February #s

For February we are officially 8 on the boy list and 12 on the girl list. No, that is not a mistype. I did say 8 on the boy list. Yes, we moved back a place this month. Why? Well I don't really have an answer for that. It could be caused by a couple different things. Here is an excerpt from the email we received with our updated numbers.
1)Families may return to the waitlist at anytime due to extenuating circumstances including the difficult situation of losing a referral. (There was a failed adoption last month and it is possible that family was put back on the wait list but don't know that they were).
2)Families ahead of you on the waitlist may alter their parameters at anytime assuming they have the approval of their social worker as well as our social services department. (someone ahead of us on the girl list could have decided to get on the boy list too).

It was not disclosed to us the exact reason why our number went up on the list, so we just have to cling to the fact that God is still on his throne and is sovereignly in control of this process. That being said, it doesn't mean that we don't still get frustrated. It still hurts to every day come home to a childless home and an empty nursery. There are still days that we just want to scream because it's so frustrating that there is NOTHING we can do to speed things up. We are still completely in love with a child on the other side of the world and are just dying to find out what our child looks like. But as much as it hurts to wait, I also know that I shouldn't want this to go any faster than God intends it to. I know that for me to become a mother, another mother must lose her beloved child, and our child must lose his/her first mother. I don't wish that kind of grief on anyone, even if it means I can be a mother. I know that it is inevitable that my child will have to experience this grief and I WANT to be there to comfort my child when that time comes, but I don't want my child to experience that grief a second before he/she has to. So we wait. We trust that God's timing is perfect and that we must be obedient and WAIT ON HIM, however difficult that wait might be.
-amory

Eric Ludy - Depraved Indifference

AMEN!

Read this!

This is an awesome, humbling article. Please click on the link below and read it with me (past page 1) and when you're done reading it please pray with me for all of the children of the world to have a home, a safe place to be. Pray that these children would be adopted into God's family. Pray that the silent would be silent no more and be able to cry out loud Abba Father!


Abba Changes Everything Christianity Today A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

New Look, Same great taste..errr...I mean blog

You are in the right spot. I needed some more space to work with and had to change the format of the blog. Things were getting a bit crowded. I thought I would share really quick my new favorite thing. This necklace was my birthday present from Bryan. Don't you just love it! He got it from JunkPosse who makes adoption jewelry. You can check out her store link on my sidebar. I also have been busy making shirts while J was here setting up the nursery. She is my crafty mastermind so I had to wait for her to visit to make these. I do love my new favorite things.

-amory

January Excitement

So far January is turning out to be a fun month! We have received our January updated numbers. We are now #7 on the boy list and #13 on the girl list. In December the U.S. Embassy announced that they are conducting orphan investigations on every adoption from Ethiopia. This could mean some slowdowns in the process. For the families that were supposed to travel in December for the embassy appointment it meant cancelling their flights 2 days before they were supposed to leave just to find out a week later that they had to book flights for the next day. The good news is that they were able to travel to bring home their children and a couple more families are traveling this weekend so there will be open space at Hannah's Hope (our agencies transition home). We're hoping that this will bring more referrals of children in January.

This weekend we were visited by my cousin J and her 3 kiddos (nearly 4 yr old, 19 mo old, and 3 mo old). Our house has been bustling to say the least. Now the fun part is that J and her AMAZING friend MJ made the decorations for our nursery. It has all been a big secret to me up to this point. I knew the theme they were doing but artistic liberty was completely given over to them (and for those of you that know me that was a BIG deal as I am WAY type A). Saturday morning J and MJ set up the nursery and did a big reveal of their design. It is GEORGEOUS! I told them my theme was "elegant jungle" which they renamed "safari chic`". They did a beautiful job of turning theme idea into reality. There are still a few finishing touches to be done, but it would be great just as it is. Enjoy the pictures below.

Isn't the hippo cute! MJ made him from scratch!! (well she made everything from scratch)

December #s

Well we've done it. We are FINALLY in the single digits!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are officially #9 on the boy list and #18 on the girl list. HOWEVER , I know that 2 families got referrals yesterday for infants which makes us unofficially 8 on the boy list and 17 on the girl list. While overall that only puts us one place closer to getting our child; the fact that it puts us into the single digits makes it a lot easier to handle. We have now been on the wait list for 7 months and are only 8 families away from having a family ourselves. That is pretty exciting stuff. Since it is my birthday, I'm not going to make this a long post, but I wanted to make sure to update everyone on us being in the single digits.

-amory

What we've been busy doing.

To say the least, it has been a crazy couple weeks. In the last 2 weeks we have had 2 back to back garage sales in 2 different cities 2 hours away from each other. It has been an exhausting, yet fruitful time. Luckily I have taken off the rest of the month for vacation so I will get a chance to rest.

I have a wonderful church family at the church I grew up in. Everyone knew that Bryan and I were going to have a garage this fall at home and instead of making us transport all of the donated items 2 hours away, they just decided to have their own garage sale for us. I first have to say a huge thank you to my grandmother who graciously let us have the garage sale at her house. This is a pretty big deal because she is a neat freak and the sale meant her garage was a mess for weeks. Thanks for being such a good sport Nanny!

I mentioned in my last post that I love the adoption stories we get to hear at these garage sales. I was not disappointed! There was one couple that said they had been considering adoption and that hearing our story encouraged them even more to adopt. How cool is that?!

The next weekend we had the garage sale at our house. We have an equally amazing church family here. Our lifegroup has been with us every step of the way of this adoption and this garage sale was no exception. I will say there is one couple, you know who you are, that went above and beyond. T went with Bryan with only a moments notice to help him pick up a couple couches and a 50 inch projection tv (umm...yeah these weigh like a couple hundred pounds). After T got home at 11pm his wife S came over and stayed until nearly 2am helping sort and price and then came the next morning to help with the actual sale. (There was also my faithful cousin S there for it all). The other amazing women of our lifegroup helped us set up and even baked goodies to sale.

By the end of it all we ended up making just over $1,500 from the 2 sales ($1,200 at one)!!!!! If you have been following us you know that last year we had our first garage sale to raise money for our adoption and were blown away by how God blessed the sale. We made $800 last year. We are in awe of God's goodness and provision. The money was enough to push us $300 over our goal. We now have enough to bring our child home. A BIG THANK YOU to EVERYONE who has sacrificed and given to make this happen. Every single one of you is a part of this adoption and helping there to be ONE LESS orphan in the world. You are all participating in pure religion by helping to defend the orphans (ja 1:27)

I know this is long, but wait, we're not done. On top of meeting our financial goal last week we also last Friday received our November #s update. I am THRILLED to tell you that we are now 22 on the girl wait list and 10 on the boy wait list. Just when I thought it couldn't get any better I came home Friday to my crib arriving!! We also had an encouraging Orphan Sunday. It is amazing how God has timed everything to happen at once. God is always showing us how He has ordained all of our days. His blessings are overwhelming at times.

The thing is, I am learning that very often when you are following God's will for your life and seeking after Him in a way that can cause other to be affected for good, the devil does NOT like it. Please pray that we would be protected from attacks by the enemy both spiritually and emotionally. Pray that we would be able to fully partake in the JOY of becoming parents and that joy would radiate from us in this time so that others will see. Pray that we will be prepared to boldly respond with a reason for our joy that is in us.

Boy #

Girl #

-amory