Merry Christmas!

My apologies, my apologies! I know it’s been almost two weeks since I’ve blogged and I am sorry to keep everyone waiting with news!


The last two weeks have been an extreme test of our patience and our faith. We received our I-171H with the clearance to travel and it seems like since then we’ve been trying to clear the “red tape” as we call it in our house. As I’d LOVE to be able to give you details I wouldn’t have the time. However our attorney is still positive that we will have our case heard at the end of January or the first part of February. We’re just trying to get each step cleared before we travel making life a lot easier when we’re there. My plans are to leave at the end of January with Betty.

As the days draw close I become more and more anxious. I can hardly wait to get there and hold my daughter; on the other hand I am SO SO nervous to leave my family here. I’ve never been away from Nolan so long or my husband. Jason and I do EVERYTHING together so it will be so very sad to be away from him for so long.

I’m winding down the last 6 days of my job. It’s a read bittersweet feeling leaving the work force. I’m a little caught off guard at the sense of sadness I feel leaving my job, but I guess it wouldn’t be realistic if I didn’t. It’s just so hard to believe I won’t be going to work in January! In the last year my focus has entirely changed and my compass points in a different direction. God and family. I’m SO SO ready for this change and I’m extremely grateful we have this opportunity for me to stay home for my family.

This weekend Jason and I spent time filling boxing and sorting food for the Holiday Food Drive. Nolan was there on Friday night with us and we spend all day Saturday loading boxes with spaghetti sauces and gravy. Then we made some deliveries of the food to local people in Mattawan. I always try and talk about the needy families in Uganda and the reality is that we filled 1500 boxes for families in need right here in Kalamazoo. I just felt really emotional about that. There is real need everywhere in the world and I just feel like I can’t get my hands on enough things to help. It’s all about community. When someone has needs, a community should be there to help. The community of Mattawan has shown us what that is all about; I don’t think we could have done this adoption without all the support.

As Christmas is upon us this week I hope everyone takes time to remember why we celebrate. I hope when times seem stressful that we think about the birth of our savior Jesus Christ and remember what a gift this holiday really is. I think of Mary and the unbelievable amount of faith she had and I can only hope that one day I can live a life like her example.

Jason, Nolan and I continue to pray for our beautiful Abigail, that she is warm, safe and healthy. I pray that God is beside her and she know that we are doing everything we can to get to her as fast as we can. Next year there will be 4 of us and the thought of that makes me cry.

We ask for continued prays in our process, that the red tape of the American Embassy be blown away and we continue on a smooth journey to getting our girl.

Have a beautiful week everyone!

We woke up Saturday morning to find our picture and story written in the Kalamazoo Gazette's Hometown addition.  I've posted the link online.  We were SO excited about this article.  In the newspaper was a picture of our family on the front page!  We are so blessed to be able to have our story told and we are so grateful to Fran's beautiful writing and honoring our story they way that she did.  Nolan felt pretty cool to be in the paper :)  I'm still waiting VERY patiently on a court date :)  Pray for patience!

Click on the link below to read our article at mlive.

http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/kzgazette/hometownwest/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-0/1260202969131430.xml&coll=7

WE GOT IT!!!!!

The immigration approval I-171H came and we are ready to get our girl!!!  This paperwork can take up to 12 weeks and we got it all back in 6.  PRAISE GOD!!!!!

NOW, we can get a court date!

I just had to share our news :)

Giving Thanks

I just have to start out by saying that I am so so thankful for all that God has blessed me with. I am continued to be amazed at the grace he shows me and the love he continues to pour onto my family.


OUR PAPERWORK MADE IT! Thank you thank you for ALL of your prayers. It was hung up for about 6 weeks in customs so we were so nervous. Inside that box was 4 months of hard work and necessary paperwork needed to proceed. With all of your prayers God provided again to us by making sure it arrived safely in the hands of our attorney. PRAISE GOD.

We spent Thanksgiving with our new Ugandan family. It was amazing. I cherish the fellowship with these people and their love for Jesus and their faith is nothing less than inspiring. Jason and I were talking about how awesome it was to be able to eat dinner and then sit around for a couple of hours and have fellowship about our Lord and Savior. AMAZING. I love them so much.

WE LOVE CHESANING! We spent two days there for a craft show last weekend, and we almost sold out of everything we have! What an awesome fundraiser weekend! The people there were so great and we appreciate everyone’s support of our beads. Again, the Lord reached down and blessed us. Everyone in the booths around us complained of having lows sales and we just kept flying. We give it all to God before we go in and he sent all the people our way. Simply amazing.

The other great part is we stayed in a hotel and got some away family time. Nolan was pretty excited about the swimming pool. He felt like a superstar when he swam the length of the whole pool. His patience with all of our fundraising is a blessing. He NEVER gets tired of hearing the story of Abigail. He continues to have faith and prayer as we do for Abby.

Homeland security sent us a letter stating that they approved us and it was sent on for the final step of immigration. We are now just waiting for I-171N to appear in our mailbox. We are praying it’s very soon! We also continue to pray for the Lord to guide our attorney as he processes all of our paperwork and applies for our court date. We continue to be hopeful that it will be in January!

I continue to prepare myself for my travel. I went to Wal-Mart and bought out all the travel toilet paper that I could! You can never be too prepared with toilet paper right? Haha. I’m also stocking up on skirts, lots of wet wipes, bug spray and sun tan lotion!

The big fun this week is we start our Typhoid Fever pills! FUN! There are so many directions with them I get confused just reading them!

The Paw Paw Flashes did a newspaper article about us and here is the link. http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20391856&BRD=2188&PAG=461&dept_id=414962&rfi=6

There are some incorrect things in the article, such as adoption was a first option for us, not an alternative to having a child biologically. I’m only correcting that because we are trying to be advocates for adoption as a first option. I think sometimes people only consider adoption when they are not able to conceive, however we want to be advocates that ANYONE can adopt at any time and still have biological children as well.

Today is World Aids Day and I ask that everyone please keep the millions of people affected by this disease in your prayers today. The Kalamazoo Prayer Clinic is having prayers from noon until 5:30 for prayer.

I want to close tonight giving God all the glory. It’s only been through him that we are on this adoption journey and we praise him every day for that.

I hope this day finds you filled with the Holy Spirit and continuing to seek him.

Thank you for your prayers.