Tshirt fundraiser

I'm so excited to tell you that my dossier is finally in Hong Kong.  I am told that they will review it and have questions as they are going through it with a fine tooth comb.  Please pray that this process will not take long at all.  In the meantime, my friends at Bartlett Sports have finished screening my t-shirt design and are now printing shirts.  I can't wait to see how much God is going to bless us through this fundraiser.  I would like to share that I came up with this idea while I was sitting in church service, listening to the sermon, which had nothing to do with adoption or orphans.  I'm minding my own business, when all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit laid it on my heart "One Less Orphan" and that we as a family would be eliminating one less orphan from the world.  Then I started doodling one less orphan on my sermon notes until I came up with 1< orphan, and to make the "o" the Hong Kong emblem.  I couldn't concentrate on anything else from that moment on.  I give all the credit to the Holy Sprit for this idea because I am not that creative.  Therefore, I know God is going to bless this one big time!!!

Dossier Has Been Mailed!

I am so excited to report, that our dossier has been officially mailed today.  My social worker said she sent it 2 day air, which means it will arrive in Hong Kong by May 30th!  This is a HUGE step in our adoption process.  I have been told that from the time it is mailed, we are looking at traveling to Hong Kong anywhere from 5-10 months.  So that means we could get him as early as October, but at the latest...March!  So we will shoot for March and be pleasantly surprised if we get to go early.  I think pretty soon, we will start making family videos and pictures to send over to Noah, so he can start recognizing who we are.  All of a sudden, all the waiting and paperwork hasn't seemed like such a big deal!  Funny how you can easily forget all the stress involved in the paperwork process when it's finally done!

On another note, my friends at Bartlett Sports (love you guys!) are almost done designing the adoption t-shirts that I will sell for a fundraiser.  You will love these shirts, they send such an awesome message.  I will post pictures as soon as I can.  Have a great Memorial Day weekend!!!

I800A Approved!!

Today ended on a good note!  I was going through my mail, and there, before my eyes was something from the Department of Homeland Security!  Did you ever know you could get so excited about seeing an envelope from them?  I am excited to tell you that it was my approval to adopt in Hong Kong!  I guess they think Mark and I are normal enough!  Yea!!!  The next step is to apply for the I800, which is the form that will approve us to adopt Sui, who resides in Hong Kong.  Now, does that get submitted with the dossier, I'm not sure, but Debby will tell me soon!  I feel like this is a big step forward and I couldn't wait to let you all know.  Please continue praying for our family and for Sui.  As far as other fundraising ideas, I am in the process of figuring our a T-shirt design so I can start selling shirts.  I want them to be really awesome, so I'm taking my time to create the perfect design!

Yard Sale Fundraiser

Today has been an incredibly exhausting day, but God has blessed us through our efforts.  We awoke at 3:30 this morning to get last minute things together before we drove 2 trucks with trailers packed full of stuff up to the church to unload.  We got to church at about 4:45 and the first people showed up around 6am.  I had many friends who helped, as well as family.  Thank you to Donna and Tommy Edwards, Shane and Jennifer Taylor, Marie and Tom Burriss, Tripp and Nhung Hurst, Nikki Young, Barry Young, his friend, and Alyssa Young, Laura Reynolds, Keith Smith, Jake, and Bhakti for all helping make this possible.  And for all those that donated things, thank you from the bottom of my heart.  This yard sale was a huge success.  Lots of people heard about the yard sale on the WCRV radio and came out to look around and give donations for the cause!  That is so awesome!  Thank you Byron Tyler for being willing to advertise our yard sale on the radio to fund our adoption!  God has pulled together amazing people and it makes me feel even more confident that we will get Noah home!!!  Not that I had any doubt in the first place, but I love seeing God at work.

We have an appointment with the USCIS office for digital fingerprinting on April 24th...that is the next step.  I will keep you informed as to what's next.

HOME STUDY IS DONE!!!

We are so excited to report that our home study is finally done!  It has taught me a lot of patience over the last several months, but I am so happy this part of the adoption process is finally over and we can move on to the next thing, the I-800A (whatever that really is, I'm not sure).  I have been praying for my social worker as often as I think about her because I know she is incredibly overworked and doing the best she can to get our stuff done.  I have to continuously remind myself that everything is in God's timing, even when I want it all to be in Amanda's timing.  We will receive our child in the perfect time, even if that time is the year 2013 (but we hope not).  The finished home study was about a 14 page document that outlined our entire lives.  It described the characteristics of us, our marriage, our children, our parents, our ex-spouses, our neighborhood and our financial status.  Hopefully, the editing process will take no time and we can put this behind us.  Will keep you informed as new stuff happens!!!!  How excited are we, though, to have just this little part done!

December 6, 2011

Our social worker came out to the house this evening for the final home study visit.  We ate pizza first and then she took a tour of the house.  All fire extinguishers and smoke detectors were in place, and medicine put in it's rightful spot :)  Unfortunately, Ashton's room suffered a pretty significant water damage problem and we had the carpet and padding ripped off the floor and all the furniture was gathered together in the center of the room.  It was quite comical to introduce Debby to this room and inform her that this would be the room that our adopted son would share with Ashton.  You should have seen the look on her face!  hahaha!  I think she mentioned needing to come back and see this room again!  I can't blame her, it was quite a mess, and not fit for anyone to sleep in.  But, fear not, since it has been several weeks since this home study (I'm late posting), there is a brand new beautiful laminate wood floor in this bedroom and all furniture put back in place.  It looks like a real bedroom again!  Thank you Mark for all your hard work!  I love you!!! Now to paint the walls and change the theme to Spiderman!!!  It will look really neat when we're done!  So the social worker said that she would take about 30 days to type up the home study and then we would be working on some form called an 1800A and then to the dossier.

I saw an encouraging bible verse from K-Love this morning that spoke to my heart.

How great is our Lord!  His power is absolute!  His understanding is beyond comprehension.  Psalm 147:5

This verse told me just to be patient and not get my heart set on one particular child, but to wait for the Lord because he has already gone before me and chosen the perfect child for us :)

Individual Interviews...Done!! 11-11-11

Friday was such an exciting day!  First of all, our sweet little Ashton turned 6 years old!  It is amazing to me how quickly the years have gone by already.  We took him to Stevie B's pizza (his choice) and he got Cars 2...he's probably already watched it 10 times!!!

Mark and I had our interviews at Bethany Christian Services.  They started around 9:30 and ended about 3:00.  It was a long day, but I enjoyed every minute of it.  Debby interviewed me first while Mark watched 2 videos about adoption.  In the interview, she asked questions about a questionnaire we filled out when we first got there that asked about drug history, abuse history, counseling history, and pregnancy history.  I'm afraid I'm not very interesting from any of those stand points.  She also asked about how my childhood was and how I get along with the in-laws!  I'm blessed to have such wonderful family, both on my side and my husband's.  We grabbed lunch at Corky's BBQ, which has become habit while hanging out at Bethany.  When we came back, Mark was then interviewed while I watched the videos.  We were both humored by the fact that Debby was intrigued with Mark's past, and we marvelled at how much of a different man he is today, thanks to the Lord and His Grace!!!  

The first video was a documentary of an adoptive woman's journey to find her biological family and heal the open wound in her heart that she has never been able to close.  It was actually a sad video because when she finds her mom and brothers and sisters, she can't communicate with them because she doesn't speak their language, and the culture is completely different, so she still feels out of place.  Adoptive mother kept reminding her subtly that SHE was her mother, not this other lady that birthed her.  I hope I never act like that, I don't think it made her daughter feel any better.  Any way, in the end, she basically had to agree to just accept her adoptive parents as her true parents, mainly because she knew the relationship with her mom in Korea would be distant.  It really made me think at what age will my adoptive child question where he came from and how much grief and loss will he suffer as a result of being taken out of Hong Kong and placed in a family that looks different than him.  I will have open communication with him about this....for sure!!!

The second video was basically a round table discussion of several adopted adults and their struggle with fitting in due to being in a transcultural family.  Most of the people in this video were African American who were raised by white parents.  But I could see how it might be awkward if you were the only person from a different ethnic background.  I took from this video that I need to make sure I surround myself and my child with people who look like him so he won't feel like he's the only one that looks that way.  I'm already prepared for this anyway!!!

Our next meeting is December 2 at our house!  Anyone wanna volunteer to clean my house??? JK!  We do need to get new carpet in Ashton's room before Debby comes....it looks terrible in there right now!  Well....that's all for now!   I'll post soon :)