10 weeks and waiting

So yesterday was 10 weeks since we saw A's face for the first time. I don't have any news to post except that we are still waiting. Waiting for an update. Waiting for our case to go to court. Waiting Waiting Waiting. That's the name of the game with international adoption.
This processes has been harder than I ever would have imagined it would be but also more of a blessing than I ever imagined. This morning as I was having my quiet time I cried out to the Lord to hear something about A. Anything, just to let us know how she is doing and to hear our case is moving along. I said, "Lord, this is painful. Waiting for news, wondering well it just hurts".
That's when I felt the Lord say "It is painful. But it's not just painful for you, it's painful for A too. But it's good."
Sometimes things are both painful and good. So we wait and pray and pray some more.


We do have hope that we will get an update this week or next.
But if we could ask please pray that our case would move forward and whatever is holding our case up in Ethiopia that it would be resolved!
Thanks=)

So these last few weeks have been incredibly hard for me. If you had come to my house this is what you would have seen

Being the planner that I am, I went back into the files and figured out how long we should expect to wait to hear something about our case. So it seemed except for 2 or 3 families that the wait was between 4-6 weeks. So when week 4 came and went I was a little disheartened but figured surly next week we would hear something. Well week 4 came and went. Week 5, Week 6 and now Week 7 have come and gone with not one tid bit of good news. Now that's not to say we haven't heard anything. In fact we did hear news but it wasn't good. It seems that there have been several adoption agencies working in Ethiopia that have had unethical practice. Our agency (Bethany Christian Services) has in NO way been involved in these dealing but they are doing an across the board sweep of random cases to make sure things are being done properly and with the kids best interest at heart. So now we are not sure if this is something that is holding up our case or not. Basically we have no news.

To add insult to injury when we received our referral we got 1 picture of (A). And in it she is crying. Our social worker told us that it was very rare to receive a referral with only one picture, normally families get several. Well we chopped it up to being international adoption and that we would be receiving an update in not too long. So when several families with kids at the same orphanage that A is at began getting theirs several weeks ago we were so excited! But that week came and went with no news and then the next and the next and the next. So I again went to see when families normally got their first update, it ranged from 4-6 weeks with a few going to 7. So here we are now at almost 8 weeks with nothing but our one sad crying picture.

But again our hopes were renewed when a family traveling to Ethiopia to meet their child said they would take pictures of A for us. So we were so excited knowing that they were over there with other families loving on her and taking pictures. Well when they got back we got an email saying they tried to get pictures but that she hasn't even been moved to the new orphanage, so they were not able to get any pictures.

This was the last straw for me. I broke. My heart broke. I kind of went numb and just began to feel abandoned and hopeless.
So I did what most women do at that point, I took a shower and cried. Feeling a tad better I got out and got into bed at like 9 and fell asleep(which if you know us that is WAY early). As I slept Stephen prayed for me.

The next morning during my quiet time Stephen encouraged me to read the ever famous Philippians 4:4-8. I knew what it said before I even opened my Bible but when your heart is broken, God knew what He was saying when He penned Matthew 5:4

Blessed are they that mourn: For they shall be comforted.

God did what He does best next.

In that moment God poured His love for me and for A into my heart and reminded me that He lead us here, He has guided us the entire way, He had heard my prayers for A and He loves her more than I ever will. The peace that passes all understanding is now guarding my heart as I heed the beginning of Philippians 4:4-6.

Am I bummed when another day passes. YES

Do I long for the day when Leah calls to say our case is going to court: YES!

Do I hope and pray for more pictures soon: YES

But what all these questions are wrapped up in is the fact that my Lord is sovereign. His timing is perfect (even when I don't like it). His love is GREAT for me and for A.

One other thing I learned is that when someone is going through something really tough most of the time they just need an arm around them and to pray earnestly for them. The time will come when you can speak truth to them but for the moment just put your arm around them tell them how sorry you are and love on them. I believe that shows God's love more than anything.

So now when I start to get anxious about not hearing anything I remember Phil 4:6 and this is the picture the Lord brings to my mind. He is there holding her now but His desire is for her to be in a family and I trust that He will accomplish the good work that He has started!

This Picture Says it All

6 weeks and still waiting..........

1 Month Ago Today.....

One month ago today I saw my sweet little girl for the first time! What a moment that was. It's hard to believe it's already been 1 month but at the same time each day I wait and wait and wait to hear something of our court date. We still haven't heard anything yet. I'm just praying that we hear our case has been submitted to court by Thanksgiving! Thats only 1 week away so it might not happen, but I can pray!

Africa at Night

Both Hands Project!!!!!

Well we are done with our Both Hands Project! We had an amazing amazing day!

Stephen and I got up and moving around 6am. Packing up all the supplies and tools that we would need for the day, getting the kids ready and attempting to scarf down some breakfast before we headed out the door. We dropped Bethany off with with the girls that came out to watch all the babies for us.

(Thanks Crystalee and Kirk girls!!!)

Then we headed over to Ione's house to meet up with the rest of our team. And in always consistent Schoolfield fashion, we were late=) But our wonderful friends expected as much and were there and ready to work when we showed up. Now for those friends of our that don't live in TN, November the 6th was a very very cold morning! We were all dressed in multiple layers because there was a lot of work outside to be done. Once everyone got there Stephen prayed over the day and then we got to work. The guys spent the entire day outside working HARD! I'm sure I'll miss lots of things they did but here is a small list

Trimmed trees near the house
Mowed the entire yard (and it's a lot of land)

Chopped her a huge stack of wood for this winter

Pressure washed the house

Mulched the flower beds

Sprayed for weeds

Cleaned out her gutters
Cleaned up debris around the yard
Got 1/2 the porch roof done (this was very tedious work and we had 2 very skilled guys working all day on it!!)

Us girls got to do all the painting which just happened to be inside (warm) !!! So we shed a few layers and got to work. There were 7 of us and we worked all day painting trim, walls and doors.

About half the way through the day we were getting ready to eat lunch when we all noticed that it looked like rain! I was praying that it wouldn't start raining when I noticed that the rain seemed to be bouncing off my windshield? I stuck my hand out the window and pulled it back in and low and behold there was snow all over my hand! It probably snowed for 10 minutes but that didn't stop the work, we just pressed on and kept working.

Ione had told us she wouldn't be able to be there because she had to work. So we assumed that we wouldn't get to see her reaction to all the work. Around 6pm she came walking in the door to the surprise of us all! She was just beside herself at everything that we had been able to do. It was such a blessing to us to get to see how happy she was.
Our team finally called it a day when the sun went down and we were all out of daylight. Stephen and I can't begin to explain how blessed we were through this Both Hands Project! We have always loved our church family but when we saw how all of these families came out and gave up their entire Saturday to work in the bitter cold, words can't convey our thanks.

We want to thank Ione for allowing us to help get her house back into the condition her late husband wanted for her!

We also wanted to give a shout out to the Miller Family for coming out and being part of our team! Your help was greatly apperciated!

And last but certainly not least are all of you who gave or prayed for this project! You made this project possible and blessed Us, our new daughter, Ione and the rest of our team.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We will be posting a video of the project here soon! So stay tuned=)

Until then please continue to be praying for our sweet little (A) and that our paperwork will be submitted to the Ethiopian Courts soon!!

1 Week In......

I spoke with Leah this earlier this week and was really hoping to hear different news but oh well....

The mail only goes out from Bethany to Ethiopia once a week on Fridays and I was REALLY hoping that we had got our acceptance paperwork there in time but it JUST missed the truck=(
I'm talking hours=(

So now we will have to wait till tomorrow(the 29th) to have our papers sent over, which just kind of puts us back a little. This may not seem like a big deal , but to me it is! So just praying that all of our other documents will fall into line once our paperwork gets there and we will be hearing about it all being submitted to court soon! I just hate knowing that our papers are just sitting on a desk doing nothing!

We celebrated Stephen's 29th birthday on Sunday and while eating his special birthday dinner we decided to try and come up with a name for our sweet little girl! The boys really had a good time as we got the baby book out and played with different names and seeing how we liked them. We are pretty sure we came up with it! We love the meaning and it's a very pretty name. But now we are praying about it, so for the time being we will just referr to her as D.
Now that the news of our daughter (D) has settled in we have started thinking through all the changes that will need to be made to have 2, 2 year olds in the house!
We have been trying to decide how we want to go about the bedding situation. Since D will be a little over 2 when she comes home and this is how she is used to sleeping in the orphanage, we have decided to keep her in a crib for a while. So that means that Bethany will either need to transition to a toddler bed or we will need a second crib for a short time. We moved the boys to toddler beds pretty early. But if we decide to do this we will have to do it right after we come back from court so that she will be well trained to stay in her bed at night. I'm assuming I'll be spending a lot of time with D and sleep issues so I want to make sure that I dont' have to work with Bethany also!

I also want to have Bethany potty trained by that time! We had the boys potty trained early so I know it's possible. We just need to get crackin!

One hard part for me will be that I'm going to stop nursing Bethany. I know it will be for the best, since I want to be able to devote my time to D just as I would a newborn.

There are so many other issues that we are working through now that we know the age of our sweet little D. Strollers, Carseats, clothing and on and on and on. For all intent and purpose we will have twins...so there is a lot of planning that we still need to do! But we are loving it and so excited.

Just as all my forum friends said this phase of waiting is MUCH harder! Rarely I go a day without crying and longing for the day I hold my sweet daughter in my arms. I know that day will be so happy for me but I also know that day will be very hard for her. So it's with bittersweetness that we wait. Waiting to hear news any news of her and progress with our case!

We also heard from our SW this morning that she is working hard on getting some more pictures for us. That makes this mommy's heart VERY VERY happy!! Unfortunately we can't post any pictures of D until she comes home so for now you'll have to take my word that she is BEAUTIFUL!