New Number

I am happy to report that we are now number....

10!!! For our DRC referral.

Moving up a spot in only a few weeks is great!

Sorry for the lack of posts. My computer is broken right now, so all I can do is post with my phone. Just wanted to share the good news.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Guest Blogger

I was given the amazing honor to be a guest blogger on My Crazy Adoption blog.  This blog has been an encouragement to me, through Kari's words and blogs posted by other mothers through the site.  Hopefully the blog post that I wrote back in September will be featured soon.  But go check out the site if you want to learn more about caring for orphans, and hear about the amazing way she partners with Visiting Orphans organization.

Quick Update

It looks like God is answering our prayer for some answers.  Our Uganda agency will be traveling to Uganda soon, and hopes to work some things out while they are there.  I pray that will be get some definite answers and hopefully some pictures and an update on our hope-to-be daughter.  We should hear something in November!

If things look like they will work out, our timeline might take longer than we had hoped, but it will be in God's perfect timing.  We don't have any idea how long things will take once we get our dossier in, if all the paperwork gets completed efficiently.  But we continue to trust that He is in control.

Oh, and when I got home from vacation today, I found our Uganda HOMESTUDY through the mail slot!!  Yeah.   I mailed it off to USCIS right away.  Thanks for your prayers!

Blog Hop

I joined a Blog Hop.  A what?  I had never heard the term before!  It's a "linky-uppy" to other adoption blogs!

So, my adoption yahoo group led me to this blog of a family also adopting from the DRC that is advertising the blog hop.  Finding other adoptive families, even only in the blog world, is so helpful to feeling like we are not alone!  There are other people out there going through the same process, some of them at the same time!

In case you want to check out more blogs, Here is the post with all the blog links.

If you have come to visit from the Blog Hop, Welcome!  I am not a professional blogger or anything, just trying to update friends and family on what is going on.  You can look at the list of blog archives on the right, or I have my posts split into a few labels, so you can only look at the ones pertaining to, say, the DRC.-- also listed on the right, scroll down.

Feel free to leave me a comment about your journey!

On our way to referral!

I heard from our Congo agency today!  They received our dossier paperwork and we are now officially on the wait list for a referral!  We are number......

#11 on the wait list!!!!!!

Only 10 families in front of us waiting for their referrals too.  I am optimistic that this will move at a good pace.  I am so looking forward to seeing our son or daughter's face and knowing their name.  Please pray with me that we will move quickly up the waiting list!

Because it gets me excited, I wanted to post a video of the Congolese song that Mark and I had in our wedding.  The moment we became Mr. and Mrs. we played this song, and started our life together:

"Yesu Azali Awa" (Jesus is Here) by Selah.




Also, please keep praying for Uganda.  We really need these papers in Uganda to get signed, in order for us to bring home baby girl.  Thanks!

Homestudy!!!

In this journey of adoption...

After compiling a lot of this:

We did a lot of this:

Then asked a lot of people for this:

And then today... this arrives:

Our Homestudy for the Democratic Republic of Congo!  

(Notice how smooth I am at taking a picture of myself.  Of course I had to get the flowers in the background that my husband sent me, and I just couldn't help the cheesy "thumbs up.")

Now that we have the Homestudy in hand, I was able to send in all our documents for our dossier to our agency.  So, I compiled my paperwork, wrote a heavy check, and tied it up with a pretty bow:

And then rushed to the post office to mail it express to our agency:

I also mailed off the homestudy to the USCIS for processing our application to bring a child into the U.S.  

YEAH!  We are now getting put on the waiting list for the DRC in order to receive a referral of a child.  As soon as I find out where we are on the list I will let you know, and then you can pray like crazy that our number moves up the list!  This is so exciting!

Please continue to pray for our Uganda homestudy to arrive soon.  I knew it would be a little bit behind the DRC one, but they are both taking longer than I expected.

So that brings me to something else God showed me today.  The past two and a half weeks I have been a little obsessive about checking my mailbox.  I knew the homestudies would be on the way and I wanted to make sure I picked them up right away.  So, I drove the long 12-minute distance (OK, 12 minutes is not that long) to the Postal Service Center (PSC) where I pick up my mail, and checked my little 5 x 10 inch square box for a package slip.  Each day yielded no Homestudy.  I prayed and prayed.  I asked other people to pray.

Finally, I decided that what I needed was to just believe in faith that they would arrive.  So, I prepared the additional paperwork I needed to just throw in an envelope with the homestudy to mail it off, right there when I was in the post office.  I drove there, parked, and considered if I should bring in all the papers.  I decided, "Today is the day, I am going to bring these papers with me in faith, and my homestudies will just appear in my box."  (Yes, maybe I hoped that God would be a magic genie or something).  They weren't there that day.  I was sad, and confused.  I wondered why it didn't work.  But I kept praying.

Then today arrived.  After having coffee at a friend's house, I drove home to have lunch and then planned on heading to my PSC to check my mail.  When I arrived home, there was a big thick white envelope package on the floor, that had been dropped through my mail slot.  It was the homestudy!  As it turns out they had mailed it to my home instead of my PSC!  I was not expecting that!

I then realized that God was still there answering my prayers, but it a different way then I expected.  That day I went into the post office in faith, I believe God was trying to tell me, "Alison, I see your faith.  I haven't given up on you.  I am still working, but this is not the way that your homestudy will arrive.  My ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.  You are worrying so much about missing out on a package that will never arrive in that place.  Rest and trust in Me.  I am in control.  I will answer your prayers in ways you never expect!"

I had put God into a box (maybe even a 5 x 10 inch box).  In my limited understanding, I assumed He only worked in this one way.  But instead, He blew my socks off!  He causes me to look at the bigger picture of His involvement in this whole process.  It is not up to me!  Whether or not I check my PO box does not effect God's plan for this adoption!  He will still make it happen, and it will happen in His perfect timing.  That package dropping through my door was God answering my prayers and the prayers of all my friends, and it was in His perfect way and His perfect time.

What more does He have in store for us?  I can't wait to see how He blows my imagination next!  Praise the Lord with me today! 

Some of my Favorite Books

Well, I am long overdue for some book reviews.  I guess I have been doing a lot of reading.  I wanted to share about these books, because I am in the middle of several more and will want to review them as well.

First I want to mention this book:

Like Breath and Water: Praying with Africa by Ciona D. Rouse

The first thing that caught my eye with this book are the pictures!  If nothing else, I wanted it as a coffee table book.  But it is much more.  This book is about the journey of the author to Africa.  She and her friends visit several countries to learn about the stories of the people there and pray with them.  The author states, if you want to know more about prayer, pray with Africa, a place where prayer runs beneath it all.  She says, "Prayer, for the people I met, does not simply petition God for the latest iGadget or beg for a quick fix to a real problem.  For all of us prayer is a life force, like breath and water.  Our ability to communicate with God is one way to know that we are alive."  I think you will be touched by the stories and even more so by the beautiful photography in this book.  I plan to read it again and again, and it will be a mainstay in my home.

Next is the book,

 

Life After Violence: a People's Story of Burundi by Peter Uvin

I loved this book!  Okay, this is not like a fiction romance novel or anything, but I just couldn't put it down.  What I love about this book is that the author spent a lot of time in Burundi interviewing actual people, and how they see their lives after the civil wars that Burundi has faced.  I believe it is a very unbiased viewpoint from the different people groups in Burundi.  There are many quotes from Burundians.  The book really opened my eyes to understanding conflict in Africa (I don't mean to say that what Burundi experienced is the same as all conflicts in Africa, but there are many similarities).  It looked at the causes for violence, the effects of the violence, the economic pressures, the social pressures, the gender differences, the resiliency of the people, and more.  For me it helped answer the question, "How can thousands of people kill each other just because they are of a different 'people group'?  How does this happen?"  I also came away from the book with a deep respect, love, understanding, and compassion for the Burundian people.  I couldn't wait to go see these beautiful people in their beautiful country.  Maybe someday.  Unfortunately we cannot adopt from Burundi at this time.

I just finished reading this book

 

Fields of the Fatherless: Discover the Joy of Compassionate Living by Tom Davis

Also a great book!  This book directs your focus to those who are the most needy in our world, specifically the orphan, the widow, the poor, and the foreigner.  Not only are we commanded to care for these, but God also gives us joy in doing so.  The book reminds me of how much we have in this world, how rich we are.  There are over 143 million orphans in the world right now!  Every 5 seconds a child dies because they are hungry!  Yet, we go on living in our comfortable lifestyles and think that it will bring us the most joy and satisfaction.  What joy awaits us, if we step out in faith to protect and care for the needy!  Anyway, I don't want to write a long preachy blog on just this one book review.  It's a good book to start opening your eyes to the needs around you, and also gives some ideas of how you can be involved to help.

So, these books get my recommendations if you are looking for something new to read.  I'll just share with you what I'm in the middle of reading right now, so you can look forward to more book reviews!

I just received John Piper's new book, Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian.  It's going to be good!

 

I am also starting Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa by Jason Stearns, and I am looking forward to learning more about what has gone on in the Congo, where we are adopting from.

 

I am also on my way to finishing a book I had started a while ago, Blood, Sweat, and Treason: My Story by Henry Olonga, a cricket player from Zimbabwe.  I have to say that it not a quick read, but I would like to at least offer a review when I am done.

 

At least I have something to do while I wait.  I have been checking the mail non-stop for the past week and a half hoping to receive our homestudies.  They should be here any day now!  I still haven't heard any news from Uganda, but at least I can work on getting these homestudies turned in to USCIS (United States Citizen and Immigration Services). 

I have also started on a fundraiser project, but we'll see how the first prototype turns out and if it will be a viable option to help fund raise.   I will bring more info on that later, but I just have to say that I am excited about it!  Keep praying for things to move along quickly, and for patience in the process.  Thanks!