The perfect story

We've all heard the stories of money showing up in mail boxes, on the porch or other unexpected places. This morning Ryan and I personally experienced the unexpected financial gift.

Our church has its own little mail boxes. This time of year, its common to find Christmas cards mixed in with the monthly church calendar and other notices. Ryan swiped the contents of the box and headed home. After most of us ate lunch and the kids were settled in their beds, Ryan opened the mail from our church box.

The first envelope was a normal size with our last name printed on the front. The contents of the envelope had us surprised and silent. There were multiple 100 dollar bills along with a short typed note. Ryan read the note aloud and handed me the stack of cash. He then read the note again. I asked him what he thought was in the stack. He guessed at least 10 bills and I began counting. Ryan under-guesstimated. There were 13. We read the note again. I quietly thanked God for this gift, for using someone to anonymously join us on this journey.

$1300 brings us that much closer to bringing home our son from Ethiopia. Thank you Lord for the person who gave so generously.

We're also thankful for several other friends and family who've shared in our journey with their financial contributions. We appreciate each person but chose to highlight the anonymous gift because it caught us by such surprise!

On a side note, our certification papers should arrive in the mail tomorrow which means we can send our dossier off this week.

a couple of things

1. I sent in our i600a yesterday.  I was waiting to send it with our homestudy but didn't want to keep waiting.  I will send the homestudy to immigration seperately.
2. I just heard from the agency that our homestudy is in today's mail and we should have it by Friday.  Yipee!  That means I can send it to immigration.  I wonder if Holt will send me multiple copies and how that works... hmm.

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More on the Naming Issue

I sometimes find myself to be simple minded and other times my thoughts are pretty deep. In the case of naming a child, its not a simple task or something we take lightly. Based on my last post, you might not have gathered that. I've been having an email conversation with Jen about this topic.

I thought I'd paste a little bit from our conversation to share with you. First, Jen sent me some interesting links. These first two (this one and this one) are from the perspective of an adult adoptee. Her thoughts and the comments she received are super thought provoking when considering naming, or re-naming, a child. Jen also shared their journey of naming their son.

And this is what I wrote to Jen and wanted to share here (of course slightly edited to remove full names):
We intend on keeping part of his Ethiopian name because of the significance of it. What we have yet to determine is how we're going to incorporate our own special name with his given name. Our son, is named after a dear friend of mine who had a HUGE impact on my life and then died a few years later when we were in 10th grade. Our son carries his daddy's name as his middle name. Our daughter's name was chosen because I think its beautiful. It does have bibilical connections but wasn't the only reason we chose it. Her middle name is my middle name - a family tradition. With B#3, we want to carefully select a name. Keeping in mind that our last name is difficult enough and we don't want to add to that. I love the meaning of our new son's name (take the lead to expand) but would also like to know why his birth mom chose that name. I also like his last name but not sure of that meaning.

But of course nothing in simple in my wild imagination. One thing that is continually on my mind is finding the middle ground of helping our new son know his history but to not focus so much on it that he feels different from us. We want him to belong to our family, and to be a rural Iowan just like we are. Because, truly, that's what God did for us when He said he adopted us as His sons. This same thought will be part of the naming of our child. I understand that at some point, he may not like his name, regardless of it being Americanized or not. Kids are kids and most of them find a time in life to dislike anything and everything that has to do with their parents.

Names are important to me. But more than that, being loved and loving others carries more value.

Have a great weekend. We survived our first winter blast and I still haven't mailed the i600a... I've been so lazy about it this week.

Name that little boy...

Ryan and I have spent only a few minutes talking about boy names. Just like when our first son was born, we don't agree on names. Ones he likes, I don't like. Names I like, he doesn't.

Got any good ideas for boy names? Keep in mind, our last name is long and not easy.

...as I sit here and type, Scott just got up from his nap and asked what I was typing. When I read the "got any good ideas" part, he informed me that he has a good one. I think his daddy is influencing him cause the name he suggested is the one his daddy likes. So much for being momma's boy!

done with training

Yesterday we finished up our required adoption training. That's the official part. We still have lots of learning and reaading to do. It was great to meet a few of the couples - most of which had already adopted before. And since we're in central Iowa for the training, we've made a weekend out of it and visited some family and friends.

I have a load of paperwork with me to help bring that little boy home. I'm sending the i600a in tomorrow, and then when I get my signed homestudy, that will go in with it. Then I have to go back and read paperwork to see what the next step of the process is.

more info on the referral

I guess I was so excited yesterday about our referral that I didn't include any info :)
 

little boy.  22 months.  healthy. big beautiful eyes.

 
yipee!!!!!!!!!  Of course, with the referral comes the reality that someone had to give him up for adoption.  It's heart-breaking.  I couldn't imagine having to make that decision.  But I'm so glad to know the history so that I can continue to be in prayer for this little boy's family!

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Referral

We received a refferal today. WOO HOO! We see no reason not to accept it so that's exciting.

The wheels keep turning in this process and I'm so thankful.

With that said, I feel a bit anxious about the financial part of it. Because our auction didn't raise near the funds I'd prayed/hoped for, we have to use our emergency fund in addition to our adoption savings to move forward. This means that the next few months are super important in the the money saving, and no emergency-spending arena.

*** We need to sell lots more vacation raffle tickets. If you're interested in purchasing any tickets or advertising for us, we'd appreciate it. Thanks.

referral coming???

Our agency just called.  Our homestudy is done and they're ready to give us our referral.  They were calling to make sure we're ready for a referral.

 

What does ready mean?

 

It means approximately $13,000 payment for a single child and approximately $23,000 for siblings.

 

Sad to say that I couldn't answer with a yes because I don't know.  Last I talked to Ryan, we were a bit short of that amount, or maybe it was the total amount we expect to pay.  I don't really remember.  All I know is that I am prayerful that it will work out in God's time and of course asking God to provide the funds that we may be short.

 

Could we really have a referral by Christmas like I've been hoping for???

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