November 1,2008

Welcome to our FROG blog. It took many hands and a lot of sweat and tears (LOL) to finally navigate cyber space and figure out how to get us in the blog world. But look out here we are!! So let me give you a little background information on how God finally broke through our thick heads and brought us to this place of surrender to HIS will.

God started planting adoption seeds in me long ago. Through a series of experiences He allowed me to go through I prayed and earnestly sought out HIS will for me and my family concerning adoption. Trying to get my husband on board was tough. He is so good at his job in being the head of our family: provider, protector, all those good things. He just could not see that we needed to take on such a resopnsibility especially now that we had made it through so many tough times and now were quite comfortable and at a point where we could start to afford some of the finer things we had dreamedof having and doing for so long.

Well when God has a plan and your are open to HIS leading and truly desire His will for your life above your own human wants for your life get ready for crazy rock your world things to happen. This is a story about what happens when you say yes to God. Long story short, as I was contuining my prayer about adding to our family through adoption and The Worlds Greatest Husband and was asking his great GOD for signs that this is truly what HE wanted us to do God showed up and beat us over the head not once or twice but many times with HUGE signs and undoubtable answers to prayer about adoption.

On friday September 5, 2008, we signed with International Adoption Net to adopt a child or children from Ethiopia. Friday September 26, we met The Worlds Greatest Social Worker and had our first home study meeting with Karla. She came back to our home on October 2, 2008 and completed our homestudy with interviews that she quotes Parker and Paeton (The Worlds Greatest Son and Daughter) saying " they both verbalized they are looking forward to a new sibling/siblings joining their family. Actually, they appear ecstatic about their parents' plan!"
We wanted to say thank you to the friends and family that participated in giving a reference for us in the homestudy. For confidentiality and other reasons we never saw the references that you wrote for us and sealed in a signed envelope but Karla did quote some of you in the homestudy saying, "Any child in this family will be exposed to educational, cultural, athletic, social and religious opportunity plus a sense of self worth and confidence in themselves." Another said, "James and Michelle are the two best parents I know! They will give a child a nurturing and safe environment to grow up in!" So, we humblely thank you for your kind words on our behalf and will continue to strive to use God honoring parenting skills for all of our children.

On October 9, and on Oct 17 I went to St Louis to the Secertary of States office to have 20 or so documents certified and both times was turnned away because of minor infractions of notary issues. That was hard because not only did I complete an entire dossier once which is a huge accomplishment in it's self, but twice and then a third time. All of our dossier documents were finally certified on Tuesday , October 21! They were fedexed to Denver and arrived in the International Adoption Net home office the next day. October 22, 2008 we were officially added to the waiting list! We were # 8 on the baby boy list and # 13 on the baby girl list!! You can specify girl/boy and age you prefer. We chose not to specify gender but asked for a child as young as possible. Today we are currently #7 on Boy and still #13 on girl list!

I will close for today, promise not to be so long winded in future post. Just wanted to catch everyone up to date and get this whole process documented. We would love for you to keep us all in your prayers as we continue this journey and also respectfully ask you to pray for our childs birth mother during the process. In my Bible study we are currently learning about the life of Moses and I can not help but think of him as the first biblical orphan and of course his mother, Jochebed, as she entrusted her son to God.
Exodus 2: 9-10 So the woman took the child and nursed him. And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharoah's daughter, and he became her son.