Yesterday was a very fun day as a family. We decided to turn our fingerprinting appointment in Des Moines into a day trip. The appointment itself was rather uneventful. It took approximately 35 minutes and that was due to the fact that we had to wait our turn. We are now waiting for the approval letter from them and then everything is ready for Ethiopia!!! Praise the Lord that this is all done prior to us leaving for the Philippines. This will allow us to focus more fully on the mission instead of wondering what paperwork we still needed to find. :)

After the appointment we stopped at Altoona's new Bass Pro Shop. Jim had to stop if we were that close. It is a fun, family friendly place with lots to do even if you are not an avid outdoorsman. :) They have several very cool animal exhibits, a mock shooting range for kids, an ocean view bowling alley, and a restaurant that even features buffalo burgers. It was fun to be away just the four of us.

We are praising God for his provision for our adoption. He has provided in amazing ways. When we first started into this process the cost of adoption seemed overwhelming and I am continually reminded that God doesn't need me to bring our child home. He can do this all by Himself!!! We serve a God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills.

We will soon start the process of "patiently" waiting. Pray that this time goes quickly and that God makes it clear to us which child is ours. We are praying that our child will spend next Christmas with us at home!! What a blessing it will be to share the birth of Jesus with our child!!

Wishing you all a very blessed Christmas. Enjoy celebrating the birth of our Savior.

On Friday, we received our letter from the US government with our date for fingerprinting!!! We are so thankful, it is December 21st at 12:00. We have been praying that it would be before we left for the Philippines and it is! God is so good.

Our pastor is preaching a service on Waiting. It has been so good for us. It is hard to wait patiently. It was a good reminder for us that we are part of God's timetable and He will bring us to our child in His timing. God has been really working on me the last week, helping me to realize that I can't do anything to move this along quicker and I need to be present in where God has me right now.

God has been providing for us in mighty ways. We have been blessed and humbled by some recent financial gifts. It is very humbling to see how God will provide. He doesn't need us in this, He can and will provide. Thank you to those of you who have come along side us to bring our child home. Words are not enough to thank you! Hopefully one day soon, you will be able to look into some beautiful eyes and know that you had a part in bringing one more orphan home!

Also, thanks for praying for Trey. His surgery went well and he has two new T-tubes in his ears. Hopefully this will offer him some relief for several years.

Nothing really new on the adoption front. We continue to pray that God would give us clear direction and wisdom as we proceed. It is comforting to see how God provides!!

This Friday, Trey will be having a third set of tubes put in. Please pray that the t-tubes help and that he would eventually grow out of his ear infections. The poor guy has suffered a lot of pain and has had some hearing loss due to it. He seems okay with the process though, since he gets Sprite afterwards. :)

We had a nice Thanksgiving at my sister's house. She loves to cook and made an amazing meal. I thought I would post some pics.

Our family

My mom, me, my sister, Danielle, and my dad
Our turkey :)

After a busy Monday at work, I am looking through the mail and see what looks like an official letter from the government. Getting very excited about it being our appointment for our fingerprinting I realize it is just a receipt saying the government has received our payment and they will notify us when they have an appointment for us. Very discouraging! I was just thinking it is only a little bit over a month before we leave for the Philippines and we are running out of time to get this done before we leave.

Also received some more discouraging news from our adoption agency, they have 81 other families who have dossiers in Ethiopia who have not yet received a match. 81 other families before us. This is disappointing news. Please pray that God will move our paperwork and that our child will be matched with us quickly. Thanks for praying!

Yesterday we joined other Bethany families on a conference call learning more about our travel to Addis Ababa. Two of the families leave this next week. I would love to be leaving this week!!!! However, it was fun to hear other families who have traveled to get their child give suggestions. Jim listened and I took notes as fast as I could write. :) I love to plan and be as ready as possible. One interesting thing she mentioned is that once they have your court date in Ethiopia you could be given as little as 4 days notice to travel. Yikes, I hope that is long enough for our bosses.
On Friday I had a talk with Bonnie, who is one the workers at Bethany. She let me know again that after our dossier goes over to Ethiopia it is out of our hands. She said you see some quick referrals and some that take a long time. We know that God already knows our child, but of course our desire is that our referral would come quick. :) Never underestimate the power of prayer. We ask that you pray with us that we can bring our child home in 2010!!

Many of you know that before I became a blogger, I was first a stalker! I have been following a blog about a family who adopted an adorable little guy from Ethiopia. I cried watching their video of them finding out who their child would be. I read all about their trip to Ethiopia to bring home Silas. For me it is fun to read stories of families who have or are going to experience the same thing you are. It is like being a part of a club. Well my favorite blog www.bottomlysandethiopia.blogspot.com is doing a promotion on great necklaces. They are selling them to help with the cost of their second adoption. Check it out! You will probably fall in love with Silas and his family just like I have! :)

The Jesup Police Department finished there part today and so now I am truly just waiting for our recommendation letters. Also waiting for the letter from the government. Usually people don't desire mail from the US government quite like we are. :) We will let you know when we get the date for FBI fingerprinting.

Last night I listened to a broadcast of Focus on the Family. The speaker was Kay Warren and she shared about her visits to foreign countries and orphanages. In the world today there are over 147 million orphans. What are we going to do about this? It is easy to sit in our comfotable homes and turn a blind eye to the problem. It is like we don't even want to address it. Recently Jim and I have become more aware, or even more disturbed knowing that there are millions of children out there who don't have parents, no one to love them, no one to feed them, no one to get them medical care. Just listening to her talk encouraged and challenged me again. I don't ever want to live so comfortable that I don't see the faces of these children. She challenged at the end of her talk, what will we as believers do? What will churches in America do? How can we make these children visible? This is our heart, we want to love, we want to see, we want to make a difference. Thanks for letting me write and express how God is changing our hearts.

Today in the mail we received what we believe is Jim's correct birth certificate. We are really hoping that the third time is a charm. :) Now just waiting on our referral letters, you know who you are!!! We should have the rest of our paperwork done by the end of next week to be mailed to Bethany for the final review. Adoption is a funny process of hurry up and get this paper finished and then wait. We are trying to be patient and enjoy every step of the process.

Just received word from Bethany that our wait on the USCIS form from the government could take between 6-8 weeks, that is between Christmas Eve to the first week of January. Pray that this wait is quicker. We are leaving to go on a missions trip to the Philippines on December 29th and really desire to have this wrapped up before we go.

We have sent the bulk of our dossier to Bethany for them to review and have a few things that need to be redone. It amazes me that these countries are so precise with what they want. So back to the Jesup Police Department we will go. :) If we can get everything reviewed and right, when our forms come back from the USCIS, we should be able to move quickly then.

God has been providing in big ways this week. When the process seems overwhelming it is so awesome to have God step in and say, I am still here and I can provide. Trust me on this!! It takes us stepping back again and giving up control. I never have been very good at that. :)

Thanks to so many of you who have embraced our adoption. You know who you are!! We are humbled and so thankful that we are not on this road by ourselves. Our child may be confused when they come home, having so many honorable aunts, uncles, and grandparents!! :)

Thanks for the positive feedback on the blog. Sorry I first sent you to another Weimer fam. It is amazing that I am even trying to do a blog! :)

Received an email from Bethany today and our USCIS form was mailed in today. For those of you who don't know, this is the form that goes to the United States Homeland Security. One step closer on this long road. In pregnancy terms, it is probably like a monthly checkup. Will keep you all posted, thanks for praying!

Here is how our journey to Ethiopia began.... My great husband and I have been married for 16 years and have two wonderful children. God has brought us through many good times and some challenging times over the years. About 2 years ago we took a trip to the Philippines and had the priviledge of working in an orphanage for a few days. It really opened our eyes to the many children in the world who don't have forever families of their own. Even with this knowledge it has taken God some time to continue to heal losses, bring contentment, and then open our hearts to love again. So, here we are in the middle of paperwork, longing for another child to love, and living in obedience and faith that God will provide.

It is kinda funny to look back over your life and think how you thought it would go. I am so glad that God intervenes and takes us down different roads. Currently, I feel so out of my league of comfort and yet so excited about fully depending on God. Over the last few months God has challenged us that material things of this world do not bring contentment, but living a life sold out for Christ is where our peace lies. We can't take anything with us when it is our time to meet our Savior, except for the souls of people. Our desire is that all of our children will know God and love Him with all of their hearts.

So where are we now? We just received our completed homestudy. We mailed Jim's birth certificate to Indiana for the 3rd time to get the correct seal on it. :) We are waiting to hear back from the government so we can be fingerprinted. Waiting and working on the endless amounts of paperwork to be done. It feels good knowing that you are making progress in the bringing home of your beloved child. Our goal or desire is that everything can be completed and on its way to Ethiopia by the first of the year. Why Ethiopia? Because there are so many orphans and so many children that truly have no one to love them.

Please pray that God will provide, that He will protect our child and bring him or her home to us quickly. That He will prepare our family for the changes that lie ahead. But most of all that through this story His name will be glorified.