Thankful

“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.”

Colossians 3:15

This is the verse that AWAA sent out this week, so fitting for the time of our life. We wish we had a referral to be thankful for, but we are at peace knowing that God has our children picked out and has our referral day already planned out. We are patiently (smile) waiting to see our childrens precious faces!!

We are also VERY thankful for all the love, support, and encouragement we have recieved from all our friends and family. We couldn't have made it this far without all of you!!!

An Adoptive Family is raffling off an iPad

Another AWAA Adoptive Family is Raffling Off an iPad!!!

The Wade Family is raffling off an iPad on Friday! The tickets are $10 (if you buy 5 you get a 6th free). All proceeds from the raffle are going toward the expenses of their adoption. Please support them by purchasing a raffle ticket!
www.ourethiopiandaughter.weebly.com

Stampin/Scrappbooking Retreat

For all my Stampin or Scrapbooking friends around here...

Email me with any questions or if you'd like a registration form emailed to you!tara_mowen@yahoo.com

Stampin/Scrapbooking/Crafting Retreat
January 7-8, 2011

Join us for a relaxing 30 hours with no interruptions!! No kids, No husband, and No housework!

What does it cost? $25-$50 (depends on what option you choose) Package options are broken down to allow you to find an option that works for you.

What does it include? Meals and drinks, two Make-n-Take projects, and door prizes. Fri. morning to Sat. package includes a 5 minute chair massage.

What to bring? Your choice of craft projects, a snack for the snack table, bedding (plenty of floor space to claim as your own!) and toiletries, friends, DVD’s and CD’s.

Where? First Church of the Nazarene, 1501 Webster St., Galesburg, IL 61401

Extras available: Silent Auction- there will be a variety of items for you to bid on. Massages (full or chair) will be available. Yard Sale table-bring items you would like to try and sell (limit 10). A few scrapbooking or stampin items will be available for purchase.

Why? Uninterrupted time for avid stampers/srcrapbookers/crafters to get your projects completed. Costs associated with this weekend will cover facility, food, prizes and fun! All additional proceeds from this weekend will go towards Brad and Tara Mowen’s adoption costs. Brad and Tara will be bringing a child or two home from Ethiopia in the very near future!!

*****Sign up a friend and you will get to stamp an extra project!!!
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Registration Form
___ Friday 8am-Saturday 2pm $50 (includes 4 meals, 2 MNT’s, 5 min chair
massage)
___ Friday 8am-midnight $35 (includes 2 meals and 2 MNT’s)
___ Friday 5pm-Saturday 2pm $40 (includes 3 meals and 2 MNT’s)
___ Stamp-a-Stack only $25 (make 20 cards) Friday 6-9pm or Saturday 9am-12pm
___ add Stamp-a-Stack to another package $15 (make 20 cards)

Payment and Registration due by December 30th. Send to Tara Mowen. Email with questions tara_mowen@yahoo.com

T-Shirt and Cards WINNER!!!

Thank you so much for everyone that has purchased a shirt already!!! An extra thank you to everyone who helped spread the word about our Adoption t-shirts!!!


The Winner is.....

Maddie
http://maddieburris.blogspot.com/


Congrats Maddie!! Email me with your t-shirt size and address!


Our T-shirt Pre-order will be going on until Thursday night. We should get the t-shirts back by Thanksgiving. Thank you so much for supporting us and bringing awareness to the orphan crisis all over the world!!!!

Conversation with a First Grader

Over the past couple weeks I have began to tell my students a little more about us adopting a baby from Africa. One student in particular loves to ask questions about it and talk about it. He always tells me that he wants to have a brother from Africa, but I don't think his mom is on board with that. I love to see a 1st grader have a heart to adopt though!

This was our conversation the other day:
N: Is that Africa? (I had another families adoption shirt on)
ME: Yes, how did you know?
N: It has animals on it.
ME: Yeah, this is a shirt from another family that is adopting a baby from Africa too. I will be going to Africa soon to bring my baby home.
N: Why?
ME: They don't have a mommy or daddy, so Mr. Mowen and I will get to be their mommy and daddy.
N: You mean they are orphans?
ME: Yes, how do you know what orphans are?
N: I watch All Dogs Go to Heaven, duh. The girl and the dogs are orphans, they don't have a family or food. can we write a story about that??
ME: Absolutely! (I usually have to ask him to write something, and today he offered)
Here's what he wrote...
I can't get the picture to rotate, but you can see it was still a cute story!

T-Shirt and Cards GIVEAWAY!!!

Would you like to win a FREE T-Shirt and a pack of our Handstamped Cards??

Please help us spread the word of our fundraiser!!! Share the information by Friday, November 12th. I will draw the winner Friday at 4pm.

Each time you post a link to our blog and reference the t-shirts on either your blog or on Facebook, you get an entry for the GIVEAWAY.

Please leave a comment below so I know who to put in the drawing!! Remember you must post on your blog or FB by Friday at 4pm.

Thanks so much for helping us!!!

Adoption T-shirt Pre-order!!!

Our adoption T-shirts are finally ready!!!! From now until November 18th you can order our "Break my heart for what breaks Yours" t-shirt. T-shirts come in 2t, 3t, 4t, youth small-large and adult small-XL. They are $15 each.
The design is on the front and it says "Break my heart for what breaks Yours". The shirts are all Gildan brand 50% cotton.




If you would like to order please mail us a check or email me at tara_mowen@yahoo.com and I will send you our address(preferred method)or use paypal on the sidebar.

After a couple months of trying to decide what words we wanted on our t-shirt, Brad heard the song Hosanna (one of the songs on our blog) while driving in the car. He called me and said "that's what we should put on our shirts". We know that God's heart is broken by all the orphans in the world and He has definitely broken our hearts too. God has given us the desire to adopt children into our family and love them the way He loves us. We know that God's heart is broken by many things in this world and we hope these shirts will remind people to be compassionate and loving to all people and all circumstances.

Top of the List

Last Friday we were excited to find out we are tied at #1 for an infant boy!!!! There are four families that were all DTE on 7/9/10, so we are all sharing the #1 spot and we are all anxiously awaiting THE CALL!!! We also filled out an unrelated child application last week. So we might get a call for one baby and one child around 3 years old. We are #8 on the girls list, but we are assuming we will get a boy since we are on the top of that list. But nothing is for sure in the adoption world, so we will see!!
It's easy to worry and fret over when the call is coming, but I am constantly reminding myself that God already knows our children and He knows when is the perfect time for us to get The Call!!! And until then, we wait.

Exciting week

This past week has been so exciting!! Last Sunday Brad started talking about the possibility of me staying in Ethiopia by myself between the two trips. I obviously said, "I'd love to"!! I just didn't think we could work it out. I thought I only got 6 weeks for maternity leave if i have the sick days built up (which I do). We have both talked about how hard it will be to leave our child/ren after court and come back to IL for 4-5 weeks before we have US Embassy clearance to bring them home. So as the week started out we were trying to toss out as many possibilities as we could figure out. On Thursday we met with HR and she said we could use as many sick days as we have as long as the trip is adoption/parental related. She also said that Brad could come and stay with me too!! So we have decided that we will both be staying between trips and 'living' in Ethiopia for up to 12 weeks, but hoping for closer to 6weeks. Now we need to find a house/pet sitter...

On Friday we moved from number 7 for an infant boy to number 3!!!!! Ahhhhh!! It's getting so close!!! Then today we received our ON DECK email. This email gives us more information about what's to come when we get a referral and tells us that our referral is coming soon!!! We can't wait!!! It just gets more exciting everyday!!

Along this process I have been asked many time if I have a feeling our kids have been born yet or anything like that. I have also heard several adoptive mamas talk about a feeling when their child was born, etc. I keep saying no, and I feel bad that I don't, but you can't make a feeling happen. Then on Wednesday morning I woke up really early in the morning with this feeling of urgency to pray for our baby. I surely did pray and try to understand what the feeling was, but I have no idea what it means. I have continued to wake up each morning since then earlier than normal (like 1 1/2 hours earlier) with my first thought to hurry and pray for our child/ren. So these have been my first motherly feelings and it's weird that theres nothing else I can do except continue to pray and rest assured in that I do know that God has His protective arms around our child/ren until we can hold them ourselves!!

Adoption= an incredible faith journey

Our greatest fear in starting the adoption process was the finances. $30,000-$35,000 is a scary number. We finally decided to say YES to the stirring in our hearts to start the adoption process and clung to this verse, Ephesians 3:20-21.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

And boy has God done immeasurably more than we ever imagined!!!

As we are getting closer and closer to our referral, I started getting worried about how we are going to pay for the rest of the expenses. One night as I was trying to figure it out, I realized there has not been one bill we haven't been able to pay yet. God has provided our every need, He has been with us every step of the way. Oh how I love knowing that!!! The next day after I realized there isn't anything that we need right now and God has been providing all along, I got a text from a dear friend asking how the fundraising was going. I told her "we have had everything we have needed when we needed it and that we receive different gifts or fundraising orders about each week". She said "Good, I have been praying specifically for the financial part of your adoption recently". How awesome is it that friends are specifically covering parts of our adoption in prayers??? I just thought how lucky we are that we have friends that choose to pray specifically for us, our needs, and our child/ren. Isn't also amazing how I became at peace with the finance portion while she was praying for us. God is awesome and I am glad that we can notice Him in these situations!!!

So many people have been willing to let God use them to bless us and help bring us one step closer to bringing our child/ren home. We had NO IDEA how many people would be willing to help us out. Some by praying for us and encouraging us, some helping with fundraisers, others have sacrificially given monetary gifts that have humbled us beyond words. It's been just amazing to see all the people that care about us and our adoption. God has allowed so many people to have a hand in helping our child come home. We will never be able to thank you enough for investing in our family and this child (or 2) that will be coming home to be part of our forever family soon!

I have mentioned several times before that our faith has been stretched in new ways too. There have been many times that the only option we have is to rely on God and watch Him move the mountains in our way. We have continually prayed for God to break our hearts for what breaks His and our eyes have been opened up to all the needs of orphans and the sacrifices their birthmothers make. We want to make sure this journey is about what God wants and not about what we want.

Another awesome part of this journey is all the new adoptive friends we have made. There are many families in our area that have adopted from Ethiopia and other places. We have also gotten to know other families with AWAA through emailing and blogging. The bond that adoptive families have is a fabulous reason to keep in contact! We can share our experiences and encourage each other each step of the way!! I can't wait to travel to Ethiopia with other families and get to know even more people through this journey!

We are so happy and thankful that we choose to say YES to God when He was tugging on our hearts to start our family through adoption. Just think, we could have missed this incredible journey if we wouldn't have been willing to take the step of faith needed to begin this process without knowing how every detail of how it would play out. But luckily we know that God knew BEFORE it began just how perfect and awesome it would be!!

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.