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.