ADOPTION NEWS!!!

YIPPPPEEEEE!!!!
We are so incredibly pleased to announce that we are now OFFICIALLY on the waiting list for our agency, All God's Children! We just received word this afternoon that our dossier had been reviewed, and everything looked fantastic. THANK YOU LORD for answering our prayers that everything would be done correctly and no "re-do's" would be necessary!
So....our first official waiting list numbers are...
#50 FOR THE GIRL WAITING LIST AND #22 FOR THE SIBLING WAITING LIST!!!
(The un-technical side of me is coming through with our daughter's picture being sideways--I could not figure out how to flip it for anything! :) Apologies!

Even though the numbers appear very different from one another,the sibling list tends to move a lot more slowly than the single child lists. With our sibling parameters being so limited (0-20 months), it will be an act of God if we end up with siblings. But....the Lord knows, and the Lord will do what He wants to do! We rest in that.

We can't tell you what a relief and what a feeling it is to FINALLY be on the waiting list. After hours of paperwork, education, standing in lines, sending emails and forms away....our paper chase is DONE (at least for the time being :)
We can now sit back, and anticipate meeting our new child/ren in the coming months. Although there is no way to know how long it will take for us to receive our "referral" (the term used for your adopted child when you find out who has been selected for your family), it is not unlikely we will be waiting at least 8-12 months before this will happen. Then comes having your court date in Ethiopia scheduled, passing court, and then finally travel. So it will be a little while before the new little Bailey(s) come home!
Please join us in praying for our child/ren and their birth mother and family as we wait. We pray for their health,for peace, for love and comfort, and that the hand of our Father God will be upon them.

LADIES DAY AWAY FUNDRAISER COMING UP!

So... a wonderful friend of mine has offered to help organize our next fundraiser. If spending a whole day away with other women, having all your meals cooked for you, having access to delicious snacks throughout the day, and having all the uninterrupted time you want to work on your scrap booking, stamping, craft project, filing, or ANYTHING else you want to catch up on sounds like a fun day to you....this day is for you!
On April 17 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. (location TBA), we will be hosting a ladies day away. This day will not disappoint you! You will have the whole day to spend time with just women working on any special project you may have in mind. Door prizes and games will be just part of the fun! More details will follow in the near future including cost. You won't want to miss this day! Mark it on your calendars and start spreading the word!

What's next for fundraising???

So we're trying to stay creative with our fundraising endeavors, trying our best to save whatever we can, working extra hours,etc. to continue to fund our adoption journey.

We have however, come up with a couple ways in which our friends and family and others can help us if they have the heart to do so. One is through our own coffee shop through Just Love Coffee Roasters. Check out the link in the top corner of our blog, or follow the link below to enter our own coffee shop where only free trade coffee is sold. Basically we will receive $5 for every bag of coffee sold on our site, and you get wonderful coffee in return (some from Ethiopia!)This is a really neat organization!

http://www.justlovecoffee.com/BaileyBeanery

Next...keep your eyes open for a ladies day away for a scrapbooking/craft day (hopefully coming up in April). If you are a Creative Memories fan, love to scrapbook, stamp, sew, knit, or do anything else crafty, this will be day for you. Enjoy fun and fellowship with other women as you have an entire day to work on your special project/s with all meals provided! More details to follow soon!

ADOPTION UPDATE, ZUMBATHON RESULTS!

Now that the Zumbathon is done, I may actually have time to keep our blog updated a little more frequently. Our Zumbathon was a great success--so completely evident that God was present and so behind it. The instructors that helped us out that night were absolutely fabulous. God certainly hand-picked each and every one. My family was the most incredible behind the scenes team I could imagine, keeping everything for the auction side of the night going so smoothly, the food table stocked... And....with everyone's support, we raised just over $3,000! GOD IS GOOD!

As far as our adoption progress, here goes: Well, we finally received our home study today, only to find some type-o's that probably need to be fixed before we can actually use it. OOOOHHHHH, this has been such a long wait already, and I'm trying to stay patient, but it's getting so hard when I keep seeing families being added to our agency's wait list. I want to be on that list so badly. I know everything is in God's timing though, and I'm trying to remind myself of this aloud, because when I don't, I get incredibly impatient. We had originally expected to have our final draft of our home study at least 2-3 weeks ago. That is the last piece we need to be able to send our dossier in to our agency.
Once that occurs, and everything has been proofed/approved, we will be put on the waiting list and on our journey to find out who our new child/ren will begin! Because of the ages of our biological kids, we've been approved for a baby girl, age 0-12 months at the time of referral, or a sibling group, ages 0-20 months at the time of referral. So we'll just wait and see what God has chosen for us!
If you would like to keep us in your prayers, we ask for the following:
1. That our home study would be fixed as quickly as possible so we can send our dossier in no later than the end of this coming week.
2. That everything will be completed correctly and no mistakes will be found in our dossier when it gets sent to Portland.
3. That we will get our fingerprint appointment quickly and that our USCIS approval will happen quickly once we've been fingerprinted(important piece of government approval necessary before we can be eligible to accept a referral).