Silent Auction! Check out this painting!

Isn't this painting just beautiful? I absolutely love it. My sister, Sandi Hester, is a local artist who painted this a while back before we ever made the decision to adopt. See her blog post about the painting at www.paintingtheword.com/2008/02/02/never-again/ . To raise money for our adoption, Sandi has graciously donated a limited, matted print of this painting. This is one of her best sellers, and she only has a few left. The print itself is 5x7, and the matting makes it 11x14. Beneath the picture is a hand aged piece of scripture quoting Revelation 7:16 - "Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat." Do you see why I just love the relevance of this painting and scripture to our adoption?!?!

So here is the deal: If you would like to "bid" on this matted painting, leave me your name and bid amount as a comment below. I will promptly post your comment. Others will be able to see what you bid, and make their own bids. You can then check back, leave another comment with a higher bid, and so on. This would be a wonderful gift to someone you know that has adopted or supports orphan care. (Oh, how I want this so bad - I am holding out hope that Sandi gives me a print for my birthday. Hint, hint Sandi!) 100% of the money goes straight into our adoption fund! The bidding starts NOW and ends at noon on Monday, February 1st. I am going to open the bidding at $35.00. Please bid and help us bring Macy home!

If you have an item or if you provide a service that you would be willing for us auction off to raise money for our adoption, please contact me!!!

We are ON THE LIST!!!!

We got our immigration form today!!!! FINALLY!!! I called my case worker at WACAP (our adoption agency) to tell her the good news, and she was equally as excited for us. She put us on the list, and says we have about 45 to 50 families ahead of us. She says this number varies because it includes families that are open to either gender, requesting a variety of ages, requesting either a single child or a sibling group, etc. The agency tells families in the Ethiopia program to expect a wait of 0 to 10 months for a referral (or a "match"). (Kind of a big range, huh?) We will be on the longer end of that wait. (Those on the shorter end are usually requesting an older child or a child with special needs. We are requesting a healthy girl age 9 months to 3 years.) The good news is that our agency is starting to work with several new orphanages in Ethiopia. One of these new orphanages provided a group of 15 children for referrals a few weeks ago! That's awesome! The agency won't give you an estimate of how many children they get a month, because it can vary a lot. (Trust me, I asked!) But at least we are headed in the right direction! So what happens now? Well, we wait some more! But while we do this, we continue to pray for our little girl. Chances are, she is already born and living on the other side of the world. Jason, the kids and I pray everyday for the Lord to keep her safe and healthy until we can bring her home to her new family. I am also praying for her family that she is with. I pray that they have a tender heart for her and put her needs first, as they may be relinquishing her to an orphanage. We appreciate your prayers as well, and are thankful for your support during this journey! I will keep you updated!
Oh, and one more thing! We are already taking donations for a spring yard sale. If you have anything around the house that you were planning to get rid of, we would LOVE to take it off your hands for you! Just let me know and we can pick it up! Thanks!

God's timing....

Now that I have had a few days to calm down, I can finally blog about what has happened recently in our adoption. After 7 long weeks of waiting for our immigration form, I contacted our social worker once again about checking on the hold up. She contacted the USCIS office in Memphis. She found out this week that USCIS never received our homestudy report. However, our case worker has the confirmation email saying that USCIS did indeed receive it. So obviously someone dropped the ball, and my almost two months of waiting has been for nothing. Once I found this all out, I was VERY upset, of course. My head tells me "I stayed up so many nights rushing through all of this paperwork so we could get our immigration form and be 'on the list' by the New Year. How could this happen?!?!" But then, my heart speaks up and God reminds me that this is all in HIS timing. And if God needed to put this ''hiccup'' in our adoption process to match us up with the precious little girl that He has chosen to be our daughter, then I will not fret. HE is the one in charge here. So, the waiting continues. Our homestudy has been resent (won't arrive in Memphis until Monday, thanks to the holidays) along with a note requesting for it to be expidited. It will be at least a couple of more weeks until we receive that long-awaited immigration form. God will be sure it arrives not a day too soon, and not a day too late...because his timing beats ours any day.
During the "drama" with our immigration form, we have also been informed that the adoption process from Ethiopia is changing. Our agency says that so far they are pleased with the changes, but there is still a lot to be ironed out. With these changes can come delays, changing policies, etc. But Jason and I have decided not to worry about any of this. Again, God knows exactly when we will add baby #4 to our family, and we are just going to have to trust Him.
I hope you all had a wonderful New Year. We look forward to what 2010 holds for our family!