Christmas

These last few months I've been saying, with some confidence, that the boys could be home in the fall. At this point, and still waiting for dispensation, that isn't realistic anymore. I realize God can do anything and he is capable of moving our paperwork through quickly. However, based on how every other family is moving through the process and based on their pace, it's looking more like very late 2013.

At this point we are praying that the boys will be home by Christmas. I didn't think we could be cutting it so close but now it is looking that way and it is discouraging.

If anyone is reading this and believes in the power of prayer, would you please pray with us that our boys will be home for Christmas?

Still waiting.....

Our paperwork entered IBESR in mid October and we have been waiting for Presidential Dispensation ever since. This signature from the President of Haiti is all we need to move forward with our process. We will then move onto Court, when we will travel again and go through the legal proceedings in Haiti. Then we will wait some more for visas for the boys from the US. Our hope and prayer is that the boys would be home this fall!

Tonight there will be an event to benefit our adoption. It will be held at a local jewelry shop called Dear Pru in the Gaslight Village. Noonday Collection jewelry will be set up there, with proceeds from their sales going toward our adoption. All of their jewelry is Fair Trade, made by women around the world to empower them and give opportunity for sustaining their families. They have some beautiful jewelry, unique and precious. Dear Pru also has wonderful jewelry as well, some of it made locally.
We had the chance to go on a radio show on Wednesday morning and also go on FOX tv this morning to tell our story and promote the event. We are so incredibly grateful for these amazing opportunities!

Remembering Jivenson

Mallery and Frentz brought this over to our home to show us before they took it to Haiti. A group at our church had this made to be placed where Jivenson's ashes were buried in Haiti, next to the orphanage. What a beautiful tribute it is. It was placed there on his birthday, October 26th, when he would have turned 3.

Guerlens is 2!

Yesterday was Guerlens 2nd birthday. I could not help but remember his last birthday, his first birthday that was spent with us.

It was so precious, special and unique. It makes my heart feel a bit heavy but truly I genuinely feel grateful. I'm so grateful for all the firsts we had with him! For an International adoption, we had a very rare and wonderful experience. We've got nothing else but to look forward to all the birthdays when we will be all together.

We were able to Skype yesterday while the boys finished their dinner then got cake and Guerlens opened a present. The girls wanted to make a cake for Guerlens so they ate their cake while the boys ate theirs. It was a virtual birthday party.

Adoption wise we are at a stand still, still waiting for Presidential Dispensation, telling us we can move forward with a court date. There are so many steps left in this process that it feels discouraging sometimes. We still hold out hope and prayers that they could be home by next fall. This is how I'm praying, for fall.

Still Here

I lost touch of my blog for a while when I changed some sign-in settings. I was so worried that I'd lost it and so thankful that I was able to recover it.

Near the end of September, our dossier finally arrived back at our agency, after months of circulating through many different hands. Haiti was in the midst of making law changes, changes that are going to be good but they seemingly put our adoption in jeopardy and we were worried. Well I was worried...faith is not my spiritual gift! Haiti was going to stop accepting dossiers under the old laws at some point and implemented a deadline. The way our paperwork was going, we would not make that deadline. Then a miracle! They extended the deadline, they offered grace to the families scrambling and praying that a miracle would take place because that was the only alternative left. Kevin was invited to Haiti for work on a project HFAP was doing. The week he was traveling our dossier arrived at our home so that he could transport it to Haiti himself. After he landed in PAP, they drove to the lawyers office and he laid in on her desk. Relief.


And now, we wait. We still have about $5,000 to raise plus travel. We have done multiple fundraisers this fall. They've been such a gift and people have been so beautiful and generous!
We pray for provision for the rest....knowing that somehow it will come. We know that because we are working hard for it and we've seen too much of God's hand moving in our lives to doubt it.


This holiday season has been emotional for me. One, because a third of our family is in another country and two, because we had one of them in our arms last Christmas. There is no way to not feel that pain....if i didn't feel it I'd be worried.
Again, I see and feel how the inexplicable connection that adoption creates is only possible because, I believe, God writes the story.


These stories do not always have the endings we plan, our family knows that all too well. Honestly, finding the ability to praise Him despite that still proves difficult for me sometimes, even now.
But without Him, I always, always come to the end of myself and that is a very cold and empty place to be.


So we continue to wait and trust and look forward to the next year. We pray 2013 will be the year our boys come home and that next Christmas, there will be 6 of us around the Christmas tree:)
Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Sponsorship need!

Every child at Hope House has multiple sponsors. It is how HFAP provides 24 hour care for each of the children, in a country where food/supplies can be outrageously expensive. Our boys have had sponsors, in addition to a monthly payment we send that is equal to a typical international adoption's In-Country expenses. They have us pay monthly instead of in one lump sum.

We just found out that 4 families who sponsored the boys needed to drop sponsorship, 2 sponsors for each of our boys. The cost goes to us. HFAP encourages adopting families in this situation to find sponsors through friends and family.

It is difficult to ask anymore of those who already support us so beautifully. However we do feel that we need to put it out there and make the need known.

So here is the need: we need 4 sponsors to pay $30 per month, $120 per month, total.

We have experienced God using people in our lives, and those we don't even know, to provide where we thought it impossible.

We are trusting in His provision and we are doing all we can to just get our boys home so we can provide for them in our own home.

Our dossier is very close to being done on the US side and actually getting to Haiti. We are praying over our dossier and timing! Right now that is all we can do. Could you please join us?

Anonymous

Last week my parents, brother and sister in law came to stay with us. It was the first time my brother and his wife have ever been to MI and it was an amazing week! One of the wonderful things we were able to do was to Skype with Caleb and Guerlens...my family was able to "meet" both of our boys and it was awesome! Caleb waved and smiled at seeing them and said Grandma and Grandpa..it was precious. Ging was his busy little self and gave us some great smiles and showed us his continuous love of eating:) Technology can be a magical thing!

We also received our immigration approval from the USCIS! Woohoo!

On Saturday afternoon, Kev opened the mail first and in it was a money order for $200! There was a short note that said "To bring your boys home!! Love In Jesus" Anonymous. I felt overwhelmed holding such a gift from someone we can never thank. And it's obvious that they don't want verbal thanks from us...so instead, as I'm sure they would hope, we gave thanks to our Father. In my hand was an extension of Him...this note was written by someone who is part of the body of Christ...and it felt like church, not "going" to church but someone was the church. And we are grateful.