Our Father LOVES adoption!

If there was ever any doubt in your mind, whether or not the Lord loves adoption...just take a look at our story.  The Lord is providing for this adoption in ways we never could have imagined! If you go over to our "How you can help" Page (link is at the top), you will see that our fundraising thermometer has made quite a jump overnight:)

Yesterday, I was on my lunch break from work with a friend. We were driving back to work, and I almost caused her to wreck with the SCREAM that erupted from my mouth! I recieved an email from the JSC Foundation informing me that we had been chosen for an adoption grant of $11, 600! We applied for 2 different grants and were not expecting to hear anything back until the middle of February. I called Brian (who had not seen the email yet) and my mom, both of them not quite sure what I was screaming about at first.  I was literally shaking for about 3 hours after that.....which is not great if you were one of my dental hygiene patients:) We were not expecting anywhere close to that amount. We were hoping to get SOMETHING.....in my mind I was hoping for maybe $5,000....but I was still just hoping for ANYTHING.

I had started to fill out an application a couple of weeks ago for an interest-free adoption loan. But then,  Brian and I had a conversation last week about how we both just felt that we were not going to need a loan. The Lord has continuously provided for us EVERY time we have needed money in this process and we were confident he would continue to do that again! Brian told me that he felt by applying for a loan, we were saying WE could do this. WE can eventually pay off the loan. In the back of my mind, Satan kept telling me that we needed to have that loan ready on the back burner, IF the Lord did not provide. But Brian and I did not feel a peace about applying for the loan. Thank you, Lord for providing!

When we receive our referral (get matched with a baby girl) we will write a check for $10,000.  That check has been looming in front of us. That is a huge chunk of money! Donations have been coming in left and right from our dear family and friends who have chosen to take part in Brian's sister's fundraiser. She sent out bags for people to collect change in for the next few months to go towards this part of our journey. She challenged 100 people to give $100. Alot of people have not been taking the 3 months to save up the money though....every few days we get a check in the mail for $100. Its been amazing to see the Lord work in this!

Through all of our fundraisers, our family and friends have donated $6,927!! And donations are still coming in....PRAISE THE LORD! We are ALMOST THERE! All of our funds add up to $23, 527 and we will need close to $30,000. That seemed so far out of reach even just yesterday morning, but we are close! God is using our family and friends to bless us like crazy!

CHANGE a life

When my sweet sister-in-love found out about our adoption, she began saving her change. She got her kids in on it and over the last few months have been saving any spare change they had in a container labeled "For our new cousin".  At Christmas my little niece and nephew gave me the container filled with all of the change. Along with the change was the cutest little headband for our baby girl...the first present we have received for her and the first bow to ever enter our house, haha! 

This gift was so emotional for me. I didnt care if the change they had collected amounted to five dollars. There was just something so sweet about all of those pennies, quarters, and dimes. To know that everytime they had put money in our container, they had thought of their new cousin. To know that every penny was put there purposefully for her. These are the things that make this journey so sweet. The thoughtfulness of our family and friends. 

As we sat at the kitchen table counting the change and putting them into money rolls, my sister-in-love told me that she wanted others to be a part of this and that she would like to send out letters to our friends and family asking them to start saving their change for the next few months. Along with the letter is a bag you can place somewhere for you to remember to drop your spare change in. Some of you have received the letter and bag in the past few days. If you have not, and would like to be a part of this, please let me know!

Like I said before, there is something so incredibly sweet to me about this. Even if your change amounts to a few dollars at the end of a few months, know that that few dollars means the world to us to know that you thought of our daughter each time you placed a penny in the bag. Those pennies will change her life!

"Now Watch This...."

When we started this month's Great Wolf Lodge Fundraiser, I had in my mind how much money I would like to make from it. Now please don't get me wrong....there is never any disappointment in the number of donations we receive. We rejoice over every dollar given! 

When it came time to close the giveaway, we were about $335 short of what I had in my mind. There was absolutely no reason or logic behind the amount I had picked....it was just a number.  After we had chosen a winner for the giveaway,  the very next evening we received a donation for ......yes, $335! 

There was no reason for the Lord to bless us in that way...afterall, it was just a number I had in my head. I cant help but wonder, if the Lord placed that number in my head just so he could show me, ONCE AGAIN, that he is in control of this journey. And that HE is the one that prompts peoples hearts to give......random amounts and all:)

It is in moments like this that I am convinced God likes to show off:) I can just picture Him up in heaven saying, "Now watch this!"

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