adoption update

i've been a slacker blogger lately! partially due to laziness, partially due to lots of playing with my girl, cleaning, baking, and getting paper work together for our home study!

so here is a little update of what is going on in our little world. we are still doing crafts for congo (but it has slowed WAY down!) we completed our 2 mini photo session fundraisers. and we have a few other fundraisers in the works. but with just those 2 fundraisers, we have our first agency fee!!! that is a HUGE step forward, but we still have a long road ahead of us, and a lot of money to raise! (of course, you will be able to hear about all of our fundraising endeavors, right here!)

we had our first home study meeting last week and it was wonderful! we were only a little nervous going in, but it went off without a hitch. our social worker is FANTASTIC (as we heard she would be!) and we are very excited to say that our final home study meeting will be may 24 at 530 pm! so in the meantime we are gathering lots and lots of paperwork. once we send our agency fee in, we will gather even more paperwork to compile our dossier-which will eventually be sent to the congo. we are making progress here, people!

if you have questions about our adoption process, please ask! we will be as real and honest as we know how to be. here are a few questions that we have heard a lot of!

Q: how old will your child be?
A: we have requested that our child be younger than bella joy (born after march 15, 2010). our home study will be written for a baby 14 months old or younger.

Q: why does your sister already know she is getting a girl? are you getting a girl or a boy?
A: lara and nathan requested a girl. we are very excited about having another niece and meeting sweet lydia face to face!! we did not request a specific gender. so we could have a boy or a girl. it will be a surprise upon referral! :) (i had a dream about our baby the other night, and in that dream, it was a boy...not that i'm a prophet or anything).

Q: what are you going to name your baby? will you keep his or her name the same?
A: we are not opposed to letting our baby keep his or her african name. we will always be open and honest with him/her about where he/she came from. the adoption will not be a secret (obviously--i mean, you can't really hide it when your skin is a different color!) so the idea of keeping the african name is kind of fun to us. however, we do not want our child to go through life with everyone mispronouncing his/her name. so we will likely give them a first name and possibly keep the african name for a middle name. if our baby is a boy, his name will be micah timothy and if it is a girl her name will be...well, thats still up in the air. (we like cora and eliana...but we'll see :)).

Q: so, is it really expensive?
A: adoption is a long and costly process. we are not buying a child, we are paying for the services of the agency staff/country staff. if you are interested in adopting, i would love to give you more info! if you are just being nosy...well you can honestly find this info on your own by looking on any adoption agency's website. but yes, its expensive. no, we aren't buying a baby.

what else ya got?

please keep praying for our journey, for our baby, for our baby's biological family. and thank you so so much for your support so far! lets bring this baby home!