A Sweet Surprise

Today in the mail was a sweet surprise, a card and a Cold Stone gift card congratulating us on our big step of finally getting our fingerprinting appointment, and getting one more step closer to bringing our baby home. It was from our dear friends Brenna and Darrin. They live in Colorado and the card said they wished that we could go out together to celebrate, but this will have to do for now. She had even done the research to know that there is a Cold Stone close to our house. Thanks girlfriend. I love you!

Hope in Ethiopia

Lysa TerKeurst has been one of my favorite Bible Study teachers ever since Tony and I had the privilege years ago to pick her up at the airport and drive her to Central's women's retreat in Williams, Arizona. I'm glad I didn't have a grasp of her ministry at that point, otherwise I would have been too "Star Struck" to have fully enjoyed our time and conversation on the drive. We even had to stop at Wal-Mart to get new coats because it was colder than either of us expected. I love my bright orange coat because it is so her, and not me, but fun and out of my normalcy.

But, as I read Lysa's blog as we were deciding where we would adopt from this summer, I learned about her daughter Hope, and her summer spent with the orphans of Ethiopia. I still am amazed about how my heart is growing for a country that I couldn't have placed on a map six months ago, and how much a part of our daily lives that Ethiopia is becoming, even before our baby arrives.

Below is the slideshow of Hope TerKeurst's summer in Ethiopia. I can't wait until Tony and I are there to fully grasp the country, and finally grasp our baby and not let go.

I-600A Fingerprinting

After weeks of waiting and praying, we finally have our appointment to have our fingerprinting done for our I-600A from from US Department of Homeland Security/US Citizenship and Immigration Services to the be cleared by FBI. This will move the process along on our last step before sending our dossier to Ethiopia.

Certified!

Today we received our copy of our completed home study. This means that the State of Arizona had certified us to be able to adopt. YAY!! Actually, it looks like it was sent over a month ago, but got lost in the postal system, but we have it now. This is the first big piece of the adoption puzzle. The process is basically this: Home Study, Dossier, Referral, Gotcha Day. Up until recently, we have been busy with writing biographies, collecting certified copies of basically every legal document we are connected to (and getting them notarized in triplicate), doctor appointments for physicals, fingerprints, and gathering reference letters. We have been active participants in the process up until now. Now we wait.

Right now we are waiting for the Department of Homeland Security to schedule us to get our biometric fingerprints. Once that is done, our dossier (the actual adoption application and background info) will be sent to Ethiopia and we wait.

We are excited to have this step done, but also know that we are still a long way from bringing our baby girl home. We do have one big job to work on; getting the money together. We have been researching organizations the present grants to families like ours to help with the cost of adoption. Most of them require the home study to be completed and certified, before you can apply. This is our current task.


Please continue to keep our family and our baby girl in your prayers. I cannot say enough how grateful we are to our friends and family that are supporting us financially and prayerfully through this process.

Orphan Sunday

Orphan Sunday from Christian Alliance for Orphans on Vimeo.

Tony's cousin, Kelley, shared this with us on Facebook. I didn't even know it was "Orphan Sunday" today, but please take a minute to watch this and pray for our baby wherever she is, and for the millions of other orphans in the world.

Garage Sale Fundraiser

We had a fantastic weekend doing our fundraiser! It was a lot of work (and we are exhausted) but we were able to raise $1371.14 ($8.33 was from Megan and Emily's lemonade stand on Saturday) toward our adoption expenses. We are so thankful! Thank you to everyone who donated, to everyone who shopped, and to everyone who helped spread the word. We had so many shoppers come and tell us that they came because of a mutual friend who told them about it or shared our post on Facebook. I also want to give a special thanks to my parents, Tony's mom Star, and my friend Katie for volunteering. We could not have done it without you!

We loved sharing our story with everyone and anyone who would listen. We are thankful for our friends (and even strangers) who stopped by and bought a few dollars worth of trinkets and wouldn't accept change from us. We were amazed that strangers would drive by, read our sign, and just hand us a dollar for a good cause. We are overwhelmed with the generosity of strangers who went home and brought us more things that we could sell!

Remember the story of the loaves and fish from the Bible (Matthew 14:13-21)? And when Jesus had multiplied the little that was given, there were 12 basketfuls left over? That's what we had last night, except that we had 3 pick up trucks full plus a trailer that we were able to give to a church that has just purchased their first building, but that building needs repairs and they are having garage sales to raise the money for those repairs. (The last picture is of the leftovers. It filled our side yard!)

It's Almost Time

Our Garage Full of Love

Tomorrow is our big garage sale. We have been so blessed by the amount of donations from our friends. Tonight at dinner, Megan's prayer brought me to tears as she thanked God for our "Garage full of love and that we would get enough money on Friday and Saturday to get our baby sister from Ethiopia".

thankful

I have gotten such a great response from the necklaces that I'm making as thank you gifts to our financial sponsors, that I am branching out and starting a line of pendants to sell to raise money for our adoption. This first pendant of the series celebrates Thanksgiving and thankfulness (but it is truly appropriate year round). The pendant is glass and the background is a cream with thin blue and brown stripes and it comes with an 18" black necklace made up of an organza ribbon and 4 thinner cords.

We truly have so much to be thankful for and this pendant is a great reminder for you or a friend or family member. It will come mailed to you in a silver gift bag. Let me know if it is a gift, and I can enclose a gift card as well and send it directly to the recipient. When you contact me to order, I will send you an invoice through PayPal, and then quickly ship the necklace.

Contact me to order at SaraWeber@cox.net

All proceeds go toward adopting our daughter from Ethiopia! Thank you!

$20, includes free shipping

Colossians 3:15-17 (New International Version)
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Generosity

We are completely overwhelmed by the generosity of our family and friends. Our garage sale is still a week away, and our garage is filled with donations! Thank you so much! And, we are still collecting if you have things you are ready to get rid of. Then, remember to stop by next weekend and shop!

Longing

I'm especially longing for our baby today. One of my very best friends is about to have her baby in the next few weeks, and I just wonder about who our baby is and when we will hold her. On hand, I have the mothering and nesting desires that I had with each pregnancy, but without a due date or even knowing how old she will be, I can't shop yet or plan her room. With Megan and Emily we chose their names early in pregnancy and it helped to connect with them, but we will be incorporating her Ethiopian name, so we can't even do that yet until we are matched.
I'm trying to remind myself to embrace the journey. And we are excited to grow our family in a way that most families will never experience. But, today is just one of those harder days.

The God of Paperwork

In follow up to my earlier post about resending our I-600A form, we got it all taken care of and turned back in with our certified check. Now we wait, and wait, and while I'm waiting I asked for prayer this morning at our Bible study leaders' meeting for God to be in control of the I-600A since it is completely out of my hands. And, when I got the mail on my way home from that meeting, I had a letter from USCIS with confirmation that they had received and processed our paperwork and we should be receiving another letter with an appointment set for our fingerprinting soon. Yea!

Garage Sale Fundraiser

We still have quite a bit of money to raise for the next big steps in our adoption. So, we are having a fundraiser garage sale.

You can help us by donating things to the sale. We are already starting to collect, but will make a big push for collection for November 1st-5th.

Also, you can come shop at the sale. We have already collected a ton of donations, so there will be a lot of good things and great deals to choose from! And, you can tell your friends!

Weber Home (message me for our address and directions if you need them)
November 6th and 7th
7:00 am - noon each day

I-600A - Speed Bump

Part of our dossier (the massive stack of paperwork that goes to the Ethiopian government, the US government, and the orphanage) is approval for our "application to process an orphan". It is government forms, then biometric fingerprinting, leading up to our approval.
We sent the forms about two weeks ago and I was very excited to find an envelope from the Department of Homeland Security! Unfortunately, it wasn't our appointment for our fingerprinting like I had hoped, but it was our entire application sent back because they don't accept person checks (which Tony and I have looked through all our information and can't find that anywhere). So, Tony is headed to the bank to get a certified check, and we'll send it all out again.

Home Study Approved

I just got news that our home study was approved. We are now certified to adopt in the state of Arizona. Now we just need to tie up a few ends to send out our dossier.

One part we are missing is our "special" fingerprinting that we sent in our application for (and almost $900) and we need to get an appointment to have it done, and then wait some more for our approval. Please pray that it all goes quickly.