An Ache in My Soul

Today is a difficult day. I'm not sure why, it started out the same as any other day, but today there seems to be a deeper ache in my soul. An aching and longing to hold my son in Africa just as I am holding Kipton now. My heart was not prepared for this sort of turmoil. To know that my second son is living half a world away without my hugs, encouragement and love is truly breaking my heart.

This adoption is so different than my pregnany with Kipton. He and I had a special bond from the moment he was conceived. I was comforted knowing that my body was keeping him alive and growing. He was warm and comfortable in my womb. He could be lulled to sleep by the thuds of my heartbeat and the muffled voices of his mom and dad. He was secure. We even had a timeline as to when we could expect to welcome him into our family. We prepared during those months of pregnancy to make sure he had everything he would need and more when he was born. It was predictable, comfortable and natural.

Kade's entrance is far from predictable and that doesn't make for a very comforted mama. I know that he is probably already born to a woman who won't be able to keep him. This woman will love my son without a doubt for he is her son too, but she'll have to make a great sacrafice to give him a chance at a better life. For whatever reason, be it severe poverty, sickness, AIDS, she will not be the one he calls mama. I will, but I do not know when that day will be. I do not know if he has the comforts of knowing the love of family or the luxury of a warm bed and full belly. I do not know if he will immediately form a special bond with me or if my voice will lull him to sleep, like Kipton. I do not know if he will find comfort in me. However, I do know that my heart wants to fly to Africa and hold every little boy who might could be mine and try to offer comfort and hope. I do know that no matter how long this process may seem with no end in sight, God sees the end. He knows the exact month, day, hour and second when Trey and I will lay eyes on Kade and embrace him as our son. He knows every single circumstance that is leading up to Kade's relinquishment from his birth mom and adoption into our family. He knows the longing of my heart and He is the only one who I can find comfort in.

He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.
2 Corinthians 1:4

LORD, you know the hopes of the helpless. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them.
Psalm 10:17

Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you.
Deuteronomy 31:8


Dear Kade,
Mommy, Daddy and Kipton think about you every day. We are constantly praying for your health, comfort, safety and quick arrival in your new family. It will be a joyous day when you are finally a Phillips. We love you more than you can imagine.
xoxo

December Giveaway & Holiday Ornaments

December is officially upon us! Let the giveaway begin!!

This months giveaway is Photo Session at any desired Charleston location with Christine Smith Photography! You can check out her work here. On top of having a free session fee at any location, you will also get a package of high quality prints. (one 11x14, one 8x10, and two 5x7's)

The photo session giveaway is $5 per entry. You can enter through the paypal "donate" button to your left. You can also gain additional entries by sharing the blog/giveaway on your Facebook, Twitter or your own blog. (Just make sure to let me know how you shared.)

The giveaway will end at midnight on December 20th and we will announce th winner on December 21st!

Here are some of our Christmas pictures Christine shot...

If you're outside of the Charleston area but would still like to help support our adoption, we are also selling holiday ornaments in December.

The ornaments have a variety of designs...
Adopt
Hope
Love
Joy
John 14:18
James 1:27
2011
Ho Ho Ho
...and more.
Africa is incorporated on each ornament and they are all adorned with a bow and tweed hanging hoop.

The ornaments are $5 each (additional $2.50 shipping). For each ornament sold $3 will benefit our adoption and $2 will be donated to UNICEF to help feed the children in the horn of Africa. So not only are you getting a beautiful custom ornament, you are also supporting adoption and UNICEF!

If you wish to purchase ornaments, you may do so through the paypal "donate" button. When you're checking out send a note with description of the ornaments you want along with shipping name & address.

Merry Christmas everyone!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Notice I said "look" not "feel" because here in South Carolina it is still toasty warm. For example, todays high was 81°! Yikes!! I'm hoping it cools down before December is upon us because the current weather doesn't exactly induce the warm, giddy, giving feeling called Christmas Spirit. :)

I'm counting on that little thing called Christmas Spirit to move everyones hearts for the orphan and help make our events in December a success. I'm praying that through each event we are able to bring awareness to how much we have and how little our future son has. I pray that through the holiday season each person we encounter will appreciate the people that bless their lives more than the things they've acquired. In the end, our stuff is just stuff, but our families are the cornerstone to a truly rich life. For one little boy in Ethiopia, we will be that cornerstone. What a privilege! Just the thought of teaching Kipton and Kade the true reason for the season puts me in the spirit (despite the weather). :)


December Fundraisers:
3rd- Wrapping gifts at Barnes & Noble
10th- Benefit Dog Wash at All Is Well
18th & 23rd- Gift wrapping at Barnes & Noble

December Giveaway:
Photo Session with Christine Smith Photography!!
Christine is such a wonderful,talented photographer in the Charleston area. She will do a photo session at any Charleston location or at her home studio and beautiful garden.
The giveaway includes session fee and a package of high quality prints of your favorite shots!
If you're in the Charleston area, you really don't want to miss this. It'd be great for family photos, newborn shots, senior pictures, business photos, modeling portfolio, bridal/engagement shots, maternity pictures....everyone could take advantage of this deal!

http://www.easysite.com/christinesmithphotography

Giveaway starts Dec 1st and runs to Dec 20th. For a $5 donation you will get one entry, $10 two entries and so on. Also, for every time you share the giveaway on FB, Twitter or your own blog, that earns you another entry! Just make sure to post a comment with a link to how you shared. :)


I'm also working up one other December special. I'm very excited about this one because it has the potential for us to help another organization as well! I am striving very hard to not just be a consumer this year, but more of a contributer. I'll keep you updated as things pan out.

As we prepare for these events and giveaways, please pray for Gods provision to be at work.

I'm going to close with this little quote from a friends fb to make you think for a minute...
We are just tools in God's tool box. There is no glory in the wrench. The glory is in the hands that use it.

How are you going to be used for His glory this holiday season?

Agency Orientation & Home Visit

We had our agency orientation with Brittney, our case worker from Lifeline, last Friday. Since our agency is based out of Kentucky, we did our orientation over the phone. It was scheduled perfectly so it would be during Kiptons nap time and a time when Trey could take a break from work. :) We were on the phone for just over an hour. Our conversation consisted of reviewing our Ethiopia adoption manual, talking about our education requirements (a lot of requirements), home study agency, dossier prep, fees, what happens at the time of our referal (!!!!), medical conditions, travel, and more about our adorable future son. Brittney also had to verify we weren't addicted to drugs/alcohol, in an abusive relationship or mentally insane. Just precautionary. ;) We had all of our questions answered and were offered good advice for different stages of the process. Overall, it was a great orientation! I am so excited about working with Lifeline and thankful the Lord led me to them. They are a strong Christian agency and I know they will be a huge blessing. Both the ladies who are in charge of the Ethiopia program are adoptive mamas of Ethiopian children. The fact that they have been in our shoes before us is very inspiriting.

Another big step forward for our adoption happened this morning...our first home study visit. Our social worker, Teresa Smith- a wonderful Christian woman, who is oh so kind- came to our house to "interview" to us. I have to admit I was prepared for an in depth scrutiny of our home, intense questions that would make us severely uncomfortable and a couple more worries I won't even mention. ;) To my surprise, it wasn't intimidating at all. Teresa was super personable and our entire conversation was very relaxed. (Plus, she is a fellow dog lover so we got along just fine...because we have four!) We talked about our families, schooling, church support, our daily lives and decided what specifications we wanted to put about the child we will accept. We decided that for our home study we will be open to 0-4 years of age, male or female and up to two children. We'll be more specific with our agency, boy from 0-2yrs, but we left our home study open that way if we change our minds or if by some chance our baby boy has an older sibling! Yes, I said sibling!! That's a slim chance because supposively young sibling groups are rare, but should that occur we are definitely open to 2 babes. :) Imagine going from a family of 3 to a family of 5. Wow. Ok, now I'm going to contain myself and just focus on 1 little boy coming home to our family.

Ok, back to our home study...you see how easily my mind wanders. After our interview with Teresa, she did a quick-and I do mean quick-walk through of our home. It was so much simpler than I had imagined, but I love simple, especially in this very unsimple process called adoption. We then wrote a check to the home study agency for the first big home study fee...$875...ouch. Our final visit is scheduled for Nov. 29th. After that visit Teresa will type up our complete home study for us to review. Once that's done and we've paid $1100 more (which we're still working on) our home study will be sent to DSS for approval. So far, everything is progressing nice and smooth. I know the sole reason for our progression thus far is that we have the one and only Almighty God on our side. We owe all the glory to Him.


Here are some lyrics from a song we sang Tuesday at Genesis:

God is able
He will never fail!
God is with us
He is on our side
He will make a way!

I jotted these down during worship because they really spoke to my heart. They are ringing true more than ever. :) HOPEFUL


On a very differnt note...
I'm typing out this post from a theater seat while waiting for the midnight premier of Breaking Dawn. Shout out to all the other Twilight fans!

Our 1st Yard Sale

After a month of collecting donations from friends, family and overly generous strangers, we were finally prepared for our first yard sale. The Saturday before the sale we recruited our best friends, Kelsey and Tyler, to come help us sort and organize all the donations. As we began sorting and pricing in our garage (with the garage door open) passing cars began to stop. They thought we were having a sale then! Of course we couldn't turn them away. :) So throughout the few hours we sorted we had a mini, unannounced garage sale. That mini unannounced sale brought in $230!! Pretty good for not actually being the actual sale. :)

 We held the real yard sale this past Saturday and Sunday in the parking lot of Trey's business. His business is on a main road and we were hoping this would play to our advantage. :) We had so much stuff! Furniture, sporting goods, household items, collectibles, purses, kids toys, books, and clothes, clothes, clothes. We set up early Saturday morning with the help of 8 amazing volunteers. All day Saturday there was a steady flow of customers shopping for good deals. We met so many nice people and were able to spread awareness of adoption to some skeptics. We had so much fun meeting these people and selling them awesome items to benefit our adoption. After 6 hours of intense sales, we packed up for the day. (Saturday evening, we passed out...pure exhaustion!) We were back at it again Sunday morning. Sunday was slower than the past day, but we still had a good crowd show up toward the end. Here are some pictures from the first of our yard sales.

The yard sale weekend was a blast and a huge success in my eyes. I am so grateful to every single person who donated, volunteered, shopped, prayed, bought a raffle ticket or shared our event with others.
 

Here is the breakdown of our sales:

Pre-sale sorting day: $230

Day 1- Saturday: $1,072!

Day 2-Sunday: $641.58

 

Total Yard Sale Earning = $1,943.58

AMAZING!!!!

 

Thank you Lord for providing for us. You are so good.

One step closer to sweet Kade!

(We're only $300 away from our first agency fee.)

Kindle Winner

The winner of the Kindle giveaway is......

BARBARA!

You know who you are! The Kindle is waiting for you at Barfields Appliance. Congrats on your new Kindle and thanks for your support!


Keep following our blog for a new givaway soon!

Fall Festival Fun

Last weekend was jam packed with Fall Festivities!
On Friday night, two awesome ladies came over with their awesome baking skills and helped me make delicious treats for our bake sale at the Faith Family Fun Fair.

Saturday we volunteered at our community fall festival. We walked around the festival selling raffle tickets. (Really Kelsey sold the raffle tickets. I learned that Trey and I are horrible sales people. Thank goodness we brought Kelsey along...lifesaver!) All proceeds from the festivities went to Helping Hands and the local food bank. It was definitely a good cause and I'm glad we were able to be a part of it.

After that festival we were off to prepare for the Faith Family Fun Fair. We had a booth for Treys business (Barfields Appliance & Parts) and we were raising money and awareness for our adoption. We participated at the festival both Saturday and Sunday evening. It was a blast! We did a bake sale, sold Kindle tickets and had an appliance smash off. :) The smash off was the biggest hit. For each donation a person gave they got 2 hits on a variety of appliances. The boys were loving it, even some girls!

We had wonderful volunteers to help!

Thanks you guys!

Even the cutest Spiderman ever came out to help raise money for baby Kade!

We also had our tree at the event. It's starting to bloom with fingerprints!

Between donations, festival earnings and selling our garage fridge, we ended up raising $1,000 last week!! I'd say that's a successful week. Thank you Lord for providing!!

We now have enough to pay for our agency application and home study!! Yay yay yay! I am actually mailing our application today and will be dropping off our completed home study paperwork on Monday! God is so good! One step closer to Kade.

Our next fee of $2,416.33 will be due upon acceptance of our application. So that will be very soon. Please pray that the funds will be provided quickly. We have faith!

Thank you for reading my blog! I would love to hear how you found the blog and any thoughts you have about the adoption. I absolutely love reading your comments, so feel free to leave them. :)

Yes, My Son will be BLACK

I didn't expect any less when we announced our decision to adopt a child from Ethiopia.  The questions from family and other concerned acquaintances began pouring in, overwhelming me with statements and accusations that downright shocked me.  I want to directly address some of the concerns that have been presented to us regarding our future multi racial family.


1. God separated us into different nations. Why are you going against that in building your family?


Yes, that is true. God did divide the nations to speak different languages.  He did this to prevent future unified opposition to Him. Genesis 11:1-8 talks about the Tower of Babel where the people united to build a tower as high as the heavens.  This displeased the Lord so He confused them by giving them different languages. This prevented them from being united in building the tower.


We are not bringing a child of a different nationality into our family in order to create opposition with God. We are choosing for our family to be multi-ethnic in order to bring glory to God and be more pleasing to Him.




2. If you adopt a black baby, will you be okay with Kipton marrying a black girl or Kade marrying a white girl?


YES! Despite us living in the south and the cultural mindset being that interracial relationships between blacks and whites is wrong, that way of thinking is not biblical.


God did not forbid marriage based upon skin color or nations, but He forbid marriage between a believer and an unbeliever. It's true, God did forbid the Israelites from marrying other races, but if you study scripture the reason for this was not color, but that the marriages would cause the Isrealites to turn away from the one true God. (2 Corinthians 6:14, 1 Corinthians 7:39, Joshua 23: 6-13 and Ezra 9:1-2, 10-14)


Scripture does not forbid interracial marriage, only interreligious marriage.


Examples of Interracial Marriage in the Bible:
-Moses married a Midianite woman. No where in scripture does God condemn Moses for the wife he chose, even though she was likely BLACK! In Numbers 12, Zipporah was described as an ETHIOPIAN woman. She was a "Cushite". Habakkuk 3:7 shows "Cushan" was an archaic term for "Midianite" (the heritage of Moses' wife).


-Boaz, son of a Canaanite woman (Rahab), married Ruth, a Moabite.


-Solomon's mother, Bathsheba, was the former wife to Uriah the Hittite.


Example of Interracial Adoption in the Bible:
-Moses was floated down the river in a basket by his birth mother only to be adopted by an Egyptian woman.




3. Why Africa? Why don't you adopt from China or Russia etc?


Each time I have heard this question or statements that are similar, it really breaks my heart. The real issue that people are having with our adoption is not that we are going to become a multi-racial family, it's that we will have a black son. Peoples perception on the the black skin color is so skewed. In the end I realize that it's not that they look down upon adopting, it's that they look down on one race. As Christians, we are called to love others and be Christlike. Well, let me tell you, Christ does not see skin color. "God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart" 1 Samuel 16:7

As a child, my grandma sang a song to me that can be very relatable in this situation.

Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.

Red & Yellow, BLACK & WHITE, they are precious in His sight.

Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.

Please search your heart and really question why you have the beliefs you have regarding race? I challenge you to give those thoughts to God. Look to his word as the foundation for your beliefs, not to the ideas, culture and racism of men.

Fundraising Update

A little update on our adoption funding...


We have several fundraisers lined up that we are very excited about.

• Oct 22nd is the Crowfield Fall Festival and 5k Run/Walk. We have our information in 1000 of their goody bags!
• October 22nd & 23rd we will be at the Faith Family Fun Fair. We will have our fundraising tree and a raffle.
• November 5th & 6th is our adoption garage sale at Barfields Appliance. (We are still looking for donated items.)
• November we will be fundraising through our church ministry Genesis.
• December 10th All is Well Pet Store in Summerville is letting us hold a Dog Wash. Bring your dog out and we'll give them a beautifying bath for just $10!
• January 14th we'll be hosting a pancake breakfast at Applebees. Yum! Tickets are $6 for all you can eat pancakes.

I also want to include a breakdown of our adoption financial goals. I would like you to feel included and know where your money is going if you have donated. I have broken our adoption down into 4 different goals. Each goal gets us to the next big step in the adoption.

1. $7,500 -This will pay the first of our agency fees, cover our home study, and allow us to get all the necessary documents for our dossier.

    2.   $4,500 -This is for our second agency fee and fees to complete our dossier and have it sent to Ethiopia. After this step we will officially be a waiting family!

    3.  $9,700 -This will be paid upon acceptance of our referral. We will receive Kade's picture and all medical/background information the agency has. I can not wait to see his sweet face!
   
4.  $10,000 -Our last financial need will be going towards our travel. We are required to fly twice to Ethiopia, once for court and then to bring Kade home. Airfare its not cheap, but he is so worth it! :)

Thank you so much for following our journey to bring sweet Kade into our family!

Kindle Giveaway

We are raffling off a Kindle!

If you would like to participate for a chance to win a Kindle, tickets are $2 for 1 or $5 for 3.

To purchase tickets online, click on our donate button to your right and buy as many tickets as you would like. In the "note to seller" section, write that your donation is for the kindle raffle. Once we receive your donation, we'll put the amount of tickets you bought in the raffle jar with your name and email on each one. We will draw the winning ticket on November 1st. The winner will be contacted via email to arrange delivery method. If you are outside of the Charleston area we will ship the kindle to you via UPS.

Anyone and everyone can participate!
If you love orphans...buy a ticket. If you love to read...buy a ticket.
If you will be giving a Christmas gift...buy a ticket.
If you are breathing...buy a ticket! :)

Please share the Kindle Raffle with all your friends on your blog, email, facebook and twitter.

Waiting

While we are waiting to meet our 1st financial goal ($7,500), we are basking in the glory of the Lord. He is so good! We are worshiping Him through and through, every minute of this process. His timing is perfect, so we will wait patiently each step of the way.

But I trust in you, Lord;
I say, "You are my God." My times are in your hands
Psalms 31:14-15

This song says it perfectly.

Since we have started this journey, God has been revealing himself to us in many ways. One way that has made such an impact on us is the new people God is bringing us in contact with. Last night we had Peter Hyatt as a guest speaker at Genesis. He and his family are adopting a little boy from China. They're on the last leg of their adoption and should by traveling to bring him home around January. Peters words on adoption were filled with wisdom and passion. He is such an example of letting God lead, not only in adoption but every aspect of life. You can check out his adoption blog here. We've also had the pleasure of meeting with some staff from WAY-FM. They are just flowing with ideas of ways to help us succeed in bringing Kade home. Each day this process humbles me more and more.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers and share our story with as many people as you can.

Staying Busy

Here is a little update as to what we've been up to.

1. Praying, praying, praying. We have been wrapped up in prayer lately. Praying for guidance on this journey. He has been answering our prayers and providing encouragement daily.

 ”Ask, and it will be given to you seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." Matthew 7:7

  

2. Stuffing Envelopes. I have been a printing, folding, addressing, stuffing, sealing queen these past few days. I have almost all of our support letters ready to mail out within the next day or so! I'm hoping the letters will be well received and we'll have an overwhelming amount of support in return.

3. Home Study Paperwork. We haven't officially started our home study yet, but hey, a girl can be prepared. :) There's a form for everything you could imagine...general application, medical history, financial statement, child factors checklist, personal reference release and our autobiography. Trey is least excited about the autobiography because he's not really a man of many words and he has to do this one on his own. No help from wifey. :) It wouldn't be much of an exaggeration to say the stack of papers is about a mile high. With that being said, We're tackling it with ferocity in order to get it done as quick as possible. 

 

3. Family Pictures. We met up with Christine Smith Photography this week to take this cute picture.

We'll be using these in our support letters, fundraisers and a few other projects.

4. Preparing for our first adoption garage sale. We've been hassling asking our friends to donate anything they have lying around for our garage sale. I don't think they mind too much though, it's for a good cause. ;) We still have a ways to go in the sellable goods category, but we're hoping to have the sale in October.

5. Enjoying time with this sweet boy.

I'm so blessed to be able to stay home with Kipton! I just love every minute with him. So, in between working on adoption business during naptimes, I'm playing with my favorite little man. Mommyhood is for sure the best!!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend. I know I will because I'll be spending it with my two favorite guys!!

Adoption Process Overview

I have had lots of people ask me what our adoption process will entail, so I wanted to give everyone a very concise overview. 


This is from start to finish for an international adoption:

• Choose country to adopt from
• Choose agency that works with your country
• Provide initial application, with references, to adoption agency for review
• Receive preliminary approval into the program
• Begin your home study with a licensed home study provider
• Receive official acceptance into the program (Requires home study review)
• Make application for USCIS approval
• Dossier compilation and submitted to agency for approval
• Send Complete Dossier for authentication and translation
• Start your immunizations
• Receive Referral for your child. (Normally, within 3-6 months after Dossier submission)
• Receive Court Assignment (1-6 months post referral)
• Travel for 1st visitation and court appearance
• Prepare final documents and discuss travel
• Pick up your Child (Normally, 8-10 weeks post court approval)
• Come home celebrating your new child
• Complete a series of post placement assessments
• Enjoy your new family

I hope this helps you understand the process more, but if you're anything like I was, you're probably just more confused. :)  That is alright though, we'll figure everything out as we go along.




On a completely different note, I found an amazing fundraiser that I'm very excited about! It's called Leaves of Love.  For every donation we receive the donor will place his/her fingerprint on our tree to make leaves.  It is such a neat idea.  We will be taking our naked tree to all our fundraising events and adding a fingerprint for every online donation. 

Super cute, huh? I hope you'll consider being a part of our family tree!!

Our BIG Decision!!

Well, if you haven't guessed what our decision is just by looking over our blog,
 let me fill you in...

WE ARE ADOPTING!!!

I know, I know it seems crazy?! You're thinking "Why in the world would Ashton & Trey adopt? They can have kids of their own." or "Oh no, adopted kids are crazy. They'll have so many issues." or "Adoption is so expensive, you don't have that kind of money." :) Trust me we've heard it all. The real reason we have decided to adopt is because we have always felt a calling to adoption. We have talked about the subject several times throughout our marriage and always said it was something we wanted to do...one day. Well folks, today is that day!!

God has placed a burning desire in our hearts to begin this process now. It is truly the biggest leap of faith that we have ever taken. Now I'm sure you're wondering...Why Ethiopia?

We chose Ethiopia for several reasons.
1. Ethiopia is one of the few countries that allows couples under 30 to adopt. We're only 23 so that was a biggie.
2. The countries adoption program is relatively quick compared to other countries. (about 12-18 months) 
3. It is one of the poorest nations in the world, with almost 5 million orphans.
4. We considered domestic adoption because there are lots of children in the US who need homes, but honestly none of those children are at such a risk for dying like the children in Ethiopia. 1 in 6 children die before their 5th birthday!
5. Our adoption will be noticable. We want to welcome a child of a different nationality into our home in hopes of that opening up doors to spread the news of how God adopted each one of us into his family, even if we were different. (Plus, they are absolutely gorgeous ;), but that's just a plus.)
6. But most of all, we chose Ethiopia because that's where God is leading us.


We know this is going to be a wonderful journey and no doubt frustrating at times, but we serve a mighty God who will be there for us every step of the way.  We trust that our Lord knows the plans he has for us, big plans. :)  We might not completely understand why he called us to adopt, but we know that's what he wants from us so we will follow.  I would much rather risk failure doing what He wants than risk displeasing Him. “My thoughts are completely different from yours,” says the LORD. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

Ok, now you're probably wondering about the child we will be adopting. :) We have decided that we are going to adopt a little boy whose age will be somewhere in the range of 6 months to 2 years. His name will be Kade Asher. Already my mind wanders thinking about him, if he is born yet, is he loved, is he hungry? My heart aches at these thoughts.

If you would, please begin praying for our son and our journey...
Pray for protection over Kade and his mother.
Pray for a smooth adoption process.
Pray for clarity, wisdom and strength for Trey and I throughout the process.
Pray that all the glory will go to God.
Pray that the funds will be raised to help us proceed with the adoption.
Also, pray for the agencies and people that we will be partnering with.

All in all, we are so thrilled about this step to growing our family! I hope you will join us on our journey.

(This video will help you understand why we chose adoption through Ethiopia.)