DeAndrea Adoption

Being a waiting family is kind of a strange thing... an unusual combination of feelings. On the one hand we don't wish for ANY kids to be orphaned.... but on the other hand we're looking forward to welcoming a child with love into our family.

We had hoped that we might have some word or referral by Christmas. It's currently 10:12 PM on Christmas day... I don't think it's gonna happen. Stephanie from Holt told me as much when I called earlier this week but we can't help but hope... maybe by the end of the year, huh? :)

So the baby we're focusing on today is Jesus. Merry Christmas and thank you so much for your prayers and support for our adoption. We'll continue to pray and wait for the Lord's perfect timing in all of this. God bless!

May your best day of 2008 be your worst day of 2009.

Well, as of today I think we are #2 in line for a referral for a baby. It's getting exciting. Our adoption agency said they wouldn't be making any more referrals until 2009, but they've made 2 this week for infants! We would love to have a referral by Christmas...what a Christmas present! We are also excited for our friends, Amy and David, who are in China right now picking up their new girl. I love this adventure called adoption!

We received an email update from our agency yesterday that stated they won't be referring any more children until 2009. BUMMER! We were sure hoping to get matched before Christmas. David gently reminded me that we are not waiting on man, we're waiting on the Lord. His timing is perfect. He has just the right baby for us. I'm going to hang onto that today and continue to pray for patience and contentment. Phil. 4:11 says "...for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content..." That's my prayer today.

It's been a month since we've posted on this blog and not much else has happened on our adoption. We are third in line for an infant, so our referral could happen at any time. We are all getting very anxious/excited to get the call from our adoption agency. We will definitely let everyone know as soon as we get the referral. Thanks for following along on this incredible journey. Psalm 68:6 says, "God sets the lonely in families..." We are so excited to be one of those families. Please keep us in your prayers!

We just got back from a special Orphans Night Dinner that our friends helped us organize. The hope was to encourage Christians in our community to consider how they could do something for orphans. We had speakers talk about orphan care, adoption, and foster care. Our keynote speaker was David LeCompte, a missionary with Missions International based in Colorado Springs. He started an orphanage in war-torn Chechnya in the 90s and now does work in Iraq, Sudan, West Bank, and Egypt. (I think he's scheduled to be on Focus on the Family at the end of the month, but we had him first!) It turned out to be a fantastic night and many people were encouraged and challenged. Even if only one child gets helped or adopted because of tonight... it will be worth all the work it took to put it together! James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

We are still waiting to get the exciting call from our agency with a child for our family. We are praying for patience...can you pray for us too? This seems to be the hardest time for us yet...waiting to see the child God has chosen for us. In the meantime we are keeping busy planning our community "Orphan Night" this Saturday. We are bringing in guest speakers and resources on orphan care, adoption, and foster care. Our prayer is that others in our community will have a desire to care for orphans in some way. We are not all called to adopt, but we are all called by God to do something for orphans. Our prayer is that this will be a start to something really big in our community. Thanks for praying with us.

Thank you to Shaohannah's Hope, a ministry created by Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman, which helps families financially adopt. We just received a letter in the mail today letting us know we are receiving a $3,000 grant to help with our adoption. Praise the Lord! We are again humbled and blessed to receive help for our adoption. We could not be doing this without the help of others. We can't wait to someday share with our child how God provided so much to bring them to us. God has a special plan for this baby...we can't wait to be a part of it.

We are humbled and amazed at how God is providing for our adoption! My friend, Becky, organized a garage sale this weekend to benefit our adoption. So many of our friends donated items and came and helped organize the mass amount of stuff. We put an ad in our local paper, but they forgot to put our address in the first night, so David called and got it worked out. The next night, not only did they forget our address again, but now also had the wrong dates! We decided to pray that God would bring the people to our garage sale because obviously, the paper wasn't going to. So, here we are, Sunday night, and Becky told me we made around $1,500!!! I think that's a pretty good garage sale! We also had a church BBQ today which turned out to be a VERY HOT event! I think it was over 100 degrees...that's very hot for us coastal people! Anyway, one of our friends let us know that she is going to gift us her airline miles. She used to work for a mission organization and took many trips and has many miles saved. She says she has enough miles for us to both go all the way to Ethiopia and back. PTL! That will save us almost $5,000!! We gathered our kids together tonight to pray and thank the Lord once again for all His blessings in our lives. We started this journey of faith 7 months ago with $200 to apply to our agency. In the world's view it is a very bad time economically to be embarking on a $22,000 adventure with no savings towards it and not willing to get into debt for it. But when we felt God directing us so strongly that you can't get it out of your head, you've got to just take that step of faith and jump out without seeing how it's going to all work together. I'm so glad we did! I can't wait to see what He has in store for us next!

FINALLY! My fingerprints clear and we received our I171-H Approval Notice today in the mail. I sent it off to Holt and we are ready for the next step...REFERRAL! Thank you to everyone who prayed for us through this funny, yet frustrating step in the adoption process. We are now ready to be matched with a child. YIPEE!

We just got word from our adoption agency that we are #6 in line. It seems a miracle since we still do not have clearance from Immigration because of my worn off fingerprints. Please pray that our approval comes quickly! We also got word this week from Lifesong for Orphans that our friends and family have given more than enough for the matching grant. AWESOME! It is very exciting, yet humbling to see how God is working everything out for this adoption. This weekend, with the help of one of my best buddies, we are having a garage sale to help with adoption costs. We still need about $9,000 but it doesn't seem like much since we're down from $22,500!! Praise the Lord! I think this little baby is going to be special to a lot of people...so many have helped in so many ways! Thank you everyone.

Long story short... we received notice that Kristen's fingerprints were not clear enough to pass the test...again. So last week she had to go to Coquille to have them taken yet again and the very kind woman working at the office tried her best (even worked up a sweat) trying to get Kristen's prints as clear as possible.
I'm beginning to wonder if my wife may have worked for M.I.B., had her prints removed, returned to civilian life and wiped my mind clean with one of those flashy things. :)
Travelling to Coquille isn't so bad... but we have to go to Portland once again because she (Kristen)needs to sign a paper in front of the officials at the Homeland Security office. The prints have been sent off to the State Police for clearance and once we receive all the documents back we send them to the Homeland Security office.
The deadline for being part of the matching grant (see post below) is September 17th. Thank you for prayerfully considering us in this.

Feb. 12th - Application sent into Holt
May 20th - Home Study Complete
June 20th - Dossier sent in
July 23rd - Fingerprinting
August 8th - Mom fingerprinting again because it didn't work the first time. We might get matched with a child next month, and we might have our baby in December or January. Please pray for us!

One of the exciting things that our family is a part of right now, besides adopting, is helping to start an Orphans Ministry at our church. We first got the idea last November from a radio program called Money Matters from Crown Financial. They had a couple guest speakers, including Jason Weber, who wrote a book called "Launching an Orphans Minstry in Your Church". We ordered the book that day and it has started an exciting journey for our family. If you are interested in starting this kind of ministry at your church, I highly recommend getting this book. God is not asking all of us to adopt, but He is asking all of us to do something for orphans.

Lifesong for Orphans is a ministry dedicated to helping orphans be placed into Christian homes. They have graciously given us a $3,000 matching grant! They will match donations up to $3,000 for our adoption... and any money given above that amount is still tax-deductible and will go toward our adoption. 100% of your donation goes toward the adoption of our child! We estimate our total cost for adoption fees, document preparation, home study, airfare, travel, agency fees, program fees, etc. to be $22,500... and at this point we still need $18,500.

It seems like a lot to us... but nothing compared to the price that was paid so that we could be adopted into God's family. Namely, the life of Jesus.

We know that where God guides, He provides. Would you please prayerfully consider whether He would like to use you in making this provision for the adoption of this child from Ethiopia?

The matching grant is only available for a limited time... until September 17, 2008. You can send your tax-deductible donation via check made payable to:

Lifesong for Orphans
PO Box 40
202 N. Ford Street
Gridley, IL 61744

Please write "DeAndrea Adoption" in the memo section of your check.

Thanks and God bless!

http://www.lifesongfororphans.org/

*Note: In following IRS guidelines, your donation is to Lifesong for Orphans who retain full discretion and control over its use.

Last week when we went to Portland to get fingerprinted, the official had a hard time with me because he said my fingerprints were so worn. I told him I needed him to go tell my husband I've been working too hard and need a maid! We got a good laugh about it. When we got home I was telling a friend at swim lessons about it and she said she read that a sign of low thyroid is worn fingerprints! I'd never heard of that, but those of you that know me know I've had troubles with my thyroid. I thought that was a funny connection...until today. Today I received a notice from the government that they couldn't process my fingerprints and now I have to go back to Portland next week and do it all over again. UGH! I sure hope they'll be able to see them better this time!!

A few years ago we went to a concert to see the Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman. His family had adopted two children from China at that time. After him showing videos about his adoption, I knew that I definitely thought we should adopt. I kept telling my parents I wanted to adopt a baby. Then, we were considering adopting an infant from China. After lots of prayer, Mom and Dad decided that we were fine just the way we were with only three kids. Last December, we got a newsletter from our friends that they are going to adopt two boys from Haiti. After that, we thought more and more about adoption. My parents read some books about orphans and we knew that God wanted us to adopt a child from Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in the world. We have already sent in our Dossier in June, and we are extremely excited to help God's children! After talking with our Pastor, my parents decided to start an orphans ministry in our church. The kids in Sunday School (including me) and the Junior Highers can donate their change for orphans and know that they're making a difference in these orphans' lives.
In John 14:18 it says: I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
We were like orphans, and God adopted us into his family. If you cannot adopt yourself, you can help others to adopt. And you can pray that God will place each one of these treasures in a Christian family that will raise the child to love God.

One year ago we decided we were done having children and gave away all our baby things...but God had different plans!
Last November, after hearing a radio program about starting an orphans ministry, we knew God was calling us to do something for orphans. In early December we met with our Pastor and talked about our desire to organize this type of ministry at our church. As we read books about orphans, researched ways to help, and searched the Bible for what God says, we became more and more convinced we were to consider adoption personally.
On February 12th we sent in our adoption application to Holt International. We told them we were open to the country with the biggest need and quickest processing time. They had just opened a program in Ethiopia and the need for families for millions of orphans, due to AIDS and poverty, is overwhelming. We knew this was the program for us.
Our home study was completed in May, our Dossier sent to Holt in June, and now we're waiting on our I71H and a referral. We'd love to have you follow along with us on the this exciting journey!