Update on Our Progress

I wanted to give all of you an update on what is happening with our adoption. Yesterday we finished everything that was up to us to finish. I will be mailing our dossier(minus our home study) to our agency today. Our home study should be to us in the next several weeks. It will then get forwarded to our agency and also to immigration. Immigration will then issue us a I-171h. At that point we will officially be able to accept a referral. We did receive information yesterday about a toddler boy. After praying through it, we have decided to not pursue him at this time. Because of where we are in the process, it would be at least several weeks maybe even a month before we would be able to get assigned a court date. We felt that it would be unfair to him to keep him in the orphanage any longer than necessary. Our thinking is that if there is a family that is ready right now and could get a court date soon, he would be out of the orphanage sooner.

Things are progressing with our fundraiser on the 8th of November. We have quite a few raffles and then several very nice prizes for our silent auctions. If you are unable to attend but would like to participate in the silent auctions or raffles, please let me know. We have enough money right now to move to the next step. It is at that point that we really will need to see God move. Depending on if we accept one or two children, we will need $6,000-$11,000 dollars. We are also doing a cookbook fundraiser. I have gift certificates if you would like to purchase one. The cookbooks are $10 each and will be ready before Christmas.

I am truly amazed at how much grace there has been on this entire process. We have had such a peace through each step. It has also been amazing to me as to how often I have been able to share my love for Jesus as I have walked this journey. I have shared the Gospel with more people in the past 2 months than I have my 15 years of walking with the Lord.

Please continue to pray for our journey in the following ways:1. That God would be really big and that we would be really small! This is for His glory and not ours! 2. In our excitement, the reality is that there has to be pain for some one else. A mother, father, or grandmother etc, has to place a child in order for us to receive one. Please pray for comfort for the family of our little boy(s). To this day, Faith's birthmom is my hero. Her sacrifice brought us great joy. It reminds me so much of Jesus sacrifice for me. 3. Please pray for protection for our little guy! Please pray that he has nourishment. 4. Also pray for financial provision for us. I have no doubt that God will provide for this! We will be applying for several grants and an interest free loan as soon as our home study gets here. Our church does have an adoption fund set up for us in which you can make a tax deductible contribution to our adoption fund. 5. Pray for Doug as he shares with our church on November the 8th. If you are local, we would love to have you join us at our church for our Sunday morning service.

Thanks again to all of you who have supported us through this journey. We couldn't do this without your love, prayers, care and support.