The Waiting Game.....

As any adoptive parent knows, in the adoption world everything is hurry up and wait.  Rushing to get this document updated, rushing to get papers notarized, rushing to send things off by overnight mail, only to then be stuck in the waiting phase again.

BUT, good things happen in the waiting.  Hence, so many verses in the Bible about waiting.
Psalm 38:15- "Lord, I wait for you; you will answer, Lord my God."

We are currently waiting for news about court in India.  It has been 7 weeks since we received our NOC so we hope to hear something about our court orders soon.

During this season of waiting we received a HUGE blessing!  Our family received a grant from JSC Foundation.  We were able to finish up the last of our India fees with this grant!  We were again overwhelmed by God's goodness!  We also received the blessing of a photo of our sweet S receiving the picture/family book that we made for her.  She is growing so fast and we cannot wait to have her home with us.

While we are finished paying all of our agency fees, we will still have travel expenses to pay.  Our unbelievable friends and family have been MORE THAN GENEROUS in assisting us in our fundraising efforts.  Thank you for being patient with us as we ask over and over again for your assistance!  I have two of my half marathons for the 4 BY 40 Fundraiser this month (23rd and 29th.)  I am excited to get to run the Dallas Rock n Roll Half Marathon with my sister next weekend.

We are also in the middle of our Bonfire Funds t-shirt campaign.  Our friend Laura James designed an amazing shirt for us.  You have until April 2nd to purchase one of these great shirts!  Get your shirt here.

Thank you all for your love and support as we wait to go get our girl!

Overwhelmed!

"Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD will personally go ahead of you.  He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you."  Deuteronomy 31:8

Wow, wow, wow!!  Although I know this verse from the Bible very well, I often times forget how He really does go before me and makes a pathway for me (and our family.)  On Thursday, January 16th I shared with you that we had received our state level approval and asked you all to join with us in praying that our national level approval would come quickly.  I didn't mention that many families who already have four children at home are often times denied NOC (the national clearance) and have to appeal the decision, thus extending the time it would take to bring a child home to their forever family.

But, oh yeah, MY LORD goes before me and makes a way!  On Tuesday, January 21st, I got a call from our adoption agency Ind*a program director informing me that we have NOC!!  National clearance in five days...what?!?  We were screaming, jumping up and down, laughing and crying.  It is now getting very real that we will be bringing our sweet S home by summer time!!

There are still the court and passport hurdles to jump over, but we know He is in control and He will make all things happen in His perfect timing.

So, we have one final payment to the adoption agency and then travel expenses before we can go get her.  I know you are probably tired of our fundraising efforts, but we are ALMOST there!  In an effort to jump start the last of our adoption expenses, I am going to participate in my very own 4 By 40 half marathon adventure.  I will be turning the big 4-0 (gasp!)  in May and will be completing four half marathons between now and the big day.  You can help us with adoption fundraising by sponsoring me per mile per race or just a flat donation for all four races.  I stole this fabulous idea from my adoption momma friend, Jeanette.  Donations can be made using the Paypal link on the blog page.  Here are the races I will be participating in:  Seguin Christian Academy Half Marathon (next weekend), Zooma Texas Half (4/12), Dallas Rock n Roll (3/23), and Moe's Better Half (3/2).

So many of you have been so incredibly gracious with your money, your prayers, your encouragement, and your support.  We can't imagine taking this journey without you all!  I cannot wait for S to see how loved she has been before she even knew she had a family. 

Love and hugs, 

Jessica

SARA Approval!!

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.  John 14:18

Another step forward in the adoption journey!  Please join us in praying that the next government agency will find favor on our family and issue NOC quickly.  Once we have NOC we can send our girl a photo book and she can finally know that she has a family!

Hold on baby girl, we're coming as fast as we can! 

Missing her today....

How do you miss someone you've never even met?  How do you long to hear a giggle or see a smile from someone you've never heard or seen?

I'm having a sense that someone is missing form our home this morning.  Hearing the girls chatter, play, sing and do school is bringing on an extreme longing in me today to have our daughter home.

There are two families who are currently in Ind*a picking up their daughters.  I LOVE following their blogs (you can too here and here).  These families who are traveling have become an incredible source of encouragement to me during the wait to bring S home.  I love seeing their pictures of first meetings and the sights of their daughters' birth country.  Reminds me that I am a child of the Sovereign God who will, in His time, work out the details for us to get on a plane to bring S home to her forever family.  Until then, I will rejoice with those who are uniting with their children for the first time.

We were able to send a package of small gifts to S's orphanage for the holidays.  I tracked the package today and it has still not made it there, but I am anxious for the children and caregivers to receive the gifts.  It, in some small way, makes me fee connected to her a little more to know that she could be playing with a toy that we sent.

I hope you are all having a great start to 2014! 

One Week Left!

We have ONE week left to determine Uncle BoBo's mustache style!  We have been beyond blessed with the donations AND the willingness of Uncle BoBo to let us have control of his facial hair for a short time.  We have currently raised a little over $1400, but we are only $75 away from :

ROLLIE FINGERS

Even better?  If we reach our goal of $2500 by 11:59pm (CST) on October 20th, YOU get to vote on the final outcome of his facial hair.  How fun is that?  Donations towards bringing S home to our family forever can be made through any of the "Donate" buttons on this blog site.  

Thank you all for the continued love and support!

Tombstone- Virgil Earp?

Wow!  We are overwhelmed by the great response to the fundraiser that Uncle BoBo
has so graciously agreed to do for us to help bring Sweet S home to our family.  The donations are currently at $600 which puts Barlow at receiving the sweet 'stache of Sam Elliott:

In my (humble) opinion, he would be getting off way too easy with a Sam Elliott mustache.  Just $150 more moves him up to the Hulk Hogan:

But, the real fun comes when we raise $2500 and YOU get to decide what facial hair route Barlow has to go.  You can donate through any of the DONATE buttons located throughout the blog.

Thank you for being a blessing, 

Jessica

Uncle BoBo

This is my brother, Barlow.  He is also known in this house as Uncle BoBo.  He is a handsome chap, but the standard beard is becoming a bit too commonplace.

Might he look better in a Tom Selleck?

Or a Hulk Hogan?

Maybe the Farmer Brown?

Or possibly even the Tiger Tail?

The good news?  You get to decide the fate of his facial hair!

  Uncle BoBo is anxious to meet his new niece, sweet S, and has agreed to allow us to use him to raise money to bring her home.  

It will work like this:  Every $250 raised moves Barlow up to the next level of crazy facial hair.  We now have a DONATE buttons on our blog (towards the bottom) that will allow you to donate directly to our adoption.  Each time we hit a new level we will post the current 'stache (or beard) to our page for all to see.  If we can raise $2500 by October 15th, YOU will get to vote between three pictures for the final outcome of Barlow's beard.  We will have a "Reveal" party on October 25th and he has agreed to wear the beard for at least a week.  

 We can't wait for this little girl to know how much her Uncle BoBo loves her!

Stay tuned, 

Jessica

King or Queen?

It's on my mind today...will we have the privilege of raising a king or another queen?  We are excited and anxious to find out!

BAM!

So, the system in Ind*a for adoption registration did NOT open as anticipated :-(  We pray continuously that April 1st will be day...please pray with us!

BUT, today our agency received our dossier AND our completed service plan.  It feels so good to have these things done.

In other adoption news, the Koegles should have their boys HOME by the end of March!  Three years of waiting to meet these boys and it is finally going to happen.  So exciting!

Have a happy Tuesday!

Big Day

Today, this man right here turns 45.  He is an amazing husband, father, son, friend, child of God.  I am so thankful that I am the woman who gets to share this life with him.

Today, well tonight, our adoption agency will attempt to register us in the adoption database in Ind*a.  Please say a prayer that we will successfully be in the system come tomorrow morning.  While you are at it, will you please say prayers for my friends Mer and  Colista to receive news soon that they can move forward in bringing their daughters home?

Today, I am going to try, try, try to finish up our service plan.  I sent our dossier by Fed Ex yesterday and would love to have all adoption work (for our end) done by March 1st.

Along the lines of adoption, might I suggest a sermon series titled "Adopted" by The Austin Stone church?  Powerful stuff!  You can even get The Austin Stone app and listen from your smartphone or iPad.

"I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you." John 14:18

What About The Other 364 Days?

"Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are My disciples."   John 13:35

On this day of love, hearts, flowers and loads of chocolate, my heart has been contemplating this verse.  How do my actions and love for others reflect His heart?  Will I love others tomorrow (and the next day and the next) as much as I do today?

I'm thankful that the best gift of love I have ever received was a Savior on a cross.  Amen.

In adoption news, there is so much going on!  The good news is not with our adoption, but with our best friends the Koegles!  They should be bringing their boys home by the beginning of March!  We have prayed and traveled this journey with them for three years and it is a bit surreal to think that their family is about to expand.  God is good and His plans are always best!

I have also had the joy of becoming cyber friends with an amazing woman, Kristen, who is in India to bring home her daughter FOREVER!

The Rich family was also blessed with their new addition, Olivia, through adoption last week.  Again, He is good and His love endures (even through the really tough times!)

All of these exciting things happening with others' adoptions have been a great distraction for me.  While we are in this waiting period, He reminds me that He has it all under control.  He loves our child more than we ever could and He works all things in His timing.

I'm off to devour another piece of chocolate :-)

Thankful

There have been so many blog posts the last few days titled Thankful, but I could honestly think of nothing else to title this post, so here it goes....

We had a whirlwind of a week starting with the celebration of my oldest daughters' 11th birthday!  To say that we are Thankful for Evie Jo and Lucy would be the biggest understatement.  Their humble beginning came on Tuesday, November 20, 2001.  They weighed a COMBINED 2 lbs. 6.5 oz. and were the tiniest things we had ever seen.  Why God chose to allow them to live, thrive, grow to love Him and allow us to have the privilege to raise them, we will likely never know.  But we are Thankful!  We started the day horseback riding with Evie Jo's amazing violin instruction, Ms. Emmie.  They decided on Melting Pot for their birthday dessert and ice skating for their activity the following day.  We all had a blast!  Happy Birthday my precious Evie Jo and Lucy!

We are also Thankful for all of the donations that were given for our "Garage Sale for Orphans."  But, what good are donations if no one comes to shop?  Which leads me to yet another reason to be Thankful...garage sale shoppers!  Between the generous donations and the shoppers, we were able to raise more than $1000 (wowzers!) to go towards bringing 3 orphans home to their forever families.  THANKFUL!

Our life is going to be CRAZY the next couple of weeks!  The oldest girls are in their first theater production, The Little Mermaid Jr., and we have many nights of rehearsals and early calls on show nights.  But as this Christmas season approaches, I pray that I can take time to reflect on the true reason for my Thankfulness, my Savior Jesus!

Team Melott

Today was the 3rd annual Chosen Marathon for Adoption.  This was my third year to run the race, but our first year to have a team of our own.  Although I LOVE the family that I have run for in the past, there is something different, amazing, indescribable, priceless when you are running to bring your own child home!  When I crossed the finish line and saw Scott, I burst into tears.  The emotion was too much to hold inside.  Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you to Team Melott (minus a few who had already left or were still out on the course):

These fine, fine friends and family all ran in support of our family.  Isn't that amazing?  We serve a mighty God who places the desire on people's hearts to defend the orphans of the world and help them find their forever families.  The proceeds from this race will go straight towards our adoption costs.

And, since the national bird of Ind*a is a peacock and since I love an excuse to "dress up" a little, a few of us wore these fun little tutus for the race..we couldn't resist.

Fun, right?

So, next time you think you CAN'T run/walk 13.1 miles, just remember the orphans of the world and I'm willing to bet that HE can get you through it.

Blessings,
Jessica

Distracted

I need to get this out because I DON'T want to forget HIS goodness!

I know it has been way too long since the last post.  I hardly know where to begin.  It is no fun blogging when I have nothing new on the adoption home front to report.

BUT, we FINALLY have something to report.  OUR HOME STUDY HAS BEEN APPROVED BY Journeys of the Heart!!!  I was honestly beginning to wonder if I was ever going to be able to say that.

I must confess though, that we have gotten distracted during this long wait for home study approval.  We know God called us to this adoption and we know that He is in control, but we had gotten a little off path.  He is so faithful though to nudge us back onto the right track.

A couple of weeks ago we had an adoption fundraiser (Applebee's Flapjack Fundraiser) that was an overwhelming success.  And by overwhelming, I mean that my emotions were so fragile by the end of the weekend by all of the generosity from family and friends that all I could do on the Monday after was cry.  EVERYTHING had me in tears.  I was overwhelmed by His goodness and by the goodness of His people!

But, aren't we so easily distracted?!?  Why is that?  Why are we on such a high with HIM one day and the next day we forget where He is leading us?  I have read time and time again His directives in Deuteronomy about not getting forgetting the Lord Your God and then I go and do it...ugh!

We found a house, "the house" as it were.  I mean I found it THE DAY that we had reached a financial milestone that we had set concerning adoption funds.  I showed Scott, he agreed that it could be the house, and we asked our realtor to set up a showing.  We fell in love with the views, the deck, and the adorable guest cottage.  It had everything that we "wanted."  We made an offer, went back and forth in negotiations, couldn't agree on a price and had to walk away.  We were OK with having to walk away but the seller called back the next day with another offer and we said YES.  How exciting, right?  Our prayer the whole time though was for God to SHUT THE DOOR on this if we were not suppose to do it.  We were distracted for sure, but we didn't want to flat out get in God's way.  After the inspection revealed that this would be a high maintenance house (and if you know Scott and I, you know this is laughable) we felt that God was whispering to us that this was not the time.  We needed to be concentrating on bringing our child home.  So, we backed out of the house.  We called our realtor around 1:30pm on Friday and let her know.  Y'all, it was not 4 hours later that we got the call that our home study had been approved!!!  We had been waiting since July 26th for this approval.  We are so grateful to HIM and we don't want to miss His hand in this!

I pray that we can stay the course without too many more distractions.  Now, on to the next adoption phase...US government approval.

"Take care lest you forget the Lord your God....." Deuteronomy 8:11a

Another step!

I just saved our file of the education questions that we had to answer for our 10 hours of Hague accredited education.  The file was 11 pages long...ugh!  As soon as Scott gets home to sign the form, we will send it off and check another step off our long list of 'adoption things to complete.'  We learned a lot of interesting information from the DVDs!

My children have watched lots of movies over the past week as we have tried to get this stuff completed.  I am hoping to redeem myself this week by spending hours at the river with Grandmomma.  Ruthie is heading to her annual 'Grandaddy and Kimmie Camp' and is beside herself waiting for Tuesday to be here.  Since quality time is her love language she thrives on this individual attention from them.

We have one other BIG thing to celebrate today....my man started his new position as District Sales Manager with YB today.  So proud of him and his willingness to work hard for our family!  He will be such an encouraging leader and I expect that big things will happen with the New Braunfels team under his leadership.

I'm off to gather swimsuits and get away from this computer for awhile.  I hope the next update will be announcing our approved home study!!

Home Study Complete

We, and by we I mean all of my AMAZING friends and family, spent DAYS cleaning, mowing, painting and organizing to prepare for our home study today.  And can you believe that Denise did not even ask to see the inside of my refrigerator that I cleaned for over an hour?!?

The experience today was so easy and laid back.  Denise came in with cake pops from Starbuck's for the girls.  There is really not a better way to Ruthie's heart than some form of dessert :-)  We chatted for a while, had lunch and then off she went to talk with the girls.  I really could not believe that she did not ask to look around our house.   I now truly understand that our home study agency wants us to succeed in our adoption.

She has been gone for about three hours now and I have already moved on to printing out all the forms for the next stage in this journey...today provided me a new sense of urgency!  I'm ready to have our son or daughter HOME!

My dear friend Gayla read a passage out of Ezekiel yesterday that was a great reminder that HE does all things for HIS glory and not ours (mine.)  Lord, I pray you were glorified today......

Testing

Since I have become slightly obsessed with adoption blogs, I figured I would join in and blog/journal about our journey to adopt from Ind*a.