1 Year Anniversary?

Today marks 1 year since we applied to Holt International's Ethiopia Program.  It's amazing how fast a year goes by.  It took us almost six months to get all our paperwork together, so we have been on the "waiting list" for a little over six months.

This means that we are just waiting for a referral now.  A referral is when we get a child's profile and then we would accept the profile and know who our child will be.  When we first applied, Holt thought we would be on the waiting list for 9-12 months, now they are saying 15 months or longer.  Anything could happen, so we are just trusting God for his perfect timing and provision.

It's hard explaining to people why the process is slowing down.  The amount of orphans has not decreased in Ethiopia, but there seems to be an ever changing tangled ball of issues.  I'm not even going to attempt to explain it on this blog, partly because sometimes we aren't sure what information is true and what is false.  One thing we know to be true is that there is a child out there that needs parents and we want them to be part of our family, so we will continue waiting.

If we are on the waiting list for 15 months, that means that we would get a referral in December this year. After that, the legal process of adoption starts and we would hopefully get a Ethiopian court date within 6 months (which we would travel for).  If Ethiopia approves the adoption, then the U.S. Embassy has to clear it as well, which takes an additional 2 months at least (once we are cleared, we can travel immediately to pick up our child!).

If you are following all the months, this would put us around August 2013 in the states with our additional little pooper.  This time line is best case scenario - and as we've learned from others since beginning this process - anything can happen at any point in this time line.  As you can see, we still have quite a wait ahead of us.  When everything is completed, it will be all the sweeter!  Please continue to pray for us and our future little one!  Pray that the time of separation from us can be as little as possible, because in all reality our future child could be in an orphanage right now.  Crazy to think about.

Stomach Bug

Ever since I got married to Chris, I have gotten the stomach flu 1-2 times per year.  Before that, I think I had only gotten it once when I was really little.  Not exactly sure how the two are related...but they are.

Here is a picture from Friday, the girls and I were all in different stages of sickness but we all were up for cuddling:)

Quick smiles.

Ok, back to Tinkerbell.

So this was Friday, and then by Sunday Finley had another fever and today (Monday), they both have fevers.  Our girls seem to ALWAYS be sick.  I've been feeling really guilty because we don't watch TV, but I do let them watch movies when we run or when they are sick.  Lately though, we are always running and they are always sick!  Harper seems to live for Disney movies, I'm hoping it's just a stage and the summer will get her mind off of them.

Harper really tunes into injustice in the movies.  She talks about how mean some of the characters are and how they should act.  So we talk about why they are mean and it leads to some really interesting spiritual discussions.  Yesterday, we had a long talk about how Uncle Scar wasn't content with what God had given him and was trying to take what God had planned for others.  And that when he does that he isn't wanting God to be King of his life which is wrong and has consequences.  Before this conversation I was feeling really discontent about how much I was working and may have been thinking about and being jealous of some of my more fortunate friends:)  God used Harper and The Lion King to put me back into submission for the life HE has planned for ME.  It's interesting how Harper is understanding a lot more and guides more conversations about God and understands more than I think she can.  Kids are so amazing.  

She also can tell you which characters do not have Jesus in their heart - like Jafar, hyenas, and the beast (but God ended up changing his heart).  Don't even get her started about Cinderella's stepmom and stepsisters, she can rant and rave about them for 10 minutes!

It's so fun and so scary at the same time, Chris and I have a lot of responsibility for their understanding of who God is.