We are all beginning to prepare.....

As we as a family begin to think about bringing our girls home, we are all thinking about ways to incorporate them into our lives.  We had about an inch of snow on Friday, and Nate and Ellie made snow angels.  They both said they can't wait to play outside in the snow with their sisters.

At the benefit concert, two of Jenny's friends were selling hats and scarves they make to help orphans.  They have helped fund many adoptions, including donating half of their earnings on the night of the concert to our family!  Thank you Sarah and Rachel!  They are two amazing young gals---they help adoptive families in so many ways, from traveling to babysit to advocating for so many of "the least of these".  We are blessed to know both of you!

Jenny bought two darling hats for her new sisters---

If you are interested in looking at other items they have for sale, take a look here-- a great place to shop for Christmas!  http://handiworkforelijah.weebly.com/

The paperwork is on its way---

Yesterday we fedexed our dossier documents!  What a great feeling to send this package out, one huge step closer to bringing the girls home!

The dossier is a group of documents that the girls' birth country require.  Each of these documents need to be notarized and the notarized documents all need to be apostilled (which means the notary signature is checked to see if it is legitimate).  The documents include things like our home study, medical reports for all of us in the family, birth certificates for all, financial information, background checks, etc. ---all things to allow the country to know we are who we say we are.  

Our dossier will be sent to the in country facilitator who will begin translating it while we wait for our USCIS fingerprinting.  We sent all that paperwork on Monday.  The paperwork race is almost over!

Many wonder why international adoption is so expensive---we've learned a big part of it is the cost of verifying who you say you are.  There is a cost for the majority of the documents in some way---a cost for sending, pulling info (our county charged $20 per person for background checks).  The home study is really a way to give the birth country a overview of who you are---all with a cost.  We had to have checks on every county we lived in since we were 18---many had a cost to check.  And all this is done for the safety of the adoptive children.  We have had people ask why it is so expensive---the stack of paperwork we sent yesterday had a cost to it---all completely worth it!  What is the cost of two lives? And we are thankful that the birth countries have requirements for the adoptive families to protect the children.

So thankful to have made the trip to Fedex yesterday!!  Praying that all of it will be processed quickly.

T-shirts

Joe created these wonderful t-shirts!  We were all thrilled at how they turned out!

We are selling them for $15 and have sizes small to XXL.

If you are interested in ordering, please e-mail me at mommaruthies@gmail.com

I love our models:)

Bracelets

We are selling beautiful Haitian bracelets to help bring our girls home!  The wonderful thing about the bracelets is that they are made by men and women in Haiti and allow these people to provide for their families.

The bracelets are from the Apparent Project.  Here is some info from their website--

The Apparent Project artisans guild uses discarded materials such as cereal and cracker boxes, oil drums and trash paper to create beautiful pieces of jewelry,journals, and stylish home decor. While redeeming the Haitian landscape, these artisans are also bringing new hope to their families, employing themselves for a brighter future and earning the means to pay for their children's food, shelter, and education. That means less orphans, less crime, less garbage, less stress, and a whole lot more beauty.

Our name reflects our passion: We want to see Haitian families stay together. Skill development and employment addresses the needs of families before they are at the point of desperation, driven to give their children to an orphanage because of exteme poverty. After all, the vast majority of Haiti's "orphans" have not been orphaned by parental deaths, earthquakes, hurricanes, or floods, but are children of living parents who gave them up simply because they knew that an orphange could feed their child. Lagging adoptions, overcrowding, and lack of accountability has made many orphanages less than adequate homes for children, who often develop severe emotional problems such as reactive attachment disorder. This is why we think of our artisans' guild as an "un-orphanage." We are finding creative ways for Haitians to be self-employed so that they can take care of their own children with dignity and joy.

They have a wonderful video on their website-- http://www.apparentproject.org/  We love what they are doing to help families stay together!

We are selling the bracelets for $8 each, with half of the money going to help with our adoption and half going to support families in Haiti.   We think the bracelets would be a great stocking stuffer or Christmas gift for many of those who are hard to buy for.

Please contact me if you are interested in ordering---mommaruthies@gmail.com

And for all the Packer fans out there, look at how you can share your Packer pride!

The days are flying by...

We had a wonderful Children of God benefit concert at our church on Saturday night.  Our orphan ministry has been working hard for months to pull everything together.  The music was great and turnout was wonderful!  Our youth pastor (who is part of our ministry and is adopting from Ethiopia) had a great sermon on Sunday morning, Orphan Sunday.  His challenge to our congregation to live out James 1:27 and be doers of the Word caused a traffic jam around our ministry's table after service--so great!  We had a wonderful response to our annual foster care backpack drive, as well as many asking for information about foster care/respite care/mentoring and adoption.  God is good!

Life is been full but great lately.  I keep telling Bill that I feel like God has me in a refining process--doing so many more things that I never felt I would be capable of.  And doing all with His strength---and that is why I would never think I could do all that I have and not be too overwhelmed (although some of the kids might argue that part about being overwhelmed!).  So thankful for His faithfulness!

I am seeing more and more every day ways to improve what I am doing, some of those eliminating my expectations of how things should be.  I've learned more about flexibility and thinking out of the box the last month or so with the travel Nate, Ellie and I have done for some therapy for Nate (more to follow later on that), seeing the time in the van as a time with a captive audience and spending lots of time listening to great books together, as well as finding creative ways to learn on the road.

In adoption news, we got the draft of our home study yesterday!  Yeah!  Lots of excitement here when that e-mail arrived.  So thankful to be almost to the point of getting our I800A in.

Joe is loving his Photoshop and Illustrator classes.  He designed the logo for our Show Love foster care backpack drive and helped me design a bunch of things for handouts/boards for the concert.  So thankful to have creative kiddos!  And kids willing to help!

Here is a fun sample of Joe's "homework"--yes, that is Ellie flying on a leaf!