Packing and praying

The day after tomorrow we'll be on the first part of a long-awaited journey to get our son. I'm already looking forward to it being two weeks AFTER we've returned home and are beyond the sleep-deprived stage. I'm just counting on feeling tired, emotional and no fun to be around for a while. But even more than that, I'm counting on feeling joy and excitement at meeting our son and getting to bring him home! Today, I've been getting Caitlyn and Jacob ready to travel to Maryland to spend the time with their Mimi and Pap Pap while Scott and I are in Ethiopia. I know they're going to have fun, but I'm going to miss them terribly and am praying for their protection while we're apart. Jacob has already displayed some jealousy toward Abraham, but mostly over all the new stuff for the baby (never mind Jacob just got a ton of new stuff for Christmas). Caitlyn is excited about Abraham but I think Jacob realizes his days as "the baby" are coming to an end. Well, he's five years old, so it has to end some time. :)

I am surprisingly calm about everything...just taking care of what needs to be done as I think of it. Usually, my mind would be going a million miles a minute with all the last minute details, but God has given me a great sense of peace about everything. There are so many situations that are beyond my control in the upcoming week that I have nothing left to do but to pray and trust God to manage the days ahead.

Abraham Update

We finally received an update about Abraham. He will be 4 months old Jan. 29th and he is currently 12.3 lbs and almost 23 inches long. The staff say he is cute, adorable and generally a very content baby. Hopefully, he will come to us easily.
We don't have any new pictures of him, so I'm posting one of him when he was one month old.
We leave Jan. 21st to go get him. Yay!

Check out this etsy site

Okay, you know I'm selling soap to raise money for our adoption, but I just want to share about another etsy seller who makes beautiful jewelry and donates part of the profits to others who are adopting. (Gotta get her on board with our adoption! :) )
Here is her website.
Check out some of her handiwork:

Received a referral for Abraham and we accepted!

As most of you already know, we received a referral for a 5 week-old boy named Abraham on November 3, 2009. I've shown pictures to almost everyone, but I can't post his picture on here until he is officially ours. We accepted the referral on November 6th.
We will keep Abraham's name since his birth mother named him AND I had it in my heart that he would have a Biblical name. His middle name will be Benjamin, soooo.... Abraham Benjamin Dreher was born on Sept. 29, 2009 in Addis Ababa. His mother relinquished him to an orphanage at birth and he has been in the caring hands of the staff at Hannah's Hope Orphanage since he was one month old.

Right now, our paperwork is being reviewed by the Ministry of Women's Affairs (MOWA) in Addis Ababa. If they approve us to be Abraham's parents, they will send a letter of recommendation to the Ethiopian Court. From there, a court date is set to make us Abraham's legal parents. AGCI has staff workers who will testify on our behalf. After everything is made legal in court, we will be given an Embassy date. That date is usually a couple of weeks after the court date. It's for the Embassy meeting that we travel to Ethiopia to get Abraham's birth certificate and visa and to bring him home. Right now, we're anticipating traveling within the next 2 - 4 months. We are anxious to have him, but we've learned that everything works out so much better when God goes before us.

We bought a couple of items to mail to Abraham; a baby photo album that he can chew on and see pictures of himself with his new family and a stuffed elephant that plays lullabye music.

C.I.S. paperwork complete!

Great news! Our CIS paperwork was processed months earlier than anticipated and there is nothing more for us to do except wait for that referral. I'm expecting it any day now. We still have a lot of money to raise, so I'm making as much soap as I can and telling everyone about my etsy shop (www.topazbathgems.etsy.com). We're also have a scrapbooking fundraiser next month. I can't believe how far we've come!

Moving on up

We're now up to #4 for a boy and #17 for a girl on the waiting list. We just had our fingerprints taken on Sept. 30 and expect it to take almost 3 months for our CIS paperwork to be processed. We won't receive a referral until our paperwork comes in, so we're hoping for a referral by the end of this year.

I plan on opening up my soap shop next month and will have some old favorites, such as Oatmeal, Milk and Honey, along with a variety of Christmas soaps.

On the waiting list at last!!

It's been a long time since I've posted anything. I figured it would get redundant to read "we're still filling out paperwork." Well, the paperwork is all complete and we are officially on the waiting list for a referral of a boy or girl infant from Ethiopia. Woo hoo!! As of this week, we are number 10 on the waiting list for an infant boy and number 31 on the waiting list for an infant girl. The appx. time frame is 3-4 months for a boy referral and 8-9 months for a girl. We are happy to have either one! After we accept a referral, it would be 2-4 months to travel. We are hoping to bring home our son or daughter (most likely a son) by next spring!

Thank you for all of your prayers and support. We plan to have more fundraisers between now and spring, so we'll keep you posted.