Packing list

I just got an email with a list of what to pack for our trip to Guat. I am resisting pulling out the suitcases, so I added the count down to the blog instead! We made contact with a woman who is serving there now and got to hear a cute story about what is going on at the children's home, but I might wait to tell it until I have a picture to go with it.

I am just so thrilled about the work that the Lord is doing at the children's home, through the missionaries, all of the agency staff, the care givers, and the teams that go from all over the country. This picture of a continuing, long-term ministy to the fatherless is what made me excited about our family adopting in the first place. There is care for those children waiting to go home and also community of families passionate about adoption and Guatemala right in our area. We are attending a reunion dinner for families that have adopted children through our agency on Friday. So many families from this area have used our agency and brought home children from the home, they moved the reunion here! I know that will be a very emotional and joyous time for me. I got choked up during prayer time with the kids tonight just thinking about the children's home . Austin asked if I was laughing at something. :)

POA arrived at the agency and was sent to the consulate today!

The Dent and the Missing Initial

Yeah! We made a dent in the timeline today! While waiting for the POA to reach our agency over the last 3 weeks, I kept thinking that I just need to run down to the capital, get the authentication, and get it overnighted to the agency. Today, I found out that the Sec. of State had been holding the POA because of a missing middle inital. I had the kids make lunch (ha!) while I printed out a new POA and we headed off to get Daniel's signature and it renotarized (thanks Mike for being ready at the drop of a hat with your stamp!), then off to the state capital 1.5 hours away! Our agency will get the POA tomorrow by noon. The mail held our copy of the new 171, stating that it (171) had been sent to the Embassy in Guat on June 21st! We just lack our dossier to be translated (that started about 2 to 3 weeks ago, usually takes 3 or 4 weeks to complete) and we will be entered into family court and into the U.S. Embassy in Guat. to get our Preapproval (PA)! I am thankful that the Lord spurred me to action and that He answered prayers for things to get going this week! Hooray, hooray!

Techinical Difficulties

WE LOVED Getting to see Ellie in motion! She was pretty quiet during the segment they taped of her, but we got bonus footage of her in the background when they were talking to the older children. She wizzes in and out of the shot in a baby walker and you can see her peeking in to see what is going on. A little while later, she gets braver and comes in for a closer look. :) My IT support team was having a little trouble with the Windows Vista Movie maker, so we will try to get her segment up and going when possible. I won the armwrestle for publishing rights, or at least we will both post the video:) ! We were slightly worried we would not be sure it was her, but we both spotted her right away. Life at the children's home seems lively and happy. It is not an ideal situation in a perfect world, but I am so thankful for those care givers. They really seem to love what they are doing and it shows in the children. Those "Mamas", as they are called, seem to have at least the first portion of James 1:27 down, "Religion that is pure, undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction..."
So please continue to bear with us and pray for us to get started in Guat soon!

Great Day!

We have heard that there was a DVD in the mail of all the kids at the children's home mailed out last week, and today it came! I am waiting for Daniel to get home to see it, and later we will try to post Ellie's portion. (We might have to arm wrestle for the rights to blog it! :) )
I also had lunch with felllow blogging Guatemama Jami, a sweetheart! She might not ever want to hang out because we were a water-spilling, McD rule-breaking, bullying, circus of a family today, but it was such fun to chat. :) Please pray their little Hudson gets out of PGN soon! You can just see it in her eyes how much she wants that little guy home.
I am praying that we have our documents (Power of Attorney and I171-H) in place by next week! We meet Ellie one month from today! We actually arrive in Guat. City on the 21st, but will not have enough daylight to make the trip to the children's home (the roads, I hear, will be mountainous with no lights). Grace's mom, Amy, and I have volunteered to sit on the hood of the vehicle with spotlights, but we still did not get the go ahead. :)
Keep praying for Grace, for her health, and for her case to get moving. She is having trouble with both, and needs to be heading for home!

No, Our Almost 1 yr old is not on a mission trip alone... :)

I am learning that I need to be more clear in how I communicate about the adoption. Pre-referral days, I didn't usually mention it to people we were meeting for the first time (happens often for us). When they said, "Oh, you have 3 kids"...I would just leave it at that. Now, there is that 4th little person that causes me physical pain from missing her, and I have not even met her yet! But I feel that I can't just leave it at "Yes, I have 3 kids". Recently, talking to someone I had just met, I was explaining the ages of our kids and mentioned that we have a near 1 year old in Guat. The woman looked confused and we were quick to add that we were adopting her and she was not home yet. "Oh, so she is not on a mission trip there..." was the response! Needless to say, I need a better introduction line.

We are going to visit Ellie at the end of July. She will not be able to come home with us then, the court process in Guat. is taking 6-8months from where we are now. Only if the Lord willed to shrink steps that take months into hours would we be able to get her home then. Our trip is not really even a visit trip, but we will be on a mission trip to the children's home where she is. I think we will get to keep her in our room at night, and I will be working along side of the care givers so I will get to be with her during the day some. Anyway, we will get to meet her, create some great memories with her, and know exactly what her life is like right now.

Pray for our POA (Power of Attorney) to arrive at our agency and for the updated 171 to get to the embassy. We are also waiting on our dossier to be translated. Then, we can get things rolling in Guat!

Praise! I think that Grace went back to the children's home today. Continue to pray for weight gain and wisdom for her doctors and parents.
Update: Grace is not at the home yet, but Lord willing, tomorrow morning.

YEAH! New Pictures

I had not received the montly update for June, but I thought it might just take some time since we just got the referral. I knew that all the other families had gotten new pics, so I checked to see if there was anything new on the website last night. To my delight, June pictures were posted! I called Daniel upstairs and we began to scroll through...no Ellie, no Ellie, maybe they mislabled the names. So I checked without looking at the names, just faces. Still no Ellie. She has been on all the other web postings, so I was a little concerned. Was she sick, at the hospital, sent home with another family? A very far fetched, I know, but I knew that it would be okay to at least ask. Our caseworker came through with the pictures pretty quickly and reassured me that we would be notified if she was sick, and there was a 0% chance of another family taking her home. Good for this Guatemama's peace of mind.
The little girl Grace, that I asked prayer for , has been in the hospital. It brought tears to my eyes when I heard that at least one of the care givers is with her at all times, even at night. The love and care that these dear women show our babies while they are at the children's home, get them through this time we are apart and make it easier for them to transition into our families! I am so thankful that Ellie is getting such good care!

Check out how thick her hair is getting! I am planning on trying to slip in a pair of hair scissors to get those long whispy ones. It will be fun to try some bows and head bands. Hannah was pretty bald until she was at least two, so having hair will be new this time around. We also got a medical report and she is on the 5th percentile and below for height and weight. Those squishy cheeks are deceiving! She is otherwise healthy and active.

Happy Father's Day!

I found this cute shirt and could not resist getting it for Daniel for Father's Day. (Hannah asked "Why are we getting Daddy a shirt for Ellie?") :) Translation: "I love my Daddy", and though she doesn't know it yet, Ellie does love her daddy! Daniel is a great (i.e. fabulous, hilarious, the best...) dad and I love to watch him in action. I am amazed at his wisdom and leadership in our family. You will have to visit his blog to hear about Hannah's gift.

It is sinking in even more that we have another child and she is not with us. Today was our first Sunday back at church since we found out about Ellie, so she seems even more "real" after showing pictures and telling about her all morning! I was also in the nursery with her age group which made me think about her even more. And... Mark and Michelle had their little Evan at church and I got to meet him for the first time...so there is hope that these kids really DO come home! (What a cutie, by the way.) It was great to get a small taste of their experience in Guat. and I look forward to hearing more.

I am thankful for the Godly heritage that both Daniel's father and mine passed onto us. I praise God for being our Abba Father and allowing us to be called His children by adopting us into His family!

She's Eleven Months Old!

I had heard that the first birthday would come quickly from another Guatemama, but little did I know that it would be this quick! We were at youth camp on the 12th and though we had limited internet access, I could rairly find the mouse on the screen outside, so posting on her 11th month bday was quite impossible. I was thankful to at least have some pictures printed out for this week away!

Also, please pray for little Grace, Ellie's bud at the children's home. She is having some health problems. Pray for her doctors to have wisdom in how to help her get well!

"The Call" and A Few More Pics...

I had just thought to myself, "I should change the ring for the agency, so when they call I will know right away!" Then just minutes later, the phone rang at 3:40pm, Eastern Time, on Monday and I didn't recognize the number. That was all I needed. I was already out of breath from finishing a workout, along with my anticipation did not help my ability to talk at all. As the woman from the agency introduced herself, I quickly looked for a pen and paper in the hotel room. The older kids were playing loudly, and I gestured for them to calm down. The woman began to give details of Ellie, but I was struggling to hear her over the noise of the kids. I put the lock out to keep the door from closing and sat outside the room. As I was listening and writing, Austin followed me out and shut the door behind him. I thought that we would be fine, because Hannah was still inside to let us in. Unfortunately, Hannah decided to come out as well, and there we were stuck outside without a key, Noah sleeping alone inside, two kids still running around and being loud, and me in tears, trying to stay composed for the rest of the phone call!

When the call was over, I headed down to the lobby to ask for a key. The poor woman at the desk must have thought I was panicked with worry over locking myself out of the room, because she walked me down to the room to let me in herself!
Daniel and I had planned to open the emails of the first pictures we saw of her together, so I had to wait the long hour until he returned to the room from class. (Southern is a large campus, and I had no idea where he was meeting because it was the first day of class...or else I would have been waiting outside the door!) The kids were on "Daddy Watch" at the windows and I was able to sprint outside to tell him the news. We immediately headed to the lobby of the hotel, where we met this precious little girl that we had been praying for so long!
Over the last three months while we were on the waiting list, on days when I was a little antsy for adoption news, I would go to the children's home website and pray for the kids pictured in their photo gallery. Little did I know then, that I had been looking at Ellie and praying for her to go home to her family soon every time!

Another cool tidbit, and credit to the sovereignty of God, is that Ellie came to the children's home on our filing date with the INS!

Announcing....

This is our little Ellie! We got the referral call on Monday! She was born July12, 2006. The Lord made her avaliable for adoption just as we were at the top of the waiting list! We hear from her care givers that she is a "happy and quiet baby" and "we need to adopt her"! And YES, we DO need to add her to our family! Things are rolling with sending a Power of Atterney and getting an updated 171-H (something a little unique to our state). I have lots of pics from the agency and I am trying to get dates on them and put them in order so we can see her growth over this first year. We were on location in Louisville, KY while Daniel was taking a class , so that added to the memories of that special call. (I will have to post on that later.) We will meet her in 46 days! Keep praying for a smooth process through the Guatemalan courts so we can bring her home!

The Latest On the Process....

I made contact with the agency yesterday and we are still second on the list for a baby girl, but she seemed pretty confident that we would be getting the referral call in the next couple of weeks. I am pretty content to wait and continue to prepare my heart for the spiritual battle that I know is ahead of me. We will need to learn how to glorify our Savior in the midst of frustrating circumstances that we cannot control that would keep us from our baby. Seems simple enough...right?!