AUGUST

As I try to think back to August, I don't think it was too memorable for us.  Although as I type those words memories are suddenly flowing back, so maybe I'm wrong after all.  We spent the majority of our days playing outside in the summer heat, but we also took our first family trip to the State Fair.  Yes, you read that right.  For the first time in Mason's life, and the first time in Byron and my eight years together, we have never gone together to the fair.  It's like an Iowa sin, I'm sure.

We did get the chance to zip up to our home away from home, Michigan, to meet up with my family to celebrate an uncle's wedding.  It was a chance to see all my relatives and some of our friends, too, in a very short amount of time.

Finally, August marked a big milestone for us as far as our adoption goes.  Yes, we are still hoping that adoption is in the future for us, but we say that now knowing ultimately that whatever happens is in the Lord's hands.

The rest of the year flew by.  We would soon be celebrating back to school, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  At home, we are already starting to look ahead to what the new year will bring.  But for now, I still have a few more months to recount.

WALKING THROUGH UNCERTAINTY

I suppose it has been awhile, and is time for an adoption update.  This post has been in my head and on my heart for awhile now, but with the busyness of life, hasn't been written.

Things were going along according to plan.  We were officially placed on the waiting list for an Ethiopian child last summer. We knew about how long we would wait, what we needed to accomplish in the mean time, and generally what would be next.  Can you sense what's happening from my verb tense?

Sometime around October (the dates are a little fuzzy to me now but I think that's close), we were participating in a conference call on various topics with the Ethiopian adoption program.  Nobody came out and said anything specifically, but reading between the lines, it hit us.  This dream we're chasing, of bringing a little one home from across the globe...probably isn't going to happen.  The program was basically closing.

So then what?

It was definitely a time of struggle for us, discerning what to do next.  We had a lot of different options to discuss.  Byron seems to be able to figure out what he thinks the best option is for him rather quickly.  I, on the other hand, usually want to try all the options, do all the things, adopt all the kids.  So we talked about it for a while, but mostly I just needed to sit with things for a while.  The biggest question that made it hard for me to actually make a decision was... I thought we were following God's call.  I thought God led us to the Ethiopian program.  So why would he then lead us away?  Why did we do all that work for nothing?  Shouldn't there be some reason, some lesson we see in this?  I can tell you now, yes, there are lots of lessons I've been learning through this, but mostly it is just to follow where God is leading us, even if that means we have to turn around and start again.

So I think that we, as a family, have figured out what our adoption might look like.  Because Byron felt so strongly about one option, and I just felt everything about all options, we decided to go in the direction Byron felt most comfortable.

But what does that mean?  First of all, though we are not starting completely over, there are some things that we have to go back and redo.  Appointments...visits...paperwork...things like that.  And those rough timelines that we were attempting to follow?  Those are all out the window.  We don't yet have anything new to go by, and we may not get anything.  Finally, the financial impact changes as well, but I have no worries there.  God has shown himself faithful here before, He will do it again.

So we're good, and we're pressing on as best we know how, but truly truly it's into a land of uncertainty.  We are trying to take things day by day.  I actually read a quote just this morning by Lysa TerKeurst.  It says, "Being present with a heart bent toward love and daring to look at what's been placed right in front of you is the best place to start."  That resonates with me - what has been placed right in front of us is all we have.  Good words.

I want to open up just a bit more though.  I, in particular, have been dealing with lots of insecurity in this new direction. Some of that being lack of control, others just being everyday insecurities that I really haven't dealt with for a while.  For a time, I was even feeling attacked by the devil every time I tried to go to sleep.  Any time you uplift our family in prayer, we really appreciate it.

My last insecurity is all of you.  We shared with you our story, our struggle, but also our hopeful outcome.  Now that will be different.  Are you judging us?  Do you still support us even though our path may have turned?  I am not living out this story solely to please others, but you all matter to me so much.  Friends, family, so many of you have supported us this far.  Are you disappointed with this failure?

In an attempt to not leave this on a gloomy note, I have to reiterate how thankful I am for those of you who do support us. Our future is fuzzy...it has been ever since October...but we are choosing to live out each day - what has been placed right in front of us - to its fullest.

p.s.  Okay okay I can't stop I guess.  I need to share one more thing that has been helping me through this time of uncertainty.  I am going to do an extreme summarization, but here's the story.  Daniel 3.  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are being thrown into the fiery furnace.  They are asked something like will your God save you now?  They answer we believe he will, but if not, He is still Good.  To me, that is just like me saying God will lead us through this life, through this adoption, and we will see our dreams fulfilled.  But if not...HE IS STILL GOOD.  Let that be an encouragement to you today in whatever way it needs to.  It has been a constant reminder for me.

PAPERWORK

This is us, moments after putting our form in the mail!

It's called the I-600A, the application for advance processing of orphan petition.  And as of last Friday, ours is officially in the mail.  Gathering the information for this filing wasn't too intense - not like gathering the past 7 years of financial records and notarizing multiple copies of every official document ever - but one of the requirements for filing this petition was our completed home study.  And after waiting several months and finally getting those last signatures, it came in the mail last week.

It feels awesome to cross yet another step in this process off our list, but I won't lie - this one feels a bit insignificant.  I do understand its importance, but here is our current reality.  This paperwork will get processed, and they will make an appointment for us to get fingerprinted.  The bummer here is that we've already been fingerprinted once, and I'm not quite sure why all the fingerprinting people can't just share.  But that aside, we'll get fingerprinted.  Let's say it takes a couple of weeks for them to process our application and make our appointment.  Then it will take another few weeks for them to analyze our results, at which point they will send us our approval.  Best case scenario this will be completed in a month, but more realistically, I'm expecting two.  And then, only then, will we get to file yet another paperwork that will finally finally put us on the waiting list.

The other stressful thing about this all is making sure we are filling out these documents correctly.  We double (triple) checked everything, but I still get that same feeling when submitting important documentation - did I fill everything out correctly?  It's definitely a source of anxiety for me.

So keep us in your prayers.  We knew when we signed up for this that we'd be running a marathon, not a sprint.  We are anxiously awaiting our next, slightly bigger goal, which is to get on that waiting list to get our chance to meet our little one!

THE ADOPTION GARAGE SALE RESULTS

This post has been floating around in my head for awhile now.  I know many of you are curious how our garage sale went, and I want to share it with you...it has just been hard to find the right words.  So I'm going to attempt to walk you through it - the whole thing.  But just know, the only thing I know for sure is that God showed up.

When we first decided to adopt, even before we had told anyone, I started having the idea that we should do a garage sale. I began saving a few things of ours, and my parents were in the process of moving so they conveniently dropped things off to us over the winter, but starting out I knew I didn't exactly have much inventory to do a whole garage sale.  So a few months ahead of time, I began to ask people for donations.  This can be a little uncomfortable, asking people for help, but I kept telling myself that I don't expect anything from people but I want to open myself up to their generosity.  Little by little the word spread, and I would receive a box here and there.  Here and there became more frequently, and by the time the garage sale started I literally (I mean literally...not exaggerating here) had filled up SIX GARAGE STALLS worth of items.  That happened a few ways:

• Twice I thought I was going to pick up just a few items and my generous friends had almost an entire garage stall full with things for us.
• I received a text with a donation from someone I had never met before.
• People showed up to shop with donations at the same time.

I attempted to keep track of how many donations I received, but I lost track.  I think it was 35+.  My friends came over multiple times to help me price and organize items.  Mostly I think they were there just to calm my nerves.  Neighbors just happened to have additional tables that I borrowed at the eleventh hour.  Inventory-wise, it was crazy, but somehow we were prepared.  Still I thought...would people come?

In preparation, I had organized my neighbors to all have garage sales together, so there were about six other stops in my neighborhood.  There was a Craigslist ad for that.  I created my own Craigslist ad.  My neighborhood had a Facebook event. I had my own Facebook event.  We put an ad in at the radio station, and I posted signs in our neighborhood.  I regularly posted teasers to my Facebook event to showcase the inventory we had (which also resulted in a few presales which I was not anticipating, but was awesome).  And still I thought...would people come?

People definitely came.  My sale was to run from 7 AM to 4 PM both Friday and Saturday.  And in the freezing cold temperatures at 6:30 AM on Friday morning, I had my first official customer.  The Friday shoppers were steady the whole day long.  You Friday garage salers are an amazing group of people, truly fascinating.  I am usually blind to this culture, since I'm always at work on Fridays, but watching people garage sale is a bonus.  Dare I say I love you?  Let's just try to move on from this.  So the people came, and the people bought.  We sold furniture.  Baby items.  Books.  DVDs.  Clothes.  Toys. Electronics.  EVERYTHING!  It was incredible.

Saturday was definitely more relaxed.  I think our first customer came around 8 AM, and though the customers were pretty steady until about 2:30, there were definitely fewer.  But you know what?  These customers bought things, too.  In fact, one customer who had come twice on Friday to buy and then haul away a dresser, returned on Saturday just to give Byron a gift card to take me out to dinner.  Some people were so compassionate with us when they learned our story.

I'm sure I am leaving out many details, but I think that covers most.  So this is where I'm going to tell you the actual amount we made at the garage sale.  I will say that we did receive a few very generous donations, but when all was said and done, we made in the neighborhood of $5100.  FIVE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS.  Can you believe it?  I hardly could.  And here's why.

Initially I had set my goal at $2000.  Quite honestly, I would have been happy if we had made $200, but I set this goal with God and I wanted him to know I was dreaming big (see the irony now?).  The crazy thing is that when we were doing the garage sale, we knew we had two payments that would be due very soon - one for $4300 and one for $890, or $5190 total. So you see what God did there?  He not only blew our minds but he provided EXACTLY what we needed.  At the exact time we needed it.  He is so amazing.

And really, he didn't stop there.  The best analogy I feel explains this is the feeding of the 5000.  Because after God totally showed up, there were 12 baskets of food left over.  In our case, there were two garage stalls worth of inventory left over. Which gets handed over to my girlfriend to do the exact same thing next weekend.

So thank you to any of you who donated your items to us, your time, prayed for us, shopped with us, or just thought about us. I feel like I owe a huge debt of gratitude to so many people that I may never be able to repay.  No, I will never be able to repay.  And the truth is, I don't think people expect me to.  This is God's blessing and God's grace at work.  Right here.  Right now.  In our lives.

I hope that I am able to post another adoption update soon.  We are in the midst of a ridiculously long process, and even though we've completed training and paid money and sent in vast amounts of paperwork, we are still 1-2 months away from being placed at the bottom of the waiting list.  So if you could pray with us that things would go smoothly and that all the right things would happen, we would appreciate it.  We are on God's timing, so we are not anxious, but we still just love to experience more little wins than little setbacks.

HOME STUDY COMPLETE...ALMOST

I have wanted to write an update for some time, particularly about our adoption, but I have been so distracted by the details swirling around in my own head.  As of March 7, we have completed our home study interviews, but it will be a little while before our home study is officially complete.  For anyone wondering how the home study process went for us, well, it wasn't bad.  All in all there were four meetings we needed to complete.  The first one was in our agency's office.  And despite the fact that the heat was actually broken and we sat in a 46 degree room for two hours, it was a basic introduction about us an our home.

The rest of the meetings were all in our home.  The questions were very personal, but nothing that I wasn't comfortable talking about.  Our case worker asked us about each other, about our upbringings, about our relationships with each other's families.  She met Mason and Minnie and toured our home.  I honestly don't have a lot of thoughts about this part.  I understand that it is a necessary part of making sure we are genuine people who are cut out for adoption, and thought I wish it would go faster or involve less paperwork, it really wasn't that bad of an experience for us.  Maybe I am just plagued from the stories I hear from reading the internet and actually most people find that it isn't so bad, either?  Let me know what you think if you've been through it before.

I said we completed our home study visits, but it will actually be a little longer before our home study is complete.  Our case worker needs some time to write up her findings, first of all.  Second of all, Byron and I are required to complete 10 hours each of training.  I have actually completed all mine, but Byron still has the 10 hours to do.  (Side note - I was dreading these classes but ended up loving them.  If you need or want adoption training, talk to me!)  One of my main goals now is to make sure that he has the quality time and clean working space to focus on these and he'll hopefully complete the classes in a very short time.

Another thing that has to happen is that we all have to get physical reports from our doctors - even Mason.  Fortunately we were able to all schedule our appointments next week and it won't cause a huge delay in the process, but still, it's yet one more thing to schedule and juggle.
The last thing that gets included in our home study is yet another round of paperwork.  We have to provide proof of financial statements.  We had to get fingerprinted, and send those off for official background checks.  Because Byron lived in Arkansas for a time, we have to fill out a special form for that.  The paper trail just seems to never end.  I think that is everything that goes into a completed home study, at least to my knowledge.  I'm sure I'm missing something.  I try to maintain the attitude that if something is in our court, then we just have to keep pushing to get it done, otherwise nothing is getting done.  It has helped with my motivation through most of this, but I have gotten a little behind recently.

So what are our next steps?  Well, to my knowledge, when our home study is complete, we get to file our first official document with the Ethiopian government.  You could call it our application, I guess.  And with that, I think our clock officially starts ticking.  There are no guarantees of timing, only averages and guidelines, so I don't know how to accurately judge how long this journey will take.  In my heart, I'm praying for two years, but for now we will just wait and see and trust in God.  My small group is studying 1 Thessalonians right now, and just yesterday I found this verse:

"God will make this happen, for He who calls you is faithful."  1 Thessalonians 5:24

What comfort I find that through all of the unknowns that we are entering into, God holds the power in his hands and he will make this happen.  Can I get an amen?

A NEW STORY BEGINS

I didn't know it at the time, but this little boy was a miracle baby.

I always wanted a big family.  Always.  Choosing baby names is honestly one of my earliest memories.  Thank goodness you don't have children when you are ten, because my children would be Chrysanthemum (horrible), Sidney (got lucky here, still one of my favorites), and Brishan (my parents' personal favorite).  Poor taste aside, this is just something I always saw for myself - grow up, get married, and have lots of kids.  

When I did get married, we knew early on that having a family would most likely be harder for us than for the average couple.  During the hard times when we were trying to have a baby, I was always plagued by the thought that I knew I had so much love to give a child.  Surely there was a child somewhere for me to love?  After a few years of infertility ups and downs, we finally found (fairly simple) help from a doctor, and were pregnant soon after.  We thought we had found the answer to our struggles.

When it was time to think about having another child, we simply did what worked for us before, and quickly we were pregnant again.  Only this time, shortly after hearing the baby's heartbeat, we lost the baby.  We were discouraged, but not hopeless.

Soon after that, we were pregnant for the third time, and yet again, the ultrasound showed us another baby that failed to thrive.  Once again we were discouraged and broken, but not hopeless.

Though as time went on, our hope began to dwindle.  And a few months later, we were suddenly faced with the reality that we would not be having more children without an additional financial investment.  In essence, that door was closed.  And we were devastated.

Through it all, I felt God speaking to me.  He was asking "Katie, do you love me?"  Yes, Lord, I love you.  "Katie, do you love me more than having babies?"  This is the question that though I would like to think it was an instant yes, made me really stop and think.  My thoughts and behaviors, every mood and timing and procedure, was completely engrossed in doing what I could to have a child.  It became the most important thing to me.  But when I thought of God, sitting face to face with me, asking me that question, I could only answer in one way.  Yes, God, I love you more than having babies.  I laid aside my biggest dreams and desires because that is what he asked me to do.  It was hard, but it was the only way.  And though I still deal with the outcome of that on most days, this story still has a happy ending.

That feeling that we had years ago, that there were children out there who needed the love of a family, stayed with us.  God placed the desire so strongly in our hearts, that we are following his call, and we are now embarking on a new journey - a journey to adopt a child.  God is taking us on a crazy adventure.  One that will not just lead us out of our comfort zone, but across the globe to Ethiopia.  And we are ready to share this with all of you.

We are definitely in the early stages of this process, which began last fall.  It will be a long journey.  The estimated timeline they gave us is at least three years, if not longer.  So my feelings about this are just that we are living day by day.  But I can say that when we made the decision to proceed with adoption, all the stress that comes with infertility melted away, and I truly felt at peace.

And through these past few months, we have been reassured that we are following God's will in little ways, even though somedays we feel overwhelmed by what we are agreeing to.  A few months back, before we had shared our decision with anyone, Byron travelled to Virginia for work.  On his flight home, he began talking with the gal he was sitting next to on the plane, and one thing led to another and he opened up to her about our adoption plans.  She was very supportive, as most people we have shared with are, and he left appreciating the conversation they had.  Within a week from him returning home, I checked the mail and realized there was a note about the size of a thank you card from someone I didn't recognize. I opened it and quickly realized it was from the woman he had met on the plane - with a very kind and supportive note as well as a check for $50.  We couldn't believe it!  And since then, other things have happened that have allowed us to use our story for good.  I choose to believe that God is giving us this opportunity to strengthen our testimonies, and that in the end, the hardest, saddest, most broken part of our lives will turn into something beautiful that He will use for His story.

Thank you for letting me share what has been on my heart.  We are thankful for those of you who will stand with us on our journey!