SOOOOO thankful for our agency

There are so many different adoption agencies out there. How do you even begin to pick one? We are so grateful for our wonderful and amazing agency All God's Childrens International. (AGCI) Sure it made things a little crazier with our home study since they are based in Oregon, but it has been so worth it. What a blessing!!! It seems the wait might be a bit longer with AGCI, but they certainly have their ducks in a row. When dealing with all the things they deal with, it is so important to have the i's dotted and the t's crossed. I am a member of a group on Facebook of people from our agency. I had to share one of the recent discussions held.

"Thankful for our agency. They must be doing things right...I have some friends with other agencies and they are seeing LONG wait times for court and embassy both. Really really long. We are blessed!!!"

"They DO do things right! When we were there for our embassy appointment the lady we interviewed with was shocked when we told her our court date and then asked what agency. When we said AGCI she nodded and said ohhh yes, they have it together. Also while we were there we met a family at the airport, they asked us how long our court to embassy was, when we said 4 weeks they said they had never heard of less than 3 months for their agency."

"A family in our church with *** got their referral in early May I think and is still waiting on a court date. She was told not to expect one until court reopens. I wonder what other agencies are not doing that AGCI is? I'm am so thankful things seem to be going so well with AGCI and that we chose them."

"Praise God! This is such exciting news. So excited for what He is doing through AGCI and Ethiopia!"

"I think a lot of it has to do with how well they get to know each child and their case. When children aren't in a transition home and the people fighting for them hardly know them I think it makes a huge difference. ***** and the staff KNOW these children, even when they are working hard, running all over Addis they take the time to go outside and play with them and love on them. I think when you learn a child like that it makes you want to fight harder for them."

"I have a friend with another agency who got their referral in January, and after several court dates, their MOWA letter JUST arrived about 2 weeks ago. Now their agency told them it could be TWELVE WEEKS before their embassy appointment. I was appalled!" (Currently it is about 3 months from time of referral until the first trip which is court and then another month until the second trip which is the embassy appointment)

What comfort it gives us to know that we truly are using THE BEST agency out there! They can so much about those kids. I've heard time and time again how wonderful the special mothers are in the orphanage. We are so blessed to have our child at an orphanage that is NOT average! Praising God that He guided us to picking the right agency. Yet again, I stand back and say "Wow!" :)

God continues to provide

At the beginning of this journey, God told us that He would provide and we trusted in Him. Time and time again we have been given the proof. We have waited almost a year to get an egress window cut into our basement. We finally got someone that would get the project done. We were needing to rent a cement cutter. We were going to have to get this saw from Aberdeen which is an hour away from us. (one way) The rental place charged $30 an hour, but was going to make us some sort of deal since 2 hours of the rental would be just in traveling. We "accidentally" found out that someone in town had a cement cutter. ;) The blade wasn't as long as we needed which just meant that it had to be cut from both the inside and the outside. We were able to rent this saw from the people in town that had it. How awesome is that!?! We ended up having to pay $50 total. While we had the saw, the guy that was doing the work for us, got permission to use it at someone else's house for a very small project. So, that means that we only had to pay for half of the rent on the saw. Again, I stand in awe. God proves to us yet again He will provide!

Some Ethiopian facts

I found these facts on a fellow AGCIer's blog. I did ask permission to copy them. Thanks, Kelly!

*Annual per capita income is less than $160
*47% of the population lives below the poverty rate
*Average Ethiopian woman gives birth to 5.9 children
*1 in 10 children die before their first birthday
*1 in 6 children die before age 5
*Malnutrition is the cause of more than 1/2 of all child deaths
*Average life expectancy is 48 for men, 50 for women
*1 physician for every 34,988 people
*1 in 4 women dies in childbirth
*Only 50% of children attend primary school (K-3)
*Average class size in government schools – 85-100 children
*Overall literacy rate is 42%
*Estimated number of street children:100,000 nationwide
*It is Estimated that approximately 4.4% of the population in Ethiopia is infected with AIDS and that there are approximately 1 million AIDS orphans
*There are over 5 million orphans total in a country with a population of 74 million

It is time!!!

I was beside myself waiting for our official numbers. That was silly since I was pretty sure what numbers we were at. I looked at what other people had for official numbers and compared them to the unofficial list. Also--hearing people's numbers that were close to us confirmed it, but I wanted to hear FOR SURE!!!! So there were 2 sets of siblings referred according to the list serve. One doesn't move us and one does. There was a boy referral at the beginning of the week that wouldn't be in the official numbers yet. They don't become official until the paperwork is complete. The family that got their referral at the beginning of the week had some "mystery" families in front of them so we really aren't for sure how many spots we really did move.  No matter what....we are for sure teens and single digits!!! (Even if our official numbers don't reflect that) AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Soooooo exciting!!! I can't believe it. I really haven't gotten too excited before now. Yes I would have periods of excitement, but when you are looking at months and months and maybe years down the line, it is hard to get too excited. Things are becoming real now! I am trying to live in the moment. I'm trying to just be happy. However, there is a part of me that can't help but to think that pretty soon the referrals will stop. There have been super quiet months in the referral world with 1-2 referrals the whole month. Ugh! I have purchased a few things as far as travel goes such as Pepto, Immodium, etc...I can't buy too much baby stuff as we don't know pink/blue, etc... Well, it time to sit down and make a serious list of things to buy for travel. I want to buy some of these things now. I want to spread out the costs. I know once we get a referral, then we will need to do the diapers, formula, clothes, etc...I did some rummaging this summer. I thought it would be so hard to resist baby items. I really didn't find too many things that I could have gotten. I was thinking of maybe finding onesis or burp rags, etc...I didn't find anything so I had no urge. I think that was God's way of telling me to save my money and buy what we really want when we know what we have. :) We are sooooo lucky b/c we have a friend that has given us a crib, car seat, booster seat, potty chair, gate, and high chair. I was freaking out about missing deals on rummage sales. I was freaking about having to buy ALL clothes new when we found out. Well.....I think since we have gotten all of the other big things given to us, I can buy new things and not feel bad. Wow! Wow! Wow!! So exciting!!!!  Finally this is real! Finally we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It may still be months before we get our referral, but reality has hit me that this is really going to happen. It is SO exciting!!!!! There are about 4-5 families ahead of us that have requested a boy, girl, or siblings. That means that if they get referred a girl, the girl AND boy list moves. I know this may be confusing for those of you that don't deal with this all of the time. Feel free to ask any questions. I love to talk about it. :) It is time to get shopping for those silly little things that we will need. Most people wouldn't be excited to buy travel tissues, Lysol wipes, etc...but buying all of those things means we are that much closer to bringing our little angel home!!! :) It is time! It is time!!!!!

July numbers

We got our July official numbers!!! We are numbers 20 for a girl and 10 for a boy. Woo hoo!! :) It is finally starting to become real. We started this journey at numbers 86 and 53. It is hard to believe they were 33 apart and now are only 10.  Actually we are probably lower on the boy list for sure. There was at least one referral recently that wouldn't be on the official list. To make it official, our agency has to have the paperwork completed. I'm already excited to see what our August numbers are. Things are flowing, flowing, flowing. Praying that we don't hit the ebb because we tend to get stuck in that.

These crazy days

This journal is written to inform others of our adventures as we journey down the road to our new little prince or princess from Ethiopia. It also will be a cherished gift to our newest child as he/she can see all we went through before having him/her in our arms forever. So, I think it is only fair to post this. Yesterday some people got their official July numbers. I checked and checked my email almost constantly hoping to get the official word of how much closer we were to our little piece of heaven. We didn't hear anything yesterday. :( More people are getting their numbers today. It HAS to be our day too. I'm not doing too much today. I do have my email, Facebook, and list serve all open. This sure makes it easier to check all of the time instead of always logging in. I think the obsession might be "normal." We are getting closer. Closer, closer, closer. As we get closer, the anticipation grows. This is becoming real!!! Before it was sooooo far away. Now it is still far away, but our goal is so much closer. The end is getting closer. We are SO excited to see what God has in store for our family.

Construction update

I'm sure you have probably forgotten that we had a construction zone in our house. ;) We added a bedroom to our house last summer. It has been a slow process, but that is to be expected when Jason is doing a lot of it on his own. We had the outside of it done before the snow began to fall. It is taking a long time to get the room actually completed. First we were delayed due to the cold weather. Mudding requires the temp to be warmer than we could keep it. Then Jason's schedule was so crazy. We decided that we were in no hurry so we would wait until after school was out to work in their. Well, we got the walls painted. :) Jason has started to trim the windows. The exciting news is that the carpet is finished!!!! Woo--hoo!!!! We now wait for the electrician to come and hook up the heaters as well as the outlets. It is coming. Slow, but sure. Like I said, we know we have plenty of time. Having the carpet installed is big news!!!! :)