The Check I've Been Waiting to Write

Today I've never been happier to write and mail off a BIG check!! Yes, we finally got to mail off our IAP form and first agency fee. God is good.

And yes, Stella decided to document the paperwork process with her fabulous photography work!

I'm a little on the quirky side when it comes to some things. Having a bit of a type-A personality, I love organizing, sorting, and absolutely love filling out paperwork! Even when I was little and your elementary sent you home with a ton of paperwork for your parents to fill out on the first day of school, I always begged my mother to let me fill out all of mine and BOTH my brothers' as well. It's such a soothing thing for me. (I know, quirky, right!?!) It's the little things that God does, like giving me the love of paperwork, that makes me know I was made for this process!

"For we are HIS workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so

that we would walk in them." Ephesians 2:10

It has been a joyful week at the Michael house. I feel God's presence inside of our home just working inside of us, and wrapping His arms of love and joy around all of us. He's really preparing our hearts for this precious little man who will, hopefully soon, be joining our family. Amidst all the craziness in our lives right now, He is the one who creates this peace inside of us, and is carrying us through.

So what's next...

Now that our IAP form is mailed out, we will be hearing from our agency, hopefully tomorrow, and they will provide us with our adoption planner (pretty much, a BIG checklist of everything we need for our dossier.) We are working everyday to finish up the paperwork on our homestudy to finish that. Tomorrow we are going to get fingerprinted and send off for our last document we need to send off for our homestudy paperwork. The estimated completion time for that will be around 6-12 weeks. Please pray, that all of the records I have sent off for will arrive back to us safely and in a timely manner to keep this process smooth and in His timing.

Again, thanks so much to everyone who has been involved with our journey thus far. NONE of this would have been possible if it weren't for all of you. There's nothing more beautiful than seeing a community of people coming together to bring Him glory.

Please keep praying for our legal situation as well. It's still dragging on, and somedays still gets the best of me. I pray every morning for God to just keep pointing my mind forward, to what's ahead, and to not look behind on the past and the situations that I cannot change. It's a daily battle, but He is faithful.

Great is Your faithfulness! Great is Your faithfulness!

Morning by morning, new mercies I see. All I have needed YOUR hand hath provided.

Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!"

- "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" Thomas Chisholm

Updates, updates and more updates!!

Our online fundraiser is coming to an end and we're thrilled that we get to complete our homestudy! Just one step closer to getting our little boy. A big THANK YOU to Clare Holmes for hosting the online fundraiser. God really knows how to orchestrate His body of believers to bring His will into fruition. Please go and order yours or someone elses little one a custom shirt. If you can't do that, check out all the prizes that are being raffled off. There's everything from delicious munchies to jewelry to professional photography sessions. Here's the link to read about the fundraiser details.

www.cherrylimeadecreations.blogspot.com

Also, to place an order, become a fan of "Cherry Limeade" on facebook and message her to let her know what you want to order or how many raffle tickets you want to purchase.

A little background on how this fundraiser started--Clare is an old family friend from forever ago, and we had reconnected through facebook. She had messaged me and told me about her business, Cherry Limeade, and she had been praying for an opportunity to use her business for His glory. That's when she came across my blog and that's how this fundraiser came about. Clare, you rock!!!!!!!!!!

I think I've realized just how big and powerful God's presence is. He's moving in our lives in such a big way and we feel such great joy! This weekend I got to be a part of the Together For Adoption Conference in Austin, and got to meet and connect with a lot of great people. WOW, what an encouragement the conference was for us! It really provided healing with the lawsuit and just allowed me to focus on what I feel, running through my veins. If you've ever been pregnant/or have wanted to be pregnant, you understand that overpowering feeling of having a hole in your heart that only a child will fill! Guess what, adopting a child feels the same way! So, we decided to finally finish up our preliminary paperwork and FINALLY MOVE FORWARD amidst this crazy lawsuit! I love the way He loves us!

So, here's what we need right now-- A LOT of prayer!!!!!

Please pray for our finances. it's still unknown how much money we will have to settle on with the lawsuit and we're praying that He will provide the funds we cannot provide. We are completely trusting God that He will guide us in the right path financially.

Another prayer request for my prayer warriors: I'm having a surgical procedure done Friday on an irregular mole that I've had on my arm for a while, and finally went to the doctor. Please pray that everything goes well and that the test come back negative for cancer. Also, pray for a speedy recovery so that I can get back to work as soon as possible!!


"Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed." Hebrews 12:12-13

Let the Journey Begin...

So, after a couple of weeks of figuring out the "blog world" (thanks, Thomas) I am finally at the point of writing my very first post!!


As most of you know already, Jordan and I have decided to grow our family by one more and adopt a little boy from Ethiopia. Right after my youngest was born (Maximus) we thought that we were done. We had the "set", one girl and one boy. We were living the American dream and we were happy. While I was having babies, one of my closest cousins was in the works of adopting her first 3 of 6 from Ethiopia, and I became addicted to reading her blogs and just wanted to know more about Africa, orphans, and all the injustices going on. God began to break my heart for all of these things.



A couple of years later, the Haiti earthquake happened, and my heart had felt the heaviest it had ever felt in my life. I kept having images of all these children that were just like my kid's, with nowhere to go and nobody to hold them and love on them when they were scared. The most heartbreaking thing for me, was that a lot of people thought that the earthquake was what put Haiti into a crisis situation, but the reality is, Haiti was already a crisis situation that we neglected. The extreme poverty and millions of orphans in one of our neighboring countries. Then I knew. I felt deep down inside that I had to do my part. As a believer, that's what we are commanded to do.





"If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight reign on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God, our father, accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:26-27




Why adoption?? Because there are 147 million orphans in the world and God revealed to us that one of them is our son. Period.

Why Ethiopia? Ethiopia has the most orphans in all of the world and is one of the poorest countries in all of the world. It receives less aid than any other country in Africa. One out of six kids will die before the age of 5. To think that, children are dying because of starvation, and I complain that my pantry "never has anything good in it". In Ethiopia, the patient to doctor ratio is 1 to 24,000, and I complain about copays. The list goes on. But, I continue to be amazed at the people in the midst of all the poverty, injustice, and crisis. They have absolutely nothing, but have such amazing spirits. We have so much as Americans: Freedom, mind blowing technology, etc. but yet we can always find something to complain about. These people have nothing. They sleep on dirt floors, they have no clue where their next meal is going to come from, but yet they have so much joy. Not only must we help these people, our brothers and sisters in Christ, but we can also learn from them. I believe that I need Africa, more than Africa needs me.



"Rescue the perishing; don't hesitate to step in and help. If you say, "Hey, that's none of my business," will that get you off the hook. Someone is watching you closely, you know- someone not impressed with weak excuses." Proverbs 24:12 [The Message]

Adoption is a long and expensive process. We would love for you to come with us and follow us on our journey. There are so many ways you can play a part in getting our son home. First, is prayer. Right now we need some prayer warriors to pray about finances. I wish we had 20K laying around in an account somewhere, but we don't. We know God isn't going to let that get in the way of His will. We are getting together some awesome fundraisers and we need God to show up big time! Another way, is donating to the cause. Our first fundraiser is a giant garage sale (thank you, SMBC for all of the experience and training!!) If you, or someone you know has anything to donate to sell at our garage sale, please let us know. Every dime we get will go straight into our adoption account. We'll keep you posted, too, about other fundraisers that we have brewing that not just people in Austin can contribute to as well. God is doing such amazing things, and He is good.

Let the journey begin....

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11