Our charity needs your VOTE right now!

Hello my dear friends and blog followers!

As many of you know, my husband Rusty and I founded a charity several years ago that helps orphans and vulnerable children around the world. Right now our charity, The Sound of Hope, is in a video competition called "Project for Awesome" - and voting is ONLY tonight and tomorrow. If we are one of the videos with the most votes, we could win a LOT of money. (Last year the Top 20 videos got $40,000 each! WOW!) Our goal is to win this funding for education for our kids. That amount would be more than enough to put ALL 200 of the children we care for in school for an entire year. That means every single little boy and girl in our care - in Thailand, Burma, India, and Swaziland! And we all know, education changes everything for a child in poverty.

All we need is for people to VOTE! That's it! You don't have to sign up for anything or log in - you don't even have to watch the video if you don't want to (but it's pretty awesome if you do!) - just click on the link and then click the red VOTE button. It only takes a second!

CLICK HERE TO VOTE NOW

(and help us win thousands in educational funding for children in need!)

[To donate directly to The Sound of Hope, simply click HERE.]

And if you're feeling really helpful, we would LOVE it if you'd share this with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Maybe you know of a group of friends you could share it with via email? Or a facebook group you could ask for help? Anything you're willing to do on our behalf would be a blessing! It's going to take everyone we know working together to make this happen!

Voting ends at 11am Sunday morning. (So ask your friends in Sunday School to vote too! Just go to ProjectForAwesome.com on your smartphone and search for "The Sound of Hope". )

Please help me give our sweet kids the gift of EDUCATION for one more year! Just one click could change a child's life!

Love you all so much - thank you in advance!
Ericka

ps - You can vote from any personal device you have, so don't forget to log on to your desktop, laptop, ipad, and smartphone! :)

1,000 days

Today is National Adoption Day. November is Orphan Awareness Month.

It all seems fitting, since this is the month that we hit the 1,000 day mark. November 6th marked 1,000 days since we announced we were adopting. 1,000 days of pursuing our daughter. 1,000 days of working, fighting, and waiting. 1,000 days of wishing she was home. And sadly - we still aren't even matched with a child.

I never wanted to 'celebrate' a day like this. I never dreamed when we began our adoption that we would have to wait this long! I have so many thoughts and feelings in my head and heart right now. Spending time in Thailand this month - and knowing our daughter is likely alive (and was probably very nearby) only made this benchmark even more poignant.

It's hard to find the words to say all I'm thinking or feeling. Luckily, Jen Hatmaker said them perfectly. (And Jandie Waggoner, a fellow Thailand adoptive momma put those words into this beautiful print!)

We WILL get you home baby girl. I don't care if it takes 1,000 more days or 10,000 more days - we will never stop working and fighting and waiting to bring you home. On National Adoption Day and Christmas Day and just a normal Tuesday - we will still be working and fighting and waiting for you.

Sent

We've been in Thailand for almost a week, and I can't wait to share some of our pictures and stories with you all! But first - I wanted to share a couple of pictures from the weekend before we left.

We've been doing this type of work for 7 years, and done a lot of traveling, but I'm not sure that we've ever had a send off like this. First, some of our closest friends got together for a dessert, coffee, and prayer night. We got a chance to share some of our videos, talk about the specific work we'd be doing on this trip, and share some of our prayer requests. Then they all took turns praying for us (while I cried - because I'm emotional like that) and we ended by singing the Doxology. It was such a special time!

Thank you to Scotty and Stef (above) who hosted our prayer night!

Then, a couple of days later, our church shared one of our videos and took the time to pray over us at the end of both Sunday morning services. The elders led this time, and it was awesome to have our church family reach out their hands and pray a special covering over us. We also had the opportunity to set up a table and share more about our work with a lot of our church friends. We feel truly blessed to be a part of a "sending" church!

Of course, there are also the 2 churches in Arkansas (First United Methodist of Monticello) and Mississippi (Emmanuel Baptist Church) who sent us through prayer and by donating our travel funds, as well as dozens of other individuals who gave sacrificially so that we could go. We were so humbled to see the money we needed to travel come in so quickly. THANK YOU to all of our generous donors. You are "senders" too!

We have never felt so supported on a trip before. When we landed in Thailand, our travel day picture had more than 300 "likes" and 48 comments where people were encouraging us and praying for us. You may not think things like Facebook "likes" are important (and in the grand scheme of life - they aren't!) but to us it was a testament to the love and support we had covering us. We were blown away!

This work may seem exciting and fulfilling (and it is!) but at times it can also be really lonely and heavy. With this important trip ahead of us (and knowing we'd be traveling to some dangerous places) it really means the world to us to have this kind of covering. I believe there is a difference between going and being "sent". We have been praying for God to move in and through us in powerful ways this trip - and we believe that with this kind of prayer covering, we're going to see BIG things happen!

Thank you to all of you who helped "send" us, and to each of you who are covering us daily in prayer. You bless us more than you know!

"And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? 

As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

 - Romans 10:15

Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! 

As the Father sent me, so I am sending you.”
- John 20:2

"Declare his glory among the nations, 

his marvelous deeds among all peoples."
- Psalm 96:3

We're headed to Asia!

I just realized today that those of you who aren't on social media probably haven't heard our great news! We're headed overseas!

Now before you get too excited - no, this is not for our adoption. This is a work trip, for our non-profit The Sound of Hope. My husband and I co-founded this non-profit in 2010, and we work full time to care for almost 200 orphans and vulnerable children in Thailand, Burma, India, and Swaziland.

We normally travel more frequently, but the past 2+ years we've been "stuck" in the US - partially due to a lack of travel funds, and partially because we really needed to finish all of our adoption paperwork before we left the country. But now it's done, and thanks to some very, very generous people we were able to buy our tickets!

We leave in 3 days (Sep 30th), so we are pretty much running around like crazy people right now - trying to finish up all of our packing and preparations before we go. We'll be gone for 47 days and we'll be working in 3 countries, 9 cities, and 5 Children's Homes! We are SO excited to be back with our precious kids overseas. We love these little ones so much, and it's been too long since we've been able to hug them and spend quality time with them. These children know that we help provide for their needs, but nothing says "I love you" to a child like spending time with them!

(Above) Ericka with the Asha House girls

(Below) Rusty with the Asha Mission boys

We have a lot of work to do while we're there. For those who may want to invest in this trip, we do have a few needs still. So many people have given so generously - and for that we are grateful! You can see from the list below that most of our needs have been met. We just have $600 to go to have our list completely checked off and our trip fully funded! If you'd like to donate, you can give online through this link.

I will do my best to post some blogs here while I'm overseas, but my main focus during any internet time will be keeping our Sound of Hope blog and social media up to date. We post a lot of "real time" updates (videos, pictures, and stories) - and we would LOVE to have you follow our journey! There are actually 5 ways you can follow us on this trip.

We hope you'll follow along and be a part of what we're doing around the world! 

Love Is Waiting

We just got confirmation this month that our dossier has been translated into Thai and received by the orphanage we'll be adopting from in Thailand. Our agency assured us it would get there, but it was still so good for this momma's heart to have it confirmed. And now, we really do know that there is nothing for us to do but wait. So it seemed like the perfect time to share these photos!

We are adopting from Pattaya, which is a coastal town, so a beach shoot seemed appropriate for our little beach baby! You would think (after my last post) that we took these on our recent beach trip - but this "Adoption Photo Shoot" was actually done on our Florida family vacation last October by my sweet baby brother (thanks Jaron!) At that time, we thought we'd be done with our paperwork by Christmas. We thought we'd share these within a few months. Little did we know it would be almost a year! But finally - after working for so long - the day has come that we can say, "We are waiting."

The song, "Love is Waiting" by Brooke Fraser is one that is really special to us. For those that don't know, Rusty and I dated long distance for 11 months before getting engaged. (And by "long distance", I mean that he was in a different country every month, on a trip called "The World Race".)

It was really difficult. We actually had very little time together, in person, to fall in love. We learned to love each other while we were apart - waiting to be together.

And so, the phrase "Love is Waiting" seemed appropriate for this shoot. We are here waiting, and our daughter is half a world away...

We don't even know her yet, but as we wait, we fall more and more in love with her.

Some families have a little empty chair in their home to remind them to pray for their child. 

We have a bunny.

We bought this little handmade bunny when we lived in Thailand in 2011 - long before we decided to adopt from there. I have a big thing for bunnies (Rusty's nickname for me is actually, Bunny!) and the idea was that it would sit on our child's bookshelf someday. Little did we know, that child would be a little girl from Thailand!

Baby girl, we cannot promise you that a perfect family will be waiting when you come home. We cannot promise you that a perfect house will be waiting when you come home. But my darling, we can promise you that so much LOVE will be waiting here for you.

"Family" Beach Trip 2014

As usual, I'm playing catch up on my blog! This post is about a month late, but I didn't want to miss it. We went to the beach in early August with some of our dearest friends, the Tuckers and the Flemings, and the pictures and videos are worth sharing!

Kristy, Josh, Carly, & Archer Fleming

[We took our good camera and "gifted" our friends with family beach pictures while we were there!]

Carrie, Chris, Ruby, Mae, & Jane Tucker

Sometimes in life, you get blessed with "family" that you get to pick. These people aren't blood related, but they are just as much family to us as our own siblings. Rusty and Josh have been friends for 23 years. Rusty and Chris have been friends for 33 years. They're practically brothers. Rusty has been friends with their wives since they started dating his friends 14 years ago, so Carrie and Kristy might as well be his sisters!

The Jacksons, The Tuckers, and The Flemings - 2014

These people were some of the first that Rusty every introduced me to, and I knew meeting them was as important as meeting his parents! When I married him, I "married in" to this group, but I didn't realize just how lucky I was until recently. These people really are like brothers and sisters-in-law to me, and I can't imagine loving a real niece or nephew more than we love their little ones!

Goody baskets from Uncle Wusty & Aunt Ewicka! (Jane-8, Mae-5, Ruby-3 months, Carly-5, Archer -2)

The only sad part, is that we see them so rarely. The Tuckers live 10 hours away, and the Flemings live 7 hours away. We're lucky if we see them once a year. We've talked several times about how we should spend more time together, and how we should vacation together, but we never made it happen until now. Losing our dear friend Ben earlier this year turned our lives upside down. His death made us all realize that life really is short, and time together is sweeter than we ever knew. So when our schedules lined up, and we found an incredible deal on a condo, we jumped at the chance to be together. (Oh but Ben... we so wish you, Amanda, and Ella could've been there!)

There were 6 adults and 5 kids all under the same roof for one week, and it was beautiful chaos! Rusty and I slept on the sleeper sofa, so we got a front row seat to the "Frozen - LIVE" show several mornings (it's a good thing we like to "Let It Go" and we always want to build a snowman! ha!), and the occasional snuggle bug sneaking into our bed!

My morning wake-up call!

Archer man loves his Uncle Wusty

Carly and Archer holding their "cousin" - Baby Ruby

It wasn't relaxing, and yet, it was wonderful. I barely made it through one of the four books I took, we never slept in, and I ended up covered in sand (I hate being sandy!) and carrying toys and snacks every time I went to the beach - but I wouldn't trade that week for the world. We finally got to be with the friends we love for more than a day "here and there", and spend real quality time with our "nieces" and "nephew" before they grow out of the snuggly phase and their adorable speech impediments. (Oh how I'll miss hearing "Uncle Wusty and Aunt Ewicka" when they learn to pronounce their R's!) I'll take being sandy and sticky and sleepy any day if it means we get to make memories like this!

Jackson - Tucker - Fleming :: Florida Vacation 2014 from Rusty Jackson on Vimeo.

It was a special time that I don't want to forget. Someday, I hope we're able to make it happen again when our sweet Kate can meet her "cousins" and be a part of that beautiful chaos! To the Tucker and Fleming crews - thanks for a wonderful week! We love you!

ETC Conference

I just got an email from ShowHope reminding me about the upcoming ETC conference, which reminded me to tell you all about it!

Friends... if you are anywhere near the Washington, DC area (or if you can get there) GO. Seriously - you do not want to miss this conference! It's September 12 - 13 and you can register now!

Since we entered the adoption world, I've heard about a lot of adoption conferences (most of them just for adoptive mommas, and most of them pretty expensive.) I was surprised when a friend from our Thailand Adoption Facebook group recommended this one, because I wasn't familiar with it at all. I was even more surprised to find out that it was so affordable (our tickets were around $35 each!) So when she gave it glowing reviews, we signed up for the February Birmingham dates.

I am SO glad we didn't miss this conference! Many of you are familiar with the name "Karyn Purvis" because you've read the book "The Connected Child." Hearing Dr. Purvis speak in person was beyond incredible. I'm telling you - the woman is so gifted, and she has so much wisdom to share with adoptive and foster families. For 2 days I scribbled notes furiously (even though I had an incredible workbook provided at the conference, and even though I knew I was buying the CD's) because I didn't want to miss a word she was saying. I left feeling encouraged and better equipped to parent our internationally adopted child.

But more than that, I also felt like my eyes had been opened to some situations in our Children's Homes around the world. (For those that don't know, my husband and I co-founded an international non-profit 4 years ago and we do orphan care in 4 countries). As Dr. Purvis was sharing explanations behind different behaviors, I was connecting the dots to several children we know and love in our homes. I was introduced to some tools that could help our kids - and I hope I can do some more training with Dr. Purvis' teachings in the future!

So friends who are adopting, friends who are fostering, friends who work with vulnerable children - even friends who want to better understand adoptive families - GO to this conference. Friends who work in education, counseling, social work, or ministry - those of you who come in contact with "kids from hard places" - I really believe you could benefit from this conference too! If I had it to do over again, I would go again AND I would bring my parents as well. (I think this would be a great way to help your parents understand why their adopted grandchild will need to be parented differently than a biological child!) The conference was extremely helpful, organized, and enjoyable. We were given great tools (detailed workbooks and notebooks) that followed the speakers' powerpoint presentations, and there were some excellent resources available for purchase. And again - I can't get over how affordable it was. Thank you ShowHope for giving us such a great experience for such a low price! I know that's a blessing to so many adoptive families who are saving for adoption expenses!

Here are a couple of links with more information:

Show Hope - http://showhope.org/be-hope/equipping-families/etc/

Empowered To Connect Website - http://empoweredtoconnect.org/

If you aren't in or near Washington, DC though, don't despair! From what I understand, this is an on-going annual conference and they are held in different locations each year. Just email info@showhope.org and ask them to put you on an email list so you'll know about upcoming conferences!

Dossier To Thailand!!!

I got the phone call this morning from New York...

We are officially DTT - (Dossier To Thailand)!!! 

Our agency finished all of our authentications, and all our important paperwork is now on its way across the ocean to beautiful Thailand. The thought of that stack of documents flying to Thailand makes me so EXCITED, but if I'm being honest, also a little anxious! I'm trying not to think about all people who will handle it and places it will be before it's in the hands of the woman who will match us with our child. I'm just trusting that God will get it where it needs to go!

"So... what's next?"

That was my question for our agency this morning. And the short answer is, we wait! At this point, we are just waiting on a referral. It could come at any time really, though it will likely be at least 6 months (and possibly longer) before we are matched with a child, and probably another 6 months until we travel to get her. I know that sounds miserable, but we are just SO thrilled to be done with paperwork, that entering this season is a bit of a relief! We know that we've done all we can, and so now we are trusting God to handle the rest in His timing. We don't know who our daughter is, where she is, how old she is, or when we will meet her - but God does. And so, for the next few months we will wait and pray and prepare our hearts to be parents!

We are determined to embrace this season. We know that when our baby girl gets home EVERYTHING will change! And as excited as we are for that day, right now, we are trying to live fully where we are. We don't want to take this season for granted. This is the last time it will just be the two of us, so we're going to try to enjoy it, live it fully, and bless the people around us as we wait.

I'm also excited about filling this time with things we've been too busy to do (because we were working on adoption paperwork.) I want to enjoy time with friends, catch up my blog, and learn to use my new sewing machine. We're finally renovating our office, and will hopefully be finished with it by the end of the summer. (I know how important it's going to be to have a separate office once Kate is home!) Also, our Thai is getting rusty the longer we're away, so we're looking forward to brushing up and learning more Thai in the coming months. And we're planning to travel this Fall to several of our partnerships overseas for The Sound of Hope, so I am really looking forward to that!

For today though, we will just enjoy the fact that we are now OFFICIALLY "paper pregnant"! We've finished our paperwork and (though we don't know when we will bring her home) as of today we have a baby girl on the way! It's been 2 years, 4 months, and 15 days* since we announced we were adopting from Thailand, so this is a major milestone that we've been working and waiting a long, long time for. We are now officially "expecting", and we are SO grateful that this day has come! Our hearts are full!

-----------

*If you're considering adoption from Thailand or just adoption in general, please don't let this timeline scare you away! Our journey thus far has been very long and arduous, but our timeline is not the norm. Many families have shorter timelines and very different experiences. Ultimately though, we believe our child is worth the wait, and that every child in need of a family deserves to be fought for (no matter how long it takes!)

Dossier is DONE!!!!!!!

Friends, I could not be more thrilled to tell you that our dossier is DONE! Well - my part anyway, which means that for me, all the "big" paperwork for our adoption is finished! (Go ahead - shout and cry tears of joy - I already have! ;) Yes, we'll still have some things to file and update here or there, but with our homestudy and dossier done I feel SO relieved!!!

I have to say thank you to all of you who prayed for me and encouraged me after my last post. I really wanted to finish well, and you guys helped give me the push I needed! Also, I have to share this little glimpse of my devotional from the day I posted that blog. The title was, "Dare To Be A FINISHER" and the verse was just what I needed to hear!

So I got busy the next day, and ran all over downtown Birmingham to get our local documents finished. No. Literally. I RAN. What was supposed to just be one stop at the courthouse turned into a trip back to the police department for the THIRD time just to get a document stamped the right way, and then a second trip back to the courthouse. I was desperately trying to finish before they closed, so I ran from the parking deck, downtown, and into the courthouse to get those last few certifications in time! So if you were driving in B'ham that day and saw a crazy woman running downtown with a purple folder full of documents - hair flying and a determined look in her eyes.... that was me. ;)

Our next step was a trip down to Montgomery for our state certifications. This was the last step that I was responsible for, so it was SUCH a big deal! Since we had 9 documents that needed to be certified, we just drove down (I didn't want to risk them getting lost in the mail.) About 15 minutes later and we were done!

Hanging out on the front steps of the state capital, 

so happy to be DONE!

Look at all those shiny seals! I was so excited that I jumped for joy!!!

After that, we had to wait another week on our documents to come back from Arkansas and Georgia. It seemed to take for-ev-er. I was so happy when they finally arrived with the State Seal! Georgia - I have to give you credit. Between the shiny seal and pretty blue cardstock, your document definitely looked the most official. ;)

Once we had everything together, we got some passport size photos made, and then it was time to package everything up. The night before we mailed it I spent some time sorting through everything, making copies, and organizing it all to mail. In the middle of my prep session, Rusty looked at me and said, "Can you believe it's done?" and it all just hit me.

I was packing up 28 months of our lives. 12 months of wishing and hoping and desperately trying to find an agency... all those months of wresting with the "what ifs" and the unknowns and the heartache of not being able to move forward until suddenly, we found our agency and got a YES! Then 12 more months of working on a homestudy (that only should've taken 3-6 months).... doing way too much "busy work", frustrating phone call after frustrating phone call, 31 hours of adoption education, filing and refiling paperwork and getting the request for "additional documentation" one too many times, edits and more edits and waiting month after month before we finally had that homestudy in our hands. Then 4 months of dealing with government officials in 5 counties and 3 states... mailing extremely important papework and praying it would come back.... driving other important paperwork all over the state to get those pretty little seals for our dossier...

And now... now it was about to be out of my hands. The realization hit me hard, and I couldn't hold back the tears. Tears of joy - YES! But also, tears of relief. I felt like this huge burden was being lifted off my shoulders! It was cathartic really, and I couldn't stop. I cried off and on for more than an hour as I packed up those papers. I just couldn't believe that I was DONE!

28 months of work... that's what was inside this folder. 28 months of hard work, and setbacks, and frustrations, and excitement, and progress, and heartache, and step after difficult step to get to our sweet baby girl. And now it is out of my hands.

The paperwork (homestudy and dossier) is supposed to be the "fast" part of an adoption - but for us it's been a long, hard road. I never thought it would take us this long to get this far - but God is the one writing our story, not me. So here we are, after 28 months, finally done with our dossier. We mailed it to our agency in New York on May 30th. Now they are finishing up with more certifications (it has to be authenticated again by the US Department of State and the Thai Embassy) before it can be mailed to Thailand. Once it's mailed and translated, we'll be able to be matched with a child! We couldn't possibly be more excited!!!

Thank you friends, for praying us through the past 28 months. I truly do believe that your prayers have carried us on this uphill climb. I'm so grateful to have the support of so many as we pursue our little girl. I'll keep you updated as we make more progress!

I800A Approval!

On Monday we got our I800A approval from the Department of Homeland Security! For those who don't speak "adoption" - that means that after reviewing our homestudy, supporting documents, and processing another round of $900 fingerprints, the US Immigration office has officially approved us to adopt!

This is a big step in our adoption - and a very important piece of paperwork that we have to have before sending our dossier to Thailand. I should've celebrated when I opened that envelope... but instead I burst into tears.

*Sigh.

This adoption thing is hard ya'll.

The truth is, I'm THRILLED that we got this approval, but I'm also feeling really, really guilty that the rest of our dossier isn't finished. Our hope when we mailed off our I800A was that we'd have our dossier legalized and ready to go to Thailand when this approval came in. Now we're probably another 3 weeks away. 

And this time it's no ones fault but mine.

I've blamed my lack of progress on a lot of distractions... several trips out of town, the unexpected and truly heartbreaking death of one of our close friends, and a summer cold that will.not.go.away. - but if I'm being honest, a big part of it is just the fact that I am really struggling to be productive and focused and finish this last leg of our paperwork "race". 

The truth is, I am worn out. I started this process with so much excitement and commitment and I just knew we were going to get things done so quickly! I am a detail person... I am an excellence person... and I like to check off a good "to do" list. Unfortunately though, every single step of this process has been an uphill climb. Finding an agency is usually something that takes a couple of weeks, a phone call or two, and a short application. Ours took a year of disappointing, frustrating, heartbreaking phone calls and emails and internet searches. Completing a home study is a somewhat invasive, but usually pretty simple process. For most people it takes 3 months or less. Ours was an emotionally, mentally exhausting YEAR of mind-numbing paperwork and frustrating phone calls. This paperwork portion (application, homestudy, dossier) of our process has taken 9 times longer than it should have taken. It usually takes around 3 months to get your paperwork ready to send overseas. But we are in the middle of month 27 of pursuing our child, and our paperwork still isn't in Thailand.

I'm not writing all that to vent or complain.... (okay... maybe I am... a little...) I don't want to come off as whiny or negative, and I certainly don't want to discourage anyone else from considering adoption (our journey thus far is not at all the "norm"!). I'm sharing this as kind of a confession. I don't really feel angry or bitter... I just feel tired. It's as if I set out on a 3 mile run on flat ground only to find myself in the middle of an 27 mile uphill hike. I've been running really slowly these last few weeks (and I'm frustrated with myself for it.) But mentally, I just wasn't prepared for this. And I think I'm finding it harder to trust in the process... hard to believe any sort of timeline or expectation. Which gives me a terrible "unsettled" feeling about what will happen next (and fears about the rest of our process that I'm having to battle.) I know there are lots of "unknowns" in the adoption process - and I was prepared for long wait times AFTER our paperwork was finished. I just wasn't prepared for such a difficult first two years. This was supposed to be the "easy" part! I think it's all beaten me down more than I realized.

You know, you think you're prepared when you begin your adoption journey, but nothing - no book, no blog, no conference, no friend's experience - can ever prepare you for what this process does to your head and your heart. 

So as I confess where I am (and beat myself up for not being more productive the past few weeks), would you mind saying a quick prayer for me? A prayer that I will be able to fight discouragement and fear? A prayer that I can hold it together and get this paperwork FINISHED in the next 2 weeks? A prayer that nothing will get lost in the mail, and that everyone I talk to and meet with (all government officials) will be helpful and kind? 

Thank you in advance, sweet friends, for holding me up and helping me get to this finish line!

5 years...

5 years ago today I walked down the aisle while my dear friend sang this song, 

and I said "I Do" to the one I love. 

HOME 

has been anywhere this man is... 

3 houses in 2 states 

and an apartment in Thailand

FAMILY

 ...the first few years looked like learning to love the people our spouse loved - 

those related by blood and those dear friends that we consider our "chosen" family

And family the last 2 years and 2 months has meant 

pursuing our little girl through adoption from Thailand. 

(we're praying this will be the year we are matched!)

WORK

 has looked like running a nonprofit full-time 

that's raised over half a million dollars 

(thanks to God, not us) 

And believe me - it's a miracle, 

considering our big personalities and opinions - 

that we still like each other after working together 24/7!

MEMORIES

have included traveling to Canada, France, India, Africa, and twice to Thailand,

Seeing the Eiffel Tower, Niagra Falls, and the beautiful beaches of Koh Samet...

Visits to orphanages and slums and brothels and leper colonies...

Safaris and elephant rides and snuggling tigers...

There have been many lessons learned while working together, ministering together, traveling together... and even more lessons learned buying and renovating our first house together.

We have truly been on an adventure! We have been abundantly blessed! There have been many memories made in the past 5 years. We've experienced so much JOY, but also plenty of heartache, disappointment, and tragedy. We have celebrated together, and we have grieved together. We've learned not to take a moment for granted... and not to take each other for granted either. Marriage is hard, but beautiful.

It is such a gift to have spent the last 5 years by the side of my very best friend... in sickness and in health, for rich or for poor, in joy and in sadness...

5 years ago today we had the most beautiful, sacred ceremony where we pledged our love and our lives to each other. 5 years ago we danced to this song, and in the years that followed we have learned what it means to truly "be here" for each other.

We have learned that life is sweeter when you don't walk alone. 

Thank you God for this blessing. 

We can't wait to see what the next 5 years hold!

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*For a more detailed walk down memory lane, check out my anniversary post from last year -  4 YEARS

I-800A to USCIS! (adoption update)

I know that for those of you who don't speak "adoption" (yes... at times it's like a whole other language!) that title might not mean much. So let me explain...

We just sent our adoption pre-approval papers (I-800A) to US immigration (USCIS) which is a big step in our adoption!

Even though we turned in our finished homestudy paperwork on December 16th, we didn't get our completed homestudy in our hands until March 10th** (from our contract agency). So that's why you haven't heard an update in a while. Once we had that though, the ball was rolling! On March 26th our placing agency was able to send off our I800-A application to the USCIS office  (U. S. Citizenship Immigration Service). We should get an appointment from them soon to have another round of fingerprints done, and then they'll review everything and (hopefully) approve us to adopt a child! This is the first half of the approvals we'll need from USCIS (they will also have to approve a specific child to be adopted by us and brought into the US - but that won't happen until after we're matched.)

So you're probably wondering, what's next?

Right now we're waiting on our 2nd fingerprint appointment, and waiting on USCIS approval of our I-800A. This should take around 6-8 weeks.

In the meantime, we are also working on finishing our dossier, which is a fancy way of saying, "a huge stack of important paperwork." This includes things like our homestudy, financial info, references, marriage license, medical reports, etc. We almost have all our paperwork, so now we have to LEGALIZE it. This means that almost everything in our dossier (around 50 pages of documents) must be (1) notarized (2) notarized/legalized again by the County Clerk from whatever county that notary is located in (3) notarized/legalized again by the State Dept from whatever state the notary is from (we'll have to do this for documents in Alabama, Arkansas, and Georgia). Then we'll send all our paperwork to our placing agency, and they will handle making sure our dossier is (4) notarized/legalized by the US Dept of State and (5) notarized/legalized a final time by the Thai Consulate. Whew!

We're not sure how long this will all take, but we're hoping that all of the above will be done by the end of May (>>fingers crossed<<). At that point our legalized, official dossier + our USCIS I800-A approval will be sent to Thailand and we will finally, officially be waiting to be matched with a child!

From there, the timeline is honestly unknown, but we have been given some estimates. Our agency said that the average time to receive a referral once our paperwork is in Thailand is 9 months (but of course, it could be a shorter or longer amount of time.) Once we have a referral and have officially been matched with our child, we should be able to travel to get her within 6 months!

That means we could be going to get Kate from Thailand sometime around August 2015, though there's really no way to know for sure right now.

Of course there will be other paperwork to file along the way, but I am really excited that our major paperwork (homestudy and dossier) are almost behind us! I can't wait to have all these forms and documents off my "to do" list, and to just be able to focus on fun things... like learning more Thai language, finishing some projects in our new home, and learning to use my new sewing machine before my baby girl gets home!

If you could pray for FOCUS as we diligently work to finish our dossier, that would be such a blessing. Please pray too for all these government workers to process our paperwork quickly, and that nothing gets lost in the mail!


** If you've been following our process, then you know that it took us a year to finish our homestudy. I don't want our timeline to scare anyone away from adopting, so I thought I should note that this is not the norm! Usually a homestudy takes anywhere from 6 weeks to 3 months. We put ours on hold for 3 months because we were moving our home and non-profit, and renovating several rooms of our house (which is not a good time to have important papers lying around!) Unfortunately, it was then delayed an additional 6 months because the contract agency we chose for our homestudy had excessive homestudy requirements that were very time consuming (which was quite frustrating for us.) Everyone's timeline is different with every adoption, but I didn't want anyone expecting their homestudy to take as long as ours! You can learn from our mistake however. I would encourage you to really research the requirements and timeline for any agency you hire as your contract (homestudy) agency or your placing agency. We have learned that they can differ greatly, even for a Hague homestudy!