Encouragement and Hope

Dearest adoption journey friends,


We appreciate you. We thank you for your love, prayers, support, friendship and commitment to seeing us through this long journey. What a blessing to be so surrounded by such loyal people. Things are very slow in Ethiopia right now. Our agency's main objective is to only participate in ethical adoptions. Many agencies are paying to get children out of orphanages, and that is not something that we agree with. The moment money exchanges hands, then it provides incentives for orphanages to find children for adoption, rather than just the truly abandoned and those in desperate need. So, while it is taking a long time (forever), we are thankful for AGCI and their integrity.

So many of you have been asking what the hold up is, so I wanted to try and explain. It could honestly be another year of waiting. The Ethiopian government is trying to shut down the corrupt agencies and get them out, but the investigations are just taking a long time. Once they are done, hopefully it will open up ethical partnerships for the agencies that are there for the right reasons, to help children in need find families. I know our numbers seem small, and they are, but we are preparing ourselves for a 2014 referral. I know it's so hard to understand, but when we get our child home one day, we will not questions his or her previous "orphan status." We will know that everything was done as ethically as possible within this messed up system.

So, when you see us, please encourage us. Remember to pray for us. Be hopeful with us. Give us a high-five and remind us to hang in there and that God is faithful. Give me a squeeze and remind me to just take it day by day.

Every couple hours I need to refocus and remember. I get defeated, and then find my hope again. Being silly really helps me to renew hope. Time with friends and family. Making it a priority to start each day in prayer and reading the Bible. Writing. Music. Activity. We are in the journey of a lifetime to get to our child. It obviously hurts right now and we are longing to see our child's face.

Just wanted to send a little shout out to all of you. Thank you for your faithfulness on this journey. Help us pray our child home. If you want to join my adoptive mama friends and me, we pray at 8:38 am and pm every day for Ethiopian adoptions and for ethical referrals to start rolling in. We just set our alarms on our phones. I can't tell you what a blessing that would be for us, that literally people all over the world are praying with us each day. Hope.

Until then I'll be hanging out with these 2 cuties......

Going a little cray

And thankful for sweet little love notes like this....

I am going to keep on hoping.