Time to File for Visas!!!!

Let me tell you...I am excited today.

Yesterday was one of the the downest(yes I made this word up) days I have had since starting this process.

To put it simply, I was mad.

I was mad that things were not moving quicker and mad that we do not have our kids home.

I knew my attitude was sinful but could not seem to pull myself out of the pity party I created for myself.

 

 

God is merciful!

You know what I had waiting in my e-mail this morning?

All the documents we needed for file for the kids visas!

 

Lord willing, we will be sending in our application Wednesday or Thursday.

We will then wait for it to get approved and send to the embassy in DRC(4-6 weeks).

When the embassy receives it, our 3-6 month investigation will start.

Parents usually travel within a month of their child's investigation being completed.

 

Because of our children's backgrounds, our coordinator is telling us we should prepare ourselves for the full 6 month investigation.  We are of course hoping and praying for a VERY quick investigation period.  We know that the Lord's timing is perfect.

Paperwork Update

The good news is, we have Boaz's Act of Adoption.

The bad news is we do not have his birth certificate yet.

So we can not file for the kids visas yet.

 

Our coordinator feels like we should be getting the paperwork in a matter of days.

It is Congo though so I am not holding her to that timeline.

Keep praying that the last piece of paperwork gets received by our agency.

I feel like I am going crazy.

How can I wait another week for them to come home, let alone another year!

We are really looking forward to moving onto the next step.

Update - DGM suspension.

I know that a lot of you have been following our adoption process since day one.

I know that you all hurt with us when we told you that the D.R.C. is not letting children out of the country currently.

So I don't have much of an update and do not really have anything concrete.

I still feel like you all deserve to be kept as up to date on our process as possible.

 

The DGM issues another announcement that they are no longer allowing singles to adopt.

Keep all these single women in prayer over the next few days.

Many of their children are already adopted and will never be able to go home.

It is tragic and heartbreaking to lose a child...not matter how the loss occurs.

 

They have made no statements about how long it will be before they lift the suspension.

Agencies used to feel like it will not last long, but after a meeting with them this last week they are not so optimistic.

It is so hard to predict what will happen because the D.R.C. has been so unpredictable in the past.

At this point agencies feel that their needs to be changes made to the adoption process so that the DGM can have some sort of assurance that Congolese children will be taken care of.

 

It sounds like a simple problem to fix but making a new procedure in the adoption world can be a lengthy venture.  So sadly we wait.  We know that God can do big things here but at the moment it is not looking like our kids will come home soon.

 

Please keep our children in your prayers and we continue to fight to get them home.

Yay for Another Grant!

We received another grant recently from the Lydia Fund.

The grant is for $1500 and we are VERY thankful!

We were really impressed by the way the Lydia Fund conducted themselves.

They first have you apply.

Then out of all their applicants, they pick the ones they feel have the greatest needs and call to set up a skype interview.

They then talk to us over skype, get to know us, pray with us, and then make their decision.

They are the first grant organization yet that has done this!

 

They are a non-profit that is able to give families grants based on the donations that they receive.

I know that they are one of the organizations we will be supporting when we are done adopting.

Here is their website in case you are interested in supporting them as well.

 

http://lydiafund.org/

I LOVE Waiting!

Believe or not...the title of this post is not a lie.

I do love waiting...I also hate waiting.

I love this special time we get to spend as a family of three.

I hate that we are not a family of five and that Irelyn does not have siblings to play with.

I love that God is working on their hearts even in Congo...growing them into passionate Jesus followers.

I hate that they are not safe in my arms.

This is just part of what makes me a crazy adopting mama!

 

I go to a very encouraging women's book club called Moms Morning.

We are reading a booked called, "A Mother's Heart" by Jean Fleming.

This week I was reading through chapter five and it spoke straight to my heart.

The chapter focused on mothers like Sarah and Elizabeth...who waited for their children.

 

Each of these women who originally barren.  Culturally, when a woman could not have children she was considered cursed and face public humiliation and ridicule.  These woman experience a very painful...long wait. 

 

Its easy to ask yourself, "why did these women have to suffer?"

"They were women of God...what there a purpose to their difficult wait?"

God had a special plan for these woman and their children.

God had a special purpose for each one of their children and He wanted ALL the glory!

 

One of my favorite portions in the book says this

"God knows that with-holding children often produces a different mentality in a waiting mother or father.  I wonder if Abraham would have laid his son Isaac on the alter if the long wait had not prepared his heart. Would Hannah have given her beloved son Samuel to God's service if he has come much earlier?  Did the wait produce a conviction that Samuel came from God and should live for God's purposes, a conviction she otherwise might not have experienced?

Perhaps another reason God allowed these mothers to endure a long wait was to lay a groundwork of prayer.  They knew that these children were children of purpose and promise, and undoubtedly each one of them way prayed for."

 

God loves us so much that he gives us something in His Word to relate to no matter where we are in life.  These woman so long ago endured very difficult waits.  I am sure their faith wavered.  I bet at times they felt like God had forgotten them.  He had a very special plan for them and their children.

What hope it gives me that right now God is writing the story of my life.  As I follow Him it is becoming a story of love, redemption, and hope.  These mothers stories can give me peace that my Lord knows exactly what he is doing and has a great plan for these precious children He has entrusted to me.

Journey to Isryelle

Isryelle was our little surprise.

When we switched to D.R.C., we were not sure if we would end up adopting two children.

We lost a hefty amount of money during the switch and the D.R.C. is much more expensive than Ethiopia.  We really did not know what to do so we prayed and left it up to the Lord.

We knew he would make His plans known.

 

When we talked to the coordinator with our new agency, we told her that we wanted a child age 0-5.

She told us she would send us some information the next day.

When I opened the e-mail, she wrote that she has about 6 kids waiting but is only going to give us information on the children who were already "paper ready".

We were concerned about having to pick between multiple kids.  How do you decide which ones should be in your home?

 

As we read the e-mail, we were overjoyed to see that Boaz had been picked for us.

We thought he was the only child paper ready and were happy that we did not have to make a decision.

 

Then we scrolled down further and we saw information on another little one.

A GIRL!

In Africa, there are more boys available than girls.  Since we were not gender specific, we figured we would be referred two boys if we got two children.

But there she was...as cute as could be.

Her smile lit up our entire house and continues to do that to this day.

 

We were surprised that she gave us the profiles of two children and excited that it was a girl.

God truly gave us the desires of our heart. 

We wanted a boy, because we don't have one yet.  We also wanted a girl because the hair is just adorable!  That is why we knew we could not decide.

 

The first time we saw her, we knew she was our daughter. 

It is strange seeing your child for the first time in a picture...its hard to believe that something so beautiful and perfect could be entrusted to us.

 

She has beautiful chocolate skin...its just flawless.

She has a smile that floors me every time I see it.

She loves hats and head wraps.

I just know she is going to be an amazing older sister to all our children.

 

I have missed so much of my firstborns life.

I missed her first step, first word, first laugh.

I will not miss the first time she protects her Little sister from the mean kids at the playground.

I will not miss the first time she prays before dinner.

I will not miss the moment she realizes Jesus is her Savior and has a very special purpose for her.

I have lifetime to love on this little girl and can not wait to get started!

We immediatley signed the paperwork that made it official that we were pursuing the adoption of this little beauty. 
Isryelle means "one who prevails with God."
Justina(middle name) means justice and is my great grandmas name.

All the updates.

I have no updates that are set in stone but I told you all I would update you so hear it goes.

Our agency does not feel like the DGM suspension is going to last very long.

They are thinking only a few months.

This is only a guess so keep praying that the DGM can get the issues resolved.

We are at a point in our adoption that this suspension is not effecting us yet but there are families who are unable to get their kids home because of the suspension.

Its a heartbreaking situation and we need to be turning to God in prayer for these families.

 

Our coordinator said that the earliest she thinks she will have Boaz's Act of Adoption is next Monday.  Even if she gets it then, she has to organize all of the paperwork and everything has to be translated.  This is the last thing we need to file for the kids visas and move to the next step.  7 weeks ago we were told we should have it in 3-5 weeks. It is no ones fault that we do not have it yet but we are really looking forward to getting all the necessary documents to start the next long waiting phase of this process.  Please be praying for us and our kids.

Journey to Boaz

When we first accepted our kids referrals, I did a quick post about it because what followed our referral was a whirlwind of paperwork and phone calls.

I want to rewind a little and tell the story of how God led us to our kids.

I am going to start with Boaz.

 

A little over a year ago, we were waiting for a referral from Ethiopia.

I passed some of the time by watching waiting children websites.

It was from waiting children's websites that I learned about D.R.C.

At the time it was a pretty new program and moving really fast.

Parents were getting children home in less than 6 months!  What a dream!

 

While surfing the web one day I found All Blessings adoption agency.

I took a look at their waiting kids and there was little Boaz(he had a different name at the time).

He was absolutely beautiful!  Those big ole eyes stole my heart.  His features were so sweet and delicate.  Being crazy as I am, I e-mailed the address underneath the picture. 

 

Obviously I knew that there was not way we could have him.  We were adopting from a different country and I was sure he would file a family FAST!  The coordinator(who is now our coordinator) got back to me and told me that there may be a possibility that we could get around some of the Congolese requirements that we could not meet as a couple.  She gave me a fee schedule which was just crazy and I let it go. No way could we adopt from two different countries with two different fee schedules!

 

That night I showed Gavin his picture and told him that Boaz just looked like our son.

He told me that he can't possibly look like our son because we were adopting from Ethiopia. 

Gavin is very logical.

Of course he was right so I went to bed dreaming of a little chocolate colored boy with big eyes and curly soft hair.

 

Months went by and I checked his picture a couple of times a month to see if he had found a family yet. It just broke my heart that he could not find a home.  He was PERFECT!  After about six months, things started to unravel with our Ethiopian adoption...you all know that awful story.  When we pulled out of our Ethiopian adoption, the first thing I did was check All Blessings waiting children's page.  There he was!  That sweet little boy that stole my heart so many months ago!

 

Of course, just because his picture was still up, did not mean he was available.  Adoption agencies are famous for being slow to update their information.  We chose to pick an agency based on ethics before asking about Boaz.  I did not want to know that he was available if he was with an agency that we did not feel was ethical.  So we took a week and did our research.

 

In the end...we could not have picked a more honest and trustworthy agency than All Blessings.

We signed on with them and let them know we wanted a waiting child ages 0-5.

When we opened our e-mail the next morning, there he was.

He had grown in the last 6 months but was still the same little boy who I had fallen asleep dreaming about.

 

Now he is officially Boaz Edward Pehl.

His names means "In Him is strength."

My first born son.