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.

One Life - One Legacy: Calling All Men - It's Time for War

I stumbled across this post from a man who has a great passion for orphans. He has 10 kids some of his own but it looks like most of them are adopted. This really hit home for me and seriously boosted my level of encouragement. Read his post and he talks about how women have risen to the challenged to defend the cause of the orphans but where are the men in this picture? I must applaud all the women out there who are doing this in the name of Jesus including my amazing wife. We both had a desire to adopt but her desire far out shot mine. She powered through all the annoying paperwork and set up all the needed appointments because she felt the urgency to obey Jesus' command of defending the cause of the fatherless. She has kept me going and now that all our paperwork is finished my adrenaline levels are starting to spike. I just want to encourage all the men out there that are contemplating adoption and thinking about...how can I love another child that isn't my own or how will we pay for this? All I can say is Listen to God and He will take care of all your worries. Men we need to catch up and run right along our wives and lead the charge to defend the MILLIONS of orphans! Like this man wrote below....I'm not so sure this will be the last child we adopt. It's all in God's hands but right now I'm pretty fired up!
One Life - One Legacy: Calling All Men - It's Time for War

Dossier is Done!

What a week! Our I-171h came on Monday evening. On Tuesday we had an extra 2 year old boy with us for the day so I did not allow myself to even try to look at what needed to be done to finish the dossier. Wednesday, my dad came down to help me drive with the kids to downtown LA to get two papers state certified. This took MUCH longer than expected and I wasn't allowed to use my phone so I couldn't really check on my dad with the kids. I think I was in that building about 2 hours and I came out to the street to find sweet Grandad changing a #2 diaper of his 3 year old granddaughter through the window of my car. Picture this, the high rises, the street people, the buses, and my dad taking care of business! Thanks Dad! I know you didn't sign up for that :)

Wednesday evening, after the kids were in bed and after a late trip to kinkos to make 3 sets of copies I was busily doing this....

































While Ben was working on this... Our "Family photo pages" intended to show Ethiopia how great our family is- 2 formal family photos, picture of the outside and inside of our house and 4 candid shots. Nice work Ben!



Later that night I discover I needed another paper notarized. So, Thursday morning I pack lots of snacks for the kids and head out to AAA to meet with the notary, back to kinkos to make more copies and then back home to organize everything again. I get an email from our agency with more instructions to find out I put everything in the wrong order. I hurry up and put the kids to nap super early (this was not my finest moment as a mother and I had to ask the kids to forgive me for being so tense with them) then I try to reorganize my papers. I discover I am missing yet another paper... not sure if it is totally important so after a few phone calls with my social worker and emails with our agency we get it straightened out and I get the go ahead to FedEx the Dossier. The kids got up from their nap and I drag them out again- by now I have run out of both cheerios and "circle crackers" and those who know us will know this is a big deal. I have enough "veggie sticks" (not to be confused with real vegetables) and bring those along trying to ignore my guilt of feeding them so many snacks in the same day! Here we are at FedEx around 4:00pm. I asked them at the desk when the cutoff was to send packages to East Coast...4:15! So I quickly package everything while the kids were being such troopers by now! (Or the Veggie Sticks were just too delish to be complaining). There was a line but we made it!











I asked the FedEx man to take a picture of us with our package explaining to him it contained 7 months of hard work for an adoption. Please excuse Maddie's frizzy hair. Poor girl didn't get her hair done that day!


I almost cried as I walked out of FedEx with the kids- I am not sure if it was from sheer relief to be finished or just excitement. It was probably a mix of both. We ended our night with a family dinner at home with Ben and celebrated this moment together.

I-171H is here!

We received our USCIS approval in the mail today! By now, most families have all the paperwork ready to mail off but we kind of got behind during this week of Thanksgiving. The pressure it on to get this finished and we are beyond excited! This form (the I-171H ) came just a little over 2 weeks after we did our biometrics appointment. That is super fast!

There isn't anything I wouldn't do for "Opi" these days. I was actually getting really emotional about it while driving to my biometric (fingerprinting) appointment with USCIS a couple weeks ago. My dad had come down to watch the kids and I was explaining to him how this is our 4th time being fingerprinted and for the mere cost of 836.00. My dad seemed taken back by the high cost of this fingerprinting process and I was amazed how my feelings have changed over these past months. $836 seems like nothing now! I feel like I could give up a lot more to be able to go and get our son and become a family to him. I already have a love growing inside me that is indescribable. Other adoptive families have written about it on their blogs and I would read it and think,'Oh thats so nice" but now it is happening to us! How can we love someone we have never met? How can we give up all our savings for this dear little person? Easy, he will be our son. Just as I would do anything for Maddie and Hudson, I would do it for Opi. If Maddie or Hudson were starving and in a dire situation, what else would I do to bring them back home?

Thanks for checking in! Please pray for us to get our paperwork finished- that we can work with fervor and joy as we wrap this up!

Update from the little FIshers:
One of Maddie's latest favorite words, "Ah Ka Ka" (Africa) and "Opi-Opia" for Ethiopia. Then, Hudson just repeats exactly what Maddie says. She is teaching him a lot of interesting words these days. Maddie can recognize the silhouette of the continent of Africa and will point it out and talk about Opi. Today she told me he is growing in her tummy. We talked the other day how Opi will have grown in another mommy's tummy. Maybe Maddie thought I was talking about her....

Orphan Sunday

Today is Orphan Sunday. Let's ask God how we as Christians can make a difference for the hurting and the fatherless.

True Religion from Christian Alliance for Orphans on Vimeo.

Nov. 12th...

Nov 12th is the day that is USCIS gave us an appointment to go get fingerprinted! Thankfully, we only have to go to Oxnard for this as I have read about other families having to drive hours to their assigned destination. After we are printed again, we just wait for our approval paper from USCIS and that should be the last paper we need to be DTE! In the meantime, Ben will be going to get another birth certificate of his, we need to take a couple papers to our county government center to get a second level of certification so that we can later then take those papers to the Secretary of State's office in LA to get them state certified. Oh, and finish up our family photo pages too.. really though, we are so close! Hopefully we will get a DTE date early December!

God continues to prepare us to love our new son. We think about him every day and pray for him and his family. Please pray with us that he knows love and feels the love around him now, that his needs are being met.

Thanks for checking in with us!

And, since posts are really no fun without pictures, here's us at the pumpkin patch! Can't believe there will (God willing) be another head poking out of that wagon next year!

Isaiah's Story

Just came across this posted on another blog. If you have a few minutes, it is a powerful story. I think its about 5 minutes long.

Isaiah's Story from 31Films on Vimeo.

Mailed the I-600A!

Friday morning I took the kids outside and checked in the mailbox and found a big packet from our adoption agency. Our completed homestudy! This is the last piece we needed before we could apply to USCIS. I quickly texted Ben the good news and tried to keep myself from just jumping on the next step of compiling all the documents. (You need to get permission from our government to bring home an internationally adopted child) I have found that working on adoption stuff while the kids are awake is not fair to anyone involved so I waited until naptime. Thankfully we were already having a friend come over for a playdate so that helped with the wait. Once the kids were in bed, I started making sure I had all the documents ready. I looked over the I-600A application and realized I needed to download and print out one more form. However, after working on it for 1 hour, I still could not print that one page. I called another friend in town to see if she could download it- she also had a Mac and it didn't work for her either. I tried a second friend- she was able to download it but didn't have any paper. Not a problem, I had paper and once the kids woke up, I went straight to her house, and my friend graciously gave up her free time during her kid's nap to print out this paper. Thank you Erica! (and Katie too).

Not that I am going to outright imply things, but it does seem like anytime I have adoption stuff to work on, the computer doesn't work right, the fax won't fax, scanner won't scan...etc.. then, the kids wake up and chaos occurs. Everything takes so much longer than it should and it is easy to get discouraged and frustrated. I have read about a lot of other families getting hit with many difficult trials (sickness, family emergencies, car troubles and more) during this adoption process. So, electronic malfunction is very small trial to overcome but it seems to be my main thorn so far during this process.

Anyway, the kids and I took the I-600A to the post office, got a nice sturdy packet to mail everything in and handed it over! Now we need to wait to hear back from USCIS for our biometrics appointment. Thanks for checking in.

"I Saw What I Saw"