Still here

Yep, still here. Still waiting.

I went to Bible study last week and had a few women, who I only know by their first names, tell me that they are checking in on our adoption story on this blog. I can not tell you how much that meant to me. I feel honored and grateful that people care. One sweet friend asked if I get tired of people asking me how things are going. Although I wish I had more to tell them, it is so nice to be thought of and have people sincerely interested and willing to ask a potentially water-works kinda question. :) The waiting has been pretty brutal since Melia started 1st grade. It is so quiet around our house. Too quiet. I feel like I have an open wound in my heart.

The good news is that people are indeed receiving their referrals!!!! Things are moving and we are really hopeful. What an exciting time. We have no idea where we are in the "line-up". We do have our approval letter and feel that we are close.

I am trying not to get my hopes up but that is soooo hard. Last month I had a really big peace about September. I just knew we wouldn't see his face in August. Hard to explain, but I just had a really strong peace about September. And now the last week of September is here and no Jojo. I am getting more and more teary with each day of September leaving and October 1st on the horizon. I am not trying to box God in or rush our story. I am thankful for the peace that I had in August. I pray that peace returns if this is not our time.

I know that one day we will see his face and it will be so worth the wait! Thanks for reading and caring.

Blessings!

the big 6

How can it be? My oldest is 6! Six years ago, I entered the crazy world of mommy hood. What a wonderful, hard, emotional, happy, tired, energetic, soul filling 6 years it has been. This year Melia declared she would like to have a friend party, in addition to a family party. No boys allowed! Just girls and sparkles and yummy cake to eat. How did my girl grow up to know that girl parties even existed? :) Her wish was granted with a Hello Kitty girl party at our house in the afternoon. Followed up by an evening family party at a nearby park. Melia felt sooooo loved and celebrated and I was pooped. (It was so worth it)!

The following pictures are a collection from the entire day.

The dessert table. Yummmm.

Girl power

Good buddies

Nana and farm Papa

Josh's sis and fam

Mormor and Papa

Good ole' Caleb

Opening presents

My older sis and her fam!

A couple of my sweet nieces who are the same age.

One of her biggest wishes for her birthday came true. No, not Jojo.... the new American Girl doll. She wouldn't take her dress off for three days.

Good - bye Kitty

Party was not complete until all nails were painted.

Sprinkler under the trampoline was a big hit.

My girl chose some great friends for her party with wonderful moms to hang out with!!!

Oh hurt my heart...where is the time machine to freeze time?

I love you Melia. You have my heart. I'm thankful everyday to be your mom.

blessings!

keeping a grip on hope

I haven't blogged in a couple of weeks and there is a lot to let you in on.

I did meet with Angie from ANLM and hand over a check to help feed the street kids of Kigali. So Awesome! Thank you again for your generosity. For $15.52 a month you can feed a child. Such a small amount that has life changing affects on young lives.

We did have a garage sale and raised almost $1,000 towards our travel costs. How cool is that! It was a one day blow out sale where we were wheeling and dealing. I was kinda of stressed out. It's little ways in life I can tell that I am stretched tight on the emotional spectrum. This was one of those moments. We got the whole sale ready and then the morning of, I was thinking I can't do this. I can't talk and bargain and deal with people today. I had a freak out moment. Thank you to my big sis for coming over and handling the sale (along with Josh) while I went inside and "hid" for a bit. Also, a big thanks to my pal Shauna for coming over and helping get things ready the night before. You have a gift girl with organization and garage sales! :) Thank you to my mom who took the girlies for most of the day so I could have complete focus on making money.

This last week has been really tough. I haven't blogged because I really don't have words at this point. We heard from Rwanda that we have six months to be placed with a child and if we aren't matched in those six months then our case will be "closed for good". I read recently scripture from The Message that sums up how I feel, if I had to try and articulate it.

"I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness, the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed. I remember it all - oh, how well I remember- the feeling of hitting the bottom. But there's one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope: God's loyal love couldn't have run out, his merciful love couldn't have dried up. They're created new every m

orning. How great is your faithfulness! I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over). He's all I got left. It's a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from God".

Lamentations 3:19-24, 26 (The Message)

I would just ask that you keep praying. God is in control. We are confident of that!

blessings!

the numbers are in...

We made it to the bank last Friday. I had to wait until Josh could go with me because the weight of the coins was too much to carry by myself. :) Are you ready to read the results of our "Change 4 Rwanda" coin collection?

$1,388. 79

You read right. Wow. That's a lot of change! (some of you also collected some "paper" change) :) To your generosity and kindness for caring and taking the step to get involved - I say thank you! We are blessed beyond measure.

I am meeting with Angie from Africa New Life this afternoon to give her a check towards the feeding the street kids in Kigali. Angie also handles church partnerships with ANLM and I can't wait to hear all about that! I have a lot of questions.

We hit the one year mark yesterday of our dossier being in Rwanda. I am sooooo grateful that we received our non-objection letter prior to yesterday. My heart is hopeful.... I now find myself having a hard time falling asleep at night as I think about the day starting in Kigali. I think is this the day they will send my boy's picture to me? And of course this leads me to praying and thinking some more, etc..... And every morning I wake up and check my email first thing to see if today is the day our lives change forever?

Next up...our last fundraiser (hopefully). A garage sale this weekend! Good thing I have lots to do to keep me busy. :)

Blessings!

No objection!

We got our non-objection letter this morning! Wow. All that waiting and there it is. I could just stare at it and read it again and again.

Crazy thing is that it was issued on May 6th. We didn't officially see it until this morning but we have been approved since then! How nice to be waiting for a referral and not even know it. :)

The letter did not indicate how long we can expect to wait for a referral. (aka placement with our son) :) From others we have heard that it can be anywhere from 1 to 3 months. Who knows? God does. Yes.

We're on deck!

blessings.

no guts no glory

We did it! We came, we saw, we conquered. Okay, more like I huffed and puffed my way through a beautiful 13.1 mile course this morning. It was a hard run for me. I knew by about mile 5 that I was going to need to dig deep to finish this race. I knew I would finish but I had to take it one mile at a time. :)

We have to collect a couple more jars and then I will post the final count of change that came in. Thank you from the depths of my heart for choosing to care and participate in our fundraiser.

My legs are sore but my heart is filled with joy!

The few pictures from the today:

Melia waiting for me to finish.

Melissa and her kids. Melissa trained with me and was such a HUGE encouragement! She ended up getting sick with some yucky respiratory junk, so she became the race day photographer. (All these pics are from her camera). Thank you Melissa for all your help and love. You are AWESOME!!!!!

I can see the finish line. I'm almost there.

What a hunk!

Shannon (best buddy since college) ran with us, sporting the orphan awareness t-shirt.

Thanks to my mom and dad who had the girls spend the night.

Just missing our boy.

We did it!

Blessings!

Dream

What's your dream? What secret longing do you wish for? It can be goofy or serious. Where and how do you dream? Some dreams are too embarrassing to tell anyone. Some are too hard and scary to venture out on. What if your dreams seem impossible?

What if God called you to be obedient to your dream and do all that you could to make your dream a reality? Would you still give excuses? Or is the saddest part of it all is that you don't have dreams.

I'm a concrete kinda gal, despite my big crazy dreams. I like to be in control and I most definitely have a plan of attack for every project. Well, almost every project.....

When I was praying and wrestling with the idea of adoption one thing that struck me was that I didn't have the whole plan of attack figured out. I didn't know how we were going to pay entirely for adoption process. I knew it would be hard and scary and stressful and ya know what..... it didn't matter. Because God is in control and I am not. I don't have to have ALL the answers. I can trust Him to provide and guide and give strength. Worst case scenarios don't matter when God calls. Hard times don't matter when He says, it's time to step out and and step up.

I have received a few jars back from people who are part of the "Change 4 Rwanda" campaign and wow, I have been blessed. I wasn't expecting that in the midst of this "hard" part of waiting for our little guy. I feel so richly blessed by your generosity and willingness to dream with us and be apart of our journey. Truly, an oasis of joy and comfort from the Lord through you in these hard, grueling days of waiting. I feel so deeply thankful.

Dream big! You won't be sorry. Have you ever asked God if He wants you to make your dream come true?

I dream of my son. I also dream of being a dancer (but don't tell anybody)!!! :)

Blessings!