What to do while waiting?

There was no hope in taking a great picture of our new number 36....the kids and dog were feeling quite silly! And I was laughing along with them but am feeling quite blah about our number honestly. THREE years ago this month we started the process to adopt from Colombia, THREE years ago next month we had our first homestudy...I am not going to make this post all about how I am frustrated with waiting and especially not all about the what ifs, like what if we had chosen to start our journey in Ethiopia this month three years ago.

Since I believe that God has his design and wish for our lives in every single choice we make, I believe that we made the right choice then and now. Unfortunately, this does not keep me from feeling blah from time to time. Keeping my mind occupied definitely helps and among the wonderful summer our family has been having, we are in a small group that has been studying Jen Hatmaker's book 7. In a very short summary, it is a study where you take 7 excesses in your life (food, clothes, possessions, media, stress, waste, spending) for 30 days each and change something about your everyday (extravagant) lives to make you reflect and think about how you are living your life. Could you change something or many things about about your life to glorify and become closer to God? Could you change your life to be less wasteful and greedy? Sign me up! We are on our 2nd 30 day period, clothing. The first 30 day period we did an experiment with food. We (myself and my husband only, children off the hook) chose to reduce our food consumption to 3 meals only, no snacks, dessert or any type of food or alcohol in between those 3 meals. When we felt like the task was difficult, we were to pray. I chose to pray for the birth mother of our future child. The 30 days turned out much more difficult than expected and I found myself not only praying for the birth mother but really thinking about her...her diet, the availability of healthy food for her, her feelings and life.... I have thought about her during this adoption process, but my focus has been on our child and I realized my focus has been extremely self centered. There is more to this journey than the end result of having a new child to love. There is a courageous birth mother, a country, opportunities to witness and love and so much more. I have so much growing to do and that is one way I will be spending my time while waiting for our number to go down.

MELISSA

Missing Your Footprint

#38! So happy to be moving but still hard to be waiting! We took a fabulous trip this past month to the islands and took this picture:

This picture came out so cute and some folks said we should get it framed, etc., but I know this set of prints in not final and there was a little part of me the entire trip that was completely aware someone is missing in our family. This didn't stop me from having an awesome time and enjoying the children and blessings we had, but that ache is always there. I am afraid it might get stronger the lower our number gets! Here's to hoping many referrals happen in July! :)

MELISSA

A New Month = Renewed Hope

And our new number is....#41!  OK, so I was hoping for #1, but will take it! :)  Our agency had 4 referrals to 2 families in May. Two 10 year old girls (love this!) and a three and five year old boy were referred to their forever families. We really love how transparent our agency is and that they communicate so well. The open communication makes this dreadful wait a little easier.

2 spots is good news...just when all of the excitement from the paper chase was wearing off, a little anticipation for the monthly update brings hope....

MELISSA

The Significance of a Number

#43! We are officially past the paperwork stage and are now officially waiting. This is such a great feeling! Before Friday, our agency had 42 families in the waiting stage and we joined on as #43. This number will decrease as families receive their referrals and we will get an official new number each month. Each family waiting has a stated preference on the gender and age of child(ren) that best fits their family so we will not necessarily wait for 42 referrals to pass before it is our day.

We are encouraged at this next step in our journey and are so thankful for family and friends for their support and faith. My husband deserves his own special HUGE thank you for putting up with me during this paperwork phase. There was a lot of whining going on in this house and all of it was coming from me! He has been so loving and optimistic and I am forever grateful. God sure knew what he was doing when he put me with this man!

To celebrate, we are going to try, for the first time, a nearby Ethiopian restaurant this upcoming weekend. We have heard great things about the Ethiopian cuisine. It might take some time for the kids to get used to it, so I might try to sneak in a PB&J in my purse just in case! We are looking forward to exploring and learning about the Ethiopian culture in the coming months. Of course, next month, we will post our new number handwritten by the kiddos and proudly displaying the colors of the Ethiopian flag.

MELISSA

Committed......to Adoption

I have thought many times about how to write this post. Can I google for a blog post template for adopting families that have switched countries? It even crossed my mind to start a completely new blog as not to be confusing. In the end, we keep up this blog to be able to share with our friends and family our entire adoption journey, including the really awesome and encouraging times and the hard discouraging times.

So, first, the most wonderful news: we are adopting from Ethiopia!! Our hearts are full and a new excitement has taken over that makes our adoption journey alive. We have chosen a new agency and absolutely love them! From the bottom of my soul, I feel that Ethiopia was where we were supposed to adopt from all along and those years that it has taken for us to get here were just where God wanted us (especially me!) to be. We were being chiseled into the parents and people God needed us to be (of course he is still working on that, I doubt it will ever end!). I feel so at peace it is unbelievable. I have often wondered how I would know if I am going in a direction that God wants. I think one answer to this is peace. A peace that is so strong it overrides the deep fear inside of experiencing the same pain. A peace that allows dreams to be formed again! We are submitting our dossier (note timeline) requesting 1 child or 2 siblings, either gender, aged 3 or under. I don't know the exact wait time....I am not even going to go there! I believe we will have our child or children home in 2014 and we will leave it at that. My arms are aching badly to hold our next child, but I have grown a lot in the past few years and I am bravely waiting.

The much harder news is that we are no longer adopting from Colombia right now. After almost three years of waiting and dreaming it was time to make a change. There have been many tears and questions, such as, is it giving up to move in another direction and how do you know when it is time to walk away from something? We felt continuing to wait in Colombia would be futile persistence....us and the child we wanted to adopt were lost and stuck in the system. Months and months were passing with discouraging news and well, my spirit was getting very weary. We are leaving Colombia now with grace and courage. Though some things in-country have changed since we started the process and I don't know that anyone knows the final direction that will be taken, we still have deep respect for those in Colombia trying to make decisions that would best benefit their process and provide the best homes for orphans. We are leaving Colombia now still thinking about those little faces we saw over and over again on the facebook page of our orphanage and praying for those babies and children living in our orphanage, they are truly the ones who are hurting much worse than we are. They have already experienced an enormous loss and are missing out on the hugs and kisses and love from their forever families. I pray that solutions are found soon for them.

I am ending this post with the fact we are not walking away from our dream of adoption, just our dream of growing our family through adoption from Colombia. Through all of the tears and discussion, it was never a question of should we just stop trying to adopt all together, it was a very easy question of where? The answer took about 1 second because it had always been in our hearts:  Ethiopia....Back in 2010, when we mailed in our paperwork for Colombia, we questioned our decision because it was a hard one, Ethiopia kept coming up in our thoughts and words. Through the past 3 years, we talked many times about proceeding with another adoption after Colombia...from Ethiopia! We even "warned" our home study provider that we would need her again to provide us a home study for Ethiopia. It has been a flame burning that has never left our hearts. We are excited to continue along in our journey to Africa.

MELISSA

Relentless Pursuit

Want to experience anticipation, frustration, excitement, sadness, happiness, despair, joy? Try adoption! Some of these feelings we all experience in any ordinary day, but since we have started the adoption process, these emotional ups and downs have tripled! This week has held quite a bit of sadness but we are ending it with a lot of excitement.

We think some changes are on the way in our adoption journey and I have to remember that any deviation from my expectation is not a failure, but just a bump on the path leading us to our child MEANT FOR US.

God is in relentless pursuit of his wishes for us and we are determined to follow. Updates to come later :)

MELISSA

Hanging on the Christmas Tree

Decorating the Christmas tree is always a special time for our family as we remember and enjoy all of the ornaments we have collected over the years, including an individual picture of Avery and Eli every year and many, many sweet handmade ornaments made by them. This year, I had to look away for a few moments while I unexpectedly had a few tears in my eyes. I really felt the absence of our little one tonight and how I so much wanted them to be with us enjoying this time. As a small gesture to acknowledge them, we said a prayer for them and hung a special ornament on the tree. I hope next year a little hand can hang that very same ornament on the tree him or herself. A note about this ornament. Our church has an annual Advent Christmas night and they sell things made internationally. This ornament was made in Colombia using orange peels. Very sweet and beautifully made. Last year, we purchased a multicultural nativity made in Peru. Many prayers will be needed during this special season. Hanging stockings, lights and so many other things are reminders of the void in our lives and how we yearn to bring our child home.

No new news on the adoption timeline. We hope early 2013 brings news for us and positive movements for Colombian adoptions as a whole.

On a more lighthearted note, we finished the annual Christmas card photo session. Definitely something Michael does not look forward to, as I (so he says) can get a little stressed trying to get that perfect family picture, dog included! So, what's wrong with a few bribes? Anyway, this year lived up to the hype and Eli entertained us the entire time with funny faces....Here's one to enjoy!

MELISSA