Welcoming all that 2012 has to offer!

A late "Merry Christmas!" and Happy New Year!

I received the necklace above as a gift for Christmas this year from my parents, such a sweet gift and something I can wear daily to remind me of our sweet baby on the other side of the world.

Well, even though it's only December 28th here, all of our decorations are down and Christmas is officially put away until next year. I LOVE the holidays and decorating for them, but as soon as they're over, I'm over and ready for the decorations to come down. As we get closer and closer to 2012, there are many things I'm excited to check off our list.

-Winter Hume with the high schoolers
-Finishing up our home study and dossier (more on that below:) )
-Traveling to Mexico again this year to do some work with Spectrum Ministries
-Another school year coming to an end (bittersweet, but can't believe the year is half over!)
-Grad Classic with the high schoolers
-SUMMER, shorts, tan skin, warm days, ect
-Getting the BABYS ROOM READY!
-Getting our referral
-Traveling to Ethiopia
-Becoming parents :)

We have quite the full year, and 2012 hasn't even gotten here yet!

What's up with our adoption you ask? Well, we have officially begun what is affectionately known in the adoption world as "the paper chase." We have begun the process of finding every single important piece of paper that tells EVERYTHING about our lives, pasts, families, ect. Not really, but kind of. We are entering into our home-study and dossier stage. In the very near future, we will be having a social worker visit our house to make sure it's in tip top shape for a little one to live in, get some physicals done (actually we've done that part) get some fingerprinting done, gather lots of paperwork and complete our home-study. While that's being done, we'll also be gathering lots and lots of paperwork for our dossier; which includes things like financial statements, employment verifications, background checks, police records, references, ect. So that's where we're at. I'm actually excited to start this (ask me again in a month or so if I feel the same way) we’re just one more mile down in this marathon!

We also just wanted to say thank you again to everyone who has committed to be on this journey with us, thanks to your prayer and support we were able to send off not just the first payment to our agency, but also our first big payment to our home-study. Such an amazing blessing.

We're also still selling shirts, so let is know if you're interested :) Also, in the near future we're having a fundraiser at Chick Filet! YUM! More on that another day. This was quite the update, but with so many people being so interested, I thought it'd be helpful. Happy New Year sweet readers! I hope you have some fun planned to ring in the New Year!

One year later, with a "forever family"

As I sit down to write this post, I am filled with so many memories. Tomorrow marks the year anniversary of my grandmas death. This post is a different kind of "adoption" post. Not necessarily a post filled with excitement of the next step we're entering or a post about fundraisers, it's about the ultimate adoption story; Christs adoption of us.


This date brings up many thoughts, good and bad. But I am comforted in knowing that my grandma is with our Heavenly Father, the Father that adopted her into His forever family. Knowing that, brings peace. It doesn't take away the sadness, but it brings peace.


I learned many things from my grandma, we were very close, but one thing that always sticks with me is her strong faith and her never complaining spirit. If you knew my grandma, you knew she had many reasons to complain or not be content about where God has here in life-she had a kidney disease, was on dialysis 3-4 times a week and had several other medical conditions on top of that-but she never once complained.


Her faith was so strong, it's almost hard to describe except for that she had a faith I wish I had. She lived her life to the fullest and never had a problem sharing her faith with anyone (including, but not limited to: every person that was at her dialysis center, the staff at Starbucks, waitresses, neighbors, unbelieving friends, you name it-she shared it with them.)


As I am reminded of her date of death, I am also reminded of Christs adoption of her and the "forever family" she is in now. When Justin and I started thinking about adoption, we began to think about the ultimate adoption that we have experienced and how wonderful if feels to have a forever family in the family of Christ.


The quote below is a quote we used at my grandma's service, it fully describes her life, and I hope that one day, it can describe mine. Miss ya grams!

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave
with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive
and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways,
chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming WOO HOO what a ride!"

-unknown

Hit the ground running, our first fundraiser!

We are ready to announce our first fundraiser! We are selling t-shirts to help support our adoption fund. Our shirts are selling for $25.00. If you would like a shirt (which we hope you do :) ) You can click on the t-shirt button on the right of our page and follow the directions from there. If you aren't comfortable paying online you can email me (stephLnunes@hotmail.com) for alternative ways to pay. 100% of the proceeds will go to our adoption fund and when you buy a shirt we are one day closer to bringing our baby home. Thank you so much for your prayers through this journey, they are felt.

Telling our kids

We were so excited to tell our students the news of our adoption. They were so excited! Their reactions make me smile every time I watch this video. We are so blessed to work with such a great group of students, and we can't wait to bring our baby into the crazy and exciting world of youth ministry-we've already gotten lots of free babysitting offers, he'll be well loved.

Thoughts on a Tuesday

Sometimes I get these thoughts. NOT like “Ohmygosh did we make the right choice, did we hear God right?” kind of thoughts, but the “Ohmygosh, we’re going to be PARENTS!” kind of thoughts. Usually, a couple finds out that they’re pregnant and immediately, the planning begins. The excitement starts to build, thoughts of the future begin to creep in, the belly grows and about 9ish months later, there’s the baby! We have the same feelings, fears and thoughts of many first time parents, only my stomach won’t grow, and our baby lives on the other side of the world. Even though we aren’t physically pregnant, we are treasuring this time. I’m trying to enjoy every step of this process because I know it will bring us one step closer to our baby. As you may or may not know, adoption is definitely full of waiting. Lots of waiting. But I feel like the waiting will make the ending even sweeter. Yesterday I had to go down to the social security office to get a new card, and although it wasn’t the highlight of my day BY FAR, and I had to wait for over an HOUR I just kept thinking of that sweet baby who will also be waiting and all the children who are currently waiting…then I realized that my waiting wasn’t all that bad, and I even laughed at myself-which I’m sure looked extremely strange to those around me, being that I was in the social security office. Ha ha. Oh well.

We made our adoption shirts this past weekend. We will be selling them as a way to help fund our adoption. I’ll maybe try to post a link to them later this week. There is so much I’m looking forward to while walking down this adoption journey, we are so thankful. Thanks for reading!

Stephanie

An adoption journey, the beginning of a story

As I sit down to write this blog, I am feeling overwhelmed; not in a bad way in good way. I am overwhelmed by the amount of love and support that we have gotten from those around us. We are humbled. Thank you for your texts, calls, comments, hugs and already-your financial support. It brings me to tears; it is a constant reminder that we are doing what God wants us to do. Thank you. We are so excited for this little one to enter our lives; he already has so so many who care for him. A friend of mine told me to keep track of what emotions/feelings we’re having throughout this process, because it will be amazing how those feelings will line up with our babies story.

Little baby,

We are so happy that God has chosen us all to be a family! We have been praying so long about you, and now we are on the journey to bring you into our family. As soon as we filled out our application, I felt like you were ours. I felt a connection to your birth mommy’s heart. We don’t know what may be ahead in our journey to be together, but we are following God and He knows! We are so excited to teach you about Jesus! You are probably not even born yet- that will be a journey for you and a part of your story. One day (maybe soon, maybe not) you will be at an orphanage-and that journey will tell a story too! Your little life already has so many stories in the making! Our road to be together will be a journey as well, sometimes a rough one; but our journeys will meet one day, and that day will be so so special. You already have so many people who love you and who are praying for you little baby!

Love,

Us

We.Are.Adopting!

I am thrilled to finally be able to write about the big decision that has been made in our family! A decision that has been prayed about for months and months; a plan that God has known about since the beginning of time-a plan that He allowed us to be a part of. We have decided to expand our family through adoption. We have just started the process of adopting a baby boy from Ethiopia. God has definitely been making adoption a clear direction to us in many many ways, and we would love to share some with you if you'd like! We are more than THRILLED to embark on this journey. We are adopting with the agency America World Adoption.

So here we go, in anywhere between 12-18 months, we hope to bring home the sweet baby boy that God has chosen for us. Prayer would be greatly appreciated; not just for us, but also for our future son and his birth mother. Please pray for her safety and pray that the Lord will protect her and have His hand over her life. Please pray for us as we embark on this journey-pray for wisdom for those we are working with, for patience in this process, pray for the government-both American and Ethiopian-they both play a part in our adoption journey. Pray for His people. My God is a big God, and He will do GREAT things.

And ps..about the picture at the top...we weren't ever REALLY on amazing race, that was our Halloween costume from a few years ago but I thought it was kind of a fitting picture for this post. :)

-Stephanie

"Once our eyes are opened, we can't pretend we don't know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls knows what we know and holds us responsible to act."

Proverbs 24:12