Praise God!

Our little girl is back at her foster home. She's out of the hospital! She's still on meds, so please keep praying, but she's definitely better! For that, we praise the Lord!

Now if we can just get her home...

Update on Sick Baby

Thank you so much for all your phone calls, emails, hugs, and especially your prayers. It is so very hard with a sick child halfway across the world. We have definitely felt loved and supported, though, so thank you for helping us through this.

We did hear last night that she had been hospitalized, most likely due to dehydration. I don't know exactly how that makes me feel. I'm sad and discouraged that she's that sick that she needs to be hospitalized, but also grateful and relieved to know that she's getting great care. She is responding to meds, though, and fighting well and they're hoping that she can go home today. Please pray that God will continue to heal her body! We thank Him for taking care of her and answering our prayers thus far!

Please also pray for her adoption process. I realize that as a whole this adoption is happening quickly, but when you're stuck in one spot it sure doesn't feel that way. We still don't have her adoption decree. After we have that, we have to wait 30 days for a certificate of non-appeal (essentially saying that no one challenged the adoption). Then we can apply for her passport. After we get her passport, we will schedule a drop-off appointment with the US Embassy and several weeks after that, our friends there will do the interview at the US Embassy for us. We won't travel to get them until all of the paperwork is ready. My guess is at this point that our best case scenario is the end of October.

This just worries me some because our little guy is totally ready to come home. We have his passport and everything. I just don't want him to get sick while he waits. We're looking into the possibility that he could come home earlier, but it doesn't look likely. We think we'd have to start the entire process with USCIS all over again for our little girl - that they would be treated as two separate adoptions. That would delay our daughter's coming home too much so we wouldn't want to do that.

Please just pray for our kiddos' health and safety and for God to just move this paperwork through and bring them home soon. I can't even tell you how ready we are to have them home with us.

Sick Baby...Please Pray

Okay, I know I just posted that I'm wanting to be pretty private about our adoption online, but I really need to share something.

I guess I need to give you a little background first just because I've never even announced this on my blog, but we have not only our son waiting for us, but also a daughter now, too. The first little boy did end up to be unavailable. He will forever hold a spot in our hearts, but we will likely never know what has happened to him. Honestly, I shudder to think about it because I really don't know how a little baby could survive in the place he was in, but I know that God is good and that He has a plan for all of us. I do pray for a good life for the sweet little guy and my hope is that he has a biological family member caring for him now.

A few weeks later we accepted a referral of an itty-bitty baby girl, who is just a few weeks younger than our son. We went through quite a trial waiting for okay for her and starting her process, but after about one month she was finally moved out of the orphanage and into the same loving foster home as her soon-to-be brother. We saw a picture of her and ohmygoodness is she ever gorgeous.

But right now she needs our prayers. We got word today that she is quite sick and is being treated for malaria and typhoid. Honestly, this scares the poo out of me. She may be a world away and I know that I have never held her in my own arms or kissed her sweet face, but she is my baby girl. She is precious and innocent and sweet and adorable and all things good in the world but tonight she is sick and may be fighting for her life.

Will you please pray for her? Pray for healing for her little body. Pray for strength and wisdom for her foster mama. Pray for peace for us. It is so very hard to know that you have a sick child but you can't do anything to help her.

Well, that's not true.

We can pray. And praying we are, believeyoume. We're just trusting God right now to care for her for us. And while I desperately long to hold her and tell her mommy loves her and that she'll be okay, I know that she's in His arms and being cared for by Him.

Prayer is a great thing and very powerful. Thanks for joining with us in it.

Cha-Ching!

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who took the time to vote for OFA in the Chase Community Giving grant program! We won the $20,000 gift!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, just think of all the formula, beans, rice, and medicine $20,000 will buy!!! There will be food for beyond hungry children and medicine for kiddos sick with completely preventable diseases, but most of all there will be hope.

And hope is priceless.

I know I already said it, but I can't say it enough. Thank you. Thank you! Thank you!!!!

Please vote!

I know it has been forever again since I've blogged. Do you know how many draft posts I have going right now!?! I am just having the hardest time knowing what to say and what to keep private (for security purposes) about our adoption! Thus, I've ended up saying nothing at all.

But....here's something I CAN say. Please vote in the Chase Community Giving competition on Facebook. They are giving away a lot of money to the top 200 charities with the most votes. Right now, Our Family Adoptions (the awesome organization that is helping us bring our kiddos home) is in the top 200 and is eligible for a$20,000 grant to feed, educate, clothe, and care for the orphans left behind in Congo! But, we have to stay there!!! Voting ends TONIGHT at midnight. Please, please, please take just one minute to:

1) Go vote for Our Family Adoptions (click the link above - it's right under my header) - you have to allow, like, and vote
2) Share on your wall that you voted and encourage (beg, plead if necessary!) your friends to do the same
3) Enter to win some cool goodies from Congo on my friend, Megan's blog - she will do a drawing to give them away to someone who has voted

and if you're really gung-ho (and who wouldn't be!?!? I mean, it's orphans who SO desperately need us!!!!), you can also:

4) vote for 19 other charities to earn gift votes - you'll earn one after five total votes and one after 20
5) send those gift votes to someone you know will use them TODAY (but please don't send them to me - I've already used my maximum)
6) call, email, private message on facebook, tweet, text, whatever it takes your friends and loved ones to ask them to vote for OFA.

We are sooooo close, you guys. I just couldn't stand it if we lost by a handful of votes at this point!!

EVERY vote counts! Please vote TODAY!!!!!

Thank you!!!!!