The Best Friends in the World

Hey! We met our goal! Through the support of friends and family, our final fundraiser has been a success – thanks be to God!

A little background...When we began praying for wisdom and clarity at the beginning of this process, we knew we would need to do some fundraising. Our goal at the outset was to raise 1/3 of the total cost on our own, and fundraise 2/3 of the cost. So many people have generously purchased puzzle pieces and been a part of this journey up to this point – we have the best support system in the world.

In case you are curious about the financial commitment for adoption, here is a brief overview. When we began educating ourselves about the process, the estimated total cost was between $30-35K for an adoption from Ethiopia. This total is comprised of home study costs, domestic agency fees, referral fees, and travel costs.

But due to some new steps in the Ethiopian bureaucratic process – all designed to protect the children – the wait time between being paired with a child and bringing them home has been extended. Extended time means the cost for caring for the child increases, which means the referral fee required by the adoption agency is now higher. While these increases were not anticipated, we are in full agreement in these new developments that are intended to promote the well being of orphaned children.

And, because our friends and family are generally awesome, these changes have not been an impediment to our process. We have met our puzzle fundraiser goal. Below is the image that was assembled piece by piece, each a unique expression of love, that will hang in our little girl’s room as she is growing up:

Pretty cool, huh? Of course, the back of the puzzle shows the names of everyone who was a part of pulling it together. It will be framed with glass on two sides so we can read them and be reminded of this amazing journey. To think that she will be reminded each day she sees it of all the love that helped bring her home, coming from people who had yet to meet her…well, that’s just beautiful.

So what’s next?

We will share more information as we are allowed to, but the short of it is that we still have 3-4 bureaucratic steps to take (mostly waiting on paperwork to process), before we can make our first trip over. We are looking at a window of 6-9 months from now until that time. That seems like an eternity – we want to go get her now!

But we will wait, full of gratitude and longing, a very complimentary set of feelings, until that day comes.

We are so grateful for all your interest, prayers, financial support, and celebration. Our hearts are very full.

Please continue pray for all five us during this journey.

In God’s Grace,

Kameron, Nathan, J. Henry, Amelia and our New Little Girl!

A Phone Call

I will never forget last Wednesday, September 3^rd, 2015. At 11:45a that morning my phone rang simultaneously with Nathan’s phone. I was in Smiths Station, AL evaluating a child and Nathan was at work in Birmingham. It was Elyse, our adoption case worker calling from Oregon. After her usual cheerful greeting, Elyse said, “Kameron, Nathan, this is your referral phone call.”

Oh!

My!

Goodness!

I am not even going to try to employ enough adjectives to tell you how we felt when Elyse told us about our child. Despite my flair for the dramatic, I still can’t do it justice. She emailed us paperwork on the child so that we could have a few moments to ourselves – we were both getting emotional. I commandeered an office computer to open up my email and, with Nathan in Birmingham, we simultaneously stared in wonder at our child for the first time. By the way, it’s a little girl!!! (Amelia called it months ago!)

The feeling of seeing her for the first time was the exact same feeling I had when I saw Henry and Amelia for the first time. We had been preparing and hoping for this call for 2.5 years, but it didn’t diminish our wonder and joy . I think our hearts grew a size that day. I can’t stop looking at her picture and checking the time in Ethiopia and wondering what our new child is doing at that very moment.

Of course, waiting up to this point has been challenging, but there is a real difference between waiting and WAITING ON SOMEONE TO ARRIVE!

While we are grateful and excited and celebrating about receiving our referral, we are ever mindful that our joy has been brought about by someone else’s pain, and we hope that you will join us in praying not only for the children in orphanages around the world, but for their birth mamas and daddies, too. I wouldn’t presume to imagine their stories…

According to Dove, we are not allowed to share any specific information about our child until later in the process, but will share updates as we are able. Believe us when we say that we would be shouting it from the rooftops if we could!

We still have quite a bit of waiting on various governmental parties stateside and in Ethiopia before our first trip to Addis Ababa can be scheduled. This could be anywhere from 6-9 months away. After a week there for the first visit, we will return home for six to eight weeks before we take our second trip and bring her home!

In the meantime…

Today we are mailing our final and most sizeable payment to date - $15,200 - and with that comes our final fundraising endeavor. When we started this process 2.5 years ago, we bought a 1,000 piece puzzle in anticipation of our final fundraiser, with a special image to hang in our new child’s room.

For each $10 donation we receive, we will put a puzzle piece in place with your name, or name of your choice, written on the back. For example, if you donate $10, one puzzle piece will have your name on it. If you donate $20, two pieces will have your name on it, etc. We will be taking pictures of the back of the puzzle as it is assembled (the names side), and when it is completed we will turn it over and show you what we made together!

I bought the first puzzle piece yesterday wrote “Mommy” on the back of it :0)

When the puzzle is finished, we will frame it in glass on both sides and hang it in our child’s bedroom as a permanent reminder of all the love and support that helped bring her to us.

In order to buy a puzzle piece, please click on the yellow “Donate” button on the right side of our blog. Under the donation amount, you should see “Special Instructions for the Seller.” Click on that, and a text box will come up. Please write the name that would like for us to write on the back of your puzzle piece, and we will receive that information when we receive your donation.

Thank you from the bottom of our now-larger hearts for all of your love, prayers and support. We can’t wait to share more information with you as the process unfolds!

Please continue pray for all five us during this journey.

In God’s Grace,

Kameron, Nathan, J. Henry, Amelia and our New Little Girl!

Good News!

Friends - 
Our adoption journey formally began in January of 2013, and now we are excited to announce that our family has moved to #8 on the waiting list for our adoption referral! We joined the waiting list about 18 months ago at #29 when our finalized dossier arrived in Ethiopia, so we are hopeful that it won't be too much longer before we receive that call we have been longing for. There is no guarantee on how much longer it may take, but we are hopeful to find out who our next child will be within 6-12 months. That will initiate our travel process of taking 2 trips, the first to initiate the paperwork with the Ethiopian court system, and the second to bring our child home. Just as a reminder, we are open to a girl or boy from birth through 4 years 11 months. We can't wait to meet them!

Just a few family updates...

We moved houses (just across Homewood) to a house that is much more family friendly. J. Henry will only be 1 block away from school and we are now half a mile to our church. There are lots of children on Woodland Drive and J. Henry and Amelia are spending much more time playing outside. This move coincided with our need to update our home study for the adoption, so it was perfect timing.  And, our new home has been approved as suitable to welcome our newest family member. We are very thankful to enjoy such a family friendly neighborhood, especially while the children are younger. Here are the kiddos taking a bow while playing in the sprinkler in the front yard earlier this week:

While we have been praying and waiting, we have enjoyed a summer full of activities. Kameron flew to Baltimore, MD to sit for her LSLS exam she has been working toward for 3 years. She hopes to receive her results within a few weeks. J. Henry and Amelia enjoyed a week at my parents with their cousins, and have enjoyed many other activities around Birmingham. I am preparing for my second residency for school this August, and work at the church continues to be challenging and hopeful. Trinity United Methodist Church is an incredible faith community filled with devoted and talented staff and members. It is a joy to belong to this congregation. 

Earlier in the summer we enjoyed some vacation time in Florida, pictured below: 

Next week, J. Henry will begin 2nd grade at Edgewood Elementary and Amelia will begin 3-K at Trinity. This year, Kameron is moving from full-time to part-time, only be working two days per week at the Alabama School for the Deaf in Talladega. We are celebrating that she no longer faces a  500 mile commute each week!

We are hopeful that our new child will be joining our family before too long. We are beyond grateful for the incredible support we receive from friends and family who regularly inquire about the process and offer their kind words and prayer of support. 

We deeply desire to show God’s love to one of His own by making him or her one of our own. Please pray for all five us during this journey.

In God’s Grace,

Nathan, Kameron, J. Henry, Amelia (and Baby #3!)

A "Big" Sister's Perspective

Last fall we asked our six year-old son, Henry, a few questions about our adoption and shared his responses. Earlier this week, I asked our three year-old daughter, Amelia, to share her feelings. Below are her verbatim responses, which are just about what you might expect from her:

Nathan: “Amelia, do you remember that we are going to have another child?”

Amelia: “Yes.”

Nathan: “How do you feel about having another child in our family?”

Amelia: “I am so very very excited. I will be a big kid and she will be a baby.

Nathan: “Do you think it will be a boy or a girl?”

Amelia: “It will be a girl because I want a sister.”

Nathan: “What do you think her name should be?”

Amelia: “Lucy.”

Nathan: “What if it is a boy?”

Amelia: “I don’t want another brother. I want a sister.”

Nathan: “I understand, but what would you name a boy?”

Amelia: “His name will be Gru.”

Nathan: “Where will the new child sleep?”

Amelia: “In my room in a baby crib.”

Nathan: “How will you help take care of them?”

Amelia: “I will feed her, hold her, and pet her. And Daddy, where will her clothes come from cause she doesn’t have any clothes?”

Nathan: “We will make sure they have clothes. So what will you teach them?”

Amelia: “How to dance and sing and do my puzzles.”

Nathan: “What will you teach them to sing?”

Amelia: “I will teach her ‘ABCD’, ‘The Itsy-Bitsy Spider’, and ‘Let it Go’.”

Nathan: “Do you promise to be sweet and patient with them?”

Amelia: “I will love her and she will be a part of our family.”

Nathan: “That’s sweet. But you know it might be a boy, right?”

Amelia: “No, I think it’s going to be a girl.”

Ok, then. We really hope that enthusiasm can be maintained when baby arrives – girl OR boy...

We deeply desire to show God’s love to one of His own by making him or her one of our own. Please pray for all five us during this journey.

In God’s Grace,

Nathan, Kameron, J. Henry, Amelia (and Baby #3!)

Busy but not in a Hurry

Friends –

We are overdue in updating our blog, having allowed the fullness of our lives to delay our posting. Thank you for your continued interest in our adoption journey, displayed by your inquiries in person and otherwise. Each month we receive an update as to the waiting list, and we are celebrating signs of progress. We receive your interest as valued signs of support.

As we have continued to wait for a referral from the adoption agency, we have busied ourselves by working toward some goals we hope to accomplish (or at least make strides toward!) before Baby #3 arrives. In fact, we often agree that this year has been filled with the most commitments of any year since we have been married. Thankfully, all our many tasks have been positive.

Nathan continues his schoolwork he began last July, spending evenings and weekend working on his dissertation. Well, not every evening, but some. His work at Trinity has been exciting as the church continues to grow and transitions into new senior pastor leadership. Kameron continues her 110-mile round-trip commute to the Alabama School for the Deaf to teach children with hearing loss how to talk. She has added tele-therapy (therapy via Skype) with several families after school and on weekends too, as a part of a research project through the Moog School in St. Louis, MO. Additionally, she has been teaching some online graduate classes in linguistics.

J. Henry is enjoying piano lessons and will start spring baseball this week. He has had a wonderful 1^st grade year and is looking forward to his 7^th birthday in May. Amelia is a big “3 and a half” now and doesn’t let her size or age prohibit her from sharing her opinion. She enjoys taking dance lessons each Wednesday afternoon. Both children express very positive feelings anticipating the arrival of Baby #3 – let’s hope that lasts :0)

In the midst of this year, we are striving to not allow our busy schedules to lead to hurried lives. As writer John Ortberg surmises, busy is an external condition of having many things to do. Hurry is an inward condition of being distracted and un-present with others and ourselves. While we are anxiously awaiting the phone call that will tell us our child will join us, we also don’t want to miss the opportunities provided to us during this waiting period to learn patience and trust. We pray for our child, his/her mother, and the people who will care for them before we bring them home.

Patience is not easy and we may not be getting any better at it. But we are allowing the wait to challenge us to use this time constructively. Because we believe that prayer, while nearly invisible and mostly immeasurable, is the most essential thing we can do.  

We deeply desire to show God’s love to one of His own by making him or her one of our own. Please pray for all five us during this journey.

In God’s Grace,

Nathan, Kameron, J. Henry, Amelia (and Baby #3!)