Skaggs Family

A long overdue post!

So many precious people have asked about our journey and so many of you have joined us in prayer and even given financially. We are so thankful for each of you and Even though I fail terribly at updating you all, I do want to share the process with you!

Last week we received 1800 Approval, which is basically the US government saying yes he's ours and yes he will be a US citizen when he's officially adopted! Praises!! We are now on the tail end of the waiting game. Few more steps (including visa applications  - hurry home home from Haiti Trey  so I can mail off our passports! 😂) then we wait for travel approval and appointment dates! Getting so real.

Few specific prayer requests:

1) that we receive TA quickly! We want him home now! :)

2) for Jones and Anna Joy. Their worlds are going to be turned upside down. They are excited, but the magnitude of it all is so unknown.  And also for them (and for my family who will be caring for them) while we are in China.

3) I don't think I've shared this with too many, but Will is not speaking. He turned 4 in November. The cause is unknown, but his creator is so known. We know that we serve a God who is powerful and more than able. We are claiming a miracle! BUT if he never speaks, we know that God's strength through us is stronger than any disability or hurdle. Pray that we are able to get him in the correct school, in appropriate therapies and seeing the  doctors that he needs. As my sweet pastor and friend says - do not underestimate power of love! We are prayerfully optimistic that Will just needs intervention and a loving family to learn to speak. Join me in praying that as well?

4) for Trey's seminary professors to be gracious. He really needs to graduate from this 4 year seminary thing in May. Ha! Traveling to China for two weeks in the middle of his final semester will require gracious professors and lots of prayer.

5) For all of our hearts as we prepare to become a family of 5. We are praying for bonding and attachment to happen for us all quickly, while also being honest with ourselves of the possible reality.

6) For Will.  Adoption is the result of loss, and Will will experience yet another form of loss when we adopt him. He is currently in a foster home where he is attached to his caregiver as well as his foster brother. We will be taking him from the only country and language he knows. I know joy comes in the morning, but that heartbreaking loss is not lost on me.

I am currently loving this song. In my mind this weekend, I started singing "I'm no longer a slave to fear, Will is a child of God."  That one line brings so much peace to me. I know that God created Will and there is such purpose in his life - what do I have to fear?

Here is the link. I love it.
https://youtu.be/f8TkUMJtK5k


Thanks, friends! We are so overjoyed.

I'm almost daily asked about our adoption process and status. And I'm really thankful for this! I'm also reminded how bad I am about updating blog. So I wanted to do a quick post.

The two most frequent questions I hear are:

1) "How much longer?"

I wish I knew. We were officially logged in to the CCCWA on May 2. We could receive a referral in the next 5 minutes, or it could take months. (As a result I check my email like a crazy person)

It is heartbreaking, but I know Gods timing is not my timing and His ways are not my ways. We have had some tough bumps in the road, and I'm sure there are more ahead. I have cried many, many tears. At one particularly rough spot a few weeks ago, I read this and it really hit home for me:

"When you say YES to adoption, you are saying YES to enter the suffering of the orphan, and that suffering includes WAITING FOR YOU TO GET TO THEM. I promise you, their suffering is worse than yours. We say YES to the tears, YES to the longing, YES to the maddening process, YES to the money, YES to hope, YES to the screaming frustration of it all, YES to going the distance through every unforeseen discouragement and delay. Do not imagine that something outside of "your perfect plan" means you heard God wrong. There is NO perfect adoption. EVERY adoption has snags. We Americans invented the "show me a sign" or "this is a sign" or "this must mean God is closing a door" or "God must not be in this because it is hard," but all that is garbage. You know what's hard? Being an orphan. They need us to be champions and heroes for them, fighting like hell to get them home. So we will. We may cry and rage and scream and wail in the process, but get them home we will." --Jen Hatmaker


So I may continue to cry and rage and scream, but we are praying  Ollie is home this fall. Obviously it's all out of our hands.


2) "Can I still help?"

We have been blown away by friends and complete stranger's sweet spirit and generous hearts! The answer is yes! My friend Christina Devillier Collins started a puzzle piece fundraiser several months ago and there are still lots of unpurchased pieces.  Pieces are $10 each.  Let me know if you want info.

We knew when we started this process that it was more than we could ever do on our own. And let me tell you, God has shown out big time in His provision. It is humbling (and at first embarrassing) to feel so strongly about a calling  but knowing that we would have to trust fully on Him to provide financially and learn to accept help from others. It has been and will continue to be a humbling and faith-stretching experience.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

I can't wait to post an update with a picture of Ollie!

We proofed our final home study! 

We had our first fundraiser on Halloween morning to help bring Ollie home! We started collecting items months ago for our sale and I felt like we were never going to find a weekend that worked for us.  The last Saturday of the month, plus rain, plus Halloween was not the recipe for a great garage sale BUT the Lord showed up and showed out!! We deposited just over $2,000 in our adoption account today! Praise God! We had no expectations, but I will say that blew any thought of an expectation out of the water.  There was a HUGE turnout for donations during the weeks leading up the the sale and a HUGE line at the door when we got there Saturday morning.  Could not be more thankful!

It was a lot of work, but so worth it.  I am, however, happy that it is behind me! It took my mom and I over 8 hours on Friday to get all of the sale items out and organized in the church gym.  And we didn't even price a single thing! Thankfully, Friday afternoon a sweet church lady helped us for a few hours - so thankful for extra hands! My sister took the kids to Starkville for a slumber party, which was another huge relief. So many reasons to be thankful for the whole weekend.

One lesson learned: garage sale people are a serious group of people.  These folks are pros!

The setting up process.  Whew!

Every day is one step closer to having her home.  I keep reminding myself of that!  Right now we are in a waiting period.  Our agency is still waiting on our child abuse report to come in from Jackson.  Apparently they are not always the fastest people around.  And then last week we got word that our FBI background checks, along with our two money orders, are MIA.  I am trying not to panic.  I have all of my receipts and copies of literally everything, so I am praying for the best! My worker told me she would call me as soon as they find out something more.  Telling myself it is just a minor bump in a long, very bumpy road. We have read and reviewed our home study, we just need those final two documents from the third parties then we are off to start the dossier!

A rainy actual Halloween plus pure exhaustion from the garage sale that morning meant that Halloween night was celebrated by early bedtimes for all of us and zero trick-or-treaters! It was kind of a bust, but thankfully the kids never knew...they had celebrated Halloween all week!


We started on the Sunday before with our annual Fall Festival block party with our church, St. Paul's, and Annunciation Catholic Church.  It is always so fun. This was the first year that I had a part of the planning and implementation of it, but thankfully it was stress-free since the others girls were old pros at pulling off the great event.



Both of the kids had parties at their school.  I don't have any from Anna Joy's party. She only goes two days a week and I worked the day of the party, so I didn't get a chance to snap any.

I was able to go to Jones' class party that morning.  That afternoon the younger grades trick-or-treated to the middle school kids.  God bless teachers.  That is all.

Top: Jones' class with his middle school buddies Bottom: Frankenstein Jones and his two fabulous teachers in their costumes

I wanted to go to Trick or Treat on the The Row at MSU on Thursday, but Jones had a soccer game that night.  (Is it bad that I am happy soccer season is almost over? Mother of the year.)  Anyway, the kids never knew they were actually in bed before 7:00 pm on Halloween without once seeing their costumes that day. Plus we have enough candy to last us until 2017, so all is well.

I love seeing all of the cute and creative costumes. I am not a huge fan of Halloween (strangers at my door? I panic.) but I do love a costume.  Maybe next year I will look like something other than a worn out crazy mama!

I feel like I say this all of the time...where do the days go? I swear we started school yesterday and here we are at the end of October.

It has been a busy, fun month. Jones has been busy with soccer games this month, and is actually improving! Last night he even won MVP and a toy plane from his coach.  He was so proud! I wasn't able to go to the game, but he told me all about it.  Hopefully he will hustle next game so I can see and not, ummm, swing from the goals like he sometimes does.

He had a field trip to the Buffalo Park a couple of weeks ago.  I loved being able to go with his class and seeing him interact with his friends.   He begged for me to ride the school bus with him instead of taking my car.  I know those days are coming to end and one day I won't be cool to him, so I rode the school bus to Tupelo with a bus full of sweet, smelly kindergartners.  It was fun!


We snuck away to the beach last week thanks to some sweet friends. It was the first time the 4 of us have ever gone on vacation alone, so it was extra special.  Half way through the week, Trey's family joined us. It was so much fun and the weather was absolutely perfect.  October may be my new favorite beach month.  So not crowded and so gorgeous.  Take me back now!

The only minor set back was the stomach bug hit Jones the day before we left for the beach and hit Anna Joy on day 2 at the beach.  Both were feeling great by the 3rd day!

I did have to make a Publix run for stomach bug necessities.  I snapped a picture and sent it to Trey saying this run to the Publix at the beach looks very, very different from every other Publix beach run.  Bless.

recipe for beach fun.

I have to post this picture comparison of our blood work for the home study.  They were taken weeks ago, but I think it's hilarious and want them documented!  Trey's blood work was one of the last things we completed in our home study because the sweet man cannot stand blood, needles or doctors.  This took a lot of pep talk and a promise of ice cream! Here he is holding our sweet Pediatrician's hand while having blood drawn.  The hilarious nurse in the picture gave him some candy and a sticker afterwards.  He had his done at the pediatricians office, mine done at my sister's office.  So hilarious to me. (but I didn't get candy or stickers.)


Speaking of home study, we are done with our portion! Praise God! We are just waiting on one last third party agency to sign off on one document.  The waiting begins! I get so frustrated - just sign it, people in Jackson, and send it back to the agency!!! But I have to remind myself that our home study was actually completed super, super fast and this is just one step of many before Ollie can come home.  Patience...

If you are in the area, come out next Saturday morning to our garage sale fundraiser! Not the ideal date (end of the month and Halloween), but we are hoping for the best.  This was literally the only weekend this semester that worked, so we are going for it!  It will be in the FUMC Columbus gym starting at 7:00 am.  Lots of great items donated by a lot of precious families!

Other than that, we are just rocking along.  Anna Joy started to go to school two mornings a week, I work at the church one day a week, Jones is loving Kindergarten, and Trey is working and studying like a maniac.  Full time seminary, full time ministry, full time daddy, and full time husband.  Not for the faint of heart.  I am tired just trying to keep up with his schedule.  Some days (most days) I feel like we are ships passing through the night, but I tell myself almost daily that "this is a season!" and I really am thankful for it, even on the hard days!

Trey is away this weekend leading a Hattiesburg church's fall retreat, which means I am ignoring all of the house work, paper work, etc. that needs to be done and blogging! ;)  But now I feel a bit caught up!

Jones and his character pumpkin school project - Big bad wolf and the three little pigs

Swinging at the pumpkin patch...our favorite fall activity!

Typical night at our house....

even while on vacation!

A couple of kid things I don't want to forget:

1) Anna Joy still has accidents some days. The other day she didn't make it to the potty in time and looked up at Trey and said "that make you sad?" (her favorite saying....) to which Trey responded "yes! It does make me sad!" Anna Joy then patted him on the arm , shrugged her shoulders and said "Well, it will be alright" and walked off.  She is a mess!

2) Jones has started saying really sweet, hear-felt prayers at night.  For a while when he was praying it was the same thing every night, almost rehearsed.  Now they vary night to night and really seem to be coming from his heart.  He prays for Ollie almost every night but one night last week he added "Please be with the workers loving Ollie now.  And be with the children in Haiti.  Just be with all the children." Amen, sweet boy.

First of all, the amount of love and support we have received since announcing our adoption journey has been absolutely overwhelming.  We are already blown away by God's provision and people's sweet generosity.  I even had a sweet (and bold) friend post something on Facebook about how we all had $30 to give and collectively, we know 1,000 people.  Done! If only that easy! :)I am so grateful for my wonderful support group.

Here are some upcoming ways that you can help bring Ollie home:

We have a yard sale coming up at the end of October in Columbus, my sisters and mom will be hosting a Noonday fundraising show with our famous and fabulous ambassador, Laura Walton, and another sweet friend pointed me to the direction of an awesome candle fundraiser that can go on starting now until Ollie is home! Check back here for details. I will post as soon as I have them all nailed down!

I have also received another amazing fundraising offer from a local business.  Again - blown away. God is so good!!

Here are some highlights, or not, from the past few days....

At the park with Snow White.

Friday started out rough for my little (big) man.  He had some blood work done several weeks ago that suggested he had some pretty bad allergies, so we were referred to an allergist for additional testing.  I would say he is allergic!!

Most of his worst allergies are environmental, so I have been doing all I can to get our house healthy for him using the doctor's recommendations.  His very worst allergy is every type of grass! (Bubble Boy, anyone?) That's a little upsetting to me since Jones is all boy all the time and loves the outdoors. We are hoping daily medication, daily nasal spray and weekly shots will have this boy feeling 100% in no time.  I am just praying I never have to use that Epipen they gave me! Also super thankful for answers.  We have been dealing with derms and other doctors for over a year now.

I felt so sorry for his rough morning that we ended doctor's visit with a new dino and ice cream at the new candy store in Starkville.  Local people MUST check out Hollis' Sweet Shop.  Super cute and a fun addition to downtown!

Not allergic to sugar

And I have been hesitant to post this, but I think it's safe to say that Anna Joy is officially potty trained. She has even gotten over her fear of other bathrooms, and will use other potties, not just her own.  She picked out an Elsa doll weeks ago and it has been sitting on the counter unopened waiting for her to be full trained. She got the doll today after three days of zero accidents, including all day at church and a couple of hours in the gym day care.  Amen and Amen!

Oh, hello, Creepy Elsa doll

So this afternoon we get home from carpool during a rain storm and Jones walks in the house ahead of me and says "Ummm...it's raining in the kitchen too." Not what I wanted to hear! And not just one leak. No. A constant downpour on one half of the kitchen.  On our freshly painted walls, on our adoption paperwork, all over Trey's new records, and in our cabinet with dry goods.

I started to cry.  BIG TEARS.  Because sometimes I just cannot adult any longer.

Thankfully all of our adoption papers were in page protectors and had minimum damage (and backed up on computer), we were able to salvage most of our pantry goods, and the walls have minimum bubbling.  Character, right?

Workers were here in no time and patched up the roof where some shingles had apparently blown off.

Crisis averted.

What's crazy is that it actually ended up being a good thing.  I know that sounds crazy, but it resulted in all 4 of us being home, which was not the plan.   I needed to be in three different places at the same time tonight.  Trey had a meeting with a student and then was planning on staying in the office to do school work, so we weren't expecting to see him much if at all tonight.  But when this happened, I panicked and called him for back up.  The puddles in the kitchen that the kids were happily splashing in were about to do me in for this Monday.  So all this to say, I didn't go to any of my obligations, Trey was able to come home for dinner, and we had a nice two hours (I mean, after the damage control...) as a family before he had to get back to school work.  It ended up being just fine and just what I think the kids needed - dinner with us both.  So, take that, flooded kitchen.  You did not make me lose my mind like you intended.

We are still trucking along beautifully with the home study.  We are hoping for our final wrap up meeting next week and that all paperwork and training will be completed by then.  All of this late night printing, signing, scanning, training, signing, uploading, mailing, signing, etc. will be so worth it when Ollie is home!

Yes, I documented blood work.  I want to remember every step of this journey!

Thanks, again, for all the love and prayers. I was nervous about posting our story because it has taken so many twists and turns, but the outpouring of love has been so kind. Keep the prayers coming as we wait to bring Ollie home!

There was a time that I was an excellent blogger. I documented life! And printed out cute blog books! Jones' first two years are neatly bounded on my shelf.  Then, I don't know what happened, but I stopped.  There is so much going on that I don't want to miss a thing.  I'm making a promise to myself to document Ollie's journey home, so I am back tracking a bit to the spring to bring my blog up to speed:

It is so amazing to me as I grow in my faith the more I see God's hand in all aspects of my life.  Sometimes I don't see it at the time, but when I look back over seasons in my life, it is clear to me that His purpose and plan is so much greater than any we could ever design ourselves.

Our adoption journey started years and years ago.  For me, it started when I was very young and very sure that I was going to adopt, specifically from China.  I don't know where this idea originated except that it was a simple way for seeds to be planted in my heart for the care of orphans.

I have written about how the adoption conversation started between me and Trey when we were dating and how it evolved over the past few years.  Over a year ago we knew one thing was certain - God was calling our family to adopt.  After we said "yes",  then came the hard part - discerning what our adoption journey was meant to look like.   We started a China application a little over a year ago, then a situation occurred in our lives that turned our eyes and hearts to the state's fostering system and we began the process of becoming a resource family through DHS in early January.  We felt confident God's hand was on this decision, and even though we were scared (OK, maybe just I was...), we put our faith in knowing that His plan is far better than ours.

I am so thankful for where that journey took us, both as a couple and individually.  We grew closer to each other and closer to God.  It changed me in many ways. It is a scary, sad, broken world, and my eyes will forever be opened to the need of families in our state's system and the children who are suffering.  It was not easy and did not end up how we thought it would, but without it we may not be where we are now.  And, again I say, His timing is so perfect!

After months and months (and months...) we are so happy to announce where our adoption journey has led us, and we are excited to watch it completely unfold.

We have almost completed our Home Study to bring home a little girl from China! We absolutely cannot wait to complete the process and have our daughter finally in our arms.  It has been a long journey, and we still have a long way to go, but we are so confident this is our adoption journey; we just needed the timing and growth before it could officially begin.

The amount of love we have received from our family and friends who know has been overwhelming and we are completely in awe of the way God has orchestrated every detail of this story already.

We couldn't have gone through the past year without the prayers and support from our family.  We have for sure felt them!

As we move forward on this journey to bring Mary Olivia ("Ollie")  home, will you pray for us? We know we cannot do any of this alone!

A few specifics that our on our hearts right now:

1) For Ollie's health and well-being.  We don't know if she has been born yet or not, but we are praying for her daily. And we cannot pray for her without thinking about and praying for her birthmother.  We are so thankful that she chose/will choose life for her! We know that all adoptions are because of brokenness, and our hearts ache for families that cannot stay together for whatever the reason may be.

2) For our sanity.  For real! Trey is a full-time minister and in seminary full-time (hold me close, sweet Jesus,  two years down, two to go...) and we have two small children that require a lot of attention.  These things alone leave us stretched pretty thin. We know there is a lot of paper work, travel and time that is involved in any adoption process, and we are only just scratching the surface.  We are committed and excited, but we need endurance to keep up! Pray for our patience and diligence.

3) For financial provision.  We know that God will provide.  He always does.  But I would be lying if I said the financial commitment of an international adoption is not overwhelming and scary. We have complete faith that He will pave a way where we don't see the possibility.

4) For Jones and Anna Joy.  Adding another child to the family is never easy, and we know there will be lots of adjustments in the months to come.

**Side note: When we told Jones on our way to one of our Home Study interviews that we would be bringing home a baby sister from China, he was quick to ask if we could also bring home a panda bear.  When in Rome...**
Thank you, friends! We can't wait to finally be a family of five and welcome Ollie into our lives!

Jones will be five this month. Be still my heart. He has been planning his party for months now and we've decided on Super Heros as the theme. This decision was not taken lightly by the birthday boy. He's been through every idea, but landed here because "there are girl and boy superheros".