Gratefulness and The Great Wolf Lodge

The paperwork is done and now we wait....wait to be matched up with a baby girl, wait to go to Ethiopia to adopt her, then wait to bring her home. While we wait, we wait expectantly, as we watch the Lord answer prayer and grow us and stretch us in ways we have never known. 

Among the prayers we cover our baby girl in, are also prayers for the Lord to provide financially. It is no secret that the financial burden we bear is GREAT! But its not too big for our GOD! He has called us to this....asked us to go rescue one of his children from a life of poverty, starvation, and a life where she would probably never hear of His name. 

Because of YOU... all of our dear friends and family that have chosen to give and lift some of this financial burden from us.....this child has will never know what it is to beg for food or water, or see the spread of AIDS that plagues her country, or know the heartache of losing loved ones to starvation, sickness, and disease. 

For those of you who think your gift was "not much". Please KNOW that we rejoice and are humbled over every dollar that is given to our daughter. YOU are helping save her from a horrible life that she will thankfully never know. She will know HOPE and LOVE. 

Like when Jesus fed the 5,000 with just a few loaves of bread and fish, He is using your dollars to do GREAT THINGS! The Lord just asks that we have faith and give what we have. Thank you for being like the little boy who gave even when it didn't seem like much. When just a few dollars is given with a sacrificial heart, it is multiplied when others are giving sacrificially as well.....the Lord can do more than we ask or imagine. 

"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..." Ephesians 3:20

Christmas '11

Our time with family is always so sweet at Christmas, and this year was no exception. We celebrated Christmas early with my brother and his sweet family the weekend before Christmas, Brody and Levi love their little cousin Emmersyn and she is pretty smitten with them too:)

We were able to spend Christmas Eve in Cary with my grandparents, and then Christmas morning at our house with my parents. Each year is more exciting with Brody. This year he really knew what Christmas was all about.  And Levi loved ripping the wrapping paper off of his everyone else's presents.  I remember as a kid, not really loving when Christmas fell on a  Sunday because we had to leave all of our new presents at home to go to church. But as an adult, its different. Where else would i want to celebrate the birth of our Savior, than with my church family worshipping together. Our service was a sweet time with the whole family gathered for worship and story for the children. 

After church, we traveled to VA to spend time with Brians family. The 8 cousins, ages 11, 9, 5, 4, 3...and THREE one year olds!!, had a blast together:) 

Last year we had 3 newborns....all born within 100 days of each other.  This year we have 3 toddlers!

Dive On In

When you decide to do something that you have never done before, it's scary! You feel like you are diving head first into the unknown...but that's what you have to do...just dive in and trust that you will learn along the way what it takes to make it through. When we seriously began to research adoption, I was overwhelmed. It's like learning a new language. You hear words like dossier, referral, court dates, embassy, and many more that you have no clue what they mean, but know that they are going to be a huge part of your life over the next year. I realize that most people have no idea (just like me 4 months ago) what the adoption process is like. So here you go.....

Our Home study (a series of interviews done by the state to ensure we are able and capable of adopting a child)  was completed on december 19th and we shipped it as part of our Dossier ( every important paper in our lives and many more, that have to be notarized and sent to Ethiopia court for translation) to our agency on January 3rd. Our agency will then send it to Ethiopia to be translated to Amharic. At some point hopefully 2-3 months after our dossier is sent we will receive a referral (a picture and information of a baby girl that our agency has matched us with)! We will then be submitted to court and be given a date that we will appear in the Ethiopian court to adopt our daughter(approximately 3 months after we are matched up with a baby). She will not be coming home with us on this trip though. We will have to leave her in our agency's care center for around 3 months until the US Embassy clears us to bring her home. Then we will travel to Ethiopia for a second time and go get her!

Clear as mud, right?! Hopefully this helps answer a lot of the questions we have been getting about when we will actually get her home:) The super condensed version is that we will hopefully get matched up with a baby girl in the next few months, wait 3 more months to go to Ethiopia to adopt her (but not bring her home), wait 3 more months for the US Embassy to clear us to GO GET HER!

I appreciate everyones questions and sweet encouragement more than you know. I love knowing that people are interested in what it takes to bring our baby girl home. We are so blessed to have so many supportive people in our lives who are bathing us in prayer and who have chosen to give financially as well.

MERRY CHRISTMAS from our family to yours!

Merry Christmas from the Kohout's! 

This year, Christmas cards were not on the to do list. I have been completed swamped in paperwork for our adoption and try to get our dossier complete and sent to Ethiopia before the end of the year. So the thought of Christmas cards this year, was a little overwhelming:) We have been so blessed this year and seen the Lord work in amazing ways in our lives...especially as we have entered our adoption journey. We are so thankful for the support we have received from our dear family and friends! We are so excited to see what next year holds and the way the Lord is going to continue to show Himself! Next year in our Christmas picture, these sweet blue eyed boys will have their sister with them! 

Merry Christmas, 

Brian, Jana, Brody, and Levi

Why do I doubt?

When most people bring up adoption, finances are always brought up as well. Adoption is EXPENSIVE. There no other way to say it. We have heard countless adoption stories of how the Lord provided the perfect amount of money for people at just the right time. Hearing these stories makes me happy for these people that the Lord provided for them, but I doubted that something like that would happen to us. Sure, maybe we would be given money...but the PERFECT amount and the PERFECT time? Right. Well...it DID happen...to US! Why do I doubt that my God who loves me would choose to bless me in that way? We had to write a check this month for $5000. And yes...a check...no credit cards. We were scraping it together...literally. And stalling for as long as possible to send in the money. We really needed around $1500.

Brian went to the mailbox and started opening the mail (I was at my parents with the boys). He opened a card from a longtime friend of mine. A friend that I had recently been in contact with again, but really had not stayed in touch with for the past 10 years or so. This friend is newly married and I am sure could think of a million ways to spend their money. But the Lord prompted her and her husband to give...and they listened. In the mail, was a check for $1500. Brian called me with tears in his eyes (a rare occurrence) and told me. I was speechless, shaking, and in shock. That was the exact amount we needed! I didn't even have this friend's phone number to thank her "in person".  I seriously was going to have to send an email to thank someone who just blessed us like that?! When I tried to put into words what we were feeling...they were of course insufficient. But her words to me, have stuck like glue..... "No words are needed. It's all God's money anyways".   It is ALL His! The $30,000 we are going to spend to give an orphan a home....its GOD's....and THIS is how he has told us to use HIS money. Why would we choose to spend that amount of money on a child, when we can have biological children? Because one of God's dearly loved children is halfway across the world and has no one to love her....and He has asked us to go get her. We are so humbled and honored that Christ would call us to this great journey.

Home for the Holidays

I have been constantly reminded through this, that none of these fundraisers has anything to do with us....its has EVERYTHING to do with GOD and Him prompting people's hearts to give. We have been blown away by your generosity and how our family and friends are already loving on this little girl! I cannot wait to show her the names of the people that gave sacrificially and cared enough about her to help give her a home! "Thank you" does not even begin to voice how we are feeling. We are completely humbled at how you have blessed us! 

We had 348 entries for this fundraiser! WOW! The Lord has done so much in our hearts this month as we have seen donations come in. The generosity of others has confirmed again in our hearts that we are supposed to be doing this! And that the Lord is going ahead of us and providing for our every need!  Even though there were 348 entries, that does not include a very generous gift by someone that refused to be put in the drawing. This young family donated an amount that I'm sure could have been used for a million other things. The Lord prompted their hearts and they followed His leading! Again, this is all the LORD! Whether the gift was $5 or more, we were humbled by every donation that was given. The Lord used every giver and every donation to encourage us at just the right time. Through your gifts, we were able to conquer the first major financial hurdle (more on that to come). God has done so much and I know we will forever be changed by this journey and the generosity that you have shown.

Our Home Study

Last week we had our last interview for our home study. I was so intimidated by the home study process before we started! I imagined this mean little lady sitting across the table from us, asking all sorts of probing questions. When I walked into our first interview, my fears were immediately put to rest. Our social worker was our age, with kids the same ages as ours, so sweet, and someone I would be friends with. We enjoyed getting to know her throughout the interviews! The interviews were not what I expected....there were a lot of "get to know you questions", and a lot of questions about how we grew up and what our families were like. WHAT A BLESSING it was to get to say that ALL of our parents and grandparents are still married and to get to talk about what great homes we grew up in.

So now we wait until it the home study is written up and completed...hopefully just a few weeks.  Once it is completed we can start applying for grants AND send our dossier (lots of paperwork) to Ethiopia! Then we WAIT and wait and wait. Wait to get a referral and see her sweet picture, then wait for a court date, and then wait to go get her! Honestly though, I'm ready to wait. I know its not going to be easy...and I will become impatient, but while I am waiting I get to PLAN. Plan for a little girl to come into our home! I am so immersed in paperwork and what needs to happen next, that I haven't had time to really think about getting to plan for a little GIRL!  So, I'm excited about that:)

I am also so excited about getting to draw a name for who gets the "Home for the Holidays" gift basket! We will draw a name on Sunday. We have been completely overwhelmed at the generosity of our friends and family! We are so humbled at how the Lord is using people to bless us! I cannot wait to bless someone with lots of things for the holidays!