Matthew West's new song, One Less

Here is Matthew West telling the story about his new song, One Less.

I saw this on a few other peoples blogs and posted on Facebook, but I didn't watch it until a friend emailed me because she saw it and thought of me. I just love to hear the way that different people are affected by adoption and how they react to adopting.

One Less by Matthew West (The Story Behind The Song) from emicmg on Vimeo.

Three Months Waiting

Today marks 3 months of being DTE!!!! We are thankful that time continues to fly by and we are now another month closer to meeting our child/ren. Since the Ethiopian courts have reopened a few families have been scheduled their court dates, but there are many families still awaiting their dates and there haven't been many referrals given out recently. Our unofficial numbers are still 11 for a boy, 14 for a girl, and 7 for siblings. Please continue to pray for the Ethiopian courts to get things moving so all these children can get home with their forever families!!!

One thing I have been squeezing into my already busy schedule is trying to get some sewing done. Now, let me say that I am not really a sewer. My mom taught me and my sister the basics when we were younger, but that was a long time ago. So I've just thought it would be fun to start again. I figured moms need to know how to sew, right? I got a sewing machine for Christmas 2008. This summer (2010) I had to ask my wonderful mother-in-law to come over and help me figure out how to thread it. Then it took me about 2 months to go by some fabric. Now I have made a few baby blankets and a couple shirts for my nieces 1st birthday. I am by no means a professional, but I don't think they look too bad. A baby surely won't complain about them at least.

Kylie in her Africa shirt. She is ready to meet her cousins!!

Here is Kylie eating her cake on her 1st Birthday!! She had a blast until mean Aunt Tara and Mommy took it away.

Ethiopian Courts Reopen today!

The Ethiopian courts will reopen today after being closed for 7 weeks (for rainy season). There are over 45 children that have been referred out to forever families and they are waiting for court dates. We are praying all these families pass court on their 1st try!!! We are thinking that once these children all pass court and then US embassy clearance, there will be many new children in the Transition Home and hopefully one or two of those children will be ours!! We are currently 11 for a boy, 14 for a girl, and 8 for siblings.

Premier Designs Jewelry Fundraiser

A friend is Premier Designs Consultant and has offered to have a jewelry show and give us all the proceeds. WOW!!!! We are so appreciative of the way that everyone has offered to help in their own way. So now we get to have a jewelry party and some fun girl time!!!

We would love for you to come and say hi and check out the new jewelry that Premier Designs has to offer!!!

Sunday, September 19th at 2pm
at our house

Now would be a great time to start your Christmas shopping and help bring our child home at the same time!!! Let me know if you have any questions!!

Two Months DTE!!

Today marks 2 months since we were DTE!!!! We are two months closer to our child(ren)!!!

I can't believe its our midterm for 1st quarter at school already. We have both been so busy with school and coaching. But the referral world hasn't been that busy. The courts have been closed in Ethiopia since the beginning of August and won't reopen until the end of this month. This means there are several AWAA families that have received a referral but are waiting for the courts to reopen so they can receive their court date. We heard that there won't be too many referrals for the next month or so because the Transition House is full of children waiting for their forever families to be able to come and bring them home. But there were 2 referrals for baby girls this week. Our unofficial updated numbers are 15 for a boy and 14 for a girl and 6 for siblings. Hopefully after the courts reopen the referrals will pour out and we will move up on the list!!!

Update- Numbers and Chads Wedding

Brad and I were sitting on the couch the other night and we were like, Oh shoot we forgot to celebrate one month waiting on the waiting list, haha! Luckily this month has flown by and we have been busy, it makes it go quicker! Our unofficial list was updated the other day. Some families have joined our Yahoo Group since we were DTE, so our number haven't changed much. We are #16 for a boy, #17 for a girl, and #7 for siblings. Some of the sibling requests are for 2 of the same sex, so who knows what will happen!! We rest assured God already has it all figured out, so we don't need to!! (I have to type that for a reminder for me too!)

One of the main reasons we have had such a busy month is that my little brother Chad married a wonderful girl Emily. We are so excited to have her in our family. Emily is always so sweet, kind, and positive. Emily's maid of honor described her as a person who is a great example of a person who loves people just like Jesus loves us. What a compliment and so true at the same time! Chad is a lucky guy to have a great wife! She is from the Philly area so they had a Philly wedding and a reception in IL for our friends and family. Both were beautiful and fun weekends! Here are a few pictures:

Bride and Groom eating and dancing

My sister Amy, brother Chad, and me

Brad and I

Amy and Kylie
Amy, Emily, and me

Chad and Em in IL

Aunt Tara with Kylie

Africa Cards

As most of you know, our largest fundraiser has been making and selling hand-stamped cards. So far we have sold over $3,000 of cards. This AMAZES me!!!!! When we started this, I thought I'd be thrilled to sell a couple hundred dollars worth of cards. So many people have offered to sell cards to their friends and family. Thank you to everyone who has helped!! God hasn't stopped amazing us throughout this whole process, I just didn't know how big to dream. Brad and I assumed we'd be taking out a loan for a big part of the adoption expenses, but so far God has provided just what we needed just when we needed it. Don't ever doubt how BIG our God is!!!



I wanted to share a new set of cards I have for sale. I just got a new Africa stamp, so I've begun to stamp some new cards with it. For now, I am making a simple card:

Since this card is simple, using only white cardstock, I will be selling a pack of 16 cards for $15. I have been using these thank you cards as thank you to people that have helped us in some way and the blank ones I have sent to other Africa adopting families.

If you would like to order any, please email me at tara_mowen@yahoo.com. We can work out all the details then!!

Thank you again to everyone that has helped us in any way along this process. God has used you to help bring our children home!!!

Like Dandelion Dust

This week our church showed a screening of the movie Like Dandelion Dust (based on Karen Kingsbury's book). This book/movie tells the story of a domestic adoption and the sacrificial love the birth mother had to give her son a better life. It really made my heart ache for these birth mothers who love their child enough to give them up so they may have a better life. Another adoptive family told me that if times were tough they would live in a cardboard box with their kids before giving them up. Which is so true, I would do the same thing. The decision to give a child up would be so hard and something most of us are fortunate enough that we don't even have to consider.

When I started thinking about adopting a child I assumed that these birth parents didn't want their children or the birth parents had died. I wondered how this would effect the children in the future. But as I have talked to more and more adoptive families, almost all their children's birth parents sacrificially gave their children up so they could have a better life. WOW! What love! God did the same thing for us, He gave His Son so we ALL could have a better life. There aren't many people in the world that have had to sacrifice something so special, but boy are we glad that God was willing to sacrifice His Son so we have the chance to be forgiven and live our eternal life in heaven!!!!! Believe it and embrace HIS wonderful gift!!

DTE!!!

Today our paperwork got sent by FedEx over to Ethiopia!!! Praise God!!! WOOO HOOO!!! So today is our DTE (Dossier to Ethiopia) date!!! Our yahoo group keeps an unofficial waiting list, so I think we are something like number 17 for a boy, 19 for a girl, and 5 for siblings. The average wait time is 4-6 months. We are obviously hoping for the shorter end of that. So if all goes well we will have a referral by the middle of November and maybe meeting our child(ren) by Christmas!!!! I feel like we have been talking about one day it will happen and now there is an end in sight!!! AHHHH!!!
Our official request is either gender for all- one 0-6months, twins 0-12months, or siblings 0-12months and 0-4 years!!
Let the real wait begin......

Our I-171H has arrived....finally

Today we received our I-171H in the mail!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHH!! So excited!!! When I opened the envelope my eyes were seraching it all to make sure it was the real thing. On June 5th we received a letter from them saying they needed the orginial letter from DCFS, not the copy that was sent to them in May. I thought it would say I-171H real big across the top, no- its teeny tiny down in the corner. After I realized that this was the paper we have been waiting for since we applied for it back in February, I started to cry. I felt like we were never going to get to this point in the process, so that we finally had all the papers we needed and we are able to send our Dossier in made it all real to me. I don't even know how to describe all the emotions I was feeling this afternoon. I was so overwhelmed with a wonderful feeling and felt like we were moving in the right direction-forward!!!! Something of ours will be in Ethiopia soon!!!!!

So I sat down to make sure all the papers were in order and ready to be mailed off. I realized that we needed a copy of the orginial notarized, so I rushed off to our church to get it notarized- thank you Wilda!! I was crying all the way there and thought I needed to get it together before I get to church, ha!

Here are all the papers we needed to submit our Dossier. We have been collecting these and waiting for different pieces to be approved and come in since the begining of January. We are happy to let them leave our house!!

Brad has come home everyday for the last month checking the mailbox for an envelope from USCIS, but today Brad was coaching volleyball this afternoon, so I checked the mail. I sent him a text message that said , "Hurry home...I have an important job for you to do." He thought I wanted him to clean up a mess from our cat or dog or something...lol. He said once he pulled into the driveway he thought it might be about our I-171H. He came in was so excited that it was here and that he didn't have a mess from an animal to clean up!!! He made the last copies we needed then took the box to UPS while I had to go coach tennis. We sent the Dossier to AWAA overnight for $48.84...wasn't expecting that. Oh well its been submitted and it feels great!!

Finally tonight we celebrated with pizza and a walk and we keep talking about how excited we are to finally get our Dossier all turned in and that we are that much closer to our child!!!

So now we wait to hear from AWAA if it was all approved and then it will be translated and sent to Ethiopia within 1-3 weeks. Then we will get our DTE (Dossier to Ethiopia) date and be on the waiting list to be matched with our child(ren). Our request is an infant 0-6 months either gender, or siblings-one an infant 0-6 months and one under 4years old, or infant twins 0-6 months. We will just wait to see who God has planned to be a part of our family!!

Happy 4th Anniversary Babe!

Ok, this is operation surprise Tara! If you don't know, Tara is someone who can find out anything and it is VERY hard to surprise her. So as you are sleeping tonight Tara, I have logged into our blog to surprise you with an anniversary blog. We are not doing anything "big" for our anniversary because we are trying to save money for our adoption, so this is my gift to you this year.
I can't believe it has already been 4 years since we have been married! It seems like yesterday we were getting on the plane for our honeymoon. What a great time we have had together. I could not ask for anything better than the last four years we have spent together as a family. I am excited to see what God has planned for the next 50....if it were up to you, I know that it would include a huge house packed full of at least 10 kids...I say we see what God has planned for us :).
The last 4 years, God has spent building a foundation for our marriage that is unbreakable. He has been preparing us so that we can be the most incredible parents that our children could possibly dream of. Babe, if you are only half the mother than you are a wife, our children are going to be the luckiest kids in the world. I am excited to see you be a mother (even if it is to 10) because I know how good of a wife you have been to me! Thanks for all you do and even yet to do for our family. I thank God for you everyday!
God,
Thank you for putting Tara in my life. Thank you for watching over her and keeping her safe. Thank you for making her beautiful, caring, thoughtful, loving, intelligent, and confident. God, continue to bless her life. Continue to have her grow closer to you and be a woman of Faith. Continue to bless our marriage and family. God you tell us this in 1st John 4:18-19 "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because He first loved us." God I give you thanks because your love endures forever!

If you are reading this, will you say a quick prayer for continued blessings over our marriage? We know that a solid marriage is the foundation for the rest of our lives and are always thankful for people praying for us.

-Brad

Waiting with a Purpose

I knew starting this process that we were going to eventually become parents and bring a precious baby into our family. I had no idea that this would be such a faith building, heart changing, and eye opening experience. I read on someone elses blog (sorry I don't remember who) that they said, the greatest treasure in this journey is drawing closer to our God. How true!!

I am so glad that God chose us to experience the adoption process. There is this whole other world of support and friendships connected through adoption. God has designed each of our families in the way that HE sees fit. I'm so thankful that HE saw it fit for Brad and I to experience this. Now don't get me wrong, the waiting is driving us CRAZY, but we know it will be worth it in the end!

Here are a few verses that I like for this time in our lives!!

"He told them, 'You don't get to know the time. Timing is the Father's business.'" Acts 1:7 The Message

"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." Proverbs 19:21 NIV

I also like the same verse from The Message- "We humans keep brainstorming options and plans, but God's purpose prevails." Proverbs 19:21

"Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you." Deuteronomy 31:8 NLV