How to be the Village- post from Jen Hatmaker

Here is a post from Jen Hatmaker's blog today. It was too good not to share!

Our good friends just returned from Ethiopia last night with their two little boys. Ok, they've had their "airport" moment and we were right there with them. What are some things we can do now to support them in the "real life" journey without overstepping our boundaries? Thank you so much for your transparency and honesty. Everyone can benefit when you share from your heart.

I was so moved by this email. Having benefitted from a community that practically smothered us with support throughout our adoption journey, I am so grateful for all the other good friends out there, loving their people and asking how to help. Since reading this email, I’ve been marinating on her question, and I’ve decided to write this Field Guide to Supporting Adoptive Families. (And it will be brief because I will try to remember that this is a blog and not a manuscript and the rules of blogging include succinctness, so that is exactly how I’ll proceed today, except for the exact opposite of all that.)

Let’s break this down into two categories:

Supporting Families Before the Airport

Your friends are adopting. They’re in the middle of dossiers and home studies, and most of them are somewhere in the middle of Waiting Purgatory. Please let me explain something about WP: It sucks in every way. Oh sure, we try to make it sound better than it feels by using phrases like “We’re trusting in God’s plan” and “God is refining me” and “Sovereignty trumps my feelings” and crazy bidness like that. But we are crying and aching and getting angry and going bonkers when you’re not watching. It’s hard. It hurts. It feels like an eternity even though you can see that it is not. It is harder for us to see that, because many of us have pictures on our refrigerators of these beautiful darlings stuck in an orphanage somewhere while we’re bogged down in bureaucracy and delays.

How can you help? By not saying or doing these things:

1. “God’s timing is perfect!” (Could also insert: “This is all God’s plan!” “God is in charge!”) As exactly true as this may be, when you say it to a waiting parent, we want to scratch your eyebrows off and make you eat them with a spoon. Any trite answer that minimizes the struggle is as welcomed as a sack of dirty diapers. You are voicing something we probably already believe while not acknowledging that we are hurting and that somewhere a child is going to bed without a mother again. Please never say this again. Thank you.

2. “Are you going to have your own kids?” (Also in this category: “You’ll probably get pregnant the minute your adoption clears!” “Since this is so hard, why don’t you just try to have your own kids?” “Well, at least you have your own kids.”) The subtle message here is: You can always have legitimate biological kids if this thing tanks. It places adoption in the Back-up Plan Category, where it does not belong for us. When we flew to Ethiopia with our first travel group from our agency, out of 8 couples, we were the only parents with biological kids. The other 7 couples chose adoption first. Several of them were on birth control. Adoption counts as real parenting, and if you believe stuff Jesus said, it might even be closer to the heart of God than regular old procreation. (Not to mention the couples that grieved through infertility already. So when you say, “Are you going to have your own kids?” to a woman who tried for eight years, then don’t be surprised if she pulls your beating heart out like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.)

3. For those of you in Christian community, it is extremely frustrating to hear: “Don’t give up on God!” or “Don’t lose faith!” It implies that we are one nanosecond away from tossing our entire belief system in the compost pile because we are acting sad or discouraged. It’s condescending and misses the crux of our emotions. I can assure you, at no point in our story did we think about kicking Jesus to the curb, but we still get to cry tears and feel our feelings, folks. Jesus did. And I’m pretty sure he went to heaven when he died.

4. We’re happy to field your questions about becoming a transracial family or adopting a child of another race, but please don’t use this moment to trot out your bigotry. (Cluelessness is a different thing, and we try to shrug that off. Like when someone asked about our Ethiopian kids, “Will they be black?” Aw, sweet little dum-dum.) The most hurtful thing we heard during our wait was from a black pastor who said, “Whatever you do, don’t change their last name to Hatmaker, because they are NOT Hatmakers. They’ll never be Hatmakers. They are African.” What the??? I wonder if he’d launch the same grenade if we adopted white kids from Russia? If you’d like to know what we’re learning about raising children of another race or ask respectful, legitimate questions, by all means, do so. We care about this and take it seriously, and we realize we will traverse racial landmines with our family. You don’t need to point out that we are adopting black kids and we are, in fact, white. We’ve actually already thought of that.

5. Saying nothing is the opposite bad. I realize with blogs like this one, you can get skittish on how to talk to a crazed adopting Mama without getting under her paper-thin skin or inadvertently offending her. I get it. (We try hard not to act so hypersensitive. Just imagine that we are paper-pregnant with similar hormones surging through our bodies making us cry at Subaru commercials just like the 7-month preggo sitting next to us. And look at all this weight we’ve gained. See?) But acting like we’re not adopting or struggling or waiting or hoping or grieving is not helpful either. If I was pregnant with a baby in my belly, and no one ever asked how I was feeling or how much longer or is his nursery ready or can we plan a shower, I would have to audition new friend candidates immediately.

Here’s what we would love to hear Before the Airport:

1. Just kind, normal words of encouragement. Not the kind that assume we are one breath away from atheism. Not the kind that attempt to minimize the difficulties and tidy it all up with catchphrases. We don’t actually need for you to fix our wait. We just want you to be our friend and acknowledge that the process is hard and you care about us while we’re hurting. That is GOLD. I was once having lunch with my friend Lynde when AWAA called with more bad news about Ben’s case, and I laid my head down on the table in the middle of Galaxy Café and bawled. Having no idea what to do with such a hot mess, she just cried with me. Thank you for being perfect that day, Lynde.

2. Your questions are welcomed! We don’t mind telling you about the court system in Ethiopia or the in-country requirements in Nicaragua or the rules of the foster system. We’re glad to talk about adoption, and we’re thankful you care. I assure you we didn’t enter adoption lightly, so sharing details of this HUGE PIECE OF OUR LIVES is cathartic. Plus, we want you to know more because we’re all secretly hoping you’ll adopt later. (This is not true.) (Yes it is.)

3. When you say you’re praying for us and our waiting children, and you actually really are, not only does that soothe our troubled souls, but according to Scripture, it activates the heavens. So pray on, dear friends. Pray on. That is always the right thing to say. And please actually do it. We need people to stand in the gap for us when we are too tired and discouraged to keep praying the same words another day.

4. If you can, please become telepathic to determine which days we want to talk about adoption and which days we’d rather you just show up on our doorstep with fresh figs from the Farmer’s Market (thanks, Katie) or kidnap us away in the middle of the day to go see Bridesmaids. Sometimes we need you to make us laugh and remember what it feels like to be carefree for a few hours. If you’re not sure which day we’re having, just pre-buy movie tickets and show up with the figs, and when we answer the door, hold them all up and ask, “Would you like to talk for an hour uninterrupted about waiting for a court date?” We’ll respond to whichever one fits.

Supporting Families After the Airport

You went to the airport. The baby came down the escalator to cheers and balloons. The long adoption journey is over and your friends are home with their new baby / toddler / twins / siblings / teenager. Everyone is happy. Maybe Fox News even came out and filmed the big moment and “your friend” babbled like an idiot and didn’t say one constructive word about adoption and also she looked really sweaty during her interview. (Really? That happened to me too. Weird.)

How can you help? By not saying or doing these things:

1. I mean this nicely, but don’t come over for awhile. Most of us are going to hole up in our homes with our little tribe and attempt to create a stable routine without a lot of moving parts. This is not because we hate you; it’s because we are trying to establish the concept of “home” with our newbies, and lots of strangers coming and going makes them super nervous and unsure, especially strangers who are talking crazy language to them and trying to touch their hair.

2. Please do not touch, hug, kiss, or use physical affection with our kids for a few months. We absolutely know your intentions are good, but attachment is super tricky with abandoned kids, and they have had many caregivers, so when multiple adults (including extended family) continue to touch and hold them in their new environment, they become confused about who to bond with. This actually delays healthy attachment egregiously. It also teaches them that any adult or stranger can touch them without their permission, and believe me, many adoptive families are working HARD to undo the damage already done by this position. Thank you so much for respecting these physical boundaries.

3. For the next few months, do not assume the transition is easy. For 95% of us, it so is not. And this isn’t because our family is dysfunctional or our kids are lemons, but because this phase is so very hard on everyone. I can’t tell you how difficult it was to constantly hear: “You must be so happy!” and “Is life just so awesome now that they’re here??” and “Your family seems just perfect now!” I wanted that to be true so deeply, but I had no idea how to tell you that our home was actually a Trauma Center. (I did this in a passive aggressive way by writing this blog, which was more like “An Open Letter to Everyone Who Knows Us and Keeps Asking Us How Happy We Are.”) Starting with the right posture with your friends – this is hard right now – will totally help you become a safe friend to confide in / break down in front of / draw strength from.

4. Do not act shocked if we tell you how hard the early stages are. Do not assume adoption was a mistake. Do not worry we have ruined our lives. Do not talk behind our backs about how terribly we’re doing and how you’re worried that we are suicidal. Do not ask thinly veiled questions implying that we are obviously doing something very, very wrong. Do not say things like, “I was so afraid it was going to be like this” or “Our other friends didn’t seem to have these issues at all.” Just let us struggle. Be our friends in the mess of it. We’ll get better.

5. If we’ve adopted older kids, please do not ask them if they “love America so much” or are “so happy to live in Texas.” It’s this simple: adoption is born from horrible loss. In an ideal world, there would be no adoption, because our children would be with their birth families, the way God intended. I’ll not win any points here, but I bristle when people say, “Our adopted child was chosen for us by God before the beginning of time.” No he wasn’t. He was destined for his birth family. God did not create these kids to belong to us. He didn’t decide that they should be born into poverty or disease or abandonment or abuse and despair aaaaaaaall so they could finally make it into our homes, where God intended them to be. No. We are a very distant Plan B. Children are meant for their birth families, same as my biological kids were meant for mine. Adoption is one possible answer to a very real tragedy… after it has already happened, not before as the impetus for abandonment. There is genuine grief and sorrow when your biological family is disrupted by death and poverty, and our kids have endured all this and more. So when you ask my 8-year-old if he is thrilled to be in Texas, please understand that he is not. He misses his country, his language, his food, his family. Our kids came to us in the throes of grief, as well they should. Please don’t make them smile and lie to you about how happy they are to be here.

6. Please do not disappear. If I thought the waiting stage was hard, it does not even hold the barest candle to what comes after the airport. Not. The. Barest. Candle. Never have I felt so isolated and petrified. Never have I been so overwhelmed and exhausted. We need you after the airport way more than we ever needed you before. I know you’re scared of us, what with our dirty hair and wild eyes and mystery children we’re keeping behind closed doors so they don’t freak out more than they already have, but please find ways to stick around. Call. Email. Check in. Post on our Facebook walls. Send us funny cards. Keep this behavior up for longer than six days.

Here’s what we would love to hear or experience After the Airport:

1. Cook for your friends. Put together a meal calendar and recruit every person who even remotely cares about them. We didn’t cook dinners for one solid month, and folks, that may have single handedly saved my sanity. There simply are not words to describe how exhausting and overwhelming those first few weeks are, not to mention the lovely jetlag everyone came home with. And if your friends adopted domestically right up the street, this is all still true, minus the jetlag.

2. If we have them, offer to take our biological kids for an adventure or sleepover. Please believe me: their lives just got WHACKED OUT, and they need a break, but their parents can’t give them one because they are 1.) cleaning up pee and poop all day, 2.) holding screaming children, 3.) spending all their time at doctors’ offices, and 4.) falling asleep in their clothes at 8:15pm. Plus, they are in lockdown mode with the recently adopted, trying to shield them from the trauma that is Walmart.

3. Thank you for getting excited with us over our little victories. I realize it sounds like a very small deal when we tell you our kindergartener is now staying in the same room as the dog, but if you could’ve seen the epic level of freakoutedness this dog caused her for three weeks, you would understand that this is really something. When you encourage us over our incremental progress, it helps. You remind us that we ARE moving forward and these little moments are worth celebrating. If we come to you spazzing out, please remind us where we were a month ago. Force us to acknowledge their gains. Be a cheerleader for the healing process.

4. Come over one night after our kids are asleep and sit with us on our porch. Let me tell you: we are all lonely in those early weeks. We are home, home, home, home, home. Good-bye, date nights. Good-bye, GNO’s. Good-bye, spontaneous anything. Good-bye, church. Good-bye, big public outings. Good-bye, community group. Good-bye, nightlife. So please bring some community to our doorstep. Bring friendship back into our lives. Bring adult conversation and laughter. And bring an expensive bottle of wine.

5. If the shoe fits, tell adopting families how their story is affecting yours. If God has moved in you over the course of our adoption, whether before the airport or after, if you’ve made a change or a decision, if somewhere deep inside a fire was lit, tell us, because it is spiritual water on dry souls. There is nothing more encouraging than finding out God is using our families for greater kingdom work, beautiful things we would never know or see. We gather the holy moments in our hands every day, praying for eyes to see God’s presence, his purposes realized in our story. When you put more holy moments in our hands to meditate on, we are drawn deeper into the Jesus who led us here.

Here’s one last thing: As you watch us struggle and celebrate and cry and flail, we also want you to know that adoption is beautiful, and a thousand times we’ve looked at each other and said, “What if we would’ve said no?” God invited us into something monumental and lovely, and we would’ve missed endless moments of glory had we walked away. We need you during these difficult months of waiting and transitioning, but we also hope you see that we serve a faithful God who heals and actually sets the lonely in families, just like He said He would. And even through the tears and tantrums (ours), we look at our children and marvel that God counted us worthy to raise them. We are humbled. We’ve been gifted with a very holy task, and when you help us rise to the occasion, you have an inheritance in their story; your name will be counted in their legacy.

Because that day you brought us pulled pork tacos was the exact day I needed to skip dinner prep and hold my son on the couch for an hour, talking about Africa and beginning to bind up his emotional wounds. When you kidnapped me for two hours and took me to breakfast, I was at the very, very, absolute end that morning, but I came home renewed, able to greet my children after school with fresh love and patience. When you loved on my big kids and offered them sanctuary for a night, you kept the family rhythm in sync at the end of a hard week.

Thank you for being the village. You are so important.


Thank you Jen for sharing your heart once again!!

more Kisses from Katie-the book

My last post I talked about how I just finished the book Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis. I talked about some of my favorite and challenging parts of the book. Katie has 13 daughters in Uganda, so naturally part of the book was about her adopting these girls. She writes:
"Adoption is wonderful and beautiful and the greatest blessing I have ever experienced. Adoption is also difficult and painful. Adoption is a beautiful picture of redemption. It is the Gospel in my living room. And sometimes, it's just hard. ...Adoption is a redemptive response to tragedy that happens in this broken world. And every single day, it is worth it, because adoption is God's heart."
"My family, adopting these children, it is not optional. It is not my good deed for the day; it is not what I am doing to 'help out these poor kid.' I adopt because God commands me to care for the orphans and the widows in their distress. I adopt because Jesus says that to whom much has been given, much will be demanded (Luke 12:48) and because whoever finds his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for His sake will find it (Matthew 10:39)."

People often tell us our kids are lucky or we are so great for adopting. I often find myself without anything to say. Sometimes its just awkward. Sometimes I say "we are the lucky ones" because its true. We are so thankful and lucky to have Jacob in our lives and we can't wait to have Kaleb and Isaiah home and a part of our family too. We don't think we are doing this great thing. We are following God's plan for our lives. We are so lucky that God choose us to walk this path with Him and so thankful that we said yes to building our family through adoption.

Kisses from Katie-the book

I just finished reading Katie Davis' book, Kisses from Katie. It's so good! And so challenging. I am amazed by how she lives her love for Christ EVERYDAY. I highly encourage you to go read it!! Here are a few of my favorite parts of the book:
" 'Remember, God will never give you more than you can handle'. People repeat this frequently; I heard it when I was growing up and I hear it now. It is meant to be a source of encouragement, and it would be if I believed it were true.
But I don't.
I believe that God totally, absolutely, intentionally gives us more than we can handle. Because this is when we surrender to Him and He takes over, proving Himself by doing the impossible in our lives."
She goes on "...I have learned to accept it, even ask for it, this 'more than I can handle.' Because in these times, God shows Himself victorious. He reminds me that all of this life requires more of Him and less of me. God does give us more than we can handle. Not maliciously, but intentionally, in love, that His glory may be displayed, that we may have no doubt of who is in control, that people may see His grace and faithfulness shining through our lives."

WOW! How many times have I thought or said "God won't give us more than we can handle"? Many. I love the way Katie explains the reason for tough things to happen in our life. She has tough situations that arise daily in her life in Uganda. During the tough times is the only time we have to constantly rely on our Heavenly Father to pick up where we think we can't make it anymore. It takes such faith and courage to ask for the tough times so you can remain close to God and rely fully on Him. Wow. I think my prayers for my life need to change.

Here's another part of the book: "Here is the thing: I want big things from God. We want big things from God and then think its strange when He asks us to build an ark, or feed five thousand or march around a building for seven days with seven priests blowing trumpets made from rams' horns. I am asking for big things from God. Big things like a van I can take my whole family to church in and a house with ten showers. Bigger things like 147 million orphaned children in the world to each have a mommy who knows what they like for dinner. So really, I am not surprised at the craziness of my life. Every morning , as I wake up with some impossible task in front of me, I know that God will meet it with impossible strength and love. I serve a God who uses Moses, a murdered, to part the Red Sea; a God who let Peter, who would deny Him, walk on water. A God who looks at me, in my fallen weakness and says, 'You can do the impossible.' "
What a great reminder that when we ask for big things from God we need to remember that He asks us to do big things. I want to approach the big things in life like they are gifts from God.
Thank you Katie Davis for challenging my life!

Amazed, Humbled, in Awe...

This is how I am feeling about this adoption. I am amazed at how God is building our family and at how many people God is using to help support us through this adoption. We have received so many calls, emails, and FB messages from friends-some long-time friends and tons of new friends through adoption. People are so full of encouragement and excitement for us!! We are so thankful for each person that is sharing this journey with us!!! We are so humbled by financial support that has been given to us. Some people have repaid gifts that were given to them when they adopted, some friends got together and decided not to give each other gifts and instead give that money to our adoption, some people have just given us money before we even knew we needed it. Receiving financial gifts is so humbling and often hard to receive, but we KNOW that we will be paying it forward to others in the adoption process in the future. These are all gifts from God that we are being blessed with now and plan to bless others in the future!!

We are also IN AWE of God's perfect timing in bringing our family together. Not only was God's timing perfect to get our papers ready the same week our newest sons papers were ready, but we sold our house at the perfect time. We we started the adoption process we knew we needed to do something drastic to come up with the money needed. Because we all know that adoption is expensive, but it is also SOOOO worth it!! So we ended up selling our house, cutting our house payments in almost half and get this-had an extra $10,000 in equity that we could use to pay the referral fees. We sold our house the day after we got the referral. We told our Family Coordinator we would have the money to accept the referral the next week, but we weren't sure how. We were going to beg for a quick loan or something. We knew these were our boys and we were going to fight for them! We knew we would have about $5,000 in equity, but the loan officer calculated wrong and we actually had $10,000. I'm positive that God knew this miscalculation was going to happen at the perfect time! So we were able to accept the referral right away!!! Praise God!

Then we were told that we could submit our Dossier in the next couple of weeks (we orginally thought we would be submitting it around Christmas time). This also means that we need another $7,700 to pay international fees, etc. Yikes! That's almost $18,000 in a matter of 3 weeks. BUT our God is bigger!! We have received numerous gifts through people donating to Lifesong and sending gifts in the mail and we have been selling some t-shirts and African bead necklaces.

To all of you walking this journey with us- Thank You just isn't enough!

T-shirt order

Here's our little cutie in our shirts!!

We will be placing another t-shirt order on Monday, October 24th. We have toddler, youth, and adult sizes. All short sleeve shirts are $15 and long sleeve shirts are $18.

All of the info is on the side or under the fundraising tab.




Thank you for helping us bring our boys HOME!!!!!!

Isaiah knows he has a family!!!

Today we got an email saying that Isaiah was told that he has a family and then they showed him a picture of us. He remembers us and is very happy to be a part of our family!!! We were so happy to hear this!! We were pretty sure that he would remember us, but there are a lot of families in and out of the TH, so we wondered if he maybe forgot us. It does our hearts good to hear that he is happy about being in our family too!! Praise God for bringing our family together!!!!

Blogging

There have been almost 400 people that read the post about our growing family announcing our newest two sons! I had no idea that many people read our blog. CRAZY! Sometimes I think that I am blogging just to document our life and adoption process for ourselves. I have recently started filling out Jacob's baby book and I am thankful that I have blogged about all the important things, because its amazing how you can forget some things.

I'm thankful for so many blogs that I get to read and follow other families journeys. And its nice to know that people are following our journey too! Several people have asked if they can share our story with others or share our blog. Yes! It's God's story that He is writing through our lives!! May God be glorified!

11 months old

I'm running a little behind this month! Jacob was 11 months old on October 8th. He is at such a fun age!! I might have said this about every stage he has been in, but it's true- he keeps getting to be more and more fun. He is constantly on the move, crawling and pulling up on everything. This month he started to walk around furniture while holding on. He still says "ball", "dadada", "baba" (bottle), and his animal grunts. He added the pig noise this month too. Every once in awhile he will cry "moooooooom" but he doesn't say mama yet. He loves to give kisses, play peek-a-boo, and patty cake. He started to peek through his fingers while playing peek-a-boo and laughs so hard. I have been giving him the soft part of popcorn since the first day he has been with us and two nights ago he decided he was done with that. He grabbed a handful and chewed it up just fine. I guess thats one way to tell his mama that he can handle it!

We moved this past weekend and I was concerned how he would handle the new environment. He has been fabulous. No waking up crying and he loves to play with all his toys in the new house too!
Here are some pictures from the last month. We went to the pumpkin patch/apple orchard for cousin Kylie's birthday and J went for this 1st horse ride. He didn't last very long, but it was fun while it lasted!

Our Family is Growing- It's a Boy AND a Boy!!!!

Yep, Jacob's going to be a LITTLE BROTHER!!! He got so excited when we showed him the picture of his brothers!!!!

Today we got the official call for the referral of our 2 newest sons!!!! They are 10.5 years old and 1.5 years old and we LOVE THEM!!!! Our adoption journey is a constant reminder of God's Perfect Timing!! If we haven't learned that now, I don't know if we ever will. We were reminded constantly during our journey to Jacob, but God's perfect timing and plan for our lives is even more evident now.
We had decided to stay in country between court and the Embassy clearing Jacob to come home. We knew that our time in Ethiopia would be precious bonding time with Jacob and also an amazing time of getting to know his birth country. What we didn't know was that we also had met our soon-to-be newest children. The older boy, who we are naming Isaiah, spent a lot of time with Brad. Brad would often go play soccer or some games with the older kids, and Isaiah was always by his side. After a couple weeks of getting to know Isaiah, we asked the in-country staff about him. We found out he had a baby brother, who we are naming Kaleb. But we found out that they weren't adoptable at the time. We were sad to find this out because Isaiah kept asking us why his friends were leaving with families and he was still there with no family. We hate that some older children had to stay there and watch other children go home with families while they just continued to wait and wait and wait. This was the first day that we considered adopting older children. Up to this point we were open to children up to age 4. We met so many wonderful children and we knew God was stirring our hearts and opening them up to new possiblities. So exciting and scary!
At this time AWAA had a policy that you had to be home with your child for 6 months before you could adopt again. The week we came home with Jacob, AWAA changed their policy and now you have to have 6 months between placements, not applying. The whole time we were in Ethiopia we knew we would be starting the adoption process again and building our family this way next, we just didn't know how soon it would be happening. So we came home and started updating our homestudy and got it all done pretty quickly. Then we sent it out to be approved by our state. We wanted it done right away, of course. But God's timing was better! While we were waiting to have our homestudy approved we saw a couple different sibling groups on our agencies waiting child list. We were trying to be open in this adoption and accept anyone that God put on our path. If our homestudy had been approved, we would have reviewed their files. But God's timing is perfect and our homestudy wasn't ready yet, because our sons weren't ready yet. Our homestudy FINALLY got approved last Monday. We were so excited! On Thursday several AWAA families started posting and emailing about new cute brothers on the waiting child list. I, of course, had to check them out. I about fell over to see THE BOYS that we knew and loved on the computer. We were told that they might not ever be adoptable and HERE THEY WERE. I sent Brad a text message about checking the WCL and I quickly got a phone call back from Brad. He was sobbing saying "They are our sons. They are really on the WCL." God's perfect timing- they were paper ready THE SAME WEEK we were approved!!!! God is AMAZING!!!! Brad imediately called our family coordinator to ask about them and if we could review their file. We were told we would hear something next week. (What a whole week of waiting????) Thankfully it wasn't that long. That part coming soon...
As soon as I saw the boys on the WCL, I started praying "Lord make it clear that I am their mom, fill my heart with mama love for them". We have spent a lot of time with them in ET and I didn't know I was there mom then, so I didn't love them like a mom. I loved the boys as I love many children, but it was different to me at that time. So all day I was praying for the Lord to make it clear and fill my heart with mama love. I got several phone calls and emails from friends we met in ET and they all said "your boys are on the WCL". Then a friend called me in the evening and said that another family posted online that they were interested in them. It made me sick to my stomach, but I immediately changed my prayers to "Lord put them in the right family, whether its ours or not. These boys NEED and WANT a family and I want them to be with the right family." The sick feeling was what I needed to know that I was totally in this and I did love these boys as a mom. I emailed several adoptive friends about them and asked that they pray for these boys to go to the right family.
So Friday all kinds of emails are going back and forth between our family coordinator, the program director, and several friends that were praying. That afternoon we got the call that we could review their file. We didn't really care what it said, we knew they were our boys. On Monday we emailed our family coordinator and said that we wanted to accept the referral, but we wouldn't have the money until next week. You see, we need almost $10,000 to accept the referral for two kids. We JUST finished paying for everything from the first adoption, we don't have any savings. So lots of praying again on this issue. We called places and begged for a loan or anything. Lifesong (we had a tax deductible account through them last time) said we would hear something in 3-8 weeks. Hmmm, thats not going to help with the referral fees. But they called back the next day and approved us for a fundraising tax deductible account. God has been working in all the details!!!! We have had a few people ask about giving gifts through a tax deductible account and now we have one! Praise God!!!
Here is our Lifesong information:

Lifesong for Orphans
Mowen Adoption #2363
PO Box 40 / 202 N. Ford St
Gridley, IL 61744

So after telling our family coordinator that we wanted to accept the referral , we found out they need us to answer some more questions. So after all those emails, today we got the official call that THESE ARE OUR SONS!!!!! PRAISE GOD!!!!

As if this isn't enough excitement for one week, we are also moving. We are moving to a house that already has four bedrooms! We decided this summer to try to move to buy a less expensive house to save money for this adoption and for when our children are home. After talking to a realtor, we decided we would lose too much with realtor fees, closing costs, etc. Then without our house being on the market, we got an offer that will cover what we paid for the house and the fees. What a God thing!!! We were able to find a house (actually a friend was flipping a house) that will cut our house payments in half and already has four bedrooms. God's perfect timing again!!
We are so excited about this next stage of our life and I'm so happy to be the mama of THREE BOYS!!!! I see lots of matching outfits in their future!! HAHA!
We have no idea what sort of timeline this adoption will have, but we many memories with the boys that we can cherish until we are with them again! Isaiah knows some English and he read some books to Jacob and Kaleb while we were in ET. Such precious memories were made and we didn't even know how cherished they would be in the future. We are so blessed to be back in this journey and we can't wait to be back in Ethiopia again! We are looking forward to holding our boys as their parents and telling them we LOVE THEM and we are a FAMILY!!!!

Featured Family- Give1Save1

*UPDATE* We were gifted $279.07 this week! What an incredible gift!! Thank you to everyone who donated!!

We are being featured on the Give1Save1 website this week!!

Beth is an adoptive mama who has a heart for helping others. She wants to help other adopting families raise money for their adoption journeys. She is blessing so many people. We really appreciate everything she is doing for our family and all the other featured families too! She features a different family each week. Check out her site and please consider signing up to donate $1 per week-this week is goes to us and everyother week it goes to another adoptive family. Every $1 really does help and its really appreciated.

http://www.give1save1.com/

Here's our story:
We are on the journey of following God's plans for our life by building our family through adoption. We are so excited to see how God continues to work in and through our lives!! We were married in 2006 and excited we became parents in 2011.

Adoption has been something that we both always dreamed about, but we were scared to take the first step to get started. The financial aspect of adoption is scary. It is expensive. But one day while eating lunch with some friends in Nov. 2009, our friends said her sister and brother-in-law have adopted 3 times. Brad and I at the same time said "How have they afforded it?" Our friend simply said "God has provided." That was the little push we needed to step out in faith and start the adoption process. We have been truly blessed along this journey, because we started the adoption process with just enough money for the homestudy and we were blessed with just what we needed when we needed it!! We are so thankful for all the people that have allowed God to use them to bless us!! Every penny of our first adoption was paid without a loan- Praise God!

On January 27, 2011 we received our referral for a 2 month old boy!! We were in love from the moment we saw his picture!! We were able to spend two months in Ethiopia between our court date and being cleared by the Embassy. We brought Jacob Jafar home on May 20, 2011. Adoption #2 has been in the process since April 2011. During our two months in Ethiopia we met so many older children that literally begged to be a part of our family, or really any family. We loved every minute with Jacob but we couldn’t stop spending time and loving on the older children. They tugged at our hearts every day. Before we even left Ethiopia we had already contacted our Family Coordinator at America World to see about starting the process again soon. We were told that we would need to wait until we are home with Jacob for six months to apply to AWAA again. But the week we were leaving Ethiopia to come home, the rules at AWAA changed-now we are able to fill out a concurrent family building plan which eliminated the six month wait. We felt the nudge from God to start the adoption process to adopt an older sibling group. Everything about this adoption is the opposite from last time. Our journey to Jacob was perfectly orchestrated by our Heavenly Father and we are so thankful that we have the opportunity to raise Jacob as our son. But this time we are leaving our request wide open. We are open to an older sibling group of 2 or 3 kids, healthy or special needs- including HIV+. So basically everything that scared us in our first adoption is in our request this time. God has a funny way of changing your hearts for awesome things to happen in life!
We are expecting this adoption to be over $50,000 and we have no idea how long the process will take. Sometimes families are matched with older children very quickly, but sometimes it still takes several months. We are so excited to be on this journey again. God taught us many things and changed our lives during our last journey, and we know this journey will be amazing and life changing too! Thank you to each one of you that is helping us become one step closer to bringing our children home!!!!

Ten Months Old

Jacob is 10 months old today! I can’t believe in 2 months we will celebrate his 1st birthday! I have already ordered a really cute cake for him and started planning the party, haha! Can you tell he is our only child right now?? We are really busy in the Fall, so I didn’t want to run out of time to plan something cute! This past month has been really exciting! Jacob has begun to crawl!!! He is all over the place. I was worried I would spend my time keeping him out of everything (and I do that sometimes) but he really enjoys getting to chase a ball or move from toy to toy, so I am loving that he can crawl to whatever he wants. He also has a total of 7 teeth now. He continues to love table food and eats well. He loves tomatoes from Gramma’s garden and really almost everything we give him. He continues to say “da da da da” for almost everything and also says “ball” when he sees a ball. He came to my tennis match the other day and he couldn’t say “ball” fast enough-there were too many of them! He makes different grunting noises for a cow, puppy, and lion. Very cute!! He continues to love going to the babysitters and playing with the other kids. I miss him while I am working and coaching, but I’m so thankful that he enjoys the sitters too.




visiting Mommy at a tennis match
a quick trip to the hospital
family day at the zoo

He can pull himself up in his crib now

he got a hold of the Bible and was chewing of the bookmark string

African Paper Bead Necklaces

These beautiful necklaces just arrived from Ethiopia!! A friend went to pick up her kids and was kind enough to go shopping for us! These paper bead necklaces are BEAUTIFUL!!!! Women in Africa make them from recycled magazines. The necklaces are available in solid colors (red, blue, purple, green) or some multi-colored. I LOVE mine- I have 8! I have collected them from different peoples fundraising, gotten them as gifts, and I got a few while I was in Ethiopia too. And they are all different. We are selling them for $15 each, plus $1.50- if needed.

Thank you for supporting our adoption!!!