So close...and a heavy heart

Things are happening, and moving right along...F.i.N.a.L.l.Y We are very close to submitting for Pre approval, and having a face and name to call our own. Just waiting on that pesky 30th birthday, that Ch*ina seems to require....I have a young husband, lol! Only 13 more days til that happy event! And barring any further complications, our homestudy will be done and sent flying on its way to USCIS, (immigration, to give us approval to bring a child into the US) by the end of the month, with lots of prayer for good things to happen quickly. (except, I`m not really sure that the word *quickly* can be used for any part of this process, but one can hope, right?!) And after that?! We will be DTC!! (Dossier to Ch*na, which all of our Very Important Papers, for Ch*na to approve) It`s really seeming real now, and not just something vague that we`re working towards.

     And the heavy heart...it`s really hit me just how many waiting children there are...not just in Ch*na, but all across the world. And how in the world can you pick just one child out of the many that deserve the same chance to have a family??!!  And,  honestly, one of the things I`m most worried about is how wrecked I will be to go get my daughter...and see all the children I`m leaving behind, in horrible living conditions, and without the love of a mommy and daddy. The orphanages are overflowing, there are soo many children, with DS alone, just waiting and waiting for a family. It breaks my heart to think that the majority of them will never be chosen to come home. Just look at these faces...waiting and waiting...and this is a very very small majority! http://waitingchildinfo.com/category/down-syndrome/ I`m also sad that there even exists such societies that choose to abandon children that aren`t "perfect". We`re only adopting one child, and sometimes that seems like just a drop in the bucket (and it is!) and hardly even worthwhile, and won`t  even make a difference. But it WILL make a difference, in her life, definitely in our lives,  and maybe even in someone elses life.  And there will be ONE LESS ORPHAN, and I just have to remind myself that that`s one less than there would be otherwise.
Watch these videos... how can a heart not be stirred to see the plight?! It makes me hurt so badly to think of any child in these conditions...Bulgarian orphan baby struggles on and this one,God of Justice, Adoption awareness
Blessings on your week!

Fundraiser supper!

We managed to successfully pull off a Mexican themed fundraiser supper, on Sept. 13th, with the help of some very nice friends! There is no way we could have done it without all of the people that were willing to make food and help out the night of the supper. It was fun planning it and setting it all up and I would do it again! God blessed us so much that night, not only with the money that was donated but with all of the support we felt. I don`t have a lot of pictures, because I didn`t take a single one, but I have a few thanks to a friend that was there helping out.

We grilled the tortillas for the fajitas...and these are part of the grill team :)

We put chips and 4 kinds of dips down the tables. The dips were Guacamole, Queso Blanco, Pineapple salsa and Regular salsa, all freshly made and delicious!

For dessert, we did an icecream sundae bar, and dipped out cups of icecream to set on the cake plates.

Our menu for the Mexican meal was a buffet of Beef Fajitas, Chicken Tacos, Chicken Enchilada casserole, Cilantro lime Rice, Green Chile Rice, and all the yummy toppings that make it so good! Plus the chips and dips on the tables.

We had paper lanterns hanging above the food tables, even though you can`t see them in this pic...they were pretty cute, if I do say so myself :)

We served around 110 people, and it was so fun seeing everyone who came through the line! 

The pictures on this table came at a great price...my sis-in-law, Betsy, took these, and did an awesome job (as usual!) But in the process of taking the pics, we got into some poision ivy or poision sumac...4 weeks later some of us are still itching :( It took 2 rounds of steroids to get me kinda back to normal, I had the pleasure of having an allergic reaction to the allergic reaction, and had hives all over...resulting in a Dr visit. Then a week later Chloe got it about as bad as me, and mine was starting to flare up again, so back to the Dr I went with her. Long story short....I`m never going back to the old lake, ever! That was the longest 3 weeks of my life, until I felt kinda normal again!!! Our whole family was on steroids, Mathan had it kinda bad also, and the other 3 kids started breaking out and I panicked and just put them all on the steroids to help them not get as bad as Chloe and I . Chloe missed 2 1/2 days of school over that whole deal. It was like no poision ivy I`ve ever had :) Someday we may laugh about it...but I just can`t do that yet! 

We had $6000 that we were working towards to move on to the next step in the process...and we are down to only needing $2000 of that...slowly but surely it`s coming :) I get impatient but then am reminded that God is in control and it will happen in His timing. This $6000 will get our Dossier to China...and after that we will be working on funds for the rest of the process. Getting our dossier to China is a major step, and it will feel so good to have that part over with :) Anyone who has done this knows what I`m talking about!!! And then when December gets here and Mathan FINALLY turns 30, we can be matched with a child. Until he turns 30 we can`t submit anything to China, because both parents have to be 30....I don`t know about him, but I`ve been impatiently waiting his 30th birthday!
So we`re making progress, slowly but surely!
Much Thanks to everyone who helped us pull off this fun evening...it came together very well with all of your help!

Sometimes...

Ya'll....some days life is just HARD. Some days, as a momma, it`s all I can do to make it nicely through the day. (and mostly...mostly, I fail at the nicely part. In a very big way.) I see my failings oh so clearly, and they look so big and ugly.
And I wonder how and why I think that I can add a child with different needs than I have ever dealt with into this chaos we call life... maybe we`ll inadvertently do more harm than good! I despair at the whole adoption process, with all the paperwork, and going over and over our finances with the social worker, making sure that she sees the whole picture, not just what`s on paper. And I wonder why we can`t be just a little more wealthy, it would sure make this a lot easier!!  And now figuring out another insurance option, which thanks to obamacare, is very hard to do right now.  My mind rebels, and my heart gets a little stiff, and my attitude takes a big nosedive into the not so nice area. I think this might be the hardest thing I have ever done.
I want to be really clear...I`m not complaining, I chose this. We have a choice, and we`ve chosen the harder of the 2 choices. The thing is, I know we can take care of this little girl when she is home and in our arms. It`s the adoption process I`m not sure I can make it through!!!  In this whole thing, somehow in my mind I feel like that everything always needs to look really good. I don`t feel like I should tell anyone how my day has REALLY went, for fear that I will be asked "then why are you adding another child to your family?"
I`ve come to the realization that it`s these hard times, the days that never seem to end, the paperwork and questions about the adoption that never seem to end, and the uncertainty in trying to make this all come together,  that`s when God works. When I can`t seem to get it together, God works. When I can`t see beyond the long way ahead, and how hard it looks,  He puts peace in my heart and the certainty that it will be okay, and it will be worked out in His timing. And I can see that I NEED this journey in my life, to help me see things differently than I ever have before. I`ve been shown just how much I hold onto material things in this life and how hard it is to let go of some of them, when in the big picture, they don`t matter one little bit!
I know that I can`t add another child with special needs into this family on my own strength...I`m trusting that Jesus will lead me and give me the strength that I will need to be a momma to 5 little children. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has given this desire to us, and He will not let us down. I feel like I`m being stretched so far beyond what I thought was even possible...and I *know, somehow, that this is just the beginning. I`m trusting that God will bring me through to the other side, and I will see Him so much more clearly.
Blessings on your week, Mammas! Keep on keeping on!

From this...to this!

I can`t remember the last time I was so exhausted!! The last week and a half or two weeks have been spent getting ready for our garage sale and bake sale fundraisers. And thanks to some very nice awesome people we got it all accomplished!

We went from this....a royal mess in our garage...

 ... baked goods lining my counters...

 And yummy cupcakes baked and decorated by an awesome sister in law and friend...(who are much more talented than me)

 These were delicious, by the way :) Just look at that chocolate yumminess...

All of that hard work ended translated into THIS (the lovely picture below)...which represents a large amount of money needed to help us keep the adoption process moving. God is so good and blessed us so much today, by all the helping hands, all the donations of stuff for the garage sale, all the people that said "keep the change" and the extra sets of hands that provided baked goods....It was far more successful than I ever dared to hope!

And now that our garage looks like a garage again, and is able to house a vehicle,  this exhausted momma is going to get comfy and collapse!!!

While We Wait....They Wait.

While we wait for the perfect timing

         They hope they can wait another day.

While we wait for more money

        They wait with nothing.

While we wait for a bigger home with enough room

         They wait for enough room in our hearts.

While we wait for others approval...

        They wait with any dignity they can find.

While we wait for the ideal child

        They wait knowing they are not.

While we wait trying to decide if we can manage another

        They wait trying to manage on their own.

While we wait to see how much we have to give them

        They are waiting to give us even more.

While we wait for GOD to provide

        He waits for us to take the first step so He can.

What are we waiting for?

Text taken from http://buildingtheblocks.blogspot.com/2010/09/while-we-wait.html

Little girl halfway around the world....

I miss her. How can you miss someone you haven`t even seen?? I was making snacks to take to school for Chloes 1/2 birthday ( since her bday is in August, and it`s VERY important to a 2nd grader that her bday be celebrated at school, we do her 1/2 bday ) and it just hit me. I don`t know when my other little girls birthday is yet, and how many birthdays and half birthdays have I missed? My heart hurts for what isn`t here, and everywhere I go I think, She would love this, or What would these people think about her? So weird, right?! :) I can`t wait to celebrate her birthday with her...we might have to have several in a year to make up for all the ones we`ve missed so far!
We have missed so much of her life...and I just want to get all that time back...but since that`s impossible, I`ll just settle for having her for the rest of her life :) Some people question why we would "saddle" ourselves with a handicapped child for the rest of our lives....we don`t feel like we`re giving anything up. We are so excited about the new things she will bring to our family, that we don`t really dwell on the fact that she is a little different, and will depend on us for her whole life. It`s just not that important! So what if we never have an "empty nest"...that might be sorta boring anyhow, don`t you think?!
So, little girl halfway around the world, we are coming for you just as soon as we can! And when we get there, we are going to make up for lost time, with birthday parties and all sorts of things! We just can`t hardly wait, and we trust that God is preparing your heart for all the changes that will come into your life in such a short amount of time when we come for you. I can only imagine how it would feel to be uprooted from everything that is familiar and be thrust so suddenly into the unfamiliar....but we trust that Jesus will make it all okay. And we are trusting that the unfamiliar becomes so much better to you than the familiar ever was...."Adopting one child won`t change the world...but for that one child, the world will change." 
We had our first homestudy visit yesterday...and I was very pleasantly surprised at how comfortable it was! I have only good things to say about our agency, Lifeline, and would definitely recommend them to anyone. Prayer is very important to them, and every morning ALL of their staff stops at a certain time and prays for their families who are adopting....if we ever had a prayer need all we`d have to do is tell them and they would be in prayer for us about it. How awesome is that?! Our homestudy visit began and ended with prayer...which meant a lot to us :) 
We are working on our garage sale and bake sale to help raise money for our adoption expenses...I get a little panicky feeling thinking about getting those 2 things pulled together, on top of all the other craziness that goes on around here.....they are on the same day at 2 seperate places...but we have family and friends that are very willing to help, and I know it WILL come together...I just hope I can gracefully come through it!!! I`m pretty bad at looking at the whole big picture instead of taking it one thing and one day at a time...with God all things are possible!

....and it`s CHINA!

I can tell you now what country the shirts will have on them.....CHINA! We just got the call this morning that we are good to go :) And let me tell you, that was one anxiously awaited call. I think my heart stopped beating when I saw the number on my cell phone screen...I knew who was calling and that this was the yes or no moment! I was at the end of myself last night, fed up with the not knowing and long days of waiting to find out if China would give us the waivers or not....and then this morning I had a message from someone that didn`t even know me, wanting to share about an orphanage in China...she didn`t even know that we were thinking of China, she just felt led to share with me. I am so thankful she did...it was like a confirmation before the actual confirmation...but me of little faith, I was still almost too scared to think of it that way! I`m learning that God works in ways that I`m not expecting, and His blessings and answers aren`t usually in the form that I`m looking for :) I`m a slow learner....it`s taken me awhile to understand this :) My heart is so much lighter than it was a few hours ago, and even though I know there is still so much to do and a long ways to go, I am just so thankful to have the direction figured out!

Letting go...

I`m not really sure where to start??!! The last 2 weeks have seen a lot of ups and downs....and lots of different emotions. We started this journey to a little girl in Peru...and we had such excitement and HOPE and it just felt right somehow. Then we learned of another family who also felt led to this little girl and felt that she is their daughter....now we had a dilemma. What to do?! Continue on, knowing that God would place this child in the home He had picked for her and trust if we weren`t her parents that He would show us another child from Peru? Or just stop pursuing her and adoption from Peru altogether? Decisions decisons....we prayed and prayed and begged God to show us which direction we needed to be going. We definitely didn`t want to be in "competition" with anyone over a child, and we just felt pretty torn. Little by little though, we began to feel God saying Let her go....
We both came to the same decision on the same day that we needed to let her go and trust that God would provide. We both felt peace about it...and then it seemed that God confirmed our decision not even 30 minutes later, by something that happened. We are still okay with this, and felt that God had put another direction in our hearts, and another country to go to (that ironically we neither one have ever felt drawn to, and actually didn`t think that the children were all that cute...I repent of this now :) ) We struggled pretty hard against this direction....We are still waiting for the confirmation that this is it, but we are hoping and trusting that God will move the obstacles that stand in this path like He has the others before it.
This https://www.booster.com/mwolfadoption is still going and all I can tell you is that the shirts won`t have Central America on them....but I can`t say yet which country they will have :) Trust me....as soon as this all gets sorted out, I will be shouting it from the rooftops!!
We still feel led to a little girl with Down syndrome, I don`t know why that`s so strong on our hearts, but it is. It`s such a different direction from what I`ve always pictured our adoption looking like, a little brown brother for Atley :) People have asked why we aren`t wanting a boy since Atley is sorta outnumbered :) and I can`t really say for sure why it`s turning out this way, other than I trust that God has worked it out for our good!
I`ve worked through so many emotions this week, some of them I really would rather not be feeling :( but the most prominent one seems to be sorrow and tears. I feel something that I can`t really put into words, concerning our child, who we have yet to see or know about, but it`s heavy and it sits on my heart,  and I cry out to God to take care of our child for me, wherever she might be. It`s hard to imagine missing someone that you can`t even picture, but to me it feels like something is missing, and it`s felt that way for awhile. I have also felt extreme frusturation at the waiting process of getting this all figured out....patience and trust is not my strongest feature...! I still don`t know yet and was really hoping to not go into the weekend not knowing, but I just have to keep trusting that God will work this all out and it will all turn out SO GOOD and RIGHT in the end.
And I also have to say that we are just standing AMAZED at what has happened with the tshirt fundraiser!! We never EVER expected it to raise this much...guess you could say we had pretty little faith. So we just want to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who felt led to buy a shirt and for all the other donations also. I really can`t say how much it means to know that there are people that support us and are willing to share in this burden. It seems like such a large amount of money to raise somehow, but we are (trying to) trust that God will provide! We are only 4 shirts away from the goal of 50...and that`s just amazing to us. Only God!

Why?? ( and a fundraiser!)

Thanks to Bryan and Betsy Wolf, we have started our first fundraising effort! Betsy designed the shirts and is taking care of it for us. Here is the link if you want to check it out...https://www.booster.com/mwolfadoption. I have to confess, asking for money is not a strong point...it feels very funny and very humbling. But we can`t do this by ourselves, and we are trusting that God will provide the funds in His timing. We are working towards our next agency payment, due in 3-5 months,  plus there will be other adoption expenses in that time too. If anyone has any questions about what we`re doing or why we`re doing it, we are more than glad to talk about it :) The child we are hoping to bring home has Down syndrome and also a congenital heart condition, and we have hopes of being fully funded so that we don`t have to go into a large amount of debt to do this.

 James 1:27 has this to say..."Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."  And James 2:14-17 says this.."What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister ( or child) be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled: not withstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit?" We can`t save all the orphans in the world, or even make a difference to very many of them....but we can make a difference in ONE childs life, and that`s what we`re attempting to do.

Why do we feel called to do this?
 In other countries, children with Down syndrome or other physical or mental disabilities are looked down on and they are a stigma, better kept away from the view of others. In Eastern Europe,  they are taken straight to an orphanage from the hospital, where they live until they are about 5 years old. Then they are transferred to adult mental institutions, where the living conditions are horrendous and it is said that 95% of these precious children die within a year, because they just can`t survive the conditions they live in. This explains it much better than I ever could, please read it! http://www.nogreaterjoymom.com/2012/02/power-of-one.html I encourage you to search out and read about the orphan crisis in the world....the statistics will blow you away.
In an orphanage in Africa, this really happened to a little boy, http://aplacecalledsimplicity.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-yukky-story-that-must-be-shared.html How awful is this?!?! There is just no way to comprehend it.

Our desire is to make a difference in just ONE childs life, and hopefully more through foster care. We can`t do it all, nor do we feel called to do it all. But with Gods help, we feel called to do this one thing! It doesn`t feel like a sacrifice, even though we are prepared to give up some of our dreams and aspirations....we are just plain excited! There will be, and have been, so many ups and downs and discouragements until we reach the finish line, but our God is faithful and we are trusting Him to carry us every step of the (long) way!

The FAQS

 These are a few of the questions that have been asked regularly, so I thought I`d just answer them for more people to read!


The Cost...
Adoption is costly! " My friends, adoption is redemption.Its costly, exhausting, expensive, and outrageous. Buying back lives cost so much. When God set out to redeem us, it killed Him." Derek Loux.
It will cost between $27000-$30000 to bring our child home. There are alot of little fees that add up to one big fee. Fees for notarizing and apostilling and fingerprinting and coming into our home to declare us fit parents (homestudy) and fees for translating and plane tickets and motels and food. Fees for bringing said child to the USA, visa and medical appts. Fees for attorneys, facilitators, translators. Basically, fees for pretty much everything! But it is worth it! After all, it is just money, and in the bigger scheme of things, doesn`t really matter. But yes, it is a large amount of money to raise to make this happen.

How Long...
There is not set time, and there are lots of ups and downs in this process. Basically, we apply to an agency, they accept us, then we apply to the Immigration part of our government (USCIS) to bring a child into the country. Then we send our paperwork to Peru.  All of this takes time to get approval. There is no guarantee, but we have been told 7-12 months. We are, of course, hoping for the shorter of those times, but time will tell!

How Long In Country...
We expect to be there anywhere from 3-5 weeks. We will both go at first, then one of us can come home after about 2 weeks. There again, it just depends on lots of things.

The Child...
We started this process with a certain child on our hearts that we felt God had led us to...there have been some ups and downs in this, and we aren`t sure where God is taking us in all of it.  We are trusting that if it isn`t this particular child, then He will show us our child in His timing. We would be grateful for your prayers in this matter, and for peaceful hearts for both of us as we trust in God.

What Do Our Children Think...
They are excited :) When we showed them a picture of the child, not saying anything beyond that she lives in an orphanage and doesn`t have a mommy and daddy to love her, Ellie immediately wanted to pray for her. So we all had prayer time for her, and at the end of the prayers from the three older ones, Ellie said, "Oh! I have one more thing to pray about..." Without any prompting from us or any indication of adopting her, Ellie prayed that God would bring her to live with us. They continued to pray for her to be brought home to us, before we told them what we are trying to do! We are blown away at their acceptance and faith that God will bring her to us.

Foster Care...
Several people have wondered about this, so I will clear up the question :) We are still planning to do foster care, our long term plan has just changed a little for the moment. We would like to focus more on respite care or shorter term placements. And as for the question of why don`t we just adopt from foster care...well, that has it`s own ups and downs. We realize it would be much cheaper and in some ways easier, but we feel that God has placed Peru on our hearts for a reason, and as long as the doors keep opening for that, we will move forwards.

The Post Where I Bare My Heart...

There are so many thoughts floating around in my mind that I can`t hardly keep up with them...(my husband would have something quite witty to say about that right about now if he were reading this )  All these thoughts about  adoption and wondering how  God will actually provide in all of this?! It's seeming to be quite different when you're the one in the middle of it, not just reading the exciting FB updates and blog posts of others that talk about how God has provided for this or that need! I feel it deep inside me, that this is good and it is right and God has given this to us....why then is it so hard to rest in God and trust that He will make it happen? Staring at a cost of $30,000 (or more, gasp!) makes me feel quite weak kneed! You would think, that since all we are asked to do is trust in God, that it would be so simple....but I`m finding out like I have never before, that resting in God is actually VERY hard work. More than likely I make it harder than it's supposed to be...I`m pretty good at doing that! I`m very "type A", like to have my plan of action all planned out and know where I`m going and how I`m going to get there.  But that`s where I start forgetting that God is in control and I don`t depend on Him like He wants me to. I start thinking that I have to make this happen, if I don`t do it, how else will it get done?!?!  I feel like I`m where God wants me, and God is using this whole situation to get my attention. It is very clear to me that only God can work this work, nothing I do will really make a difference.  Satan loves to have a hayday with our doubts and fears, and any way he can get into our lives, he will. He loves to make us doubt that God really and truly loves us, and that Gods grace and mercy is ENOUGH. If that is all we had, it would still be ENOUGH.  My God is big enough to move mountains, and He is definitely bigger than this large sum of money and uncertain journey.  I know deep in my heart it will be okay in the end....but sometimes my brain is so much slower to catch on! So I`m holding on to the end result of all of this process...that day when I see my child and hold him/her in my arms for the first time! It`s amazing how you can love someone so much that you have never even seen in real life, and that lives so far away :) 

News!

We have some exciting new to share! We are adopting from Peru! Yes, you read that right :) We are so excited to be starting this (long) process. This will be a special needs adoption, and while at one time we had an idea of what this would look like, as far as the child, we are waiting on God to sort it all out. We have talked and thought about adopting for several years, but it never seemed to be the "right"  time for our family. And when we did talk about it, Peru was never on our radar as a place we would consider. It was always Ethiopia or Eastern Europe somewhere. But one day things just turned upside down....!!  Peru was brought to our attention, by the picture of a very special child, and it started to seem like it just might be a possibility now. We fell in love with this child and started out with this child in our hearts and minds. While we don`t know how it will all turn out in the end, we know that our God knows and  will make His perfect will and plan known to our family. We are resting in this, and trusting in Him.
We don`t really have a clue how this process all works, other than it seems to take whole trees! worth of papers that have to be filled out, signed, initialed, notarized and apostilled! Seriously, lots and lots of paperwork! And lots of fundraisers to do...since we don`t just happen to have $30000 lying around burning a hole in our pockets! But again, we are trusting that God will provide, as He has in the past. We feel that if He has brought us to this point, He will take us through to the other side. As someone wiser than me told me, "If its Gods will, its His bill!" So read along and share in our journey...and maybe someday I can share what started us on this path! Please share however you feel to with others! We have some tentative fundraisers planned, and I would love any ideas you have to share :)