Skip to main content

Amazing news!

Waiting

If there was a single word to sum up July 2019 on our adoption journey it was this: WAITING! It felt like the doldrums of the dog days of summer. Every day we worked on another grant application or another piece of education or another step in remodeling our garage to expand for more kids. Every day it felt that we were no closer than we had been the previous day.

Three times we heard back from one particular grant agency ... "we have you scheduled for review." But after we updated our info and we were still waiting for our Dossier to be approved by CEJAI, the response "you have been rescheduled."

After the first set of our Dossier had been translated and submitted in very early July, I had hoped that we would hear back from Brazil that we had been approved by mid-August and then; possibly, that we had been matched by September.

Great News!

Yesterday (Aug 16) we got a phone call from the Help Us Adopt grant agency. They were pleased to tell us that our grant application had been approved and that we were being awarded the full amount available to us. Praise Jesus! This means that all of the remaining agency and lawyer fees that we will have have designated funds to cover them. We thought that we could not be more delighted!

And then our Adoption Service Provider called. "Congratulations, you have been MATCHED!"

From waiting to matched. Just like that.

Erica and the girls and I are so, so happy. Happy and humbled. That God should choose us to walk this path of faith and that He has opened every door, each day in His timing. It is so overwhelmingly joyful and amazing.

"Bore"

In Exodus 19:4, God tells the Israelites ... "You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself." And in I Peter we are encouraged ... "[Jesus] Himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness."

The same God who bore/carried/removed our sins away forever through the cross, has also born/carried/removed us from bondage to that sin. We are saved from slavery to sin that we might live free to God.

As we learn more in the coming month(s) about the circumstances that resulted in our kids being without a family in Brazil. We are reminded that God has already been preparing us as their family here. We aren't that special, but we are honored.

"For to this we have been called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you might follow in his steps." ~ I Peter 2:21

Comments

  1. Praise God! Very exciting! Love that you keep us all informed!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Home

I caught a glimpse of heaven today. No, it was not the sun rising in Miami, or setting in west Texas. No, it was not the genuine kindness if strangers who simply said, "God bless your family" as they saw Erica Blaschke and I with our precious 7 little ones. It was not the U.S. Customs official or even the flag of the fallen to honor those who died in service on Sept. 11. The glimpse of heaven was the bright-eyed wonder in my son's eyes when he saw our house for the first time. Lincon has been through things in his little life that I will never understand. He has been lied to by adults, betrayed, abandoned, neglected, and worse his whole life. He does not trust easily. And he has asked, almost incessantly, for the past week, "Estados Unidos?" And every time, my answer is the same. Trust me son, just wait a little longer. He wanted to believe me. But it has never happened before. We left the apartment in Curitiba on Thursday morning at 4:00. Airport. F...

The Puzzle

We were still deciding whether or not to try a fundraiser in 2018, or if we should wait until 2019, when Erica suggested this "Piece of The Puzzle" idea to me. For $5 family and friends can sponsor a piece. We will do a 1,000 piece puzzle, and raise $5,000 for the adoption. I honestly didn't think we would get close to our goal. Then we had a loving patron pledge to match anything we raised between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then the gifts started pouring in. From over 30 different people, we have been blessed with $2,060 as of Dec. 16, 2018! Piecing this puzzle together has been an absolute blast and I wanted to share some photos with you so you can visualize the great support we have received. First, the puzzle itself. This is an InGoooood puzzle, purchase from Amazon.com (we redeemed Discover Cash Back Points for it). We wanted something that would be colorful and fun, that our future kids can hang in their room and keep for a long time. We wanted a 1,000 pi...

Education? For parents!

Adoption To-Do List 1. Homestudy 2. Dossier Preparati on 3. Approval 4. Match ing 5. I-800 finalization 6. Travel I keep thinking we can cross more things off the list, but then we look and we are only 85% or 99% of the way done with stuff. The Dossier, for example. We have 22 of 23 items crossed off. The last item is completed, but pending a final approval before getting notarized here and then submitted. The whole packet of original documents had to be Notarized in New Mexico and mailed to our Adoption Service Provider (ASP). The ASP is having the entire file apostilled into the state of Alabama (a legal process for certifying that thing is indeed the original thing of the thing it is). Then it will be translated into Portuguese and submitted to CEJA (Brazil's Central Adoption Authority). Or the I-800, which we were delighted to hear has been approved by US Customs and Immigration. But I guess there are some outstanding specifics once we have been officially matc...