We are changing agencies!

Well this adoption process is crazy and we are feeling like nothing is ever a for sure thing.  We have decided to switch agencies once again.  We feel very thankful that God is showing us where he wants us to be while we are still in the paper chase.  Since we are in the paper chase, we can move agencies without losing very much money.

We learned today that because of the way things are moving with the orphanages they are working with in Ethiopia, we will not have a very good chance to adopt more than one child and the wait for one child is going to be longer than we anticipated.  This was very upsetting for us because we really felt that God wanted us to adopt more than one child.  So we went about researching how to adopt from more than one country at a time.  What we found was more than we ever expected.

We started talking to an agency that said they can have our children in our arms in under a year!  They have a very close relationship with the orphanages in Ethiopia and feel that we might only have to wait 6-7 months after we submit our dossier to get a referral.  We are so thrilled and feel that this is where God wants us!

Here is the really crazy part....we have to come up with $9000 in the next 4-6 weeks.  This agency is a lot cheaper than our former one but the pay schedule is different.  The biggest chunk of money we have to pay is in the very beginning.  The agency also let us know that although they can not disclose any specifics, they do have waiting children that fit our description.  This mean that their is a chance we will not even have to wait for a referral and will just jump right into adopting our kids after we are DTE!

I know this might be a shock but we feel like this is where God is leading us.  We are very thankful for America World's help through the process so far and are still going to use them as a home study agency.  A Love Beyond Borders will be our placement agency.  This change will not put us back anymore than maybe a week since we are sticking with our original home study agency.  We should have the home study complete in about 2-3 weeks and our dossier will be done when we have the money to submit it!

We could use a lot of prayer in the following weeks as we try to raise money very quickly.  God is testing our faith with this one and we look forward to trusting him every step of the way!  If you want to help us financially, we are going to have another yard sale in the next couple weeks.  We could use donation of things to sell. We are also selling T-shirt and cookies! Anything helps...five bucks goes a long way if multiple people pitch in!