Philly

I forgot to post this before we left, but Mark and I are in Philadelphia this weekend for my cousin's wedding. To celebrate our 5 year anniversary (which was a couple weeks ago) Mark took me to the off Broadway performance of Les Miserable. It was fantastic!! I love musicals and this was incredibly well done. It was fun to spend time with Mark downtown Philly. The wedding is on Saturday and then Sunday and Monday we will be in Baltimore visiting some college friends. We are looking forward to a great weekend.

Yeah God!!!

We have a July 11 court date!!! God is so good. I talked to my social worker today and she said our name somehow got missed from the rest of the Bethany families who got court dates; so we really are in the July 11 group with the other families! I am so excited and amazed how how God is moving!

We are praying our baby girl gets through court on the first try. If that is the case we are thinking we will be able to travel to get her about a month later, so maybe early to mid August!! WOW!! All of a sudden this is happening so fast- but that is great; I can't wait to get Ruby home.

Thanks for praying!! Please pray that she gets through court on July 11.

Still Waiting

I am so hoping to hear something about a court date today. If you could pray hard I would appreciate it!

Update

I just heard that a friend of mine who is adopting from Ethiopia got a court date for her little girl and it is before the courts close! She turned in her referral acceptance papers at the same time as us so we are really hoping this means we will hear something soon. Keep praying!

20/20

Mark had laser eye surgery today and it went well. I was a little nervous to have someone stick stuff in his eyes while he was awake, but he didn't seem to be too nervous. All went as expected. I took him home with some rockin' eye protector shields on :) He took some pain meds and slept off and on most of the evening. He is hoping that by Sunday or Monday he will feel pretty much like normal. It will be very nice for him to be able to see without contacts or glasses, especially when we travel to Ethiopia!

Update

There is not a lot to report about the adoption right now. We will probably wait for the next couple of weeks to hear about a court date. Again, we are really praying that we have a court date soon, before the courts close in August. This will allow us to travel much sooner.

In the meantime we are busy preparing for Ruby. We bought a few things off of Craig's List and from a garage sale. I think I will tackle painting the room within the next couple of weeks. We'll keep plugging away at organizing and painting; hopefully this work will make the wait for Ruby go faster.

Crib

We picked up a crib from Craig's List today. It is in great shape and it was way less expensive than buying one brand new. It is our first large baby purchase so I am pretty excited.

The Call

I realized I never told the story about how we received our referral call, so here it goes.

I thought we might be getting a referral in the next couple of months, but I really didn't think it would be this soon. When I got done with tutoring on Tuesday, I checked my phone and I saw that I had missed a call; I didn't recognize the number and they didn't leave a message so I didn't worry about it. Well, about 10 minutes later, the phone rang with the same number. When I picked it up I realized it was my social worker. She called from Bethany and I only have her specific line programmed into my phone, so that is why I didn't recognize it. I still wasn't really thinking she was calling about a referral. I thought maybe she had a question or an update for me. Then she said she had good news for me and I starting shaking and my heart started pounding. She told me she was looking at a picture of a beautiful little 22 day old girl for us! I couldn't believe that we were getting a referral and I especially couldn't believe she was so young. I didn't cry, which is surprising, but I felt incredible overwhelmed with excitement and joy.

As soon as I got off the phone with my social worker, I called my husband. I had to tell him we had a referral a couple of times before he would believe me. I drove right to his work so we could look at Ruby's picture together. When we opened up the email we couldn't get the picture to open. We ran home and tried opening it on our home computer, but it still wouldn't open. Finally we called our social work back and after a couple more emails we got Ruby's picture to open. It was so surreal to look at my daughter's picture on a computer screen and know that she was in an orphanage halfway around the world.

A million different emotions have run through my head this past week; mostly though, we just feel incredible joy and excitement. We can't wait until the day when we can hold Ruby in our arms.

Wow God!

It's been almost two days now since we got our referral and I still can't hardly believe it is true. I slept really good the first night; I think I was exhausted from being so excited all day. Last night was a different story. I kept thinking about Ruby; I woke up at 5 am thinking about what crib we were going to get! I am just so excited I don't even know what to do with myself right now.

I don't know a lot about when things are going to happen next. I do know that our referral acceptance papers will go to Bethany headquarters in Grand Rapids tomorrow. From there they should be shipped to Ethiopia and then we will eventually be assigned a court date. I think our court date could be anywhere from 1-2 months from now. The courts close in parts of August and September so we are praying hard that our paperwork gets in the courts before they shut down. That will allow us to travel a lot earlier. A few other Bethany families have also accepted referrals recently so we are hoping that some of us could travel together to get our children.

It is all so exciting and maybe just a little overwhelming. God is good and He has been so faithful. We will keep trusting in Him through the court process. Please pray that Ruby's papers will get through the court on the first try so we can bring her home soon!

We'll keep you posted!! Thanks again for everyone's support.

REFERRAL!!!!

Today was the day!! We received a referral for a beautiful, healthy, baby girl! She is only 22 days old; we are just floored at how young she is. We will be giving her the name Ruby Grace TenHaken. I can't explain how excited we are. God is so good!

We do not know a lot about time lines, but right now we are hoping to travel in Sept or Oct to go and get her. We will keep you posted as we hear more about dates.

Thanks for all of your prayers and support!!! We are praising God right now!!

6 Months

Today marks 6 months of waiting for a referral. In my head 6 months is kind of a big landmark; I'm not even sure why, but it just seems big :) I've got to believe we are on the tail end of waiting. I am really hoping it will only be another month or so (or sooner!) before we hear something.

As I reflect on the past 6 months of waiting I feel blessed to think of God's faithfulness. He has taught us a lot through this waiting period and he has surrounded us with a community of people that have supported us when things got frustrating. We are hoping to hear something soon, but in the meantime we are trying to be content with life the way it is now while being excited for the future.

Thanks to all of you out there who have encouraged us over the past year of emotional ups and down. We appreciate all of you.

First Week of Summer

I cleaned up my classroom and set my report cards out and by Tuesday morning my work at school was done, at least for awhile. I am officially on summer break. Mark's parents are here for the week from MN so we have stayed busy shopping, golfing, planting a garden, hanging blinds...etc. It is fun to have them around. We are all going to a wedding in Ohio this weekend and then his parents will fly home from Cleveland.

We did hear that things are moving along in Ethiopia for Bethany. Bethany has connected with a few private orphanages in Ethiopia and they are starting to make referrals of waiting kids to Bethany families from these orphanages. This is very exciting for us and we are hoping to have a referral within the next couple of months. I can't wait for that phone call!

Surrendering

The week is done. I have been anticipating this week for months because I knew the last week in my classroom would be a tough one and now it is done. I am relieved and scared to death.

I had such a great week with my students, but it was so tough to say goodbye. Tuesday was the 8th grade banquet, Wed. was my final track meet, Thursday was the last day of school and Friday was the 8th grade class trip. I felt like I said good bye so many times and each time brought up more tears and emotions.

Yet, through this all I have felt God there with me. Don't get me wrong, there have been plenty of times where I have been frustrated with God; my little brain can't really understand the timing of all of this. But I do trust that God does understand what is going on and He is in control. I am continually trying to surrender my thoughts and frustrations to Him and let Him drive.

So, tomorrow is really my first day off for the summer. I will be at school a little bit yet to clean up my classroom and finish up grading some papers, but in a sense, tomorrow starts a new season of my life. A season where I will hopeful become a mom soon. I am excited to see what God has in store for me.