OUR PLANS MULTIPLIED

In the beginning, JD adamantly only wanted two children. I thought that four would be perfect. Once we caught God's vision of putting orphans into families, our plan was multiplied by God. We are currently blessed with 12 children; five biological, six adopted and one more waiting in Ethiopia. Our first adoption was from the U.S., the next three were from Liberia, West Africa, and our last two were from Ethiopia. We are supporting our 12th child in Ethiopia after her adoption could not pass court.

Friday, January 7, 2011

End of the Week

It's been a very good week, considering I've been solo-parenting. I've spent several hours this week reading and talking to different adoption agencies. This potential international adoption is so much more complicated than it was when we went to Liberia! Ethiopia is a Hague country and there is a lot more involved. I also have been talking to several agencies and am surprised how much the program, and costs, can vary between agencies. The frustrating thing to me is how much more Ethiopian adoptions have increased due to the requirement of making two trips. On top of the extra $10,000 in travel expenses, it requires us to leave our children twice in a six week span of time; once for court and then again to bring the new little guys home.

Of course, I'm doing my research in complete faith that our house closing is going to go through the end of January and that we will then be able to refinance our rental loan and then that we will pay off our Liberian loan around tax time. In some ways, it's all crazy to even consider, but we feel like we are supposed to be ready!

In my continuing in the kitchen series, I bought new binders for my "scrapbooked recipes" that my sister and I enjoyed doing the few years back. My binder had gotten stuffed and wouldn't open or close smoothly, so I divided it into two - one cooking and one baking. I have rediscovered lots of exciting things in there I'm ready to try.

I'll close with some two year old humor. Since Tori and Julia constantly get their fingernails painted, Julia calls them tandernails, Elijah always wants in on the action. Every now and then, he gets a marker and colors them all and is pleased with the look. Yesterday, he started coloring on the computer desk. I said, "Elijah, what are you allowed to color on?" expecting him to say, "paper." Instead, he very seriously answered, "my tandernails."

2 comments:

  1. you're children are precious treasures. they are so worth it. keep going, keep going!

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  2. We brought our little guy home from Ethiopia using Holt, Int. I would highly recommend them as a very ethical agency! Can't wait to hear all about your Ethiopia adventure, as part of my heart is definitely still there :)

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