Piles of Paperwork

Yes- we took pictures of our paperwork :) Mark thought it was cheesy, but I am a scrap booker and I wanted to document all these documents. Here we are at work:

A Weekend of Paperwork

Over the last few days the decision we have made to change our adoption from Zambia to Ethiopia has had a chance to sink in. We both feel a peace about this. We are excited to get our dossier (packet of info) ready to send to Ethiopia as soon as possible so this weekend we have been working on a lot of paperwork. In our dossier they want pictures of our house and family, background checks, letters from our employers, our tax information, financial statements, letters explaining our intentions... the list goes on. I guess it is good they are being thorough but wow, it adds up to a lot of paperwork. We are happy to do it though because it means we are one step closer to adding a baby to our family.

A Fork in the Road

I am sorry I haven't posted much new information about adoption. To be honest, we found out some negative news last week Thursday and we were waiting until we knew more to post anything. So, here it goes.

Last Thursday night we got a phone call from our social worker. She told us that the government in Zambia was shutting adoption down. Bethany didn't know a lot yet, but things didn't look good for us in Zambia. Thursday was a rough night. We felt very frustrated that God would shut this door for us after we felt His call to adopt from Zambia so clearly. Because we didn't know anything for sure it was hard to know what to think all weekend.

Tuesday I met with our social worker to talk about what options we had at this point. She said that they hadn't heard from Zambia and for now, no news was bad news for us. It did not seem that Zambia was going to open its doors anytime soon. So we discussed our options, which mainly came down to changing the country we were going to adopt from (probably Ethiopia or South Korea), pursuing a domestic adoption, or stopping the process altogether to try to get pregnant.

As we talked, prayed and discussed, we did not feel led to drop the idea of adoption. We still feel very passionately about giving a desperate child a loving, Christian home. It also seemed that it would not work to get pregnant in the middle of a longer adoption process because most countries do not allow that. So, we were down to deciding which country to adopt from instead of Zambia. In both countries (South Korea and Ethiopia) there are kids who need homes, but our hearts are still in Africa so at this time we are pursuing an Ethiopian adoption.

We received our papers from immigration on Monday so most of our stuff is ready to be sent to Africa. Because we changed the country we are adopting from, there are a few more papers we need to get together and then hopefully we will send our paperwork to Ethiopia in the next couple of weeks.

God is good and His timing is perfect. We can already see His hand in all of this. The Ethiopia program just opened up for Bethany a few months ago, so if we would not have pursued Zambia at first our paperwork would not be ready to be sent to Ethiopia this early. Also, in Ethiopia we can still get an infant and we only have to stay for one week! We are thinking that maybe sometime next fall we will be able to go to Africa and get our baby.

Thanks for your prayers and support through this emotional journey. God is good and we continue to experience His faithfulness every step of the way. That's all for now- feel free to post questions or shoot us an email.

A Family Weekend

We had a great weekend! Kyle was home from Belmont so we enjoyed a family dinner at the Pizza Ranch (a Schonewill favorite) on Thursday night and then Sunday we celebrated Kyle's birthday all together too. He turns 19 on Oct. 20. It was such a blessing to have everyone together, even though the boys did beat the girls in a wild game of Catch Phrase on Sunday.

Friday I was still not feeling great so we laid low and hung out at home. Mark went to the youth group retreat without me so I could recover from this annoying cold. Saturday, I slept in and then enjoying making pig in the blankets and apple pies with my mom. Sunday night we enjoyed time with our small group.

It was a fantastic family weekend and we both feel blessed to have the families that appreciate spending time together.

Have a blessed week!

Kyle is Home

Again, not a lot new has happened this week. School has been great; I was sick over the weekend so it is good to be feeling back to normal again. My brother, Kyle, is home from Nashville for the weekend so we are excited to spend a little time with him tomorrow night and then on Sunday. Tonight we are watching my brother Kris' soccer game and then this weekend we have a youth group retreat Friday night and Saturday at Crayon Hill that should be fun. Other than that we are just enjoying a fairly normal week.

We did order the certified copies of our birth certificates and marriage license that we need for our dossier (the packet of things we have to send to Zambia). We are still waiting on our U.S. Immigration papers. We'll let you know when we here more. Our prayer request this week would be that the plans for the 3 months stay in Zambia fall into place and that God provides financially for that trip.

Change 4 Children

By week 2 of the Change 4 Children fund raiser, my 8th graders have raised $511 for children in Zambia! I am so proud of them.

Slowing Moving Forward

Not a lot has happened with adoption this week. It has been a busy week with both of our jobs so we are trying to have a healthy balance with how much we deal with adoption if we are at home together at night. We don't want it to be the only thing we ever talk about! :)

We have been asking a lot of questions and we are looking into what we could do to serve in Zambia while we are there for three months. It is exciting to see what God has in store for us. We do think it will be a blessing to be a part of our daughter's culture for a longer period of time; this three months will really give us a chance to get to know the ministry and the people.

Other than that, we are enjoying warm weather this week. Our neighbors had a neighborhood picnic so we were able to meet a bunch of people that live in our development. Tonight we are going to my brother Kris' soccer game; it has been fun to watch him play this year.

So, that is the update for now. Hope you all are having a blessed week!