Let's Wait a Little Longer:)

As you all know, we went on deck two weeks ago and had to finalize our request. After much prayer and counsel, we both felt that instead of one OR two, we should wait for two:) Surprise:) For us also. For those of you who really know my personality, patience is not my strong suit. Who would have thought that the day we went #1 for infant boy, God would tell us to wait:) And that I would have such a peace about it:) Caitlin, our adoption coordinator, told us that if the wait got too long, we could always change it back to one, and we would be at the front of the list, so right now, we don't know FOR SURE if it will be two, we just know God is calling us to wait a bit longer. We could get a call any day, or it could be several months. They also emailed and asked if we would be willing to get two unrelated children. Our home study just HAPPENS to say we could accept two children (it's usually worded "two siblings") ages 0-4. So... we didn't have to change anything to change our request. We officially changed our request to two children, siblings or unrelated, 0-12 months and 0-4 years, with at least one girl. We'll have to get a new van now, we can't even hold that many. I'm still a little in shock, I always thought I'd have one child, now I'm so excited to think I could have SIX children, wow, it sounds like a lot when you type that, is that right?? :) Seriously though, we are so excited to think about God blessing us with two, just please pray my patience holds out. Even if we got a referral this week, it looks like our first court date wouldn't be until at least January, then it would be Feb or March before we would bring the children home. So exciting!!

We're On Deck!

We finally got our "on deck" email today!! This means we are suppose to finalize our request and get ready for a referral soon, usually in the next month! I'm so excited, it seems like I have been reading about everyone else going on deck for so long, it doesn't seem real:) Please pray for us as we finalize our request, one or two, boy or girl, ages, etc. Right now, we are requesting 0-12 month boy or girl, and IF their is a sibling/twin avail ages 0-3, we would adopt them also. We could choose to wait for two, or expand our ages. Please pray that God makes that clear to us!

NEW TSHIRT AND GROCERY BAG FUNDRAISER!!

We finally have our adoption tshirts and reusable grocery bag fundraiser up and running! We are taking preorders for our tshirts for the next 3 weeks, and we have the bags in stock, so we already have those. I'll attach pictures of the shirts and bag so you can see what they really look like. The adult t's are $20 each, you can get regular cut or the women's cut. The women's cut shirts run smaller, so order one size larger than you normally would, and I ordered the longer length also. The children's sizes run a little big and they are $15 each. The reuseable grocery bags are $5 each. The tshirts have the scripture on the back of each of them, the design on the front. The bags just have the design.

You can order directly from us, or go through paypal, by clicking the "donate" button on the right. If you order through paypal, please make sure you write regular cut, women's cut, or children's and the size in the message field, or how many bags you would like! After we turn the order in, it should be about 2 more weeks until we have the shirts.

Let me know if you guys have any questions. I'm so excited to finally get this underway!! Thank you guys so much for your support, we feel so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family to go through this journey with us!

Courts Reopen

Well, the Ethiopian courts officially reopened on Monday. We're hoping things will start moving again with referrals and court dates now:) Someone got a referral for one month old twin boys yesterday- how fun!! We are unofficially 11th in line for a boy and 14th for a girl:) We are also going to be starting a tshirt fundraiser in the next few weeks, I'll post pictures and take preorders when we get it all together! Thanks everyone for all your support!!!

Washer Necklace Fundraiser

This is our new fundraiser- I will stamp any word you want on this cute necklace for only $10.00. Just email me what you want on it, along with what color necklace (brown, off white, green, black, orange, or pink) at Reaser6@juno.com. I, of course, got "ETHIOPIA" put on mine:) If you want two washers on one necklace (maybe if you have two children) the cost is $15.00. Thanks Laura for the idea and thanks Janie for taking the pictures:) It's great to have friends who are so creative!
I just added a "donate" button on the right, you can pay online with paypal, then write in the message what you want stamped on the washer, and what color necklace! Thanks!

OK, since our last post two weeks ago yesterday, there have been NO infant or sibling referrals, NONE. We expected such a rush, but I believe God still has some things to teach us:) Some people have stated this is because the transition homes are full, waiting for the kids to get Embassy clearance. There are 45 children right now waiting to go home in the next several weeks! When they go home, this should free up space for more children to come in, at least that's the theory:) We had a group prayer time on Sunday night, with all of us on the AWAA adoption blog group, even though we all live in different cities, praying at the same time, which is so neat to think about! It was a great time for our family, and we decided we needed to do that more, schedule a family prayer time in our living room! We of course didn't pray for more referrals, we prayed for God's perfect timing, and for patience for us parents, and safety for all the children until they can come home.

New Coffee Fundraiser

Well, we are continuing to think of things that might help us raise money to bring our baby/babies home. One that many people in our adoption group use and highly recommend because of the great coffee is the Just Love Coffee fundraiser. For every bag of coffee you purchase, they send us a check for $5!! Since so many of our friends drink coffee, we thought this might be an easy way to fundraise:) The link to order the coffee is: http://www.justlovecoffee.com/Reaserfamily Let me know if you have any questions! To just go directly to our ordering sight, just click on the picture of Just Love Coffee on the right!!

As most of you know, we are waiting for a "Referral" call, the call that tells us we will get an email that tells us which baby, photos, and medical records about the child we will receive. Usually, when you are getting close to a referral, the adoption agency will call and put you "On Deck" which means, get ready to get a referral. Usually the next two families waiting for a boy, and the next two families waiting for a girl, and next two families waiting for siblings, etc will be "on deck". So, there were already three families on deck today, and 8 more families received "on deck" call today. Not sure why so many, but some are predicting that more children are at the orphanages during rainy season, so maybe they are expecting to give out more referrals? Anyway, we are totally unofficially 14 in line for a boy and 17 in line for a girl, according to the yahoo group list. So, numbers 1-10 got on deck calls today!! So exciting to see some movement this week! Of course, they all need to get referrals before we go on deck, but it seems like it's getting closer!!

I just think it is so remarkable that I can send a prayer request out to all of you, and you will pray for a complete stranger in another state, that neither one of us has ever met. It is such a touching, miraculous thing to me, God is so awesome:) So, even though I was going to use this blog for just updating purposes, I feel led to have all my friends out there praying for my Ethiopian adoption yahoo group friends and the precious babies we are waiting for. Also, here is a blog address of someone who has adopted two children from Ethiopia, the adoption agency sent us her blog entry, it was so inspiring. It gives a slight glimpse of what some of these children go through before they are adopted, and the mothers who love them enough to give them up. I still struggle with this, but know God is in control. Her blog is http://family-from-afar.blogspot.com/. I'm going to copy a prayer request from another yahoo group friend for the prayer of her baby girl for surgery on Tues. Thank you guys so much for praying! If I can do nothing else in our wait for our baby, it's to pray for other families and babies that are struggling right now and for any of you guys who need me to also! Her request is:

We brought our daughter home in July at age 7 months. As some of you know, we were able to get expedited approval of her visa by the Embassy because of several health concerns. We are SO THANKFUL this happened. Tomorrow marks four weeks since we came home. In that time, we found that more than half her stomach is in her chest cavity due to a hiatal hernia. She has severe acid reflux that is causing some significant problems. None of these were known while we were in Ethiopia. We knew she had a floppy larynx, which we suspected was the cause of her recurrent pneumonia and strider (noisy breathing). Our baby girl, Quilla Rose Tigist Belote will have surgery next Tuesday morning to put her stomach back in the right place, a procedure to reduce the acid reflux, insert a tube in her stomach, and have a procedure on her larynx. She'll be in the operating room 2-3 hours. We covet your prayers during the surgery and in the weeks of recovery that will follow. We trust that God will protect our precious little one and get her on the road to excellent health. The silver lining in terms of her health is that she has gained nearly 2 pounds in four weeks, even with all these significant issues. Praise the Lord! We are beyond blessed by our beloved Quilla. She has brought so much love and sunshine into our lives. We have such an amazing feeling that our family is now complete.

Prayer

Well, it's been 2 months since our dossier has been sent to Ethiopia, and it really has gone pretty fast. They said it would be 4-6 months to get a referral (what baby God has for our family) and so, we wait. All the kids will be in school full time for the first time ever and I am looking forward to nesting for a few months:) Deep cleaning, getting ready for a garage sale, painting a few rooms, putting together a crib, etc. Fun stuff for me:) I am posting to update everyone, but also to request prayers for all the children in the orphanages and transition homes (where our baby will live after we get a referral- the adoption agency owns/runs these, not the government). They have so many children, and they are in such close proximity to each other all the time, that germs will spread, no matter how clean they try to keep the homes. There are chicken pox and Upper Respiratory Tract Infections sweeping through these homes and I'm requesting prayer for their poor little bodies to fight off these infections and viruses. Please pray for protection for them, especially until the go to their adoptive families, where they will receive better medical care. Thank you!

Hello everyone, I saw this on several other blogs from fellow adoptive families and thought I'd copy it for mine:)

WHY ETHIOPIA?
TOP 10 Reasons to adopt a child from Ethiopia!

1. Ethiopia has approx. 4.3 MILLION orphans and the country is only twice the size of Texas.

2. 82% of the population survives on less than 1$ a day.

3. Only 24% of households have access to safe water.

4. 1 in 10 children die before their first birthday.

5. 1 in 6 children die before their fifth birthday.

6. 44% of the population in Ethiopia is under 15 years old.

7. Ethiopia's Doctor to Child ratio is 1 to 24,000.

8. Per Capita, Ethiopia receives less aid than any other country in Africa.

9. HALF of all children will never attend school.

10. Because of this : James 1:27 "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."

Well, I have been meaning to create a blog for quite a while, instead of emailing out updates for the adoption to those who have asked, and I finally made one. For those of you who know me, this was a big thing for me:) As far as an update, our dossier is currently in Ethiopia right now. I think the courts are closing from Aug. 14-mid September, due to the rainy season. They could close for up to three months, so this would be great if it's only closed 5 weeks! According to our America World group, some couples who had a DTE date (dossier to Ethiopia) the end of March are currently going to court next week. I'm excited for them, and that means we are about 2-3 months away from making our first trip to Ethiopia. If you haven't heard, they have changed the Ethiopian adoption laws, and Dennis and I both have to go for a week when the baby's case goes to court, then leave the baby, and come back 4-12 weeks later to get the baby. God has perfect timing, I know, I just have to keep telling myself that! Thanks to those who have been praying for us!