Today our prayers were answered in a mighty way! I was sitting on our porch watching my son and a friend's son when the phone rang. I was so surprised to see the "703" area code and drew a mind blank. I think this is it! Or is it something else? I started to rise out of my seat as I answered and the friendly voice on the other end said this was my happy day!
I ran into our bedroom/Jacob's office and put the phone on speaker. At first he didn't know what was going on. But then he realized that we were getting our referral call! She (friendly voice) said that the agency has a sibling group for us. A two and a half year old boy and his BABY sister! As soon as she said we had a baby girl (2 and a half months) we both began to weep. I kept saying "this is a miracle" over and over! We had been praying in our hearts for a baby girl, but we had never officially asked for one at the agency. We just knew God would give us the children He had for our family. How wonderful He gave us our heart's desire!
We have been on the phone for hours telling our family and friends. Each time we look at their photo we are amazed. It is really hard to fathom these two children will be ours! Our minds can't wrap around that fact...and it will probably won't be "real" until we hold them in our arms!
When we are able to share more about them (after court) we have a cool story about our little boy's name. We will not be able to share photos or details until they become ours officially. This will not happen until after October for sure. The courts are closed until October 7th and then there will be a back log.
We are just praising the Lord, our hearts are so full!

Yesterday we had a conference call with our agency. I learned that they are working on another partnership with a new orphanage which is exciting of course. And that they are not expecting the amount of referrals given during court closure to diminish. As you may remember, the courts are closing on Friday for two months (or 60 days). It will re-open on my 31st birthday or soon after!

Unfortunately, I felt very discouraged after the call, although I am not sure it was the actual call that caused the wave of discouragement. I was flooded with the realization that the possibility of a sibling group 0-24months is so UNLIKELY. I think our adversary, the Devil, was having a great moment of defeating me. I haven't been feeling well this week, have had a cold, and so emotionally tears have been brimming just below the surface. Thankfully, my dear husband prayed with me and asked that the Lord might encourage me in this wait.

Tomorrow will be eight months of waiting. Folks...you could say we are eight months pregnant...and the anticipation of seeing the faces of our children somedays is just so powerful. Yet, in the world of adoption there is no due date and so we must keep up hope that the Lord has not forgotten us! A blind hope. Not unlike our hope of seeing our Lord's face someday. We anticipate something that we have not an actual day marked on a calendar. But yet are so confident will come!

So today I went out grocery shopping and I was leaving the self check-out line, wheeling the cart around and I notice a woman standing in my path. She catches my attention and says, "I just want to encourage you to keep close to the Lord and to keep loving Him." I was quite astonished at this and managed a "thank-you" and kept walking out the door. Tears once again threatened to escape. I couldn't believe it. Who was this woman and why did she single me out to say this to? What does she know of me and even more...how would she know if I even believed in the Lord? But I realized that doesn't matter. Don't try to analyze the situation. Take it for what it is. Direct encouragement from my Lord. Don't give up believing. Don't give up having faith that He is there and knows our children and where they are right now. More importantly, don't let my discouragement keep me from loving my Lord and from talking to Him.

It may not mean much and I wish I could have let that woman know how she encouraged me today. I am thankful that God does let us know He is there, caring for us!

I am hesitant to type this post. As I sit here my palms are breaking out in a sweat and my stomach is doing flip-flops. But it is NEWS I suppose in our adoption, even thought not the type of news I wish to share.
Yesterday we said no. There it is. One sentence captures the essence of the story.
I (Hilary) have been gone for about two weeks on an unplanned trip to see my dear Grandmother I posted about a few posts ago. She took a turn for the worse, but I am happy to report she is doing much better. I did not want to have any regrets so I packed up my bags and my son and took off on a trip north. Never had I traveled so far, alone. Thank goodness for GPS! :)
On my way home, my in-laws traveled down south with me. I had some company with me in the form of my dear mother-in-law. Just as we were driving down 81 through some mountains I got a call on my cell phone. I picked it up and saw the 703 area code and thought, "oh dear! I think this is it!" The call we have been waiting seven months for! I answered and the woman on the other end told me she had a potential referral for us. I didn't know what to think! Here I am driving down the highway somewhere in Virginia with Bonnie at my side! But then she said, I have a single child that we would like to send you information on. As SOON as she said that my stomach/heart sunk and I had an immediate feeling that this was not right. I was very calm and I am sure hesitant to know what to say. I think she was surprised at my quiet, hesitant reaction. I told her I was traveling and would like to call my husband. I even asked her not to send the referral to us in an email until I had spoken with Jacob.
As I got off the phone I told Bonnie this was it...the call! She was so surprised and even unsure of what to think as she was now mixed into a personal issue between my husband and I! So I called Jacob and he too had the same initial reaction. We talked about weather we should get the email and look at the pictures and then decide.
I now realize God's hands were upon us in this crazy situation. Both of us felt beyond a shadow of a doubt that we should wait...and say no. We didn't need to see any photos to decide. We did pray about it and then Jacob called AWAA back to say that we just didn't feel right about this.
Within half an hour it was all over. I felt really, really odd. How could we say no to a child? This was it! The call we had been anticipating, hoping and praying for! And then to be flooded with the knowledge that for some reason God was nudging our hearts to say no.
I hesitate to tell our story. But I feel it is a clear evidence of God's hand in this whole adoption process. Perhaps all the trauma we had a year or two ago when we had three domestic adoptions fall apart prepared us for this phone call. I can have a peace about it all. I trust that God will bring our children to us in his timing! And I know that if she had called to say she had the perfect referral that somewhere in Virginia I would have flown off the side of the mountain!

While we were in New York I finally called our family coordinator to get an update on our adoption. I knew we were nearing the top ten or so but I wasn't sure what to expect as we were getting closer. I kind of wondered if we would hear more often from our agency and I just wanted to hear from her what she thought about our request for two children at such a young age. I was excited to hear that we are currently #1 for siblings!!!!!!!! It has taken 6 months to get to this spot. But that means we NEED PRAYERS!!! We are asking for 2 children under the age of 2. This is extremely, extremely, extremely RARE. Our agency has never seen twins or a sibling group of that age. Please pray with us that the Lord will work a miracle and bring the right children to our family.

Our coordinator said that it is likely they will refer to us a single child because she just hasn't seen two young children yet. In that case we'll have to pray about it and if we still feel the Lord directing us to adopt 2, we'll have to say No to that referral. We'll still stay #1 for twins/siblings 0-2 but we could wait....for however long! :)  I know beyond a shadow of a doubt if the Lord has two children for us He'll bring them in....the thought of having to say "no" to a referral is just heart breaking. Jacob and I are praying the Lord will give us a referral we have a peace about the first time around.

Even if we DID get our miracle referral, we would actually still have to wait 4+ months to have our court date and travel to get them. Things in Ethiopia have been really slow due to drought and other things. Power in the country has been rationed and that means communication is shut down, papers don't get to courts, referrals and medical information can't get out as quickly, etc. PLUS, the courts have recess from Aug 7-Oct 7th (roughly) and so nothing can happen during that time. So that is a something that would/will be hard to deal with. Looking at their picture and knowing everyday that passes that we're missing that time with them....once again, the Lord knows!

We appreciate your prayers! This has been a growing process for us, but an exciting one as well!

We really had a great time in New York visiting Jacob's family. His Aunt and Uncle were surprised about their anniversary party...it is hard to keep a secret for many months! We were also able to get together with the Carpenter family. We met them the first time soon after they accepted their referral, so it was a joy to meet their two adorable children. Penelope and Gabe are wonderful, loving parents...they are naturals! :) We talked late into the evening of traveling to Ethiopia and their personal experiences. We are so thankful for their encouragement and all the wonderful things they gave us, like their pictures from Ethiopia, gifts for our children and some great canned fruit!

Let me finish by suggesting you visit the Kidd's site. They just returned from Ethiopia and posted a beautiful video!

Our prayers have included a plea for rain in the last few days. Ethiopia is experiencing a drought and as a result the capital city, Addis Ababa, is having forced power outages. The power outages could last until the month of June and they occur up to three days a week. Normally, something like this would fail to capture my attention. I have the luxury of turning on my lights and watering our plants without much thought to the source.
However, now that our focus is on Ethiopia and our children there, I realize what no power means. It means that our agency is not able to communicate well with the base in the capital city. It means that the courts are not able to function properly and papers for court closings are not getting to the right place at the right time. It means email and other communications are down. It means a whole lot to the people, more than I can imagine. For us, it means a slow up in the adoption chain of events. There have been several families affected by the slow up in communication and many hearts here in the US are hurting and aching to be with their children.
Please, please, join us in prayer as we fight against the evil one who is trying hard to cause heart ache and to stop these precious ones from joining their forever families!

Tomorrow it is...the day has finally arrived where we'll try our hand at yard sale fundraising! I am exhausted, and poor Jacob has a sinus infection that he has been battling. I started pricing things about 2 weeks ago as we received items, but there is always the last minute drop offs and then just putting it all together. If some of my dear friends like Carolyn, Michelle, Katy, Paula and Leslie hadn't helped me by pricing items and organizing I think I would have broken down. Of course my brother and sister-in-law have extended great hospitality by letting us take over their garage and using their yard as a sale spot.
So I'll give an update when all is said and done. If you are close by, drop by and say hello!

It is Good Friday in Ethiopia. It is the Pascal week in the Orthodox religion of Ethiopia, where they celebrate the week of Easter. For more information you can visit Yellow, Black and White where they summed up the week. But it was also a good Friday here in America! Four families received referrals today and there are hopes of at least one or more next week! The Gibson Family (girl 3 1/2 months), the Cox Family (baby boy), the Ducommun Family(girl 6 weeks) and the Ord Family(2 yr. boy) had very, very happy news! For several hours I just kept hitting refresh on our chat group page...it was a nice ending to our week.
Sometimes the adoption is so overwhelming. Every aspect of it. From raising the funds, to filling out all the paperwork, to the long months of waiting...and waiting some more. Then when we'll finally be able to travel and pick up our children we'll be learning to adjust to three children and attaching to our two new ones. Sometimes I think we are totally crazy and wonder if this is all a mistake. Our life is great now with one, wonderful child. Could we have read all the signs wrong? How are we going to attach to two new kids? Most of all how is our extended family going to attach to them?? Our grandmothers grew up in totally different times then we did. And how are we going to keep the Ethiopian culture alive and special to our kiddos? I could go crazy with all the questions that pop into my mind.
And then I remember, as my new friend Patty from Maine, reminded me...God made the entire universe and all these details are probably not a big deal for Him. He is totally capable of working out all this. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has called us to this adoption. No matter which way we turned it seemed like we were being nudged towards it. God is working out His will in our lives and His grace will sustain us!
Here is another video from a family who adopted two children just a couple months ago!

Jacob went out the other night in our yard and took some photos of Iris (plural). They happen to be my favorite flower, and I think they look really neat in the dark night! It has taken a few years for our Iris population to grow, and this year they are quite lovely.
This post is not about flowers though! Tomorrow some families in our agency are traveling to pick up their children! These are exciting times to follow their blogs as they will likely post some photos. The Harbaugh family and the Coen family have blogs. There are two more families traveling as well, but they do not have a blog to follow. The Harbaugh's are the family who are adopting two and waited nine long months until they received a referral.
Summer is quickly moving upon us, weather wise it feels like summer is here! I have been trying to focus more realistically on when our children will be referred to us. If you recall, I had hoped that we would have a referral by the summer...which I am not saying isn't going to happen, but it sure doesn't seem too likely! I have kind of changed my prayers in recent days to "please, Lord, before the courts close in August!" The courts in Ethiopia close roughly between the months of August and October. Last year this caused a huge backlog, plus there was the holiday of Ethiopia celebrating the year 2000. Yes, they are 8 years behind us! :) Ethiopia works on a different calender then we do.
So once again, there will be those who will be caught in the court closure. Our agency has said they will keep giving referrals during those months, however, the families who do receive referrals will not be able to travel and pick up their children until they have a successful court date after they reopen sometime in October! Whew, that is a lot to explain!
This week has been a time to relax some after sewing for the show. I have also been going through the house and looking around..."Hmmm...what can I sell in our yard sale!?!" Many thanks to those of you who have donated items for our sale or have been setting things aside for it!

The AWAA Yahoo chat group went crazy this week as apparently 9 children were referred to families. The first two I shared with you on Monday's post. So the stats are as follows:
2 Infant girls (Cordell and Kidd Family), 2 Infant boys (West Family and a family I do not know), mystery child, sibling group of 5 & 7 years, sibling group of 6 & 9 years. Ironically, the dossier of the family who is adopting one of the sibling groups traveled with ours to Ethiopia! When I saw their DTE (dossier to Ethiopia) date as 12/07/07 (same as ours) my heart did a flop! I realized once again that someday this will happen to us! It was an exciting moment.

We also were notified that instead of waiting 90 days for a child who is abandoned at an orphanage to be released for adoption, the country of Ethiopia has changed it to 60 days! This will allow children to be adopted sooner!

The final news is that AWAA has now partnered with another orphanage! They have only been working with Kids Care in Addis Ababa. Now they are also working with Kingdom Vision International. Hopefully this will allow AWAA to keep up with the large amount of families now in the program who are waiting for their children to be referred!

We would like to offer a Congratulations to two families who received referrals today! The Cordell Family (for those at NCCF, this family is at the church where Jeff and Lisa attend) and the West Family. The Cordell's have a little girl coming their way, and the West's a little boy! How exciting!

These next three items are not as exciting in the adoption world! I finally found two tea cups at an antique store. I was so excited to find them both for just $15. On the day I found them I didn't have the right payment and the gentleman let me take them anyway. I was able to bring him his money later, which was so trusting of him. I have enjoyed using them!


I also found this yummy donut recipe on Soule Mama blog a while ago. My kitchen aid mixer hasn't been working properly so I haven't been making anything that requires kneading. Jacob repacked the grease for me and I was able to make them this weekend. Unfortunately, that was the only thing I made with the kitchen aid. I think it needs a better doctor than my handy husband! Anyway, here is a picture of the donuts. I recommend cutting out the center of them because they were a little too bready. Since I do not have a donut cutter I will make them smaller next time. My sister in law recommended using a bottle cap to cut out the center which I thought was a good idea. They were fun to make!

Finally, I told my parents that I would post some of Caleb's art from his first official art lesson with Mommy! Enjoy. P.S. Mom and Dad, if you click on the pictures, you can see them full size.

Today I had a two hour conference call with our family coordinator. There are 53 families in the "waiting for referral" stage. 53 families whose dossier has been sent to Ethiopia. I have learned some interesting facts that I'll share for those of you who are interested in the nitty gritty! :)

The wait time for children is as follows:
Infant boy: 5-7 months
Infant girl: 7-9 months
Toddlers: 7-9 months (approximate)
2 siblings under 5: 9-12 months
Siblings over 5: 2-3 months (approximate)
Twins: miracle (no time frame)

The agency currently works with one orphanage, but by the end of March they will be working with two more. Lord willing! Our agency signs a contract with each orphanage and then they have to help support that orphanage in some way. The agency is trying to work with orphanages that only work with AWAA in the US and then with other countries like France, etc. AWAA does not want to work with an orphanage that works with other US agencies.

The court closes from August-October. This will possibly affect those who get referrals in June and esp. July. Likely they won't get a court date until after the courts open again. So those families will be in for a long wait to travel.

There were lots of other things spoken of, obviously if it was two hours long! But these are the most interesting facts I thought. How does this affect us? Our log in date (time that dossier was sent to Ethiopia) was at the start of December. So we won't hit the 5 month range until May. We are asking for two children under two so that means we likely won't hear anything until after the courts open in October. If we have been waiting a year then we can consider changing our request to one child. When we are near or at the top of the list we should know about what children are available and the agency will ask us if we are interested in a different request. So that does make me happy to know that they won't ignore us indefinitely while they wait to have twins or a young sibling group is available.

The thought of twins being referred to us has practically been all but eliminated. It would truly be a COMPLETE MIRACLE if this happens!!! In some ways I am sad by the call because I feel we are in for a LONG wait. Our request is so rare and short of a miracle it may not be what the Lord has for us. Will we have to consider something totally different, I don't know? It was good though to hear people's voices and get some questions answered! Pray the Lord will give us discernment when we need it!