We accepted a referral!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It has truly been a Merry Christmas for our family! We are pleased to introduce you to our daughter, Victoria Rani. She is 3 years old and is in a foster home in Bangalore.

We did not expect to get a referral of a child until our paperwork had been processed here in the US, but we got "the call" on November 20th. :) When I heard Dean from Holt say her name, my heart just soared!

"Rani" in the Hindi version of the original Sanskrit means "Queen". In its Hebrew form it is derived from an expression meaning "She is singing." And every time we speak her name, Victoria, we will be speaking victory into her life. As broken and fragile as she is now, she will rise up with confidence in her Lord and strong in stature as a queen and will sing songs of victory in the "rain of the Spirit"!!!!

As a result of her life circumstances and malnourishment, Victoria has mild speech and motor skill delays. She is also very small. As of October 28th, she was only about 19#. But she is growing and already playing "catch-up" with her foster family. She has speech and language therapy once a week.

We are amazed at the gift God has given us for Christmas this year. He is soooooo good! She should be home for Christmas next year. We expect to travel to pick up our small package sometime this summer or fall.

We will be able to visit our missionary friends in Mysore, Tim and Karla Shamala. Again, God is so good and simply wants to bless His children. There are two orphanages we could have received a child from. One is in Pune which is far away from Mysore and the other is in Bangalore which is within reasonable driving distance from Mysore. We always believed God would make a way for us to visit with them and He has!

Please begin praying for Victoria and continue to pray for our family. Stay tuned for many more updates!

Fingerprinting's Done!

On December 9th we went to Michigan City to get our fingerprinting done for USCIS. Our appointment was for 8:00am and we had our google maps ready and left in plenty of time. Little to our knowledge the office had recently been moved from Hammond, IN to Michigan City and the "Dunes Plaza" address we googled was the "Dunes Plaza" resort homes along the lake. AAAHHHH!! Not the place we wanted to be!

Horrible thoughts of having to reapply and repay fees started invading my mind. Billy told me to call the number on the USCIS paperwork and I just laughed and said that would be like telephoning the Space Station! We drove around and found a place to stop and ask for directions. Yep, you guessed it, I (Melissa) ran in. The not-so-friendly guy told me to come back in 10 minutes when their offices opened and I firmly told him I HAD to be at this other place at 8:00. I think he noticed my desperation and proceeded to give me quite unclear directions to the "Dunes Plaza" shopping center. The Holy Spirit led us there and when I saw the big blue letters "Application Support Center" on the side of a building, I got all teary-eyed and gave all glory to God. We were in and out of there in about 15 minutes and then went across the street to IHOP and ate a whole day's worth of calories in one sitting.

Fortunately, when go to pick up our daugher in India, Holt will provide us with a knowledgeable driver to take us to the places we need to be. We won't return home without her simply because we couldn't find the place! Like my sister-in-law said, "Google maps may not work the same in India."

Thank you Lord for giving us direction when we need it!

We're #1 on the list!!!!!!!

Well, kind of anyway. I talked with Mary at Holt today and after getting many questions answered I thought I would inquire as to where we are on the waiting list. We are #7 overall, but #1 that's not an NRI couple. NRI means "Non-resident Indian". In other words, there is some preference given to NRI couples. India desires to place as many children as they can with families in India and then they try to place them with Indian families outside of India. So sometimes the wait can be longer for families who are not of Indian descent.

We will be mailing our I-800a paperwork to the US Government this week. It will take 90-120 days to process. I thought we couldn't get a referral of a child until this was approved, but Mary told me today that we could get one at any time! Yeah!!!

We are so excited that "the call" could really come at any time, but also have a great financial need. We still need close to $5000.00 by the time we get a referral. We are applying for a grant, so pray for favor for us ~ and literally for a financial miracle. God's hand has been upon this entire process and we continue to trust in Him and know He's working out every part of this process. Maybe soon this blog will get much more active!

"Every decision shouldn't be a good decision, but a God decision." - Tommy Tenney

We recently received the final copy of our home study in the mail! Two copies were mailed to Holt and a few more remain here as we do paperwork for USCIS and apply for a grant as well. All was going well until I punched in some income numbers for our grant and realized there may be a mistake on our income in the home study!!! AAAHHHHH! Will this ever end??? Hopefully I will be able to talk to Holt today and our social worker as well. I know it's just another "bump in the road".

We KNOW God is faithful. A couple weeks ago, I made the difficult decision not to apply for a temporary 5th grade teaching position. Everything had been lining up perfect for it. I was becoming eager to teach the class and was excited for what we thought was God's financial provision. However, we knew this would greatly affect our boys and the church - and possibly not in a positive way. The night that we made the decision, I had a dream I was driving through a neighborhood and I saw a massive pile of scrap metal - just sitting there waiting to be hauled off. I got so excited and began loading up the van with as much as I could..... I woke up that morning in awe of God's message to me that He will provide - like He told me from the start of this process - in ways I don't expect.

A few days later, I was in the church office and Billy handed me an envelope. It had cash in it and on the outside was the name of one of our parishioners and "scrap metal". This man had taken in some scrap and wanted to give the money towards our adoption. My spirit just rejoiced!

The following weekend, Billy and I were blessed to be able to attend a minister's conference with Tommy Tenney and, amongst many other amazing words from God, our decision was again confirmed through the story of Ruth and Naomi. He said, "Every decision shouldn't be a good decision, but a God decision."

God is good! Prayerfully I'll soon be able to post that we have sent our paperwork to USCIS.

We are taking a child into our laps forever

I have always said that if we were to adopt, God would simply have to drop a child onto my lap. Recently, on Holt's online forum I came across the following:

The verb to adopt in Hindi is Gawdlayna and to say "I am adopting a child" literally translates as "I am taking a child into my lap forever".

And in the Devanagari script: देवनागरी

How beautiful - and very powerful to me! Spiritually, God has truly dropped a child into our hearts. It's just taking a lot of work to physically get her to our laps - forever!

Dossier's (finally) out of my hands!

Our dossier was officially received by Holt. Hallelujah! I'll have to say I was a bit shaky and emotional as I put it all into the Fed Ex envelope and let some stranger drive off with it. But it's now much safer at Holt than sitting in our home.

Just an update

Just a quick or not-so-quick update on our progress. I recently talked with Holt and got a list of questions answered. Let me add that they have been WONDERFUL! in guiding us through this process. We are blessed to be partnering with them. They said there are currently 23 families in the India program and we are #15! So, we've made some small advancements. We were officially put on the waiting list in March when they received a draft of our homestudy. Well, then the Hague Treaty (agreement between various countries on international adoption standards) which was implemented in April added more paperwork which put a halt to submitting the final draft of our homestudy as well as our dossier. Fortunately, that has not affected our spot on "the list". There are many other factors that go into matching children with families such as age, health and if the adopting couple has NRI (non-resident Indian) status, so our standing of 15th place doesn't really tell us a whole lot - just that we're further along than we were before. :)

I told Holt that I had our dossier completed, but that I was waiting to send it because the guidebook says to mail the finalized homestudy with it, but they said I could just mail it anyway. YEAH! I can finally get it out of my hands!! Tomorrow's the big day!

Our homestudy should soon be finally complete as well. One of the new requirements that was implemented is that we have to complete child abuse clearances for each state we've lived in since age 18. That's 10 states between the 2 of us!

Our fundraising continues as well. We have made $1,000.00 doing rummage sales this summer. If I added up the hours put into it, I would suspect I've made maybe $2.00/hour, and I've wondered at times if it's been worth it. But God has provided and has worked in other creative ways through our rummage sales. Will and Logan have enjoyed counting back change and talking with customers, too.

And while I'm on the subject of those two booger boys, they have both learned to swim this summer! It was been so much fun to hang out with them at the pool and I'm so proud of them. Will heads off to 1st grade on Friday and Logan begins preschool in another 2 weeks. They both start soccer this week. This will be Logan's first official sport. He has his first practice this evening. It should be quite entertaining. Say a prayer for the opposing teams he'll be playing. I don't think they have any idea what they're up against!

A Promise in the Sky

We have been working hard doing a couple rummage sales to raise funds for our adoption - one last weekend and one this weekend. (One more to come in July.) Last Friday it rained early in the morning - not a good way to start the day when you're doing a yard sale! It stopped about 7:30am and we began setting up our sale. Some stuff was wet, my back was wet from the dripping off the carport and I was sliding around in my flip flops....and people were arriving. I was beginning to give in to frustration.

Billy commented that there was a rainbow in the sky. I figured he was kidding or was just trying to paint one for me. He then told me that there really was. So I looked where he said and sure enough, there was a faint rainbow there - all colors present. It would have been easy to miss. I didn't take too much time to think about it at the time and went on back to the task at hand, but thanked God for His promise - whatever it was for that day.

A lady arrived and commented that it was going to be a horrible day - weatherwise. After that rainbow, I just couldn't agree and proceeded to tell her that it was going to be a wonderful, beautiful day. Sure enough, the day was beautiful. The radar on the TV kept showing rain coming our way and people said all day that it was coming. Well, it may have rained elsewhere, but it held off over Gregory Farm Village until almost 3:00 - and we made good money! And a big "thank you" to everyone who has donated their stuff to us. You are helping bring our little girl home and we are so grateful!

I know God has promised to provide for our daughter, but there was so much more wrapped up in that rainbow - it's written all over in His Word. Someone needs to publish a Bible where all the promises are printed in the colors of the rainbow. So whatever you are in need of today, there is a promise from God for you. Start with Jeremiah 29:11....

As for me, He has promised rest for the weary and I shall surely sleep good tonight!

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

I'm truly praying that "slow and steady" wins this race! Due to the implementation of the Hague Treaty (an agreement between various countries on adoption standards - very much a positive thing for international adoption which helps protect children and parents), we are having to revise our homestudy as well as complete additional paperwork before filing our I800A with USCIS. What's all that mean? I could use some extra prayer! We have also been collecting donations for a couple rummage sales to help raise funds for our adoption. So I have been sorting and labeling and sorting and labeling and sorting and .... well, you know!

God is continuing to provide for us, just not in the ways we might have expected. Some missionary friends sent a very unexpected gift and a friend recently gave us an antique radio which is worth up to $400.00. I'm amazed how creative God can be in His provision.

I am currently reading the book "20 Things Adoptive Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew". It is quite insightful and will be helpful to us in the future as we raise our little princess. I highly recommend it. But as I read it, God keeps reminding me how He is simply the answer to the many issues our daughter may face - from grieving loss to finding her identity to feeling secure and unconditionally loved. We serve such a great God!

Today was Logan's last day of preschool for this year and Will has just over a week of Kindergarten left. I'm looking forward to some lazy days of summer for them. I guess we'll have to play, play and then play some more.

This is just a brief update. I'll try to post more in the future - ha! Thank you for your prayers!

Homestudy visit

We finally had our homestudy visit about a week ago. It was scheduled for a Sunday, but then our SW got sick, so she rescheduled for Monday evening at 6:00. Well, that afternoon, Bill was scheduled to do a visitation with a local hog farmer. He spent the afternoon assisting this gentleman with his pigs, dead and alive. He called me about 5:35 saying he would be home in a few minutes and would take a quick shower because "he really stunk." Having not spent time in "hog country" I had no idea just how bad until he entered the house. Even the boys were overwhelmed with the horrid stench and hollered, "Dad, what'd you do?!" So we proceeded to open the doors, spray air freshner, set Bill's shoes outside and throw his clothes in the washer.

Thankfully, our SW got caught up in traffic up in South Bend and arrived about 30 minutes late. So we were in the clear - you know, clear air!! We enjoyed our visit with her and as I took her around the home I simply showed her the door to the laundry room and proceeded on up the stairs for fear of what might be behind that door!

4-5 washes later (I lost track), and a day on the clothesline, Bill's clothes are back to normal and we are grateful to all the families who help provide our ham and bacon that's oh, so good!

However, Mary from Holt called us on Friday, March 21 and said we are officially on the waiting list! Yeah!

We are awaiting some official documents from our SW and our dossier will be on its way to Holt!

We now begin the paperwork for USCIS - United States Citizen and Immigration Services. What all that entails, I'm not so sure. I haven't read the 11 or so pages of instructions and now's not the time because Logan has been on the X-Box long enough for today!

Did you hide the eggs?

We had a comical thing happen after church on Easter Sunday. Let me begin by telling you how tired Billy and I both were. We have a sunrise service at our church at 7:00am, so it's an earlier morning than usual for all of us.

After lunch Billy told the boys they could search for their Easter eggs. They began to search all over the house. After quite some time, we both wondered why they had not discovered any yet and the boys began commenting on how well the bunny had hidden their eggs. I finally asked Billy, "Did you hide the eggs?" thinking he had hid them while the boys had been up in their room earlier. He replied with a "No, didn't you hide them last night?" No eggs had even been hidden yet! We discretely and casually hid some around the house as the boys continued to look and suddenly they began to find them, much to their relief.

As parents, we love our children and want them to be able to find their treasures. It was our responsibility to make sure the treasure was there to find and it was their job to keep on searching until they found it, not losing heart or giving up. They trust that the treasure is truly there for them to find. How much God is the same way with His children. "If you seek Him, He will be found." "Seek first His kingdom..."

We need to be seeking Him and all He has for us and be confident that we'll find Him and all the great treasure of His kingdom He has for us. I can just see God up there cheering us on to keep looking. He's hidden all the eggs and the next one could be right where we're about to look! He's excited for what we're about to discover and experience! I pray you find an egg today!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day from the Irish in our home! Will has a dark green sweatshirt that he got from his Aunt Cathy when he was a baby that says "I'm so cute, I must be Irish". It fits him now and he's wearing it today, of course. I looked at it and thought, "Oh, with the little clover and calligraphy writing it almost looks girlish", but he wanted to wear it anyway. Maybe someday our little Indian daughter can wear it and won't that be funny! How Irish, she won't look!

And our Will is growing up. He went to a waterpark hotel in Indy with a friend from school for the night. I'm confident he'll do great, have fun and will behave himself, but a mom can't help getting butterflies over it. I kept thinking of more things to tell him or remind him to do or not to do, but didn't tell him most of them or I would simply overwhelm him. He knows all that stuff anyway - that's what we've taught him the past 6 years. I see now that you just do your best in raising them and they'll be fine and ready for the next step in life. I'm just thankful he is able to go and that he got invited. What fun he will have!

And when I asked Logan what he wanted to do tonight, he picked......drum roll........McDonalds and rent another Star Wars movie. How unoriginal, but hey, it's his pick tonight. :)

The Best Birthday Gift

I had the best birthday ever this year! Why? My sweet little 4 year-old asked Jesus into his heart!!! Logan has been wanting to take Communion at church. I think he truly just wants a snack after all that praise and worship, but why deny the child the opportunity to remember what Christ has done for him? The Gospel is so simple that even a little Logan can understand.

Before bed, we gave him a re-teaching of the death and resurrection of Jesus and talked about going to Heaven when one dies if they have Jesus in their heart. This opened the floodgates of tears and cries of "I don't want to die." After some more chatting about how Logan is not going to die until He is ready to, we all bowed (Will too) and said the "Sinner's Prayer" together. It was so special. There is still so much Logan doesn't understand (like all of us), but He knows that "Jesus is bigger than the whole world" and that "God can do anything" and that "We should love and not hate" and many other great concepts. Logan loves to worship the Lord - not always in church as he is quite shy - but at home He'll grab a guitar and worship God without holding anything back. Sometimes it cracks us up, but we know God is instilling in His little heart a love of worship.

What more could I ask for on my birthday than for my child to profess his love for Jesus! Now Logan can have his "snack" of Communion instead of the stick of gum I always hand him before Will and I go partake. We better have a re-teaching of Communion, too, don't you think?

Our homestudy paperwork is in! We will now head on to a few interviews with our social worker. We also have about 50% of our dossier paperwork completed.

I vowed not to buy anything for our little girl until we have a referral, but the little black .89 dress shoes at Dollar General were calling my name! Despite Billy's great sermon last Sunday, I just couldn't flee the temptation. And Logan said it was OK to buy them for his little sister, so I guess it's alright now. Will made a snowman at school and had to put one button on it for each member of his family. As cold as it is outside, I got all warm inside when I saw there were 5 little buttons on his snowman. I think I shall date his masterpiece and put it in our daughter's things for safekeeping. She'll know someday she was part of our family even before we knew her.

We're headed to the monster truck show in Indianapolis tomorrow. Our church got us tickets for Pastor Appreciation this year. The boys simply can't contain their excitement - not that they're trying in any way.