Holiday Cooking - Chinese Style

This year I was reminded of what we did last year on Christmas Eve – the Nepali dinner I cooked after Christmas Eve services at church. Even my oldest son remembered the Momos he loved.  We had so much hope last Christmas that we’d have our Nepali daughter home by Christmas 2010. That was our plan, not God’s.

But, with JOY this year, I made an authentic Chinese dinner on Christmas Eve (and said a prayer or two for the children of Nepal). I have some recipes from Jay’s Godparents in Minnesota who spent a great amount of time in China, love to cook and have some authentic recipes. Here was our Christmas Eve menu, in honor of the daughter we pray will be home long before Christmas 2011.

Appetizers:   Spring Rolls

Main Course:   Ling’s Palace Treasure Chicken and Fried Rice

It was DELICIOUS and I'm nearly certain this could become a holiday tradition.  In hindsight, I should have made the spring roll filling and the chicken and fried rice before church, just to elminate the rushing upon our return home.  Then all I would have had to do is roll and fry the spring rolls.  Either that our church just has to do earlier afternoon Christmas services!

I hope all of you were able to find joy during this holiday season even when it feels like someone is missing from your family.  Blessings to you all in 2011 and may our children come home from their foreign lands!

Very Sneaky, Sis

Yesssssssssssssss! It’s done! A Christmas gift – our home study is DONE! I’ve waited all week for word that our agency had approved the rough draft and have heard NOTHING. And my social worker just sneaks the complete study in the mail so we get it for Christmas. I think she did it quietly just to surprise me. Sneaky indeed! So thankful!!! There couldn’t be a better Christmas gift this year.

Three notarized copies are on their way to my agency in Pennsylvania and 2 copies are in my possession! From here on out, there are a few more steps:

1. Our agency will send the home study along with our I800-A form to USCIS for approval.
2. Our basement renter will need to be fingerprinted at USCIS in Omaha (Maybe 1 month from now, hopefully sooner).
3. After fingerprinting, we are issued our final dossier form from USCIS (4-8 weeks after finger printing).
4. When this last form is authenticated, then our dossier will be on its way to China!

Now I just have to sit back and let God do the rest over the next 2-3 months. In the meantime, I’ll be sending out 3 applications for adoption loans and grants after the holiday. I’m hoping all of them will be able to assist us financially in some way. [Prayer request page updated!]

Almost There!

Jay’s medical form is finally done, but not without some drama, i.e. 3 trips to the doctor’s office, including a 2 hour wait for a simple signature!  With this last form in, our home study rough draft will be emailed to our agency this week for their approval.  I mailed my last set of dossier documents to our agency this morning and they will be sent out for authentication (our agency does this for us which is a nice treat).

We’re so close to being done with paperwork! Just the official, notarized home study, finger printing at USCIS and that I-171H which will take weeks, I’m sure.

I will be patient. I will be patient. I will be patient.

[yeah, right!]

Evidence

Last week I was going NUTS! It seemed like everything adoption related was at a standstill. A friend on Facebook reminded me that God is still at work even when things seem still. Thanks, ST! But last week I had had enough. It had been over 3 weeks since our home study meeting and we were STILL waiting on background checks and fingerprints to arrive. We were also waiting to see if we’d really need to meet with our social worker one more time and if our basement renter would need a physical to accompany our dossier. With all that waiting, I felt like I was playing Uno with my boys and I kept getting socked with the SKIP card. I wanted to toss my computer out into the backyard because no email and no word of movement were eating me alive. CHOMP!

But tonight we had our final home study meeting. Yes, we had to have one. I had no idea what to expect in terms of discussion. Our social worker is really on the ball and had all her information already. This last meeting was mostly a formality. Want to know how relaxed I really was? I even wanted to wear yoga pants. How’s that for professional? Alas, I changed into jeans 20 minutes before our social worker arrived. You see, I have a graduated level system in my house:

• The first time a guest arrives, having never visited our home before, I will have showered and I’ll have freshly applied make-up. My house will be as absolutely perfect as it can be. In addition to all the general scrubbing and cleaning, all beds will be made (even the boys’ bunk bed) and I may even wash windows. Be very impressed!
• The second time that guest visits, I’ll be showered and dressed, but the make-up may not be freshly touched up. I’ll dust and vacuum and run a Clorox wipe over the bathrooms, and pick up the toys but that’s about it. No deep cleaning. Windows will have patty prints and paw prints. And beds WILL NOT be made. That’s a one-time deal, my friend.
• The third time, I’ll be cleaned up but I probably won’t be wearing make-up. There may be laundry on the couch waiting to be folded. There will definitely be a few toys strewn about, a couple white tufts of American Eskimo tumbleweeds rolling through because I didn’t have a chance to vacuum. Hope you don’t wear black clothing! If so, I’ll offer you a lint brush before you leave.
• Upon the fourth visit, it’s every man for himself! You’re fully initiated into my family and what you see is what you get. You know that I keep sodas in my garage fridge, the water out of the front of my kitchen fridge is the good filtered stuff and you help yourself and you’re fully knowledgeable as to where I keep my lint brush.

That to say, tonight’s meeting was really relaxed! We met for 45 minutes and mostly talked about our social worker's experience with 2 China adoptions of her own. She told us what to bring, what to expect. I appreciated her story! We reviewed our paperwork. All our paperwork has arrived, local fingerprints from the State Patrol and all state background checks. Jay has his physical tomorrow morning, so hopefully we’ll have his medical form filled out CORRECTLY by Friday. Still no word if our basement renter will need to have a physical. We know that the State of Nebraska won’t require one and that China won’t require one. PLEASE PRAY THAT THIS UNNECESSARY PHYSICAL CAN BE ELIMINATED [see our NEW Prayer Request tab at the top]! It wouldn’t be terrible, but he’s an out-of-state student on his parent’s insurance and it would just be a hassle for everyone and we know it isn’t required.

We’ve been told to expect the rough draft of our home study within a week. YES! Rock solid evidence of adoption progress! Thanks, God! I needed that!

Giving Thanks

I can’t usually make it through the holiday without thinking of an episode of one of my favorite shows, Mad About You. You know the episode I’m talking about? It’s the one where Paul & Jamie are hosting their families and friends for Thanksgiving dinner at their NYC apartment and they’re totally stressed out. In the midst of the family chaos, their dog Murray is found on the island in the kitchen eating the freshly cooked bird! Classic! So, they stall their families, pretending nothing is wrong. At one point, Jamie has all her guests sit in a circle in the living room going through all the things they are thankful for, while Paul sneaks out to buy another bird for the umpteenth time. Jamie even lists her thankfulness in alphabetical order, to give Paul more time to scramble.

It really hasn’t been a pretty year in our household. It’s been our toughest run so far. But I’m still blessed beyond measure and I have much to be thankful for. What are you thankful for? In Jamie Buchman fashion, here’s my list…

A – Adoption. Thankful for the call to add a daughter from China to our family. Beyond grateful that God has adopted me into His forever family!

B – Boys. Mine, specifically. I have a couple of great kids and a great husband, dogs and guinea pig to boot. That’s a lot of boys in this house!

C – Chocolate. Needs no explanation, does it?

D – Dogs. I have the 2 cutest American Eskimos ever. Now if I could only get them to ride in the car without throwing up! Suggestions?

E – E, my 3 ½ year old. He is super funny, adorable and mommy’s boy. I can’t get enough of him!

F – Friends. I’m grateful for old friends and new. Life sure would be a difficult journey without you.

G – Green grass (double G). I may be from the Midwest, but I HATE winter. I’d much rather be outside in the yard in the summer than cooped up inside during the bitter cold winter.

H – Home. The one of my youth that consistently shows up in my dreams. The first home we lived in after getting married. Our second home -- the one I live in currently. The one I can always go back to anytime I want (i.e. mom’s). The other places that feel like home including Minnesota & Japan. There’s nothing like the feeling of being home where I can relax and be the real me.

I – Icing. Specifically the buttercream at Mariano’s in Arlington Heights. Just had it this fall back home in IL. This is the BEST STUFF EVER. I have to learn how to make it. Anyone have a recipe?

J – Jay, my husband, my best friend. He never ceases to make me laugh. There’s another J who lives in our basement. I’m thankful for him, his friendship and help around the house. Love having him here.

K – Knitting. When our dossier is sent to China I’ll start knitting my daughter her first afghan. Can’t wait.

L – Lincoln. This can be a stretch for me, but yes, I’m thankful for the town I currently live in. Moving here has allowed me to be a stay-at-home mom, brought me AMAZING friends and neighbors (you know who you are), it’s the birthplace of my second son and it maintains the Midwest values we cherish.

M – Mom! I’m living 500 miles away from mine and I miss her every day. She’s the best mom and Grammie ever. She spoils us rotten and she knows it. And as much as I can never repay her, I will continue her legacy with my own grandchildren one day and spoil them rotten.

N – Neighbors. We have THE BEST neighborhood ever. If you all are reading this, you guys rock!!! Let’s spend the winter inside each other’s houses, letting the kids play, hanging out with good food and good friends! Our door is always open! Any Thai dinners coming up?

O – Opals. My birthstone and my grandmas too.

P – Prayer. I can talk to God about anything, anytime and He listens. Praying that our China daughter will be home by Thanksgiving 2011!

Q – Quiet. With 2 boys running around, there isn’t much of it. But when I find it, I relish it!

R – Recipes. Love reading them, trying them, tweaking them, sharing them. Got a favorite to share? Leave a comment.

S – Seven year old. Mine! Super C is one amazing kid and he blows me away with how smart and kind he is. I can’t believe he’s 7.

T – Tremblay’s Peanut Butter-Chocolate Fudge from Hayward, Wisconsin (and Stillwater, Minnesota too). Trust me. It’s worth the trip, people!

U – USA. Thankful for this country, the freedoms we have, those that defend and protect our freedoms, those that gave their lives for our freedom. The list could go on. God bless the USA!

V – Vacation. We love to travel. Love the memories we create visiting other locales. This year was South Dakota. Loved the Badlands and Rushmore! Sure, camping still isn’t my favorite thing in the world, but it’s an affordable vacation for us these days. It’s more fun with friends though (HINT–HINT to all of our camping friends).

W – Weightloss. I’m thankful that my husband is conquering the battle of the bulge with 50 pounds lost and counting. I’m down 38 and thrilled. But is it really possible to lose a c-section belly? I’m going for a few more to find out. Why settle?

X – Xenophobia -- the fact that I DON’T have it! I love all things foreign and learning about other cultures from the locals. So very thankful for my year in Japan and looking forward to China next year. [And you didn’t think I’d come up with an X other than x-ray, Xerox or xylophone. Pshaw!]

Y – Yesterday. Without my past, I wouldn’t be who I am today. Sure, there are many yesterdays that I’d love to go back and do over, but that’s not possible, so why bother thinking about that. I can only learn from yesterday’s mistakes and grow into the woman God designed me to be today.

Z – Zebras. When E was born, the nursery was a zebra theme. I love it so much that I can’t possibly bear to paint over it. But I will add pink walls and accents to make it unique for my daughter.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Turkeys in Disguise

My 2nd grader had a class project that we were asked to complete as a family this weekend. We were instructed to help disguise a paper turkey in a way that is “meaningful to our family.” Our son will take it to school on Monday and write a story about it. At first, we over-read that “meaningful” part and had decided to dress him like a robot using tin foil and grommets and stuff. Then I re-read the note from the teachers. “Meaningful.” Hmmmm.

Sitting in the living room on Thursday night we discussed it as a family. Jay thought we should dress it in some sort of Japanese way since that would be meaningful to me (I lived & studied in Japan during my sophomore year in college). But then it hit me… “No! China!!! Let’s make him a Chinese Dragon disguise! That would be meaningful to ALL of us!” My son was thrilled with the choice and bounced up and down, “Yeah, YeAh, YEAH,” a big smile on his face.

So, after I put the boys to bed, I Googled for lots of Chinese dragon images, copied and pasted a few, then manipulated them in Publisher and printed. I cut them out on Friday morning so they were ready for coloring and decorating over the weekend. Jay went out and picked up some colored tissue paper at Walmart for the body of the dragon. Of course, I knew my youngest would also want to make one, so I made enough for him too.

Enjoy our 2 turkeys in disguise, plus the head of the one I colored as an example for the boys.  [36 years old and I still love to color!]  Yes, the detail was a bit much for my 3 ½ year old, so I ended up doing most of his, but he told me what colors to use and where they go.  And then my 7 year old colored on the wrong side of his dragon's body, so his isn't aligned quite right, but I love how they turned out!

May our turkeys have luck escaping an imminent demise this Thanksgiving holiday. And as a dragon (Chinese symbol for luck), may they bring luck to us for getting this home study done and get our dossier on the road to China already!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nothing Much to Discuss

We had our first home study meeting tonight. Hooray! It was funny. We really didn’t find that we had much to talk about since we’ve been through it all last year with Nepal. Nothing has changed in our lives.

I didn’t clean the house like mad this time. It was pretty clean from small group on Sunday night anyway. I didn’t even run a vacuum through! It was an easy meeting lasting only 45minutes. We started with chit-chat but went on to talk through all the Hague questions about being convicted or pardoned of a crime, child abuse, DUI, etc. We did talk quite a bit about special needs but Jay and I have yet to have a date afternoon/night when we can go through our match form and talk about what we’re really open to. So, hopefully we can do that this Friday afternoon.

We really like our social worker! She’s so personable and encouraging, felt bad about the loss of our Nepal adoption, but spurred us on towards China. She has invested in this program herself twice now and has 2 beautiful children! I’m thrilled that she did not hand us any more forms to complete! And I’m beyond ecstatic that she only charged us an “update fee” rather than a “full re-write fee.” What a blessing! Thank you, God, for Your provision!

She got a chance to meet our college boarder and talked to him about how we know him, why he’s living here, what he’s studying and then went through all the Hague questions with him. He only needed to be here about 15 minutes and then he left to go study. Thankfully he won’t need to attend any future meetings and our social worker will be investigating whether he’ll still need to have a physical and fill out the medical forms. She says Nebraska won’t require one and from what she knows about the China program, the China government won’t require one either. Prayers appreciated for him not needing that medical file!!!

The next meeting isn’t on the calendar yet. Like I said, we laughed that we really don’t have much to talk about. So, our social worker is also going to ask our agency if they feel we need to meet again in person or if we can just correspond by email and/or phone. At this point, we’re still waiting on our local FBI fingerprints, 2 state clearance forms to arrive (IL and FL) and Jay’s medical and we can be done with the home study! I’m hopeful that perhaps it can be done by early or mid-December.

By the way, Happy National Adoption Awareness Month!  Tell someone you know about our story and maybe their hearts will open to adoption and changing the life of a child in need!

Paperwork Woes

I’m the most organized person I know. I like to make order out of chaos, the bigger the better!

This week was supposed to be a wonderful week – the week I mailed my first set of dossier documents to my agency! Sure, it started that way but it didn’t end that way.

Since mailing the first Priority Mail envelope on Tuesday, I’ve taken 3 trips to the doctor’s office to get my medical form done correctly. First attempt the doctor wrote the form herself but abbreviated words all over the place! Abbreviations = not acceptable. Second attempt the doctor didn’t sign and date the forms! Third attempt it was painfully clear that a nurse filled out the form and had the doctor sign. I don’t pretend to understand the rule, but only the doctor can fill out the form using the same pen, the same ink, the same handwriting, etc. Hopefully a fourth visit next week will yield the perfect results I need.

Yesterday, I get a long email from our agency asking for changes to the documents I just sent. What? I followed the directions to the T. First, they needed specific information on my part-time employment papers detailing how many weddings I’ve coordinated and how much I’ve earned from those. And they also needed to know how many hours per week I work in the Childcare room for Women’s Bible Study. Second on their list was a need for the financial statements for our 403B (retirement investments like a 401K but for non-profits). A third thing that I actually caught was our financial worksheet because it needed an attestation clause for the notary at the bottom but their form didn’t have one. So, I basically had to copy and paste their form into a new Word document and add the attestation at the bottom. Lastly, and this one really gets me, they asked me for an additional picture of my kitchen that shows my refrigerator! Really? A refrigerator? I’m spending tens of thousands of dollars on an international adoption and you’re worried that I don’t have a refrigerator? I know this isn’t the agency’s requirement, so I’m in no way blaming the wonderful staff serving us for years now. They're awesome and great to deal with.  But this is a China thing apparently. Maybe a Hague Convention thing.  Regardless, I took the picture today and 2 copies are waiting for me at Walmart. Need proof that I have a refrigerator? That’s it up above.

It’s funny how one thing can go wrong (the medical report) and can frustrate me all day long but one tiny little thing (a picture of my fridge) will send me into tears! No, friends, it’s not even PMS. It’s the paperwork woes!  Please excuse me from the whining and complaining but I honestly wanted to document this part of the journey simply because I thought it so utterly rediculous.  Yes, I can laugh at it only hours later, thankfully!

I’m hopeful the rest of the paperwork goes much smoother!

Fall Break

We just returned from a week’s vacation back home in Illinois. We normally don’t travel anywhere at this time of year, but after hoarding all our vacation days last year, thinking we’d need them all for Nepal, we don’t want to stockpile again. China won’t be as long of a trip as Nepal would have been, so there’s no need to hoard vacation days anyway.

While we were home, we took some family photos for our dossier, thus completing almost everything that we can of our China file. My birth certificates arrived and were waiting for us when we came home. My doctors office has sent my lab results and completed my physical forms but those need to be redone because of abbreviations and inaccuracies – those are the trickiest forms to get right because they have to be written legibly with no abbreviations, cross-outs or white outs. Jay has yet to complete his physical. I’ll be sending off the first packet of documents to our agency this week.

What we’re really waiting for is the home study. We still don’t have any of the 4 necessary meetings scheduled with our social worker yet. Until the home study is done, we won’t be able to process our I-800A form for China because we can’t get that without the completed, notarized home study. I’m not sure we’ll be able to finish before Christmas, but that’s still my hope.  We'll see if it jives with God's Outlook Calendar.

Sounds like the college student living in our basement will still be here in January. He has an internship identified but is working through the details of when that will start. Probably not in January though – it’s tough to do landscape design in January unless you go to a warm climate. He still might find something else along the way too. He has all his background checks done and in the mail. He has been finger printed up at the state patrol. Now he just needs to have a physical so we can get his medical form done.

On a personal note, Jay has decided to hold off on back surgery. All the PA’s and even the surgeon aren’t recommending it because the 2nd steroid shot is still working, yet starting to wear off slightly. The 40 pound weight loss is helping too! We’re planning on taking it one day at a time for now. Oddly enough, Jay’s back always goes out over Thanksgiving, I kid you not. So, for surgery to happen this year the shot needs to completely wear off and the back needs to go out before early-December. We really don’t want to have to face surgery next year when we’ve met our deductible this year with all his pain and troubles! We’d have to start all over again at the same time as completing a special needs adoption! Besides that, can you imagine flying all the way to China on a bad back? What if it went out while we were over there? Ugh!

Checklists

I love lists!  I’m one of those people who would have lists to organize all my lists!  Seriously.  I have grocery lists.  Clean out my purse and you’ll probably find many old crumpled grocery lists from past trips to Walmart and Super Target.  Actually, I just cleaned out my purse and it’s now empty, but there were at least 6 old, scribbled lists, trust me!  I have library book lists for all the books I want to check out for the kids, including a list of children’s books on adoption for my boys to read now and my future daughter to read as she grows up (blog post on this in the near future).  I have lists of all the things we’d like for the house like kitchen floor refinishing, snow blower, water softener, down payment for a minivan.  I have started on lists of things we’ll need for a little girl because let’s face it; the last 7 years have been all about boys and I have nothing pink or girly in my house.  I have Christmas card lists and adoption fundraising lists.  The list of lists is endless.  And I just received 2 more this week.

We have been in contact with our home study social worker she emailed me the checklist for updating our home study:

o   Get fingerprinted for our FBI criminal background checks (this report takes 6-8 weeks)

o   Order all of our background checks from states we have lived in since turning 18 (not costly but time consuming)

o   Update our medical reports for both Jay and I and the boys as well

We have also received our checklist from our adoption agency.  Our agency reviewed our Nepal dossier, contrasted it with what is needed for China and found out that almost every single piece of paperwork needs to be re-done because our Nepal dossier is over 12 months old.  So, we have the following to complete for the dossier:

o   Change our country immigration from Nepal to China via the USCIS (could be a lengthy wait)

o   Purchase new birth certificates and marriage certificates. 

o   Rewrite our employment letters, power of attorney documents, financial worksheet, education and employment history documents

o   Update our Match Form regarding which special needs we’re open to. 

One other thing.  We'll also have a small stack of paperwork to complete for the college kid who lives in our basement.  He's a great guy who works for my husband at church and he needed a quieter place to stay while he finished school.  Because he'll still most likely live here after our home study is complete for China, we need to include him.  So, background checks, fingerprints, et cetera are due for him as well.  Hopefully it won't be a big deal.

Where are we now?  I’ve created a new timeline to the right.  I’ve kept our Nepal timeline way at the bottom just as a reminder of where we’ve been on this loopy journey.  It’s all a part of our story!  But China has its own new timeline in the right column. 

I’ll start tackling the list as quickly as I can but the governmental paperwork is totally out of my hands.  We’d appreciate prayers for a timely paperwork process.  My goal would be to finish everything by Christmas. 

More News from Last Week!

I’m home with a sick one today, so while he relaxes with Veggie Tales, I thought I’d continue on about my astounding phone conversation with our agency Director last week.

Continuing from my previous post, the phone conversation I had with our agency director last week went on to talk about all that we’d need to do to update our home study. That, in fact, should be just an update and not a full re-write because our agency had us write our home study as if Nepal were a Hague Country (like China). Now, we may have to spend some money and re-order documents like marriage and birth certificates, state background checks, etc., but those fees would be nominal and we have enough to cover those. Our agency Director will be in contact with our Nebraska social worker to ensure that we don’t have to pay for a full re-write of the home study!

Our agency estimated that the paperwork would only take us about 3-4 months to complete and we’ll be paper-ready for China! That’s still surprisingly long in my opinion, but what will take the longest is the immigration change from Nepal to China. We can never count on our own government to make haste! Plus, China requires 4 visits with our social worker, not 2 like Nepal did. So, that’s time for our social worker who works out of Omaha and she'll have to make 4 trips out here to meet with us. I’ve been in contact with her via email and she is working through the details with our agency first, before scheduling our 4 appointments.

There is something of concern to our Director and that is our openness to special needs. We filled out a “Match Form” for our agency months ago, back when Nepal was still in the works. This Match Form was a series of check boxes of all the special medical needs our family is open to accepting. Our agency looked at our form and said they’d never seen a family so open to such a high number of special needs. And believe me, we're not open to everything!  She told me that this almost worried her because she wondered if we really knew what we were doing. In fact, she said the problem wouldn’t be how long we’d be waiting for a referral, but how quickly we’d get one! She felt we might not be ready for travel and for an addition to the family so quickly! Indeed we do know what we are doing, however with Jay’s pending back surgery (still not scheduled yet because the steroid shot is still working), perhaps we will take a glance at our Match Form and make a few edits, just simply to keep the medical bills manageable for Jay’s back and our daughter who might require medical attention upon coming home to our family.

In the meantime, some of you family and friends might have questions or even concerns for us about adopting special needs. This week I came across a great video from a wonderful organization that explains it better than I ever could. Click here to watch a 10-minute clip from Love Without Boundaries and learn about special needs adoptions!

Email, Phone Calls & Dinner Discussions

Apparently, God is up to something huge in this adoption world of ours. I know of so many people who are receiving good news just in these last couple of weeks. Friends of Jay’s have recently received referrals for 2 Ethiopian babies and are praying for court dates! Blog friends of mine just got a referral for twin Ethiopian infants! Our friends from church are in Uganda right now and officially have legal guardianship of their daughter and are just now working on the US visa process to get her home!

And we have news too!!!!!

When the US Department of State suspended all Nepal adoptions on August 6, our agency told us to hang tight and just see what would happen. Until yesterday, we hadn’t made any decisions about our Nepal dossier. It’s technically still in Kathmandu. Some agencies have just ended their programs and have pulled their clients out of the program. Ours did not.

We received an email yesterday morning with an update on the Nepal program. There is very little hope that our Nepal adoption would ever come to completion. So, the Director at La Vida told us to consider their China and Colombia programs. I sent a quick reply saying that we have every intention of switching over to their China Special Needs program but that we can’t start now because we don’t have the funds in our savings account to start all over again from scratch. I gave them an estimated time frame of November or December to start up again. This short email I sent led to a 1 hour phone conversation with the Director yesterday afternoon.

“You don’t know!” she repeated over and over to me.
“I don’t know what?” was my reply.

She explained how she read my email about not having the funds to start up with a new adoption program, but told us that we have a CREDIT in our account at La Vida! We have a credit of $3000 in our account! My eyes bugged out of my head and my jaw dropped to the ground like a cartoon character! This amount would have been wired to Nepal upon being matched with our daughter, but because that never happened, it’s just been sitting at our agency on our behalf.

Then I was given our options:
1. Stop our adoption process all together and get refunded the $3000.
2. Keep our paperwork in Nepal and hold the $3000 until we get a referral. This is very wishful thinking and she gave me no hope that Nepal would open up again, but in the same breath told me that miracles do happen.
3. Move to the China Special Needs program and use the $3000 to start.

It doesn’t end there. It turns out that the start-up fees for China Special Needs are… $3000, not $4000 like I had assumed from that of our Nepal program! And here’s what really gets me… What’s even more amazing is that the donations we received from our support letter to family and friends, the donations that we thought were lost forever to Nepal, totaled… you got it, $3000. If you have donated to our cause, I am relieved, shocked and thrilled beyond imagination that your cash donations were not lost after all! You can hear my sigh of relief, can't you?

There is so much more to write, but it would go on for miles. So, I’ll break here and fill you in on the rest in another week or so as we make decisions. What I’ll leave you with is this…

While losing Nepal, thousands of our own hard earned, frugally saved dollars, the dreams of a sweet Nepali daughter was devastating, I’m glad it happened the way it did. Did I just say that? Oh yes I did! Moreover, I’m overjoyed that our agency hesitated to mention the positive balance in our account! Had we known that on August 6th when we lost Nepal, we would have just picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off, washed our hands and moved into a new program. Instead, the not knowing allowed us to grieve the loss, to question our motives, to ask God again for His purpose in our lives. Had we known we could jump right into China, we wouldn’t have struggled spiritually, studied from His Word, asked friends for prayer, yearned for God. These 7 weeks have drawn us closer to Him, made us dependent on Him and Him alone. He is the one responsible for the gift we received yesterday, a gift I almost don’t feel worthy of.

I am thankful for these last 7 weeks. Please join me in thanking Him!

Adoption Music

I wrote this post long ago and have kept adding to it so I've refrained from posting it until now. Last night I met with some girl friends at Scooter's to discuss the Beth Moore study we recently started. This second week talked about worship. The whole time I was thinking, "I need to publish this post." When we left the coffeehouse, one of the songs I have listed below was playing on the sound system. It was a little confirmation that maybe one of these songs below will encourage you along whatever road you are travelling right now.

One of my pathways to God is worship. There isn’t much more that grabs me and draws me close to Him than song. I’m the person you see driving down the road belting out a worship song in my car with no passenger next to me, or at least with my kids in the back behind the tinted glass. Put that music together with God’s beautiful creation and I’ll be a mess of tears, doing the ugly cry, but all for good reasons.

During our recovery from the Nepal shutdown, worship meant nothing. I couldn’t sing in church or even tap my foot or sway to the music. I just stood there motionless for about 3 consecutive Sundays. Nice for a pastor’s wife, huh? But I didn’t even want to attempt to fake it because it would be just that – fake. It wouldn’t be worship. God doesn't want me to be fake. He allowed me time to hurt while He held me closely. I was honest with God about it and now the joy has slowly returned, despite the unknown road ahead.

I’ve kept a running playlist of songs that kind of hold me together and spur me on towards the direction God is leading us on this adoption road -- kind of an Adoption Road Trip playlist. My dear friend H told me about the Spirit of Adoption CD. I’d love to purchase that but haven’t yet. Furthermore, I’ve found so many other songs that are so applicable to adoption. So, here are the songs that I have in my current playlist. Most of these videos are very well done and I hope you’ll enjoy them. If any of you have any songs that affirm you during your adoption process, let me know and I’ll enjoy listening!

Changed (Aaron Niequist)
I’m thankful that Jay and I can call Aaron our friend from our old church. This song of his I have made my theme song for our adoption. Thank you, Aaron!

Give me Your Eyes (Brandon Heath)
We’ve heard this song countless times at church and I love it.

Follow You (Leeland)
I first heard this song at an event for Tiny Hands International, a ministry we volunteered with here in Nebraska that serves the people of Nepal, India and Bangledesh. This is another one that I’ll sing boldly!

If You Say Go (Rita Springer)
I love what this song says about being called to the fire and finding God through the flames. Thus was our Nepal adoption journey – fire and flames.

You Never Let Go (Matt Redman)
A great song about getting through the rough times. My friend T posted this on Facebook a week or so ago and it hit me right where I was. Thanks, T!

While I’m Waiting (John Waller)
While we waited on Nepal before the shut down, I’m sure my neighbors heard me singing this song – LOUDLY! I love to sing this song and I strive to live out the lyrics. I’m excited to be waiting on China next year!

Swept Away (Geoff Moore)
The video I found for this is a family’s post on YouTube of their China adoption. These videos always make me sob. Someone please teach me how to make stuff like this and I’ll be posting my own someday! Thanks to this family for sharing. It helps us all move along this journey with faith.

When Love Takes You In (Stephen Curtis Chapman)
The Chapmans have been long time adoption advocates and have books and songs all about it!

We Have Room
Go to this public link on Facebook and scroll down just a touch to the music player on the left side of the screen. Great song!

God Blessed the Broken Road (Rascal Flats)
Even country songs have their place. I love the stories that country music tells. Adoptions are typically broken roads. Ours is no exception!

Why Wouldn’t I (Peder Eide)
My friend H posted this on her blog last year and I fell in love. I bought the CD for family members as Christmas gifts. This link includes the songwriter's story of adoption, so it's lengthy, but totally worth it!

In My Daughter’s Eyes (Martina McBride)
I don’t listen to this much these days, but I can hardly wait for the day when I will look into my daughter’s eyes. Until then, this song makes me cry sad tears because I just ache for her.

Love Can Change the World (Aaron Niequist)
And what started with our friend Aaron will end with him as well. Just reminds us of the hope we have of making a difference in this world. Adoption might not be for you, but what is? What can God do through you to change this world? I love this live video of worship back in my home church. It will always be home to me!

Tailgating

A funny thing happened at our church’s tailgate party last night.

I hadn’t even planned to attend the event with the kids because I thought being surrounded by thousands of people, all celebrating the start of the Husker football season (which I could care less about), standing in long lines for food and games with my 2 kids didn’t sound like my idea of fun. Helicopters or no helicopters, I wasn’t going.

Then my husband had to ask the neighbor kids if they wanted to go. Bouncy houses, games, barrel train rides, and the aforementioned helicopters won them over immediately. I threw on different clothes and some make-up and we were out the door with the neighbor’s kids tagging along in our 2 cars because our SUV only seats 5.

We parked on the gravel, back by the pole barn and came face to face with the helicopters parked on the open grass. The kids got to climb in the Army copter but only in the back. Then it was onto the Husker copter. Yep, you read that correctly. A much smaller helicopter painted in black and red and a little white. The word “Huskers” was painted in script on both sides. They’re a little nuts over the Huskers here! The kids climbed in and even got to jump in the cockpit (is that what you call it on a copter?) and put on the headsets. And there’s me without my camera! Huge parenting faux pas!

The kids were getting hungry so we walked across the footbridge over to the main parking lot to check out the food. Lines were as long as I expected and Jay offered to wait in line for food while I took the kids to the bouncy houses. Wrangling 4 kids by myself in crowd of thousands isn’t something I want to do again. We managed to stick together and the kids bounced and jumped down the inflatable slide while handmade paper rockets from the Lincoln Children’s Museum were being launched right next to us. After a half dozen runs down the slide, the kids were ready for more. It was onto the pedal carts over by the loading dock. We waited and waited in line, my kids patiently, my neighbor’s kids running in the grass keeping busy. Jay called my cell from the food line to say he reached the entrance and asked me to bring the kids up and get fed.

As soon as we joined him, the kids’ parents and older sister joined us. How they found us in the midst of thousands of Husker fans is beyond me. They stepped in line with us, as Jay had told the fellow guests around him that he was standing in line on behalf of our family and friends. We filled our white foam plates with hot dogs, burgers, chips, beans, and cookies then made our way to the beverage tent. The dining tent was crowded and we decided to eat indoors inside the Youth Complex. We found a table immediately and enjoyed dinner with our neighbors.

Now, we’ve been neighbors with these people for a handful of years now. Our kids have played together for the last year or so. As adults, we’ve made our introductions but it never really went beyond that until tonight. They asked how we knew of the event and Jay mentioned that this is our church and he’s on church staff as the Director of Campus Operations. This threw the dad, Steve, for a loop because he was under the impression Jay worked elsewhere. So, Jay described what he did for the church before the conversation turned inevitably back to our kids.

We explained that we’ve been trying to adopt internationally. Right away, Steve and his wife Renee’s eyes lit up but they allowed us to tell our story. We talked about getting involved with Nepal, working on paperwork for 6 months, then waiting for Nepal to match us with our daughter, only to be shut out by our own US government in early August. Their posture sunk upon hearing our story but they were eager to tell us that their 2 kids, the 2 darlings everyone calls twins because they are the same age, the 2 kids my boys have been playing with for the last year, are both adopted! Fancy that! They told us their story of two separate domestic adoptions and cheered us on in our efforts to find our daughter. It’s funny how you can be neighbors with people for a couple years and not even know the very basics.

But what made my heart skip a beat was what Jay said upon Steve asking (in his John Goodman voice – he seriously sounds just like him!) what we’ll do now that we’re out of the Nepal program. First, Jay mentioned that he’s facing back surgery sometime this fall or winter but following that, we’d start our paperwork for a China special needs adoption. He said it! Those words actually came out of his mouth! The man who couldn’t talk about adoption with me because he was still so raw with emotion actually said we’d be adopting from China next year! I could have cried right then and there. To know that my husband is on the same page as me now makes me jump for joy as high as the paper rockets that were being shot off over by that bouncy slide.

Its official, my friends: we’ll be adopting from China (next year, hopefully)!

Detour (a continuation of my previous post)

When I talked about my day with Jay when he came home from work, I explained what I’d been doing, what I’d learned and how there were indeed options for us for continuing our adoption. He looked at me and my excitement to move forward but it didn’t seem like he was really listening. At one point, he just walked into the living room, leaving me in mid thought, mid sentence in the kitchen preparing taco salads for dinner. I know he’s apprehensive. He told me as much at 11pm that night, long after the kids had gone to bed, the house picked up, the school lunch made and the dogs let outside to do their business.

He read to me from James 1.

You know the one. It starts with James greeting the 12 tribes and goes onto the “consider it pure joy when you face trials,” verse. Um, yeah, we’re there. A trial. The biggest we’ve had in 5 years. Joy? I don’t think so. Next, “the testing of your faith develops perseverance.” Yeah, we get that. We know that God is up to something here. We know the verses. It’s not new to us at all. It’s in our heads. But it’s not in Jay’s heart. Not right now.

He read the rest of James aloud to me and it was all relevant and good stuff. But skip ahead to the end of James 1 because it shocked us. James ends by telling us, “to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” We had read this chapter before but had forgotten the ending. Jay went to it for the beginning verses about trials and troubles. It ended with serving orphans! I couldn’t believe my ears!

You would have thought that those verses would have put my husband right back on track on the road to our daughter. It was a crystal clear direction for me, but those words didn’t work for Jay. He’s still apprehensive, still questioning, still scared, still hurt. It surprises me because early on in our adoption process we had a conversation about the what-ifs of international adoption. He expressed his confidence that even if we lost it all and never succeeded to bring a daughter home, we still gave it all to God for His purpose and it would be worth it. And now he can’t even hear those very words that originally came from his mouth. He’s lost.

During our shopping trip for kitchen chairs today, there was construction on 27th Street that made us take a detour. I don’t know this edge of town well, but it’s impossible to get lost in Lincoln, I’m not directionally challenged and I just followed the orange detour signs that turned me west and then eventually back north. But I never saw a sign directing me back east to get back onto 27th Street. I ended up driving through the university campus and found myself at a dead end under an overpass, in front of Memorial Stadium where the Huskers play. I got so mad at the city of Lincoln for not posting better detour signs. I could have used the GPS to get me to a better cross street, but Lincoln is easy to navigate. I double backed, cut over east on Y Street and made it back to 27th Street and headed north to the furniture stores and Toys R Us. I always knew where I was but didn’t know the best way to get where I needed to go. But I made it with little trouble.

Where is Jay on this adoption journey? Jay is lost. He’s still driving around. He can’t see the orange and black detour signs. His Magellan has old maps and is stuck on a frozen blue screen anyway, rendering it useless. The paper map has been stained by coffee and sodas and it’s crumpled and torn from being shoved in between the passenger seat and the center console of our Ford Escape. He might be parked on the side of the road or stuck in that dead end under the overpass next to the stadium, trying to figure out where he’s supposed to go. He’ll figure it out. I’m confident our God will show him the way to our daughter.

Hello Kitty & Strawberry Shortcake

In my heart, in my mind, in the deepest part of my soul, I’m ready to move on. I have pushed the sad days behind me, let the anger wash away, and set the questioning to the back burner because until the day I die, I’ll always wonder why our first adoption attempt had to come to an ugly end. I’ve been spending hours on the computer, leaving my 3 year old to play or watch way more NickJr than I’d normally allow, but I’ve done my research. I’ve toggled back and forth between agency websites and .pdf files and Excel spreadsheets. I’ve narrowed it down to two countries, both with special needs adoptions, both from Asia, both with similar financial frameworks.

It’s a process that changes by the minute, by the hour, by the day. I woke up yesterday morning in my typical I-hate-mornings fashion. I fought to get my oldest out of bed and into the shower at 6:45. I just kept poking him in his top bunk, squeezing his arms and legs, ignoring his moaning and complaining until he slowly slid down the ladder with a thud to the beige carpet. I threw on yoga pants and a t-shirt, brushed my teeth, washed my face and ran a brush through my hair before going downstairs and getting yogurt and fruit on the table for breakfast. Then it was off to the bus stop and back home to clean up and start the day.

But I was angry yesterday. I never got a response from an agency with a waiting child whom I was very interested in. I questioned the agency twice and no reply. Then I got the one I didn’t want to hear. “We’ve found a family for her.” Great for the darling little girl with chubby, kissable cheeks, but it’s another loss for me. I took a shower in tears. I actually told God to take away my heart for orphans because I can’t deal with the pain anymore. How’s that for asking for something clearly against what it says in the Bible! I’d be a hypocrite for naming my blog Psalms 82:3. Those were about the only words I could utter to Him though. They were real and I meant it. Take it away!

We recently purchased a new kitchen table big enough to accommodate a new addition to the family. Yes, we bought the table the day before the Nepal shut down, wouldn’t you know. But I didn’t care for the chairs that accompanied my new Ikea table, and I purchased the table alone. So, yesterday afternoon I had planned to drive all around Lincoln to find at least 4 chairs that would match my espresso, almost black contemporary table. It was an ugly drive with angry adoption thoughts at every red light. Why are You doing this to us, God? It didn’t help that none of the stores I visited had chairs that would suit us. It was a bust at every store. My mood kept going down the drain.

My youngest is a great shopper and never made a fuss. I even promised him a stop at Toys R Us to browse and play if he was good at the furniture stores. Unfortunately, we had to buy a birthday present for our neighbor girl, so a trip down the pink, girly aisles was in order. I didn’t want to do it. I saw all the Hello Kitty, Strawberry Shortcake and Littlest Pet Shop toys that I had once intended to buy for my Nepali daughter. I found myself in the aisles of the toy store literally throwing my hands up in the air in utter defeat and letting them fall back to my sides with a heavy slap on my legs. I’m sure I walked out of the store like a disciplined puppy with my head down and tail between my legs. This is torture! Take it away!

We came home, ate lunch and cleaned up just a touch before friends would be coming over at 3:30. I had a few moments to check my email before heading to the bus stop in the afternoon. There was 1 email from an agency that has been known for excellent customer service, so I knew I could ask questions about their waiting child program and investigate my options.

Oh, how 1 little email can change your mood, your day, your outlook! The email was sweetly written by an adoption caseworker who understood the loss of our Nepal adoption. This agency is currently struggling to bring Nepali children home who had already been matched to their families before the shut down announcement. The caseworker explained what we’d have to do in order to switch countries, what kind of children are available, what country has the best program for us and he even included photos of 6 beauties who were looking for someone to call mommy and daddy, if we were paper ready, which we are not. He was confident there is a little girl out there for us and he never once pushed me to go with his agency and leave mine.

Those 6 faces made me cry tears of complete joy. I smiled through the slow stream running down my face, knowing there are children out there who are still in need. I marveled at how beautiful these babies were and their unrepaired cleft palates, club feet and ear deformities were a blur to me. I must have looked at their photos a dozen times before Jay came home from work.

Bring on the pink aisles at Toys R Us, the Hello Kitty, the Strawberry Shortcake Dolls! There's a little girl out there who needs me, needs Jay, needs 2 big brothers, 2 fluffy white American Eskimo dogs and goofy guinea pig to boot.

Yes, I’m ready to move on.

I Don't Do Weeds

I just finished reading the second book that an old friend from high school and church recently published. One of the chapters was a list of things she does do and a list of things she doesn’t do. It was a fun chapter to read but I struggled with the idea of why I should write my own lists. But I found it quite applicable during this drama called adoption.

Things I do. I am the caretaker of our home. I do the cooking, the cleaning, and the bill paying. I bathe the children, I changed their diapers, I made homemade baby food, and I led the potty training efforts. I feed, bathe and groom our two dogs. I care for the guinea pig. I run all the errands. I buy generics, much to my oldest son’s dismay. When Jay’s back was out this winter, he was on doctor’s orders to avoid shoveling. I became the snow remover, me in my 5-foot, 3-inch, and 20 pounds overweight frame. Wouldn’t you know that this new duty had to happen the year we had 2 blizzards back to back. Our 3 car driveway was drifted with 3 ½ feet of snow, 4 feet in some places, I kid you not. I opened the garage door during the second blizzard and just cried in my garage wondering how on earth I would conquer that without a snow blower. Thankfully, 3 strange men came by and blew it out for us while I struggled to remove the top foot and a half of heavy white stuff with my plastic, blue snow shovel. I’ve never learned who they are, but I believed they were hired by my neighbor to do his snow removal. Whoever those strangers were, they did it with joy, smiles on their faces, a spring in their step, actually! That’s what service is supposed to be about. Find joy in how you can surprise someone by serving them during their time of need. It will make their day for sure, but it will make your day so much more. God just works that way and I practically laugh at His mathematics in that equation.

That leads me to a thank you. There are those of you out there who are serving us by praying us through this rocky time. When I cannot find the words or sometimes even the sheer desire to talk to God about what is on my mind, you are there lifting our family, our future daughter up to the God who listens intently to His children. I am humbled by your dedication to our family and our cause. You must know that we could not get through this without those prayers. If any of you have ever uttered a single word to God on our behalf, please make yourself known. I want my daughter to know how many people it took to get her home, how many people cared that much about her, about us, to spend their time thinking of us and asking God to direct us. And when we see Jesus face to face, I know I’ll be surrounded by so many more people who have been carrying us along the way in dedicated prayer. I am forever grateful.

Things I don’t do. There are many things I don’t do. I don’t iron, except when it’s absolutely necessary like for weddings, funerals, first day of school, picture day. I don’t mow the lawn. If I have to do the snow removal, then Jay can mow and do the trim! I have mowed the lawn when Jay’s back has been out, but our weed whacker is a beast and so I never do the trim! I don’t exercise regularly, thus the 20 extra pounds that I hate but don’t do anything about. I don’t subscribe to magazines. I don’t go out for regular manicures and pedicures.

But I’ll talk about one because it is what struck me today. Thank you, Shauna, for admitting that you don’t garden. Neither do I! I hate yard work with a passion and I’m sure my neighbors just shake their heads in lament over my weeds, my burned out grass and my lack of landscaping. I believe my disgust stems from the fact that my parents were always busy on weekends tending to the 2 waterfront acres we had in South Barrington. The yard work seemed to come first, then playtime. I remember always wanting my mom to go swimming in the lake with me most every hot summer day, but she’d always tell me to wait until she was done with the yard work.

I’m in no way blaming my parents for it at all! Now that I’m a homeowner, there is definitely a necessity to keeping a well manicured lawn and flower beds. And 2 acres? Forget it! I’ll stick with my tiny quarter acre, thank you very much! I have no green thumb.

This morning I weeded the front flower bed after putting my oldest on the school bus. My sister-in-law is visiting with her 2 kids later today and like my grandma Myrt always said, “I just want the front of the house to look nice.” I have no idea what these weeds are. I have no desire to Google them or ask my local professional at Lowe’s. But I had been gone for 10 days on my annual trip home to Chicago and I came home to monster weeds that have taken over everything. I pulled these tree weeds, as I call them, which are over an inch thick in the stems and taller in length than my 3 year old. I pulled vines that seem to be choking the life out of the bushes. I pulled the thick grassy weeds and the thinner, winding, round-leaf weed that creeps and spreads like wildfire in my beds and in my lawn despite TruGreen’s best efforts this season. Those two weeds always accompany each other.

This year I also pulled up roses that I have hated since we moved in 5 years ago. I never understood why the builder planted them. They are pastel pink, thorny, scraggly, small, buggy and just downright ugly in front of my red brick house. Some people would say these rose bushes are pretty. Why would you ever dig up a rose? Sure, pull them up, but replant them someplace else. Some wouldn’t imagine eliminating these three from my yard and wishing them good riddance in my garbage can.

We’ve all heard the analogy of God pruning us, chiseling us, refining us, more into His likeness. I wonder if he hates pulling those ugly weeds in my life as much as I hate pulling weeds in my front flower bed. It’s dirty work. Despite wearing gardening gloves, my hands and nails always come out filthy. On a hot summer day, it’s a sweaty mess even in the shade of my north facing front yard. Let’s not even talk about the bugs that scurry around when I’ve unearthed them from the soil beneath the weed’s roots.

Does my yard look better when I’m done? Absolutely! It’s acceptable at the very least. Sometimes it looks downright nice. And do my neighbors appreciate it? I’m guessing they do a happy dance behind closed doors when they see me out there doing the work. On a side note, I do find weeding much more enjoyable when I have my 2-year old neighbor B chatting with me through the white picket fence. Thanks for keeping me company this morning, buddy!

But what about those rose bushes? Maybe I pulled those out at the right season in my life. I mean, I waited 5 years. Why now? I don’t know. But I’d like to put something beautiful in their place. Something that’s bright, vibrant, maybe changes color in my favorite season of fall. Maybe some bright Golden Sedum to balance the Moonbeam Coreopsis at the other end of the flower bed. Maybe some mini Hollyhocks because red is my favorite color. All you gardeners out there, I’ll take your two cents and will consider most any suggestions. My front flower bed is empty at one end with the removal of these roses.

I know there’s something beautiful on the other side of this adoption loss. I’m determined to find it. Maybe God just needed to pull out the rose bushes first.

Uncertainty on Our Anniversary

Six years ago, Jay and I found ourselves going through a really rough point. We were both working in Illinois, working opposite shifts so that one of us could be home with C who was an infant. Jay's job was boxing him in with no room to grow or climb the ladder. I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom to our son. I eventually went down to working only two days a week and that was wonderful. The best of both worlds, having most of my time at home with my baby boy and some time at work and contributing to the bills and bank account.

Jay started interviewing across the country for different ministry positions. Dozens of resumes were sent, phone interviews scheduled as well as flights to different locales. South Carolina, two churches in Southern California, and two in Illinois were all quite serious about us. The two in Illinois actually told Jay, "You're the guy!" only to tell him at the very end that he wasn't the guy. Both of those churches made other hires. One of those hurtful rejections came at the tail end of Jay performing his 34 year old brother's memorial service! I'll never forget standing in the kitchen at church, in my white chef coat, in front of the ice freezers, in tears on the phone with Jay as he told me news of the latest rejection. He was crushed and couldn't take anymore. There was nothing on the horizon, nothing bright and brilliant, no hope. We felt empty.

We're at that point now once again, not on the job front, but on the adoption front. We are so full of questions about why this had to happen, why God would put us through the loss of something He was calling us to do for Him, why we had to invest our finances only to lose them and be unable to continue with any other program. Surprisingly, I've been stronger (which isn't saying much) than Jay at this point. Sure, I'm angry, hurt and heartbroken, but I know God is doing something in us right now. And if there is a daughter for us out there, He will lead us to her. My dear husband is having a much harder time and is asking more questions and strugging to find answers. He'd be such a great dad to a little girl!

After we gave up looking for a new career for Jay, he got this email from a church in Nebraska. Nebraska. What's in Nebraska? Corn? Isn't that the horribly boring, neverending state you drive through just to get to Colorado? He sat on that email for a couple of days and didn't even mention it to me. When he did, he reluctantly asked me if he should consider it. We did and the rest is, well, history. We're here in Nebraska. God showed us the way. Jay has a great job and I'm staying home raising our two boys. Our move here has been instrumental in our decision to adopt in monumenal ways. It's not perfect here and I'd more than love to move back home someday to my home church and to my family that I ache for. But for now, we are here and I could write a whole essay on the joys of Nebraska. (Sounds like an oxymoron, right?)

So, today we celebrate 9 years of marriage during another really rough, painful season, one I'd really just rather fast foward through until, say, January and see where things are. We'll continue on this lonely path, holding onto each other until we are laughing and dancing like fools on the other side of this mountain, with a daughter in our arms.

I'm clinging to a verse that my friend Hilary uses in her email signature:

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. ~Hebrews 11:1~

Awful News

Well, here we are, visiting my mom in Illinois. Jay is attending the Global Leadership Summit at Willow Creek and he just called me to tell me the news. The US has decided to pull out of Nepal.

You can read the reasons why here.

We are heartbroken as we await news from our agency. I understand that our funds we have paid towards the Nepal program will NOT transfer to any other program. So, we will have to discuss our options from here on out.

I can pretty easily say that due to the loss of a lot of finances invested, our adoption journey will come to an end. Maybe we'll try to have a biological daughter of our own. Maybe we'll try to adopt in years to come when the finances are replenished.

But either way, please pray for us. Sorry for the short, abrupt post. We just need time to discuss. But we are away on vacation and this horrible news cannot wreck our fun. There is joy and I'm choosing to find it.

Go!!!!!

Welcome back to our private (again!) blog. Sorry to make you log in each time, but we know that Nepal is watching adoption blogs. We have no intention of saying anything that could delay our adoption process, but we just want to be careful that what we do say isn't misinterpreted. We’ll go back to a public blog once we’re home with our daughter, most likely.

Things are moving forward in Nepal!!!

On June 20, our dossier was submitted to the Ministry of Women and Children in Kathmandu! We were given a queue number of 74 which means there are only 73 families ahead of us for 2010. But yes, they are still processing the 2009 families, so they need to go first.

The wonderful news is that our agency just received 6 referrals for their 2009 families! This is very exciting news for our agency as they are new to the Nepal program and these are their first referrals from Nepal. Other referrals are going out as well for other agencies. At the same time, the Prime Minister in Nepal has resigned, so there could be delays with new government reorganization.

We now just wait to be matched with our daughter and no one really knows how long this will take. When we first began our adoption process in June last year, this wait was estimated at 6 months. I have reason to believe we’ll be waiting longer than that, but I certainly hope not!

Now, we wait...
... for God to bring us our daughter.

Going Private Again!

Notice to all blog readers...

We are about to go private again soon and we'll explain why later. If you have already signed up to view our blog in the past, there is no need to re-register.

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Thanks everyone!

An Anniversary Rainbow

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of the day we started our paperwork. We never thought we’d be here, still waiting for our dossier to be submitted to the Ministry of Women & Children! We thought we’d at least be close to getting a referral by now. It’s been a journey.

First, the paper chase (8 months to complete our dossier – longer than most for those of you considering international adoption).

Then the completion (finally receiving our I-171H from Homeland Security)!

Then the wondering and nail biting (will the US pull out of Nepal?).

Then the confusion (is our agency telling us to drop out of Nepal?).

Now the “real” waiting (waiting to be matched to our little girl).

Has it been worth it? Absolutely! How are we dealing with it? We have the faith to believe that He who began a good work in us will see it to completion. There was a beautiful, bright rainbow to the west this morning and I am reminded that God keeps His promises. Are we anxious? Sure! How can you help us? Pray!

We can’t move the mountains of finances and time. But God can! Add us to your prayer lists. Tell your children about our journey and involve them in praying for a little girl who needs hope and a future. Ask the prayer teams at your church to pray for us (WCCC and LBC are already doing so)!

What can you pray for? Pray that our wait won’t be another whole calendar year like it has been for so many waiting families (our dear friends among them)! Pray for our daughter, that she is safe, healthy and lovingly cared for in Nepal. Pray for the government of Nepal to work quickly and diligently to match our daughter to us. Pray for Jay and I to enjoy and relish the time we have with our boys here at home while we long to travel across the world and bring home our daughter.

Find ways to help financially if you can. Tell others about our cause and see if they can lend a hand. Ask us questions! We love to talk about this journey and want to share it with you. Share your stories of adoption. Reading blogs and hearing stories of God’s faithfulness to other adoptive families keeps us going along this long, long, winding road.

And I can't end without thanking our parents for supporting us as we try to live out Psalms 82:3. Your granddaughter is already so blessed to have you praying for her and trying to help bring her home. And to our friends and family for writing dozens of letters of reference, praying countless prayers, sharing verses that we need at just that exact moment, and walking through this with us, we are honored by you. And to new friends through blogland, thanks for allowing us to follow your adoption stories. What a journey we share! Thank you, everyone! Thank you!

Hoping and praying it won’t be another year!

Set...

Our dossier is on its way to Nepal!

It will be reviewed by our agency's representative and they will be issued a Guarantee Letter from the US Embassy in Kathmandu. The Letter verifies that the immigration approval and fingerprint information have been forwarded from the US to Nepal. That letter must accompany our dossier. Once it's received, our dossier will be submitted to the Ministry of Women and Children.

I have no clue how long the wait will be for the Letter. Anyone? I know the letter is there because I received a notice from Homeland Security after our fingerprints were processed and we received our I-171H. And I have no idea how long our wait will be for our daughter. Anyone? I'm thinking 6-12 months for a referral. Depends on the new government.

We'll update again when our dossier is submitted to the Ministry and our "official" wait begins.

For those of you praying for my husband and our current medical situation, he gets his injection tomorrow at the local pain clinic. We'll see if this helps his back so that he can enjoy the summer with the family. They say the shot takes up to a week to take full effect. No medical bills are coming in yet, but I'm sure they'll start rolling in soon. Still praying God will provide a way for us to manage it all.

Grant # 2 Denied…

I’m not surprised by this one. This particular agency we applied to (Help Us Adopt) stated that they gave preference to childless families. I’m still happy I tried and I’m glad that there will be money going to other deserving families. God is just asking me to trust Him a little more.

Admittedly, I’m finding it hard to trust right now. Really hard!!! Jay just had a MRI this week for his 20-year long battle with back problems. We now have a diagnosis and it is most certainly not muscular. He has a bulging disc between L5 & S1 and he also has stenosis (narrowing of the spinal column). So, the MRI itself will be pricey to pay. Our maximum out-of-pocket is still in the thousands, including the deductible. But now we’re looking at 1 round of steroid injections to see if that will help Jay get through the summer. Then we’ll face back surgery this fall or winter. Contrary to popular belief, I’m not made of money.

I know God has a plan for us, but I’m really feeling clobbered right now (did I mention our lawn mower also died and we’ll need to get a new one?). How are we going to get through this larger than life financial mountain in the midst of an international adoption? I have absolutely no stinking clue.

I’m going to be really selfish and beg for your prayers for me right now! It’s really hard for me to find faith with all these goings on. I just want to be on the other side of this, laughing at my lack of faith and in awe of how God conquered it all for us. I know He will.

Psalms 46:1