cone! :)

 

God is good!

Well, it's been a couple weeks since I have posted. And to be quite honest it has been mainly because I have just been very overwhelmed. On top of our adoption we have been preparing for VBS (Vacation Bible School) at our church (I am in charge of our awesome skit team!)... so with having many many skit practices, working on our homestudy and dossier paperwork, plus our fundraisers I have just been so busy I can barely think!

But in the midst of it all God is been so good to us. I have to tell you that the "paper pregnancy" has already been a struggle for me! Mentally and physically. I don't always do very well when my plate is very full and I don't always deal with stress very well... But I know that it is through this struggle that God draws me closer to Him... It is through my weakness (in not being able to carry such heavy loads) that I get to witness the great strength of my Lord as He carries me though this...

2 Cor. 12:9 says...
"But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

He is glorified in my weakness! So I will continue lean on Him for strength and wisdom and peace and REST. I know God is in control and He is the one that establishes my steps. He has put all these things in my life and He has called me to do all these things. He will give me all I need to do all He has called me to!

LAST WEEK - 
Well - One HUGE blessing was this past weekend we had our 2nd Garage Sale and it was a HUGE success! We needed $824 more in order to pay for our homestudy and we made EXACTLY $824.00!!! God is just incredible! I mean, we could have made more money or we could have made less, but God is so good to give us the EXACT amount that we needed and show us that He IS in control and that He WILL provide! What a wonderful Father He is!

I do want to say THANK YOU to everyone who helped us with our sale and who donated items! Without the support and love of our family and friends we would not have had such an awesome amount of things for our garage sale. We had SO many things our garage was so packed that we could not even walk in it!   Here are a few pics of our sale...

Our driveway was packed all the way to the end! And we still have more then enough stuff to have anther sale (which we plan on having in September). It was very crazy getting everything ready for this but it was so worth it in the end!


THIS WEEK -
So......... this week we are now in the middle of VBS week at Church (which is always a full and crazy week). But, more then being crazy, it is such a blessing spending every morning singing and teaching little kiddos about the Lord and sharing with them the Gospel. God has already opened up doors for us to share His Word with some of the children personally and I see that His Spirit is working on their young hearts. It is such a beautiful thing to watch little children love and desire to Worship the Lord!

Here are a couple pictures of our Olivia at VBS this week...

DANCING TO AWESOME VBS SONGS!

SHE WONT SMILE DIRECTLY AT THE CAMERA... BUT HEY, I GOT A SMILE :)

AFTER SHE ATE HER SNOW CONE...

  
COMING UP - 
We will then be wrapping up our week by having a Car Wash Fundraiser on Saturday at our local Chic-fil-A... And then next week we have our orientation for our homestudy and will start focusing entirely on getting things checked off our homestudy to-do list!


Well, I pray that you all have a very blessed week and that you will also get many opportunities to see the goodness of God in your life!

As our Pastor says... GOD IS GOOD, ALL THE TIME... ALL THE TIME, GOD IS GOOD!

But God...

So our friend's Jeff and Emily just got back from Ethiopia. They went there to meet the child  that they sponsor through Compassion International as well as to bring back video, information, etc to raise awareness of both the children that need our help in Ethiopia as well as for Compassion International itself. I am really excited to see how God works through them and the time that they spent there.

They had us over for dinner the other night and showed us a bunch of video and pictures of Ethiopia and man did it wake me up a bit. I mean, you always hear about the poverty in Ethiopia as well as other countries out there but until you see video and pictures from someone you know personally, it really doesn't quite sink in, or at least it didn't for me.

They showed us the "marketplace" which I imagined would be like a market place here in the states where you have people in booths selling vegetables and fruits and breads and such. They did sell the same things in the Ethiopian market place but their booths were replaced by the back of pick up trucks or simply on the dry, dusty ground. There was rotting food all over the place and dogs eating food out of dumpsters and everything.

Then they showed us video of the shacks that those lucky enough to have a house call home. Shacks that are about the size of half of my bedroom and they are the home to entire families. And then you have the countless others with nowhere to call home except whatever space they can find on the streets to sleep. Here in Ohio, you have to drive downtown to see any homeless and even then, you only see a couple here and there but in Ethiopia they just cover the streets. The poverty is unbelievable.

Then you hear the statistics of how many children die each day because of preventable things such as lack of clean water or diarrhea. Children die each day for lack of clean water meanwhile, how many of us (including myself) refuse to drink tap water but either have to have spring water or filtered water?

As they showed picture after picture and video after video of children there, I couldn't help but wonder if one of those children is our child that God has picked out for us. Even if one of them wasn't our child, I couldn't help but see our child in their eyes. I couldn't help but just want to fly over there and bring a child back with us right away so that they didn't have to go through the disease and hunger and thirst anymore.

But as I think of the destitution and poverty over there and how it seems like most of the children are in a hopeless situation with no chance of getting themselves out, it makes me think...I was once like that to God. I was once a orphan. I was once completely hopeless in my sin with no chance of getting myself out. Ephesians 2:3 says “we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” I had no way of being healed or rescued unless God intervened. I was a complete enemy to God and completely dead in my sin, but then in verse 4 we see two of the greatest words in all of the bible, "BUT GOD!"..."But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved-" (Ephesians 2:4-5)

I thank God that he didn't leave me as an orphan but he came to me (John 14:18).I thank God that while I was dead in my trespasses, while I was dying from a far worse disease than malnutrition with a far worse future than living life in an orphanage, God chose me to be adopted into His family so that I can be called a child of God and not only that but a co-heir with Christ.

Updates!

Adoption Update

Our Agreement with American World Adoption Agency and first program fee was sent in on Friday and we received an e-mail today saying it was processed and we will be set up with a case worker and family coordinator soon! 

Fundraiser update

We will be having a Garage Sale fundraiser in two weeks, July 7-9th, at our home! 

If anyone has items that you don't want or need that you would like to donate for our sale then please let us know! We are accepting donations and it would be a huge blessing to us! 

Last week we had our first fundraiser Garage sale that we threw together quickly with items we collected around our house plus some donations from family. It was a lot of work but so worth it! We raised $293 which I think is pretty good since we didn't have time to advertise in the paper or anything... and we are now $293 closer to what we need to bring our baby home! I'm hoping that with a little more time to prepare our next garage sale will be even better! :) Here are a couple pics that I took of our our first adoption fundraiser... I don't have many, I really need to get better at taking more pictures :)

"I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you"

So we are just starting out our adoption journey. It's a very scary and intimidating process that we are going to have to rely on God for strength and for God to provide. It's quite a costly process ($26,000 - $35,000) and I am sure it's going to cost a lot emotionally as well. But every time I think of the cost involved, I can't help but think of the cost that God paid to adopt us. While we were still sinners, while we were completely and utterly hopeless, the Bible says "but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons." God sent His only Son to live a perfect life and to hang on the cross and become a curse for us, so that we can be called children of God.

Our adoption of this child from Ethiopia is more than likely not going to cost us our lives, it's merely going to cost us money, time and effort in fundraising and going through the entire process but it isn't going to cost us our life. We aren't going to have to shed our blood for this child.

It just kind of puts things in perspective when we think of how much our heavenly Father paid for our adoption into His family. There are so many similarities between adopting an earthly child (horizontal adoption) and our adoption by God (vertical adoption) that I am going to write about later but I just wanted to post something since Steph seems to be hogging the posts as of now. =)

Why Adopt? Because we have been adopted by God

This is such an awesome song and a great video.

If you have confessed your sins and believed in God then YOU are a Child of God and YOU have been Adopted! 

Since we have started this adoption process the Lord has been showing us more and more how much adoption is a reflection of the Gospel (Christ came and died for us because we were sinners and unworthy of being called children of God, yet, he took our punishment and paid for our sins with His innocent Blood. Now because of what he has done for us we can come to the Father because the penalty has been paid. God will now overlook who I was (an orphan and sinner) and call me by my new name as His child). So you see, Adoptions is the gospel! I pray that as you read our blog and join us on this adoption journey that you too will see the beautiful picture how much God loves us and desires us to be His Children... hope you enjoy the video!

Goodnight :)

Welcome to our adoption blog!

Well we received the long awaited call yesterday! American World Adoption agency called us at 4pm yesterday to let us know we have been accepted into the Ethiopia program! Ahhh! I'm so excited words can't explain! 

So, yes, we are adopting from Ethiopia!!!

Why? Well I'll write about that soon enough :) Right now - I'm too excited to even go into all the details! I just can't believe that we are here! 

Next steps? Sign the agreement, get assigned to a Family Coordinator and start our home study and "paper chase"! 

So welcome to our official adoption blog!  I hope you will follow us on this journey and pray for us through the many ups and downs that I know we will have along the way...

So for tonight I want to leave you with this Psalm that just sums up how I feel right now....

Psalm 96

"Oh sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth! Sing to the LORD, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the LORD made the heavens.  Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength! Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts! Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth!Say among the nations, "The LORD reigns! Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity." Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it;  let the field exult, and everything in it! Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the LORD, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness."

Application is in review!

We received an e-mail yesterday from AWAA saying,

"I wanted to let you know that I have reviewed your application. It looks great. I will be submitting it for final approval today and will be in touch within the next few days with what I am sure will be a very happy phone call."

I'm holding my breath, my heart is leaping and my phone is in my hand!

Beginning of the Journey =)

I have spent the past three days creating this blog and perfecting it. I'm not creative so I had to look at a thousand other adoption blogs to see all the things that I would like to have on my blog..

We submitted our adoption application to our prospective agency on Sunday! They said that it will be up to 10 days before we know if we are approved into the Ethiopia Program. Monday was a holiday so 10 days seems like forever! (Already I'm being impatient, Lord knows I MUST learn patience).

So, since we submitted the application I figured that it's a good time to start working on our blog. It's not public yet (we will wait to make sure we are accepted into the program before we make this blog public...)

I just can't believe I'm here... writing this blog. This is something I've prayed about and thought about so much in my life and it's so exciting to be here at last!

Well, I have a thousand more thoughts but we are on our way out the door for some family time just Bryan, Olivia & I!

Until later!

Stephenie