"When are you traveling?"

This is probably the #1 question I get regarding our adoption.  I don't mind answering any adoption-related questions, but I really wish I could answer this one with a specific date.  Of course, Scott just booked a business conference for late September, so that probably means we'll have some big adoption-related conflict!

We are now six months into this adoption, so I had to write a letter to the children's government, detailing where we are in preparing our dossier, and when we plan to submit the final copy of our dossier for approval.  This is to make sure they know that we are still moving forward with the adoption.  Of course, I wanted the letter to be PERFECT, so I spent about 2 hours writing and re-writing it.  I heard from our stateside agency that I am awesome, so I assume that means my letter will keep everyone happy!

And I got what I consider to be great news today, even though it's going to be a little more work for me.  Throughout the process, we have to get LOTS of documents notarized, then apostilled by the state.  Our foreign agency has requested that we scan over each document after it's apostilled, for them to translate.  Which means we'll save several weeks by not sending over the whole dossier for translation after we have USCIS approval.  I'm praying this means we'll travel in October, instead of November!

All this has me very excited, though I've got one number in the back of my mind: $12,000.  That's the remainder of what we need by the time we travel ($4,300 for the remainder of our first trip fees, and $7,700 due as soon as we get home).  It's a big number, but my God is a BIG GOD, and I have absolute faith that the money will be there when we need it!  


I don't have any big fundraisers planned right now, especially since I need to spend a good deal of time working on paperwork for the dossier.  If you would, please pray for our USCIS paperwork to be assigned to an officer quickly, pray for our funding, and pray for our whole family, especially the two who are waiting for us.

Another Son For Our Family!

This month, Scott and I have been in continuous prayer.  We had to walk away from Cullen mid-May, and didn't know what we'd do with our approval to bring home two children.  It was hard for me to think about adding another child to our family, because I felt guilty that Cullen was still waiting for a family, and I felt like I was betraying him.

Then, early in June, I saw a post by a social worker whose life revolves totally around orphans, whether it's taking care of the ones she's adopted herself, or advocating for ones without families, or tackling piles of paperwork for the many families she's helping to bring their own children home.

Her words were: "I was asked this morning by someone in an EE country, 'Why has no one chosen this child? Why has he waited so long? What is wrong with him?' Those questions break my heart. My guess is that he's still waiting because he is a boy. The girls this age w/Ds are chosen very quickly. He's been waiting 15 months :("

As I looked at the picture, I wondered the same things.  Why had no one chosen him?  His dark brown almond eyes stared into the camera, his fine hair brushing just above his eyes, so much like Elijah's did when he was a baby.  I showed the photo to Scott, and he asked for more.  We got a few more photos, including one I remember seeing of him as a toddler.  And then we prayed.  All month, about whether or not he was ours.  

We didn't want to rush, we wanted to take our time, really wait to hear God on this.  We prayed that God would make it very clear if the little boy was ours.  Throughout June, money kept coming in, from the dolls, from my commission for renting my stepdad's vacation properties, selling a few things online.  Every time I turned around, I had more money to add to the jar.

And Thursday, after being still, being quiet all month, I met Scott to sign and notarize documents, and then I wired money to pay the commitment fees.  Commitment fees we didn't have at the beginning of the month.

So, what does this mean?  It means we're trusting God to provide, just as He always has.  But we're yes people, and when we hear "Go," we say "Yes."


Thank you all for your prayers, support, and love for our family!

Two Times the Love Giveaway Is Open!

The "Two Times the Love" giveaway is our biggest giveaway so far, with 10 prizes up for grabs (plus a bonus prize, just for the FSP donors)!  Because posts are listed in date order, the giveaway would be buried by just a few days' posts, so I decided to make a page just for the giveaway!

We have an impressive goal of $3,575 to cover Cullen's placing agency and foreign agency fees, which will be almost the last of what we need to pay up front.  We're also saving for our post-adoption report fees ($700), USCIS fees ($890), and apostille fees (~$100). 

Once we have paid all these fees, we'll be $16,486 into the adoption, at the halfway mark!  Please pray for us and pray we'll receive the funds we need to continue moving forward.

You can go to the giveaway page here to get all the details and see all the fantastic prizes!

There's This Boy...

Several weeks after committing to our daughter, Scott started looking through photolistings again.  Every few days, he'd email me a profile of an older boy, and every time I had to tell him he was looking in the wrong country.  He just couldn't stop thinking that we were bringing home a boy, too.

My friend, Mandy, her husband, Marty, and their two kids had come to our home for dinner one evening, and I mentioned that Scott was looking for our son.  The next night, I had a message from Mandy.  It read, "Here's his profile :) No pressure... bring Cullen home, please, please, please ;)".

I clicked on the link, and I saw such a familiar face staring back from the screen, so much like the face of our daughter waiting in EE.  And I knew.  I ran down to our family room with the netbook to show Scott the profile, and then I left him alone.

All along, I've given the responsibility of softening Scott's heart to our child(ren) up to God, because I don't want this to be a Chandres thing.  This is all about us following God's command, not Scott following his nagging wife's whines and pleas.

It has taken a lot of prayer, a lot of talking about whether we feel equipped to take on two more children, a lot of realizing that we're in for a BIG adjustment period.  But when we look at his photo, we see our son.  And that is enough to make us move forward.

I'd be lying if I said it wasn't scary, stepping further into the unknown.  When you choose to adopt one child, everyone thinks you're doing something great; when you announce that you're adopting two, there is less happiness, and more worry in the responses.  And that's okay.  We're not adopting to earn praises, we're adopting in response to God's command for our family.

We are very, VERY excited that we are now adopting two children; in a sense, it's like finding out at the ultrasound that you're actually expecting twins!  Of course, the kids are thrilled, but they'd be okay with us bringing home every child in EE so, as long as they're not upset, we'll take that as a good sign.

We can't wait to announce who we're adding to our family, and we'll be on the New Commitments page on Reece's Rainbow, hopefully within the next few days!  In the meantime, this does add more agency fees, about $3500, and the foreign agency wants those ASAP.  So, while I still feel weary from fundraising around $8,000 (and paying over $11,000) in two months, it is onward we go...

(And this is for my dad.)

Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war, 
with the cross of Jesus going on before. 
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe; 
forward into battle see his banners go! 

At the sign of triumph Satan's host doth flee; 
on then, Christian soldiers, on to victory! 
Hell's foundations quiver at the shout of praise; 
brothers, lift your voices, loud your anthems raise.

Like a mighty army moves the church of God; 
brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod. 
We are not divided, all one body we, 
one in hope and doctrine, one in charity.

Crowns and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane, 
but the church of Jesus constant will remain.
Gates of hell can never gainst that church prevail; 
we have Christ's own promise, and that cannot fail. 

Onward then, ye people, join our happy throng, 
blend with ours your voices in the triumph song. 
Glory, laud, and honor unto Christ the King, 
this through countless ages men and angels sing.

God's Provision... Again!

Today is a day I've been waiting ten days to blog about!  Only ten days, because that's when we found out that, instead of paying our foreign agency fees in two installments, we'd be paying our foreign agency fees in three installments.

We had begun fundraising for our homestudy fees when I got the call that there was a mistake with the original fee agreement with our foreign agency, and we'd need to wire 1,190 euros ASAP, because the money was due with our referral acceptance in country.

So, our homestudy fees took the back burner, and we turned our focus to coming up with $1,826, to cover the foreign agency fees and two wiring fees (one for us to wire the money to our placing agency and one for our placing agency to wire the money to our foreign agency).  And today, the wire has been made!  At the time we sent the wired funds, we had, to the dollar, exactly what we needed!  Isn't God awesome!  He provided exactly what we needed, exactly when we needed it!

We are 1,826 steps closer to our daughter, and 1/3 of the way funded!!!

PRAISE GOD!!!  

We are praying that we will soon get updated information on her development and, just as I hoped for an updated ultrasound picture during my pregnancies, I am hoping for a new picture of her!  I cannot wait to see how much more beautiful she has grown since the time her photo was taken!

I can't end this post without thanking a few people specifically for making this payment possible.  To D&J, thank you for your very generous gift for our Chick-fil-A giveaway; to S&M, B&M, and M&D thank you for giving so unselfishly your kids' clothes and toys for us to sell, and to T, I cannot thank you enough for the time you spent helping me to get everything organized and priced, and for advocating so much for our family.

Update on Fees

I just got a call from our placing agency that the foreign agency needs the first installment of their fees, to cover the upfront legal expenses for the adoption.  Which means our fundraising goal has gone from $3,370 to $5,182.

I don't know how I missed that we'd pay the foreign fees in three installments instead of two, I don't know why we went from expecting to receive about $8000 next week to receiving a few hundred dollars.  I just don't know.  But I do know that my God has shown time and time again that He has everything under control, that His timing is perfect, even when we can't understand His reasons.

Today, Scott and I are "approach[ing] God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." (Hebrews 4:16)  Will you join us there?  Will you pray for continued provision?  After receiving a donation from a dear friend today, she sent a message to me, that I ask you to consider for yourselves: "Because God said so."

I'm not good at asking for money.  I'm just not.  I got a job when I was 15 because I didn't want to ask my parents for money to go shopping.  I don't like making Christmas and birthday lists, because I feel like others will think I'm expecting to receive everything on the list.  But friends, I am humbling myself and asking you to listen and see if "God said so."

Blessings,
Chandres

For the King and His Glory

"Coincidence is God performing a miracle while maintaining his anonymity."

One of my favorite quotes was written by a man named Bill Irwin, who thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail.  2,180 miles of varying terrain, through thick forests and open balds, down into valleys and over high ridges. 

That's a tremendous feat for anyone, but especially so for Mr. Irwin.  He is blind.  No white blazes to guide him, no way of knowing for sure that he was still on the trail.  When a blind person hikes alone (and Mr. Irwin is not the only blind hiker) and can't tell if they're on the right path, they stop and wait for help to come.

We've started our own journey completely blind, not knowing where the trail would lead us or from where our provision would come.  We only knew that if we weren't sure about the next step, we would wait for help to come.

Help Came!!!  I am hand-delivering a certified check for $7,225 to our agency at 4:00.  Scott and I did not do this.  We did not make this happen.  I promise, I'm not that influential.  I'm not a salesperson, I'm not in the marketing business.  And if you know my husband, you know he isn't either.  


This past week was completely, undeniably, perfectly the work of my God, who says "And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." (Matthew 21:22)  We do not believe in coincidences.  We believe in miracles. We do not believe it was a coincidence that our paperwork made it into the right hands and had a signature in four working days in our daughter's country. 

Had we been given more time to fundraise, we could claim the glory for raising the money we needed.  We didn't have that extra time, so God receives ALL the glory for making this happen.  I cannot thank you all enough for allowing God to use your gifts for His glory, to help us reach our daughter on the other side of the world.