tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10845042575819974462024-03-13T14:08:09.314-07:00Saving EdenJames 1:27 ...take care of children who have no fathers and of widows who are in trouble, and to keep oneself untouched by the world.Kristihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00400606181418348145noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1084504257581997446.post-83458260648237668462012-01-29T12:43:00.000-08:002012-01-29T12:56:47.441-08:00I-600 A approvalHey everyone! Haven't posted in awhile....haven't really had any news. BUT we got some important news yesterday!! Our I-600 A was approved. Our fingerprints have cleared and we are approved for up to two children, either gender, up to age 6! I thought we were only approved for a boy up to age three with a sibling....but we could be getting an older child. In the beginning, I really thought I wanted a baby boy. But as we continue on this journey, I've totally handed it over to God and decided to let Him give us the child (or children) that he wants us to have. This past week, a family from our same adoption agency came home from Kinshasa, Congo with their new 5 yr old daughter. This little girl was glowing!! I am realizing that the older children need hope too! (and Brooklyn really wants a sister close to her age) :) We have all talked about what we would name a girl and we all like the name Brynlee! What do you think? So maybe we'll have an Eden and Brynlee! Who knows??<br />Getting our finger prints cleared was our next step before getting our referral! So hopefully it won't be too long now!! I am terrible at being patient, but I am learning that good things do come to those who wait :)<br />I also want to tell you that we are planning a spaghetti dinner fundraiser coming up in April. I will be posting more details later!<br />Blessings!!<br />KristiKristihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00400606181418348145noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1084504257581997446.post-38895281468423494702012-01-01T20:17:00.000-08:002012-01-01T20:20:34.295-08:00RelievedI just talked to our case worker and she said that we shouldn't be worried at all and that things should start moving faster!! :) We are all getting so excited and ready for our referral! Can't imagine what that will feel like to see our son's face! I am trying to prepare myself.....but I can imagine that it will be just like looking into our newborn babies' faces for the first time. Wow!Kristihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00400606181418348145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1084504257581997446.post-36267168335897095612012-01-01T18:43:00.000-08:002012-01-01T18:54:21.118-08:00Happy New Year!My mind is so overwhelmed as I take time to look back and reflect on the past year! It seems that each year goes by faster than I ever want it to! But one thing remains true each year as I reflect, and that is God's faithfulness!!!!! He is my one constant....my rock....He is there when I'm lonely, angry, broken-hearted, excited, happy...and He never gets tired of me! :) He loves my just the same, and for that I am forever grateful.<br />There is one bit of news that I want to share. When we first signed up to adopt from Congo, we were being told that the entire process from start to finish is 9 months. As I've said before, there have been some big changes in the Congo. The agency is now saying 12-24 months from start to finish!!!! That is a HUGE difference! I'm not sure how to take it all in. My heart hurts to know that after we get matched with our precious Eden, it could be months or years before I get to hold him! PLEASE please be in prayer about this with me. Pray that God will intervene and allow the new judge to begin to process paperwork faster. Pray for God's favor over us and over Eden. Pray for God's will to be done. I am at peace with this because I know that God is in control. Congo is NOT in control. My faithful Father is! Once we get matched with Eden, we will have to pay $200/month for orphanage fees. That is another huge ordeal. We want him to come home quickly to us not just so we don't have to pay, but so that he is with our family who already loves him so much!!<br />I pray that each of you grows closer to God than ever before! If you've never asked God to have complete control over your life and totally surrendered, wouldn't this be a great year for that?? Praying for each of you, dear friends! Love and hugs!Kristihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00400606181418348145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1084504257581997446.post-34369044335072205692011-12-29T14:01:00.000-08:002011-12-29T14:16:54.075-08:00Fingerprinting, Dossier, and more!!Hey everyone! Hope your Christmas was just as wonderful as ours!! Isn't it crazy that we were counting down the days until Christmas and now it's over?! My favorite part is John being home and hanging out with friends and family! The kids were so excited and every time Brylee opened a present she said, "Wow!!" It was so cute!!<br />Yesterday we went to get our fingerprints for our last step for our dossier!! We sent in all the other documents to OWAS!! I should have taken a pic of all the documents that went into it...letters from the doctor, birth certificates, state police clearances, marriage license, home study,etc. When I first saw the list of all the things that go in the dossier package, it was very overwhelming!! But we just took it one thing at a time and I can't believe we have everything!! We are one step closer to getting our referral. Please be in prayer, though. When we get our referral, we will need almost $10,000 and to be honest, we don't have that. I know that God is in control, and we will be okay :) I am truly at peace about everything!!<br />Thank you for all the prayers and support! Looking forward to what God has in store in the coming year!! Praying that God blesses you and that you grow closer to Him than you've ever been!!<br />Love and hugs,<br />KristiKristihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00400606181418348145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1084504257581997446.post-90778099242110760112011-12-19T07:24:00.000-08:002011-12-19T07:30:25.846-08:00We moved up one!!<div> We are being told that things are moving VERY slowly in the Congo. The new elections closed all the offices down for a while and now during the holidays, the offices will close again. So, needless to say, the judge will not be working on any of the cases. Please be praying that God will be with the judge and all of the people that work very hard for these children. There are many children in the orphanage that have families who are just waiting for their cases to be approved and move through the courts. Then the families will be able to travel to pick up their children to take them home!!</div><div>Even though things are going slowly, our case worker said we did move up a spot!! We are now #17!! </div><div> </div><div>Also, we had a successful pancake breakfast, bringing in over $1500!! We still have a way to go before we reach our goal, but we are so thankful for the awesome support from family and friends!! We are in this together!! Love you, my friends!</div>Kristihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00400606181418348145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1084504257581997446.post-10556304206132114312011-12-06T17:10:00.000-08:002011-12-06T17:25:51.893-08:00Mmmmm....Pancakes!We are excited for our first fund-raising event coming up on Saturday, December 17th! We are hosting a pancake breakfast and my wonderful father-in-law will be cooking the pancakes. You don't want to miss this delicious event :) There will be no charge, just give as the Lord leads. It is a free-will donation. All donations will be to help bring our child home from Congo!!<br />If you are busy that day and you still want to donate, you can!! If you want your gift to be tax deductible, simply write the check out to our church Abundant Life and write "adoption fund" in the memo. <br /><br />Here are the details about the event:<br /><br />Where: Harvest Community Church cafeteria (also Cornerstone Christian School)<br />Old Catholic School building Main Street, Washington, IN<br /><br />Time: 9-11 a.m.<br /><br />Would love to see you all there!! God bless each one of you :)Kristihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00400606181418348145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1084504257581997446.post-49782404341832502762011-12-01T10:14:00.000-08:002011-12-01T18:10:51.863-08:00The name Eden<div><br /><div><div>One night while we were talking about adopting, we were talking about what we might name our new son. We decided that we needed to even things up since we have Brooklyn, Brylee, and Elijah. We would definately need an E name :) I googled some names and we all decided that we liked the name Eden. This is funny, because John was not excited about adopting at this time at all. He was teasing me with the idea :)</div><div>The very next day, the kids and I went to Once upon a Child (a used children's clothing and toy store). Brooklyn found a Build-a-bear puppy that she wanted and I agreed that she could get it. When we got home, she said, "mommy can you cut this tag off?" Without paying attention, I cut the tag off, and just glanced at the tag before I started to throw it in the trash. </div><div>Here's who the puppy belonged to before:</div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbOY7X-6MYygXt5UbbDozLC7WkBcYyn5Kbo0c4RclJS0YvqlsraNrqRNb1R04Wy8_0st7NCGmVovUt_aBLQ_nWi6IMBV7Q71QV0uj3m1CESbB7P5MpXQ-g70G_mov496894PS2KAlxZWg/s1600/IMG_0246.JPG"><img style="width: 146px; height: 157px; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5681345641990346946" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbOY7X-6MYygXt5UbbDozLC7WkBcYyn5Kbo0c4RclJS0YvqlsraNrqRNb1R04Wy8_0st7NCGmVovUt_aBLQ_nWi6IMBV7Q71QV0uj3m1CESbB7P5MpXQ-g70G_mov496894PS2KAlxZWg/s320/IMG_0246.JPG" /></a></div><div>Some may say that was just a coincidence, but I know that was a God-thing! Every time I even begin to doubt, God is right there cheering me on! </div></div></div>Kristihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00400606181418348145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1084504257581997446.post-42196394476759942352011-11-29T11:00:00.000-08:002011-11-29T16:25:40.661-08:00Surprise!!<div><div>Wow! It feels good to have a blog working again and be able to write about our wonderful, crazy lives :) </div><div>We want to update everyone on our adoption journey. Surprise!! We are adopting!!With this being my first blog post about adoption, I want to share some of our feelings of why. Some people just give us a blank stare when we tell them we are growing our family through adoption. Yes, we actually love children and are very excited for another son! The first questions are usually, "So do you know what your child looks like?" "What age is your child?" "Is it a boy or girl?" "Will he have diseases?" "Why Congo, when there are thousands of children in the US?"</div><div>Before I answer those, I want to take some time to share our hearts. I have always wanted to adopt from Africa. Every time I would go to a conference, or see a commercial, or see pics from missionaries about African children, there was something that always tugged on my heart. My dream has always been to visit Africa or to live in Africa to share the gospel and hope of Jesus with the children. </div><div>John loves children and he dearly loves our children. One of the reasons I married him was because he is so wonderful with children :) He is the "let's really think about this" before we just jump into something. So it wasn't that he totally opposed adoption, he just wasn't sure. And that's okay. We prayed together and alone about the timing of adoption, and one day as John was reading his Bible, God spoke to him and said, "Arise, my love, and go." (John has written a song using these words)John has fully been on board since that moment.</div><div> </div><div>We originally were going to adopt from Ethiopia, but the wait times are close to 2 years, if not longer. Then we found Terri, a lady that lives close, who works for One World Adoption Services. We researched them, and decided to go with them. Terri is the director of Congo adoptions, so we decided to adopt from Congo. Another great reason for adopting from Congo is that travel time is short. </div><div> </div><div>John and I both are grateful that God has adopted us, being Gentiles, into His family. Through Jesus, God and His blessings are fully accessible to us :). Because of grace that God has shown us, we want to share God's love with a child who otherwise would be hopeless and possibly dead if not adopted.</div><div> </div><div>Okay, so now I will answer some of the questions:</div><div>We have just finished our homestudy and received word yesterday that we are #18 on the wait list for a boy age 0-3. We haven't received our referral yet. According to adoption.com, the adoption referral"refers to when prospective adoptive parents get a call regarding a child that the country or agency has selected for them based on the family's criteria. The prospective adoptive parents will also receive information on the child's health." So we haven't seen the child, and we don't know our child's age.</div><div> </div><div>About our child having diseases, the children are all tested for HIV and Hepatitis. We are requesting a healthy child, and we are praying that God will keep his hand over our son. :) and God is faithful!! So be praying with us!</div><div> </div><div>This is a long post, so I will go for now. I know I want to post about the name we want to give our son and why, so be on the lookout! There is so much to be said :)</div><div> </div><div>Have a blessed day!!</div></div>Kristihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00400606181418348145noreply@blogger.com3