COURT DATE!!!!

“He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted.”
Job 9:10

Brad called Natalie this afternoon to ask a few questions and she tells him that she has good news! She proceeded to tell him that we have been issued a court date on....

AUGUST 5th!!!

We cannot believe we received a court date so soon, but we are rejoicing that things seem to be moving along!!! HALLELUJAH!!!

Please continue to remember us in your prayers as we are hopeful for a successful court date! If our court date is successful, Y and K will be legally our children and we could be traveling to Ethiopia by the end of August to bring them home!!!!

"Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.” Jeremiah 32:17

Two Precious Blessings!!!

After two years of praying and waiting for the Lord to reveal our children to us, we received a phone call from our social worker yesterday at 12:53 PM giving us the news of our referral of our precious little ones. It was one of the most (if not the most) surreal and emotional day I have EVER experienced! Let me fast forward and give the important details first:

Our referral was for a boy and girl, both 3 1/2 years old, not twins but first cousins, one month apart! I don't think I am allowed to post their names yet (and I know I am not allowed to post their pictures) until they are legally our children, but please trust me when I say that they are incredibly beautiful and just perfectly precious! We are over-the-moon, our hearts melting, in LOVE!! I cannot even express our urgent desire to travel quickly to love on them and bring them home!!!

Okay, so backing up.....I had basically resigned to the fact that with everything going on with the courts, we would not receive our referral until the fall, court in the winter and travel in February '09!!! I did not want to expect any sooner and get disappointed!

Brad was home today, and in the kitchen, while I had just sat down to check my email. My mailbox had reached 1,000 messages and no more could be delivered so I was a little annoyed at having to clear everything off and wondering if I had missed an important email. I saw a bazillion emails from our adoption yahoo group with the title, "GREAT NEWS!", and I started to get anxious trying to figure out what the GREAT NEWS was! I quickly started reading and then I saw an email from our caseworker, and quickly opened it. I scanned the email that says that there has been some movement in the cases and so our agency will be issuing referrals.....TODAY!!! (except I thought it said next week for some reason!!) So, I ran screaming into the kitchen to tell Brad the news (my heart racing) and yelled at him to come into the study so I can read the email to him. As I am reading the email, I realize it says, "TODAY" and I immediately try to prepare myself that I won't be called today (again, so I won't get disappointed). We talked about it for a minute and then he went back into the kitchen.

I felt so sad and anxious, I decided to pray about it except I didn't even know what to pray for! I thought, "Do I pray (or more like BEG!!) that the Lord would deliver our referral today?" or "Do I pray for patience?" (since I was just positive our referral would be months away!). So, as I was praying for both, the phone rang at 12:53 PM! Thinking it was my sister calling from her new job (and the Caller ID said "Out of Area" instead of "Unknown" like many people have said our agency's number pops up as), I picked it up with ease. I heard Natalie (our caseworker) speak and even though my heart fluttered a little, I convinced myself she was calling about needing a paper signed that we had not yet emailed her. As soon as she said she was calling with our referral, I lost all time and space!! Literally, time stood still! I immediately went into the "Ugly cry" asking her if she was serious!? She assured me she was and I ran into the kitchen screaming to Brad that Natalie was on the phone and we have our referral! Poor thing....his face went ghostly white and the kids started cheering! We both ran into the study and grabbed the other phone. I had to let Brad take over the whole computer thing since I seriously could not funtion. It was the most bizarre feeling ever! She emailed us the pictures and documents on the children but my computer said it would take 48 MINUTES to download everything!! We promptly moved to Brad's email and when he pulled up the pictures of the kids, I truly believe our hearts skipped a beat! We both cried and kissed and hugged and cried some more! We then quickly opened the other documents and she went over every detail with us (which was wonderful!!) About 3/4 of the way through, I totally blanked out. I was in complete overload and I was needing to digest everything that was just given to us. And, really, I just wanted to stare at their pictures! We were on the phone with her for about an hour and afterwards, Brad and I got to stare at their faces and spend some precious sweet time together basking in the blessings from the Lord!

We then began to call everyone and I did not get off the phone until 12:30 AM!! I had sent out an email with a few of their pictures around 9:45 PM since I realized I wouldn't have enough time to call everyone! I always wondered why families wait several hours and sometimes even days to post about their referral....and now I know why. It is the most amazing experience that I know of but also an incredibly emotional one that drains you quickly. I cannot even begin to imagine what we will experience when we actually travel to Ethiopia and meet them, hold them, love on them, etc. but I cannot wait!!!

I am sure I will be posting updates soon! We are praising the Lord for His continuous guidance and blessings during this process!! Please pray for us during this time as we continue prepare ourselves and our hearts for these precious children whom we already love as our own! Please also remember the children, as their story is one of sadness and, I am sure, feeling incredibly lonely, scared and grievous. Please pray that we might receive a quick and successful court date so we can travel to Ethiopia soon and bring them home!!!

"He will bring things about at the proper time--He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords" 1 Timothy 6:15

"Submit to God"

"Submit to God" - Job 22:21 (from Morning and Evening)

If we honestly want to "submit to God and be at peace with Him," we must know Him as He has revealed Himself, not only in the unity of His essence and substinence, but also in the plurality of His persons. God said, "Let us make man in our image" - don't be content until you know something of the "us" from whom his being was derived. Make an effort to know the Father; bury your head in His bosom in deep repentance, and confess that you are not worthy to be called His child; receive the kiss of His love; let the ring which is the token of His eternal faithfulness be on your finger; sit at His table and let your heart delight in His grace. Then press forward and seek to know much of the Son of God who is the brightness of His Father's glory, and yet in unspeakable condescension of grace became human for our sakes; know Him in the singular complexity of His nature: erternal God, and yet suffering finite man; follow Him as He walks the waters with the tread of deity, and as He sits upon the well in the weariness of humanity. Don't be satisfied unless you know much of Jesus Christ as your Friend, your Brother, your Husband, your all. Do not forget the Holy Spirit; endeavor to obtain a clear view of His nature and character, His attritubutes, and His works. Behold that Spirit of the Lord, who first of all moved upon chaos, and brought forth order; who now visits the chaos of your soul, and creates the order of holiness. Behold Him as the Lord and giver of spiritual life, the Illuminator, the Instructor, the Comforter, and the Sanctifier. Behold Him as, like holy unction, He descends upon the head of Jesus, and then afterwards rests upon you who are like the skirts of His garments. Such and intelligent, scriptural, and experimental belief in the Trinity in Unity is yours if you truly know God; and such knowledge brings peace indeed.

Diverse World Composition

If the entire world were a village of 100 people, what would it look like?

Do you know?

Here are a few facts about those 100 people courtesy of Dr Donella Meadows

• 57 Asian, 21 European, 14 from the Western Hemisphere, 8 African


• 52 Female, 48 Male


• 70 Non-white, 30 White


• 70 Non-Christian, 30 Christian


• 89 Straight, 11 Gay


• 6 people hold 59% of the world's worth (all from the US)


• 80 live in substandard housing


• 70 are unable to read


• 50 suffer from malnutrition


• 1 has a college education


• 1 has a computer

32 Weeks

I know I haven't blogged in over a month and I am so far behind in posting my entries. Since everything has come to a halt, I haven't really felt like posting them. Several of you have been asking if I have quit blogging, so I have decided to catch up in my post, especially since the whole reason I have this blog is to chronicle our adoption journey for our children and to keep family and friends updated on our adoption. So, I continue.....

Here at 32 weeks and we continue to wait. Somedays I feel like I have all the patience in the world and other days are filled with anxiety. Since my sister, Brittany, has been living with us, she has helped me tackle many of my "projects" during this waiting period. And since she is a movie buff, we have watched "many-a-movie". However, we have a rule (okay, really it is my silly rule) that we must always be working on completing a "project" while watching a movie (most of the time, we follow our rule...sometimes, we don't!) So, in an attempt to honor our favorite movies, we took WAY too much time and created this number 32 with our favorite DVDs!

Can you spot some of our favorite movies? (and notice I said "some" since we couldn't fit all of our favorites!!)

1st Purchase

I haven't bought anything for the kids during this entire process and it has been killing me! When we were in the China program, I began to buy all sorts of things in anticipation of bringing home our little girl. During that time, we actually knew a little more specifically "who" we were buying for....a little girl 0-12 months. Since we switched countries, I have been hesitant to buy anything since "who" we are buying for is a little more vague....siblings, either gender, under three years. I have run the gamut on the different combinations of gender and age I can think of and there are so many possibilities, so I have held off on the "buying" side of things....until now! I have been "eyeing" these adorable Amharic bean bags from Amharic Kids that have the colors and numbers on them with the English and Amharic language (as well as the Amharic spelling), so I took the plunge and bought them.

I also bought an Amharic language book so we can know some basic words if we should need to know them. I figured that they were very universal as far as age and gender and would be a really neat thing to have anyway. This is probably all I will buy (for now) until we receive our referral. However, I have made a spreadsheet (I LOVE spreadsheets!) of all the items I want to buy for the kids as well as all the many sites I have come across during this long wait!

And, no, Brad does not know about the spreadsheet (although he probably assumes I have one)!

Hangin' on!

This picture cracks me up but sure gives a great picture of how we are feeling right about now!!! Isabella was playing outside and yelled for me to look outside our master bathroom window. When I looked, I couldn't stop laughing as she had ever so gingerly "hung" her baby's hands (that are formed into a baby's grip) from our zipline! It has given me such joy looking at this picture and the one below!This picture was taken after she took her other baby and hung her arms over the zipline since her hands were in tight fists! By the way, her babies are girl and boy twins, Joy and Loy! (I guess she is getting ready for her brother and sister!)

31 Weeks

Do you ever find yourself collecting buttons around the house that no one ever knows where they came from? In our home, I probably pick up a button every day with no one to claim it, so it goes in my button box. I have come to love buttons since they are all unique and are so colorful (especially when you have kids and their clothes tend to have the cutest little buttons!) So in anticipation of two new children in our home, (bringing two times the "floating buttons"!), we made a number "31" with all of our fun little buttons!

30 weeks and......

.....still waiting. As the kids were snacking on the left over dried fruit(papaya, pineapple and cranberries) from our granola, we decided to make a number "30" with it! Another Gladney family, the Fournet Family, just received their referral on Wednesday for 11 month old boy and girl twins, so we shouldn't be waiting much longer!! At least, I hope not too much longer!!

Yummy Granola!

I had happened upon a recipe for homemade granola that looked really good, so last week, Brittany, the kids and myself decided to give it a try. Here is the recipe below:

Yummy Granola
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup whole almonds
1 cup pumpkin seeds
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup coconut oil

Mix together and spread over a baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes turning every 10 minutes or so.

Elijah pours in the rolled oats.....

Isabella pours in the shelled pumpkin seeds......
...then the almonds and coconut!

Of course, I didn't really follow the recipe completely as I decided to add some other ingredients that I thought would be a great addition! Since the kids love dried fruit, we added some dehydrated banana chips, diced dried pineapple chunks, dried cranberries, and diced dried papaya (about 1/4 cup of each)!
Isn't it so pretty?!

29 weeks

These are the rose petals from the flowers the kids gave me from Mother's Day last week. They were dying so we put them to good use and the kids loved pulling the petals off the stems!

So far, 29 weeks have come and gone and we continue to wait for our referral. Every day brings a new emotion in this process whether we are waiting anxiously or patiently. The idea of a new brother and sister is somewhat fading from Isabella and Elijah's thoughts. They pray for them at every meal, during our morning prayers and at bedtime religiously, but it is almost like they are aimlessly repeating a stock prayer when it comes to their "babies in Ethiopia". Then, a couple of days ago, Isabella told me she wanted 7 children but she didn't want to adopt because it takes too long. It allowed us to talk to both of them about waiting on the Lord and how precious His plan and timing is for our lives! But, it made me sad that I had neglected to realize that even though they are so young, they are being affected by this wait as much as we are.

Some days, at random times, I can hear Isabella quietly talking to the Lord asking Him to bring home her brother and sister from Africa. The Lord is not only working on us but He is shaping our children as well by teaching them to petition Him and to "pray without ceasing". During this time of waiting on the Lord it is sometimes easy to get lost in what we want or desire instead of spending this time in constant fellowship with our Lord. He is faithful and true and He will unite are children with us at His perfect ordained time! In the meantime, I will rest in the encouragement of this passage:

"The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him." The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD." Lamentations 3:22-26

Launch Ethiopia

I received this email about the Launch Ethiopia project from the Red Letters Campaign:

Subject: Launch Ethiopia Project

Tom Davis and Children's Hopechest are doing a conference call THIS THURSDAY, May 15.

If you are interested in what RLC is doing and the Launch Ethiopia Project we would LOVE for you to call in and have a chance to hear for yourself what is going on. The RLC representatives will be on the call and we want to hear from you.

We will be discussing the need, strategy, next steps, and the vision trip.

Time: Thursday, May 15, 9AM MDT (make sure you translate the time difference)
Conference Dial-in Number: (712) 432-1620
Participant Access Code: 1083603#

If you are going to participate please RSVP to daniel@hopechest.org

Feel free to post this on your blog if you would like to help spread the word for RLC. Thanks and I hope you can be a part of this exciting journey with us.

Red Letters Campaign

Please watch this video to learn about the Red Letters Campaign!!



I am so excited about the Red Letters Campaign!! It is a wonderful grassroots campaign that began with Tom Davis' book Red Letters: Living A Faith That Bleeds and is partnering with Children's Hope Chest! This will hopefully gain immediate and widespread attention! I am looking forward to working alongside many others who share our passion for orphans!

Tom Davis

I am not sure how many of you have heard of Tom Davis, but I had never heard of him until Brad and I started this journey of adoption. Two years ago, when we were pursuing an adoption in China through AWAA, I happened upon a book called Fields of the Fatherless that was written by Tom Davis. Here is an excerpt:

In this world you are an orphan—
eagerly anticipating your adoption as God’s child.
In this world you are a widow—
longing for reunion with your Bridegroom.
In this world you are a stranger—
a pilgrim waiting to become a citizen of heaven.
And in this world, God has called you to care for the orphan, the stranger, and the widow.

Fields of the Fatherless is a journey that brings you back to what Christianity is all about:
Giving yourself to others
Being Christ to a hurting world
And living for the one that comes next.
It was an amazing book that spoke so deeply and profoundly about orphans and my passion grew even more for adoption! One day, as I shared about this book to one of AWAA's staff, she shared with me that Tom Davis was actually her brother-in-law!! She was able to share more details about his passion and many of the trips he had taken already along with some future trips he would make all to help the people and children in suffering from extreme poverty, etc.

She told me about his vision with Children's Hope Chest and gave me the link to his blog so I could follow all his efforts! (If you go to his blog, make sure you watch the videos on the right side panel of his blog! You will be changed!) I have been following his blog for some time now and I continue to be humbled by his selfless servant's heart he has for those less fortunate than him. He has such a love for people and a determination to help them and bring awareness to others!
He has written another book called Red Letters: Living a Faith That Bleeds that was published back in September 2007. I was really excited when I watch the video promo for the book and the many excerpts I have read from this book proves to be deeply convicting and honest. I bought it for my sister when she came to live with us several months ago and I am looking forward to reading the entire book instead of just the excerpts!

I urge you to pick up a copy today and get involved with the work he is doing for the "least of these". Also, check out his blog....you will be glad you did!

"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.' Matthew 25:45

Now What?

Week 28

This week I decided to look up the number 28 just for "grins and giggles" and see what I found and I found the following on Wikepedia:

It is a composite number, its proper divisors being 1, 2, 4, 7, and 14.
Twenty-eight is the second perfect number. As a perfect number, it is related to the Mersenne prime 7, since 22(23 - 1) = 28. The next perfect number is 496, the previous being 6.
Since the greatest prime factor of 282 + 1 = 785 is 157, which is more than 28 twice, 28 is a Størmer number.
Twenty-eight is a harmonic divisor number, a happy number, a triangular number, a hexagonal number,and a centered nonagonal number. Twenty-eight is the sum of the first five prime numbers, and the sum of the totient function for the first nine integers.
It appears in the Padovan sequence, preceded by the terms 12, 16, 21 (it is the sum of the first two of these).
It is also a Keith number, because it recurs in a Fibonacci-like sequence started from its base 10 digits: 2, 8, 10, 18, 28...
Twenty-eight is the third positive integer with a prime factorization of the form 22q where q is an odd prime.
Twenty-eight is the ninth and last number in early Indian magic square of order 3.
There are twenty-eight convex uniform honeycombs.

Absolutely none of this makes sense to me, but what struck me was that the "28" is the second "perfect" number (only after "6" which is the first perfect number).....Since we have already passed week "6", week 28 just seems the "perfect" time for our referral! However, if week 28 passes by, surely we won't have to wait for the next "perfect number" week seeing as it is number 496!!!

Rash of Referrals!!!

After what has been a seemingly dry season of activity in the referral department, a string of referrals brings hope and excitement to everyone!! Chris and Shasta, Christine, Zach and Erin, and Chad and Susan all received referrals this week and we are thrilled for each one of them!!!

There have been several court dates revealed (finally!!!) and several families who have just returned home with their precious cargo!! The Treat family brought home precious Samuel, Angie and Anil brought home adorable little Noah Arone, and the Roberts family brought home their gorgeous little girl, Maleah! With each little child that is brought home, our hope is renewed and our trust in the Lord's timing grows even stronger! We are so thankful that so many of these precious children are being brought home with a bright future ahead of them!

"Who has blessed us.....

....with every spirtual blessing." Ephesians 1:3

All the goodness of the past, the present and the future, Christ gives to His people. In the mysterious ages of the past the Lord Jesus was His Father's first elect, and in His election He gave us an interest, for we were chosen in Him from before the foundation of the world. He had from all eternity the perogatives of Sonship, as His Father's only-begotten and well-loved Son, and He has, in the riches of His grace, by adoption and regeneration, elevated us to sonship also, so that to us He has given "power to become the people of God." The eternal covenant, based upon surety and confirmed by oath, is ours, for our strong consolation and security. In the everlasting settlements of predestining wisdom and omnipotent decree, the eye of the Lord Jesus was ever fixed on us; and we may rest assured that in the whole roll of destiny there is not a line which militates agaisnt the interest of His redeemed. The great betrothal if the Prince of Glory is ours, for it is to us that He is betrothed, as the sacred nuptials shall before long declare to an assembled universe. The marvelous incarnation of the God of heaven, with all the amazing condescension and humiliation which attended it, is ours. The bloody sweat, the scourge, the cross, are ours forever. Whatever blissful consequences flow from perfect obedience, finished atonement, resurrection, ascension, or intercession, all are ours by His own gift. Upon His breastplate He is now bearing our names; and in His authoritative pleadings at the throne He remembers our persons and pleads our cause. His dominion over principalities and powers, and His absolute majesty in heaven, He employs for the benefit of them who trust in Him. His high estate is as much at our service as was His condition of absement. He who gave Himself for us in the depths of woe and death, does not withdraw the grant now that He is enthroned in the highest heavens.

In all my sadness and trying to somehow calm my anxious heart during this wait for our children, this morning's devotional was just as timely as it was encouraging. The very first line ("All the goodness of the past, present, and the future, Christ gives to His people.") put my heart at ease knowing that the Lord will provide as He has always done. How can I forget all the precious blessings He has given to me? And yet, so many times, I do forget who He is and what He has done for me; complaining rather than being thankful. I am slowly learning what contentment is in the Lord. I am constantly reminded of His sovereignty in all things, that He has already orchestrated things I can and can't see and that He is the true Comforter!

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
Ecclesiastes 3:11

Laminin?

Do you know what it is? I had never heard of it until I saw this video of Louie Giglio on Emily's blog and just had to share it here as well! Louie Giglio used to lead a worship and Bible study time at the Hippodrome in Waco called CHOICE when I was at Baylor. He went on to share his passion for God's Word in Atlanta and brought together thousands of young people in a 4-day conference called Passion! He is still as charismatic and passionate as he always was years ago! Please watch this video as it is pretty amazing!

27 weeks

No news to share. We continue to wait as week 27 concludes. The kids made this number "27" with Play-Doh. We are all sad.