can't chase fast enough

For those of you who are wondering where we're at in the adoption process and what our timeframe is, here's a little update...

We have been "paper chasing," or collecting the necessary documents to submit to the Ethiopian government as part of our dossier. We just scheduled our first home study visit for next Thursday and part of what the home study social worker does is guide us through the fingerprinting, background checks, and compiles a detailed report about our family and living conditions. They tell me this should take about three months. Once the homestudy is complete, we will send a copy (along with a few other documents) to the United States Citizenship Immigration Services with our I-600A application, which once approved will allow us to bring an international child to the US. That approval is the final piece to completing our dossier, so after everything is received, notarized and authenticated we will send it to our agency for final review and then it is off to Ethiopia. Apparently this entire process takes 4-6 months, but don't you know I'm doing everything I can to expedite it!

Once our dossier is sent to Ethiopia we can expect to wait 4-6 months for a referral (or "the call"). Our referral will include a child's picture and all the available medical and background information on that child. We will have one week to decide if we want to accept or reject that referral. After we accept a referral, we will be given a court date (probably scheduled for 3-6 weeks later...I think), for which we will have to appear in person (in Ethiopia). This trip will be approximately 5-7 days long and we will get to spend time with our child while there. After we pass court we return home and wait another 4-6 weeks for all of the paperwork to be finalized before we go back to Ethiopia (for about 4 days!) to pick up our child and bring him home!

So.....hopefully by this time next year we at least know what our child looks like, if not have even smootched his little cheeks!

"about me"

So I avoided filling out the "about me" section on this little blog for a long time because I didn't want to resort to the typical "wife, mother, friend.." fluffy list and I didn't really want to "talk about myself", but one day last week when finally posting a profile picture (of course I had to include my awesome husband in that) I decided to share the verse that has been a strong desire of my heart lately and reoccuring thought in my daily life.

Philippians 3:10-11 - I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

I have been confused by this verse because I feel like I desire what Paul is speaking of, and yet I know I don't fully grasp the depth of the meaning. Yesterday morning, after another sleepless night filled with prayer and frustration, conviction hit. Unfortunately, due to the nature of our job and who may be reading this, I have to omit details, but in short, we have had the most trying bunch of girls in our dorm this summer. Praying Philippians 3:10-11 is the next worse thing to praying for patients!

You know (if you're a parent), how you think you "know" about the love of our Father, but when you become a father (mother) your understanding deepens? I feel like this short week and a half with these girls has been a gift of a deeper understanding of the agony our Lord felt as he sacrificed himself for those he cared deeply for while they (I) spat in his face. Ok, don't get me wrong, what I have been through the past few days does not compare to what Christ went through and I know that. That's where the conviction came in. I was feeling sorry for myself and starting to gather my pennies to save up to take next summer off when I realized that this was what I wanted! I don't want to grow complacent and the Lord knows that this is the kind of thing I need to kindle the fire in my heart that I may "press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me."