Adoption Update!

Well we have FINALLY finished our dossier and it has all been mailed to our agency.  We thought the USCIS fingerprinting would take the longest but that took 2 weeks after we filed to get fingerprinted and got the approved form in 3 days after that!! Record time!! However the letter from our doctors turned out to take a much longer time, but no dwelling on that now, because it is all on its way to the agency, which will forward it to Bulgaria to be translated and processed and then in a few weeks we will get to meet Rositsa!  Now to figure out what to pack in a care package for her. Its a little harder to guess what a 12 year old might like than a 3 year old!    Praying all of this goes quickly so she can join us. I have had a hard time accepting this is really happening.  After not bringing Keith home and then the girl from India fiasco, its hard for my mind to believe this is working :)  However once I sent those last papers, I got misty, started to imagine what it will be like to hug her, hold her hand, love her....and I began to wonder has she ever had a family long for her to be home?  Has she ever known the kind of love she is about to experience?  Perhaps she has, I pray at some point she has experienced family love, but if not 12 years is a LONG time to wait and I hope her wait to be coming to an end as soon as the good Lord allows!

I don't get it!

I am in awe and admiration of those of you who can do. I however cannot, no matter how much sense and time saving it incurs.  I am talking about cell phones and yes I am not that old and this shouldn't be as hard as it seems.  I am a slow texter, although I can text!  My issue comes with calling people in any place but a quiet room....which is a rare thing in a house with 7 homeschooled children.  I watch people make calls while in the car, at the store, in a waiting room, walking, biking, chasing toddlers at the park..... I just don't see how it works.  Once my mind is driving, walking,  chasing or even watching children I totally can't concentrate on what someone is saying on the phone.  In fact I don't even hear it!  Or if I hear it I can't imagine remembering what I need to pick up at the store.  I am TERRIBLE at keeping in touch with people I don't see regularly unless they email or text, that I can do in a loud room :)  When I do talk on the phone I literally have to go in my room and close the door to talk and usually when I do that the children know mom isn't listening and then the house becomes some sort of crazy house.....  So here is to you phone talkers.....You are way more awesomer then me, to those who feel I don't call enough, I am thinking of it and just wait till the kids move out, your phones will be ringing off the hook.  Until then feel free to email and text!!  Last note, I do feel like its weird for people to talk in waiting rooms, I feel like I am eavesdropping but can't help it!

Update on Rositsa's adoption

It has been awhile since I updated where we are in the process of bringing Rosie home.  We received our completed and signed homestudy on July 24th and forwarded it to our agency.  They sent in the paperwork for our i800a and today we found out the check was cashed, so hoping thats good news!  We had been electronically fingerprinted for our dossier and sent it our agency, but turned out it was only run through the state of TX and not through the FBI and Bulgaria is specific in the paperwork they want.  So we had to go to the police station and get fingerprinted again and mail it into the FBI headquarters.  So now that is being processed.  We have stack of papers to be signed and notarized and then we need to get papers signed and notarized by our doctors (although we have already had the appointments, so this should take too long) and while we are waiting on that we will hopefully get our appointment to be fingerprinted again (this is for the USCIS and immigration) and then the clearance.  Once our agency has all this it will be forwarded to Bulgaria and translated and we will invited to come and visit Rosie for the first time.  Then we will return home and they will send all our documents to court to get the official adoption decree then we will travel back to bring her home.  So we are almost halfway there!  I would love to have her home for Christmas, but without a miracle I am thinking she will likely be home earlier in the new year. I am slowly learning a little Bulgarian, to hopefully make the transition a little easier. 

Other then that to keep us busy while we wait, we are getting ready for the new school year.  We are starting Aug. 20th so this week I was organizing the homeschool room, seperating books, filling pencil boxes.  It will be so nice to get back into a school routine!

I am a morning person...

NOT a middle of the night person.  Here is a snippet of my life...
Setting (I am peacefully sleeping and it is before 6am which is the time I can become a morning person)

Daughter opens door and rouses me with shuffling steps..."mom" she says

I try to pretend I cannot hear as I hope to drift back into my dream

"Mom" she says louder

I am pretty sure I said what but might have sounded like a grunt.

"My eyes are puffy and hurt" says daughter who was convinced the previous evening that she might be going blind because I once said perm chemicals can blind someone and we had done a deep conditioner rinse, which I assured her won't blind her and she swore a tiny bit got in her eye.....ahh melodramatics....

Me reply "you will be fine its not from the conditioner" ...note I still have not opened my eyes other then a quick peek to assure me which kid was talking.

"Then what is it from?"  She replies unbelieving...

My reply "Its called morning...you just woke up that's why"

She shuffles back to bed and though I tried hard to go back to sleep in comes my trusty alarm clock 45 minutes later who wakes up at 6 every day for the past 5 years..... :)

The phone stopped

Every year around this week, I have a stressful week, life seems overwhelming, usually find myself lying alone on the bed thinking its hopeless!  I usually think are the kids unusually wild or naughty?  Is the house ALWAYS needing this much done?  Can I never find the right hobby to satisfy me...?  Then it occurs to me every year, this is the week we lost my mom.  Perhaps that even unconsciously speaks to my heart.  Its a weird thing I don't even remember its coming but every year its the worst week and then it hits me what day it is.  We were close my mom was proud of her children and a little over protective, which in my teen years I thought was a lot, but now as a mom can laugh!  Even after I moved out she and I would call each other all throughout the day.  If Alex or AJ did something funny I would call her to let her know, if she saw something funny on TV or wanted to see if we could come to a family gathering she would call me.  Its been 9 years since she has gone.  I realized today my phone went silent after that.  Not for lack of callers, but for me.  I stopped calling to let people know whats going on believing they have their own families or lives, believing no one cared about the details as much as she did.  Not wanting to burden others who were trying to make dinner or get the kids to bed.  Over time I myself filled the house and so long talks on the phone are almost impossible without many interruptions and lots of background noise (although I do love email!) I think on some level its one reason I love facebook.  I can post the cute things or the stuff I want to tell and I can keep connected.  I really am at peace with her passing, knowing where she is now and knowing that there is no more cancer or pain.  My sadness and grumpiness isn't for her missing anything because eternity isn't missing anything, its for me and the calls I miss!  But I learned something the other day, we make the mistake that we are humans living a temporary spiritual experience during our lives, instead we are spiritual beings who are living a temporary human experience....temporary....I can handle that....means we will be reunited someday :)

Adoption Fundraising!

Adoption is expensive, homestudys are over a thousand dollars, we have to budget 2 trips to Bulgaria and then their is fees everywhere agency fees, fees for the immigration paperwork, fees for the Bulgarian government.  When we were having an adoption fundraiser garage sale for our Liberian adoptions, a woman wrote a nasty email to us addressing that if we can't afford to adopt we shouldn't be adopting.....I am here to prove that yes it works.  Had I listened and thought we can't afford it...Hannah JD and Zeke would still be orphaned, Zeke was so sick when he came home I am sure he would be a statistic of kids in Liberia who do not make it until their 5th birthday.  The parasites in JD's stomach would have caused severe malnutrition.  God has provided each penny when needed for our adoptions, many times through angels who have joined us in this journey.  I know these days EVERYONE is fundraising for something and EVERYONE needs a donation, but I have put this in God's hands and Rosie will come home with every penny, this I am sure of :)  I am sure if I could post Rosie's picture you would look into her sweet brown eyes and agree with us no matter the cost she deserves a family to love her!  So if you want to join us through the purchase of a t-shirt or coffee see the links on the right of this page.  Even if you cannot buy anything we would greatly appreciate prayers!!  Lets storm heaven on Rosie's behalf :)

Counting the Cost

What would you do if you knew a young girl was in grave danger of being taken by traffickers and sold into a life of prostitution?  How would you react if you saw a 12 year old girl in your neighborhood being grabbed by a stranger on the street or watch a man slip something into a young girls drink and took her with him?  What if it was a friend's child who was sexually assaulted?  What if you found a homeless child hiding out in your backyard?  What if it was your child?  Who would protect them if you could not?  Where would they go without you?  Most children age out of European orphanages around 16.  They are literally sent out into the world with nothing and no one. Statistics show that 90% of children who age out end up involved in crime, prostitution, addiction or give into suicide.  It breaks my heart to think about it.  I think about my children who just were blessed to be born to parents who wanted them, to parents who were not in poverty, to parents who were not in a country where we were forced to give them up, that their mother was not a drug addict, to a father who did not abuse or exploit them.   Does that make them more worthy for life then anyone else?  Do they deserve love and protection more then the child sitting in an institution waiting for someone, anyone to notice them?  Adoption has been difficult at times adjusting to new normals, dealing with broken hearts and paying every last official who needs to be paid to process the adoption.  But how much more did my Savior pay for my adoption?  How much pain or tears were spent on my behalf as Jesus hung on the cross for me. Redemption on my behalf.....adoption into His family.  Redemption is expensive, it cost Him his life, Redemption is messy, the thorns in His crown, Redemption is painful, every strike on his back.  Redemption is beautiful a new name, Redemption is everlasting eternal home, Redemption is loving and never looking back.  Adoption to me is a small scale example of redemption, but not just for our children, but for me.  It has changed me, shaped me and molded me.  It has stretched me in ways I didn't imagine and it has formed in me a passion.  Today we finished our homestudy visit, one step closer to bringing our Rosie home.  One more step in the messy, expensive, sometimes trying process to bring a little girl into the safety of her daddy's arms, to protect her from traffickers to keep her from poverty and to make sure she knows she is loved and wanted.