7 months waiting

Not sure if I already wrote this out but MOWCYA (ethiopian government women and chidren's affairs department) stated that they are going from writing 5 letters to 10 a day! Still not sure what this indicated as far as timeline but it is great to see some movement. We are holding out for a referral by the end of the year... and that is being optimistic :)

What is really neat to see is our kids understanding of adoption taking place as they are getting older during this process as well. Each night we pray with them and thank God in front of them for giving them to our family. We want them to understand that ultimately they belong to a Heavenly Father, just as Opi has a Heavenly Father too. God has placed Maddie and Hudson into our family and we pray for God to place Opi into our family and to be content with His timing.

Side note: We are calling our future son "Opi" for the time being which is a name Maddie came up for him over a year ago. We do not intend for that to actually be his name and are waiting to "meet" him and know more about him before we consider any other names or will use his given name.

Anyway, the kids are really starting to understand what will take place with this adoption. Opi will come and be in our family forever! Hudson will become a big brother! Maddie will have 2 brothers! We say these statements all the time and it is sinking in for the kids. Any baby toy we find is greeted with, "hey that's for Opi!" and we save it in a place in the house for him. We go to target and walk down the baby aisle and similar statements are made towards the items there. They are getting ready! Hudson is talking about how he will change Opi's diaper (strange, I know since he still wears diapers himself) and Maddie told me last night that her pink pillow and pink blanket are going to be Opi's. I asked her if she is sure since Opi will be a boy and said we can buy him a different blanket but Maddie responded matter of factly with, "But I have a PINK blanket and PINK pillow to give him" and we left it at that!

Thanks for checking in!

psalm 68:6 "God sets the lonely in families..."

So many things we as family need to learn....this is inspiring

6 months waiting... and HUGE SURPRISE!

It has been 6 months now since we sent all our paperwork (dossier) to Ethiopia. Each week for these past few months we continue to hear of more delays in the adoption process. The section of government in Ethiopia that handles adoptions has significantly slowed down in their proceedings. There is hope that things could change back to a somewhat quicker pace but if things continue at this rate, it was stated that the impact could add years to the wait. Years... yes, I wrote years... but we hope not! We have unofficial word that we are #5 in line within our agency waiting for a child 12months+ and #24 for a child under 12months. I have been hesitant to post these numbers because I think it is hard to explain but here goes... There is a yahoo group online of families within our agency. We all tell each other the dates of our DTE (Dossier to Ethiopia) and somebody on there keeps track of how the families are moving up in line whenever another family on the list receives their referral. So this is completely unofficial and separate of our agency and there may be more families that are not a part of the online group ahead of us on the list. Anyway, onto the surprise part of the title of this post....

A few weeks ago the financial director from our church contacted us about a check that was issued to us that we had not cashed. We were confused and had not idea what she was referring to. It turns out somebody had sent us a check through our church over a year ago. Maybe they had our previous address or it just got lost in the mail but we never knew of it! So, the check was reissued to us again. We were so encouraged just learning of an anonymous person who had wanted to support our adoption. Then, we got the check in the mail and opened the envelope and saw....4,000! WOW! We were shocked, surprised, humbled and wondering who was this generous person. We were so encouraged in the midst of the negative adoption news lately and also practically as we are now almost there to the 30k goal of saving to complete our adoption fund. God has truly provided for this adoption and we are so blessed to have experienced His provision in this way. In the beginning this seemed impossible, and here we are today with almost all the funds needed to complete this adoption. Now all we need is a referral! We long to learn the name of our child, see his face for the first time, learn how old he is and what his story is... Thank you for following along with us!

Love,
The Fishers

discoverthejourney.org

4 Months Waiting and 1 Year into the process!

We were accepted into the Ethiopia adoption program with our agency 1 year ago and have now waited 4 months since our paperwork (dossier) has been in Ethiopia. On one hand it is hard to believe this adoption journey has already been going on for a year now but on the other hand, it does feel like a long time!

When we originally signed up with our agency, 4 months was the typical wait until you would receive a referral. While we would be THRILLED to see the face of our future child and learn all about him today, we are content in the wait. This past month we've seen several formal statements made from U.S. government and Ethiopian government regarding adoptions. Overall we are expecting "significant delays" but are unsure of what this really means. In our limited understanding, we know that both entities are trying to clean up the process to get rid of corruption-which is a really good thing. There was a recent statement that all cases filed before March 8th will be expedited (which we have seen happening and is so exciting for those families) but any case afterwards will expect a big delay. We do not have a "case" yet because we have not been matched with a child or submitted to court so that means we are on the further end of the delay.

We know God has His hand in this and His timing is not our own.

The following are words from our agency's blog:
" Even as this continues to unfold, we know that the Lord places the lonely in families, and that the enemy does not want to see this happen. Please pray that God will break down the strongholds set up against adoption, and that His Spirit will direct the decisions being made in the coming days and weeks in Ethiopia. Pray for all of the families and children affected by decisions being made and that they will experience God’s peace and comfort through this time.

“In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.” Psalm 5:3"

Children of God, Third Day

3 Months Waiting...

Despite the discouraging news regarding all Ethiopian adoptions we continue to trust that God is in control and that He has a plan through the latest set backs. In short from our understanding, the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs in Ethiopia abruptly decided to reduce the number of adoption cases to be processed on a daily basis by about 90%. This will greatly effect the waiting period for many children waiting to be matched with families. Our hearts are saddened as this means that these children will be institutionalized for longer periods of time which compounds many more issues. This last week we received some encouraging news though regarding this so we know God is still at work. We continue to covet your prayers as we wait patiently!

2 months waiting on Feb 10

Well, with the exciting 2nd birthday of our sweet son, I have forgotten to do what I intended to do which was to post each month we have been waiting. So, we have now waited 2 months. Our agency recently stated that the trend of wait times has now increased to 5-8 months until a referral so that really puts us waiting until the end of summer. So, as everyone continues to ask questions, there is nothing to share besides we have put 2 months behind us and look forward to likely 6 more! That's ok with us as we know God has His perfect plan with this. We will focus on getting our other two kids to sleep better at night in the meantime. Thanks for checking in!

Russell Moore Defines Adoption and The Call To Care for the Orphans.

For the Men

Why Ethiopia Video

I keep seeing videos like these that other adoptive families have put together and are posted and reposted on adoptive families blogs. Actually it is something we see almost on a daily basis now as we blog-hop and wait. This is something our kids watch with us as well and we hope to never stop exposing them to God's heart for the nations, the poor, the oppressed and what our role can be in joining Him to redeem them. Anyway, I thought I would re-post another family's video on here to give those who are interested a taste of what we are invested in now!

1 Month Waiting

Hi Everyone! Our official DTE date was 12/10 so yesterday marks our first month of waiting! It went by super fast thanks to the holidays. Since everyone is asking us what is going on with the adoption I will write it out here. From our DTE date we have a 4-6 month wait until a referral of a child. When we get our referral, our agency sends us a picture of our child along with any information known. We then would accept the referral and our agency applies to Ethiopian court for a court date. There are only so many per month so there could be a wait again there. We hope no longer than 2 more months. Then we travel for the court date and meet our son and come back home. Our son will stay there at our agency's transition home. When we pass court, our agency applies for appointments with the U.S. embassy in Addis. Again, there are only so many appointments given out so there is another wait there. We hope for no more than 2 months again. We would travel a second time to the Embassy appointment and then be allowed to take our son home! These waits can be shorter or a lot longer than expected and there is a variety of factors that can hold up the process depending on our child's specific situation with paperwork, what region of the country he is from, or anything else that comes up! So there really isn't any way to predict the WHEN of this process. However, at the soonest, we could get a referral in April and travel June for 1st trip, and AUgust for 2nd trip and bring him home. OR, we could get our referral closer to July which would then hit the Ethiopian court closure (Their court system takes a break for 6 weeks or so during the rainy season). If this happened and we hit that, we would most likely not get a court date until late fall or winter and would be bringing our son home this time next year!

Meanwhile, we continue to prepare ourselves for this, read other people's blogs and see their kids and pictures from their time in Ethiopia and pray for our son. Hudson has been really into the Opi doll we have and has started sleeping with "Opi" (as well as his toy tools). Maddie is so sweet in praying for Opi all on her own.