March Update

So almost the entire month of March went by with almost no new action regarding our adoption.  We were however given 2 completely unexpected donations totaling $500 that just affirmed that these children belong to God and that He ultimately is the one who inspires hearts.


A couple disappointing things this month were that we were told that our wait will likely be 18-24 months from the time we are MATCHED with our little guys.  Additionally, we were told that we should not expect to be matched until late summer at the earliest.  The waiting is daunting, but the thing that stings even more is that we certainly have time to be raising the baby boy we lost year.  After our miscarriage, especially since it was our second miscarriage, we felt peace to follow through with the adoption that God had whispered to us in June 2012.  But now that our boys will likely not join our family until 2016, it hurts that our baby had plenty of time to be born, settle into our family and still have a lot of time until our family was complete through adoption.  Losing babies hurts.  Luckily, I love God and trust His plan and I can wait for kiddos to come home with a contented heart.


Another update since the last post is that I will be traveling back to Haiti with a few very special women to serve the wonderful people of Leveque.  I am excited to get back to this precious country, and slightly more anxious to hurry and get there since there was yet another earthquake in Port au Prince and we have children there now.  Of course I'll feel the tension of being so close to our boys and yet unable to meet them or bring them home, but our commitment to Haiti goes beyond our adoption so I am happy to simply serve. 


I attached a picture of Kadan's boxes of treasures for the 'Haiti Kids'.  There are four boxes total - all full of his (and Jaxan's :) favorite toys.  Since I'll be in Haiti in June, Kadan is so excited for me to take his gifts to the children.  The faith of a child is so beautiful!  I do not know exactly how to make this happen, but the Spirit is inside this little boy and its important that he sees my support of his obedience.  Thanks God for Haiti, thanks for what you continue to teach me through this country.

February Update

So just days after the last post, we received our approval from the Department of Homeland Security.  It was very welcomed mail!  This final piece of documentation was all we needed to complete our dossier - a massive compilation of forms, letters and collected information regarding our family.  With this final approval we are now in the first-of-many holding patterns.  The dossier will be translated and sent to Haiti in months to come.  Our first 1/2 payment is also sent now and 100% by God's hand we are able to send the money needed!  God loves these kids and we are so thankful for the continued affirmation of that!


Now as we wait, we want to 'actively wait'.  We learned how to do this a few years when God helped us understand that we are invited to be active participants in our faith.  We get to use the 'waiting time' to let God change us.  Right now Kadan is learning to read and spell and he is loving this!  Jaxan is full of passion and love as always.  He is also busy learning faster than his teacher can keep up with.  We are also careful to give Stephen the time we would give our own 16 year old.  All three boys are such a blessing in our home!

Lastly, we have faced a dilemma this past week.  Kadan has spent several days collecting things to give the Haiti kids - not necessarily his brothers, but ALL the Haiti kids.  In Kadan and Jaxan's playroom there are 8 boxes of toys and one large container of Lego's.  Kadan emptied 4 of the boxes and has filled them with toys, clothes, shoes and the treasured Legos.  He was working really hard on this.  He was also filling the boxes with our best things - new markers, his new shoes from Christmas and many of his brothers favorite toys as well.  So the dilemma is simply how do we affirm his heart and not lose 1/2 of the few toys we own?  We already made the mistake of asking Kadan to swap the new shoes for his older pair and he replied "You want me to send the kids our junk?"...his heart is precious!

As we actively wait we are not bored, but one bit :)  Thank you Jesus for this journey toward our sons!

How's the adoption going?

In the past six months we have been so overwhelmed by the amount of love and support offered to our family and our little boys in Haiti.  The adoption process is slow and we knew that going in.  As we wait we have used our time to begin the boys baby books, filling pages with notes that we've received of encouragement.  We have also used this time to catch up on Kadan and Jaxan's baby books.  A personal goal has been to keep our photo albums up to date and to create an album for Stephens memories as well.  Basically as we settle into the long road ahead, we are doing our best to prepare our home for our growing family. 

We are currently waiting for clearance from the Department of Homeland Security.  We applied for this quite a while ago, but there is a mistake on the governments end regarding Stephen's age.  We have sent a letter to explain the error, but we've been waiting for a response for about a month.  Luckily, we do not feel impatient.  We've had peace all along that God will send our boys at just the right time - that peace continues and we are thankful for that.

Once we receive clearance from Homeland Security we will then send our U.S. agency a huge packet of documents that collectively make up our dossier.  These documents will be translated into French and sent to Haiti.  At that point we will be much closer to being matched to our children.  Although that will be a very exciting day, it does not mean we are a whole lot closer to bringing them home. 

So as we continue on, we have heard God clearly.  He's been reminding us to use this timely wisely and to continue to lead our boys well, to love them and Stephen recklessly and to keep the Biblical priorities in Ephesians 5 (God, Spouse, Children, Ministry) as our #1 goal.  Stewardship remains a strong conviction too and slowing down and carefully discerning the good from the great.  We are doing our best to be intentional with the months or years we have in this process.

Let me end the 1st blog of 2014 with a huge thank you for the amazing love you have sent our way from t-shirts, notes, donations, emails and simply remembering our journey.  Every act of kindness has been recorded and we can't wait for the day when we can show our little boys how much they were loved even before we knew their names!  I will update monthly if you want to keep checking in :)

Happy Chinese New Year!