Looking for a Great Gift?

These necklaces are made from recycled materials by women in Uganda. Each one is beautifully unique. The cost is $20, plus $3 for shipping. Each one purchased sends $12 back to the women, and $8 goes toward our adoption fund.
Click here to order yours.

I can't believe it has been one week already since we saw our son's face for the first time after months of waiting. It seems like we are all talking about Eli all the time. Jim and I even woke up in the middle of the night and talked about him. :) All four of us are so excited for him to come home! Trey had fun introducing his class at school to him. What a great learning experience for all of them to hear about another country so far away.
So many things are on our minds, so much to do, so much to prepare for. Last weekend we had a profitable garage sale. We asked God to multiply our earnings and that He did! Big thanks to a family who generously donated things for us to sell; we appreciate it!
Keep following our blog as we will keep you up to date on what is happening. Our agency predicts that we will be traveling late June or early July for our court date. We will get to meet Eli but have to return home without him. In August or September, we will make a second trip to bring him home. We are so happy to have a finish line in sight!
All week I have constantly found myself thanking God for this great gift. We are so thankful that we can rest in the fact that His timing is perfect! Thank you Jesus for blessing us with Eli!

Introducing Eli Solomon Weimer

WE HAVE A REFERRAL!!!!! After what seems like endless months of waiting, we received a referral yesterday for a sweet little boy, Eli Solomon Weimer!!! I received the call yesterday at work and couldn't believe it was finally for real. A referral for the Weimer family alone!!! He is 3 and a half years old and only 22 pounds. His eyes are beautiful and his little face just pleads with us to come. We were thrilled to complete the paperwork today and mailed it off to the national office in less than 24 hours from "the call."

So when do you get to see him and what is next???? We can't post any pictures of him until we pass court, but believe me he is adorable! :) Of course, I am his proud mama!! So we will start a new wait, the wait for a court date and then Jim and I will make the first of our two trips to Ethiopia. After we pass court, Eli will be legally ours. However, we have to return home (without Eli) and another hard wait will come. After 4-6 weeks home, they will schedule our Embassy appt and then we can bring him home. Once we hit US soil, Eli will be a US citizen and officially a WEIMER.

Thank you to so many for praying us through the last months of very emotional waiting. It was hard but Eli is worth it!!! We are praising and thanking the Lord for this most wonderful gift! He is perfect in every way.

Psalm 127:3 Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from Him.

After a month of writing, I am back. :) A lot has happened in one month. We have started a new calendar year, we have been to the Philippines and back, and we are anticipating an ice storm tomorrow. You have to love Iowa in the winter.

But the most exciting news is.... we received our letter from the fingerprinting appointment. I think I had the paper in my hands for maybe 20 minutes before mailing it to Bethany!!! The last document needed for our dossier to finally take the long journey to Ethiopia. The journey to bringing home our child.

Here is where we are now, I spoke to our adoption agency and they said they would get our state seals on our documents and have our paperwork to the national office in Grand Rapids, Michigan by Friday. There our papers get reviewed again, then off to Washington D.C. for authentication and then over to Africa.

We are continually reminded that this is God's journey. That He has us!!! Just this last weekend while at church, someone approached us about what we owe in our next step in the process. We told them and they shocked our socks off by saying they have it covered. Yes, you read right, we have our money ready for when we receive our referral. God has given us such peace about every step and now He has given us this early blessing of providing before we even need it. We know without a doubt that God has just the right child for us. We continue to pray that we will be able to bring our child home in 2010.

Some additional prayer requests are... that we would get a referral quick, that we would pass court in Ethiopia the first time, that God would continue to provide, and that God would prepare all 5 of us for the changes that are coming. We also pray that God's name would be praised! One last thing, tonight as you tuck your child into their warm bed, after eating a hot supper, and taking a hot shower- please pray for the many orphans in Haiti. Pray about your part.

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 :)