We are officially accepted into the Ethiopia Program!!!!!!

First of all I want to say that God is so good. I am learning every day through this process how unworthy I am. God doesn't need me to adopt this little boy but he is allowing me to be used for his glory. I am in awe of that fact.

I started my day cleaning my house (because my parents are coming this weekend!). I tried not thinking about Sara. Sara is the intake coordinator for AWAA. Sara is the wonderful person who tells you that you have been accepted! See, yesterday she emailed me back to tell me that she planned on giving all of our application info to her supervisor for final approval yesterday afternoon. So of course this morning I thought maybe she will call today. All day I checked my email. Nothing. As I was having my quiet time this afternoon I poured my heart out to God. I cried harder than I have in a long time. For my son who I don't know yet, for the unworthiness I felt, and to let him know how overwhelmed and scared I was! It was so liberating to know my God hears me and knows every thought before I even speak it! 

This afternoon right as Ben was walking through the door to get out of this stormy weather we are having, the phone rang. I didn't think much about it, but when I said hello a cheery voice came over the phone and I knew it was Sara! She asked me if it was a good time to talk and of course I said yes! She immediately said "Welcome to the Ethiopia program!" I couldn't contain myself and cried and told her how excited I was and all she could do was laugh and tell me how excited she was for us. It was wonderful to hear someone say ok now you can officially start the long process of paperwork that you know is going to eventually turn into waiting for a referral then waiting to go meet your child! Overwhelming, but wonderful! She talked to me a few minutes about the agreements we had to sign and the program fee we have to send in. Every time I talk to someone from AWAA I am reassurred of our decision of choosing them as our agency. They are awesome and know they will be so helpful through this process, not only with all the logistical stuff, but spiritually as well.

I hung up after talking with her and started looking at the email that she sent. I looked at all the money that would be due at the time of doing our dossier (all the paperwork and homestudy stuff!). I started fretting. You see Satan knows exactly where my weak spot is. Worrying. Today during my quiet time I begged God to help me trust him even when the amount of money seems so overwhelming and impossible to pay. I also prayed that I would be able to withstand the fiery arrows that I KNEW Satan would throw at me. Please pray for us through this!

So we are super excited that we are officially in this thing! This week we will be signing all the paperwork and sending in $1,125. That seems like a lot but when you look at the grand total ($30,000) it seems so small! Once they receive the paperwork we will wait a week and be assigned a family coordinator. She will email us the dossier packet. This is (from what I hear) one of the most difficult parts of the adoption. It is a ton of paperwork that we will have to make a million copies of plus a homestudy. This is where a social worker will come  into our home a few times and make sure we are good parents and that our home is ok to live in. It seems crazy because one would think that was obvious considering we have been pretty good parents (well, we think so!) for 2 1/2 years now! We covet your prayers through this trying process and also welcome any monetary assistance as well. As I have already mentioned this is a lot of money and know God will provide it. Maybe he will provide it through some of you (if he is calling you to do so.) I want to remind you of our two fundraisers going on.

Our T-shirt fundraiser is still going on! We are going to try to get a large order before we send it in so you still have time!!!! They are $25 and I have a picture to the right. You can facebook message me, or email me (toriram52@hotmail.com) to order one! You can use paypal to pay or mail us a check. Our address is to the right as well.

Our other fundraiser is the one I just blogged about the other day. Just Love Coffee. Our store website is to the right of our blog. Just go to the website and order! They have all sorts of coffee and other things that you can order. Check it out!!!!

As always we appreciate everyone's prayers and donations! You are truly appreciated.

"Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!" Psalm 66:20