One Year Ago....

On October 10th, 2011, we sent in our first applications to start this journey. What a year it has been! A year where the Lord has taught us more about Himself and the Gospel than we ever could have imagined. A year of learning to trust the Lord when you have no control. A year full of highs and lows. A year of learning about how the Lord provides when you follow His calling. A year where we have learned about the amazing love and support of our family and friends. It has been a year we will never forget! And a year that we cannot wait to tell Aven about one day!

Our case was submitted and ACCEPTED to the US Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia this morning. Praise the Lord!!! What does that mean? That means that the Embassy will review our case and eventually clear us to come get her! We still dont know for sure when we will be going to get her. A few things will happen. We will get a couple more emails updated us on the progress of them reviewing our file. Then in a week or 2 they will more than likely schedule an interview with the person that found Aven when she was abandoned. The interview will take place probably 4 weeks from now. On the day of the interview we will get EITHER the "All clear" to come get her, or they will decide they need more information on her case and send her file to the USCIS office in Nairobi, Kenya. Usually that takes around 2 weeks to clear! So, our biggest prayer right now is that our file will not be sent to Nairobi. But most of all we are praying that the Embassy will clear us in record time! We are looking at 4-6 weeks more than likely. One of my sweet friends that has been walking this journey with me, was cleared by the Embassy last week after only one week and they did not request an interview with the "finder" of her child.....Just sayin'! It can be done! Who knows...maybe we will get the all clear in a week!  We are praying for each person that will look at our file! S

And lastly, Yesterday we got a call from an organization called Caroline's Promise. They are awarding us a grant of $2,500 towards our expenses to bring Aven home!! Praise God!

The Difference A Day Makes

Yesterday, was another hard day. I do well as long as I don't hear any updates on our case (as weird as that may sound). I think its because I can HOPE things are being done and that we are one day closer to have Aven home. When I get an update that things are not happening the way I would like them to, my hopes are dashed and it takes a day or two for me to begin "hoping in the Lord" again. Yesterday, we were told that it was going to be harder to get this report fixed than we initially thought. We were told that the Orphanage director from the original place that Aven was placed at just a few weeks old, would have to request that the report be reissued. So that would mean that our agency's staff in Ethiopia would have to talk to the orphanage director and have her talk to the police officer and have him issue the report. Ethiopia is SLOW. And that is a long line of people that have to get this done. Our agency director told us that he was considering hiring an investigator to go get this report for us since it looked as if it may be awhile. I still knew that by hiring an investigator we were looking at weeks before this is resolved. So yeah...not a good day yesterday.

THEN...TODAY....we receive an email that our report has been issued and is on its way to Addis to be translated and we will be submitted to the Embassy on Wednesday!! GOD WORKS!! Even when nobody knows it! I have been reminded time and time again throughout this journey that the Lord continues to work even when humans tell us otherwise!

PRAY PRAY PRAY that we are submitted to Embassy without a hitch on Wednesday and that our file is accepted!

September

September has come and gone so quickly! We stayed super busy with things like.......

Brody starting preschool again.....

one last beach trip.....

Weddings......

and a fun camping trip to the mountains with my parents....

 

The boys did great and loved all of the hiking, campfires, sleeping in the camper, and playing in the creeks. 

GOODBYE SEPTEMBER! HELLO OCTOBER!

Delay

I know that I have been quiet on the adoption front over the past few weeks. That's because there isn't much to say, unfortunately. Our case has stalled and I don't know when  it will pick back up. Hopefully this delay will only put us back a couple of weeks. Our file was ready to be submitted to the US Embassy to start the process for final clearance to bring her home....then a mistake was found in one of the reports literally hours before they handed our file over.  To me, this was so much worse....We had been told our file was going to be submitted so I was awake all hours of the night waiting for the Embassy to email me and tell me our file had been accepted. The email never came. Disspointed is an understatement.

Please pray with us that the person responsible for the mistake will fix the error SOON. Unfortunately, things in Ethiopia are SLOW. Nobody is in a rush to do anything. This error cannot be fixed by our agency...it has to be fixed by the specific person who wrote the original report when Aven was abandoned. So it will happen when he "gets around to it". Please pray that the Lord will prompt this person's heart to do it NOW. We know that although this is due to human error that our God is still sovereign over it all. Every day this report goes without being fixed, is one more day that we are without our daughter. Although a few weeks delay doesnt seem like much, when you are talking about the fact that we havent seen our daughter in 2 months, its an ETERNITY. We are asking the Lord to go before us in this! Thank you for praying with us!

Aven's Room

"Nine Months Pregnant"

I have never been so ready for a weekend to be over and a wednesday to get here. I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas....except I am afraid to get my hopes up and I am worried I will wake up to no gifts under the tree. Wednesday morning before the sun rises here in the U.S. we will hopefully receive an email from the US Embassy that says they have accepted our file and they will begin reviewing it for final clearance to bring Aven HOME! Needless to say, I probably won't sleep good that night and will be tossing and turning checking my email every hour. Our submission to Embassy (hopefully this wednesday) means we could be clear to bring her home in 4-6 weeks! We are praying for sooner, of course!

You know how in the ninth month of pregnancy you don't sleep a wink? You are so uncomfortable its impossible to sleep! Well, here we are in the "ninth month" (actually 12th month) of our "paper pregnancy". I will not be sleeping well from here on out. The US Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia starts their work day at 1:00 a.m. our time. So emails are usually received in the middle of the night. Forgive me if I am exhausted until I get that coveted email that tells us to come get our girl.......

Final Piece

And we have a medical report!! The last and final document needed! Our file is now complete and will be submitted to the US Embassy next wednesday! The Embassy only accepts files on Wednesdays, so I have to admit i was a little bit bummed when my adoption coordinator said we wouldn't be submitted tomorrow. I am still going to pray that we miraculously get submitted tomorrow, but am praising the Lord that we are almost a month ahead of schedule in the timeline that we were originally given. Whether its tomorrow or next wedneday, the Lord has had his hand all over this process and we are so grateful that Aven will be home SOON! Obviously we still have no clue when exactly, but we should be cleared to go get her within 4-6 weeks! And then its just a matter buying plane tickets and jumping on a plane as soon as we can:)