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State Approval!!

For those of you who have been praying for us and wanting an update:

(For those of you to whom this is new news, we are in the process of adopting our oldest boy Kieran’s three younger siblings, as they recently came into the orphanage. Yes, we know—that makes 9 children! You can read more about that here.)

We finally got state approval to adopt the siblings this week! That was the part in this process that we were most concerned about because of the number of children we will have, but we were approved!

Eva with the important papers, and one of our favorite postal workers
Eva with the important papers, and one of our favorite postal workers

So today I was able to send off our dossier (international adoption paperwork), both immigration paperwork packets (including the PAIR documents, for those of you who know what that is), and grant application packets.

It will be several months till immigration processes our paperwork and then our Ethiopian court date can be scheduled, but we are hopeful the kids will come home this fall! Who knew we would have adoptions in 2010, 2012, and 2014?? We sure didn’t! Be careful when you pray for God to lead you where He wants you to go….

Please keep praying for our family in this process and for God to provide—not only for the last half of the adoption costs (we have already paid over $18,000), but also for the slight renovations that need to be done to accommodate all of us! (I can squeeze them into the bedrooms, but we need another bathroom!)

If you so feel led, you can find out how to give a tax-deductible donation to help our family through the “adoption fundraising” tab at the top of our website.

Thank you again for all your prayers and your encouragement through this journey with us. I know they make a huge difference!

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A Fun Game: “In My Mind I Just…”

Erin (our almost 14-year-old) and I have been playing this game lately we’re calling “In My Mind.”

It usually starts with a conversation between us that may be just a little “off.” For example, Erin’s telling me about some bit of her day at school and I start to space out a little, envisioning the story taking a different direction. Or maybe I just get distracted and see myself doing something completely unexpected and extreme while she’s telling the story. So I tell her, “In my mind, I just plowed into you like Hobbes when Calvin gets home from school.”

HobbesPouncesErin might then respond by saying, “In my mind I just watched you walk into the kitchen but I was hiding behind the door and I smashed it into you and you fell down and cried.”

Interestingly, a lot of her “in my mind” vignettes end up with me injured and crying. Not sure what that says about me, her, or how she perceives our relationship…