Friday, December 17, 2010

Pillow Party


This last Monday, my younger sister threw me a "Pillow Party" to help up raise funds for our adoption. She got this idea from a website, and she did a fabulous job. She made about 15 pillows. Rachel Burch & Ashley Arnold made some wreaths, which were too cute. How it worked was you could write your name on the tag and make a donation. I loved this because no one was obligated to donate. I was just happy to see the girls there supporting Sam and I regardless if they gave a donation.

Last Sunday, our Pastor talked about generosity, and Sam & I made a video telling people about the generous gift we received for our home-study. This week I have felt that same generosity from these girls who didn't have to spend anything.
I know Christmas is a busy time and people are always crunching numbers, including myself. The fact that they were willing to help out was so generous that I was overwhelmed with emotion. We raised about $700, which blew me away. We made enough to send in our immigration application, which we mailed out Wednesday. I said on our video that I know I shouldn't be surprised when God shows up, but I"m still in awe every time he does.


We also sold our car today, which we had been listed for a couple weeks now. The great thing about this is we made just enough to pay for our dossier. I am so thrilled!! With every step closer I get so excited to see that little face appear to us. I feel so extremely blessed that God chose us to adopt. My cousin Jeff and his wife, Shannon, are also adopting from Ethopia and they are on the exact same pace as us. We are praying that we will be able to travel together. We are so excited for them & so blessed to go through this journey with them. Please continue to pray for us and the Britton's. Thank you to those who have been praying. We have definitely felt your prayers.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Dig Deep

Natalie and I were recently introduced to a couple here in Springfield that has adopted 2 boys from Ethiopia. They have been to Ethiopia twice to pick up each boy. The wife traveled a third time to Ethiopia to visit her sons' birthplace & to potentially meet some family. She was fortunate to be able to do both. While she was there she felt that God was calling her to provide clean water to this community. So, she took on this amazing water project. They need to raise about $200,000 to make this happen. Here is their video:

dig deep from A Glimmer of Hope on Vimeo.


You can also go to: www.ourglimmerofhope.org/digdeep to learn more.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Homestudy Approved!

It's been a little while since we have posted an update, so here is what has happened in the meantime.

We have attended a Adoptive Parent Training class, which was a great experience, & also gave us the opportunity to meet some other international adoptive parents in the process.

We had our social worker, Judy, pay us a visit to our home to complete our Homestudy. We were a little nervous, as we knew she would go in-depth with not only our physical home but also with interviews of us & our kids. Afterwards, we realized that it wasn't as big of a deal that we had made it out to be. Judy was great. She was so relaxed & made us feel at ease. When she left our house that day she let us know that we would be receiving our completed Homestudy paperwork in the next couple of weeks.

Just this last Friday, we received our approved Homestudy in the mail. There were 4 notarized copies of it (just like Judy had said there would be). We were so excited! This is the documentation that we need in order to apply to Immigration & also to be able to apply for some potential grants. We feel that we are making progress and moving on to the next step.

So, that next step is to schedule an appointment with Immigration, which is located in St. Louis.  This process, we have been told, takes about 45 days to get back & approved. Then, the next step is to compile our Dossier to send to Holt International Headquarters, which in turn gets sent to the Holt Office in Ethiopia.

Natalie and I get excited each time that we progress to the next step of our journey. We have been so fortunate to have met some Amazing families that have also adopted from Ethiopia. They have opened our eyes & hearts to other things & ideas that we didn't even realize. We feel led to do even more things than just our individual adoption, because we know that God has a bigger plan. We have been amazed at the impact that this has had on us & others (and we haven't even really begun yet).  Natalie & I have just been realizing that all we have to do is be open to listening to what God is telling us & just react & respond.

We are at peace as we know that God is at work in our family's life. Thank you for your support and prayers. We will keep you updated as new things happen.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Surprise!

On Friday night, Oct. 29, 2010 around 9:30p.m., we were all upstairs getting ready for bed when we heard the doorbell ring. Natalie went to the door to see who it was. No one was there, but she saw a shadow running away from our house. Her first thought was "Some kids just stole my pumpkins to pull a Halloween prank on us". But, then she opened the door, and found an envelope. She picked it up & brought it upstairs.

I was standing in the hall when she came up. She was in tears and could barely talk. My first thought was that she had just got notification that a close friend or family member had died. I told her to speak up quickly, because she was worrying me. She quickly said, "Our homestudy has just been paid for!" We had received a check in the amount of exactly $2500.00.

What is funny about this is that same day we received an invoice from Holt International for our homestudy for $2500.00. This was such a shock & surprise to us. We are so excited to see that God is working in our journey. We are so thrilled to see what God will do next. We will keep you updated on new events. Please continue to pray for us. Thank you very much!!

Monday, October 25, 2010

The Beginning of our Journey


Just in case you didn't already know, we are the Blaine family. First, there is Natalie & I (Sam). We met at High Street Baptist Church & were married July 23, 1999. We have three kids, 2 boys & 1 girl. On Nov. 20, 2000, Drew was born. Then, May 16, 2002, Pete was born. Next, there was Emily, who was born June 30, 2004.

We decided to stop having kids after Emily. Natalie was only 24 when we made our decision. About 4 years later, Natalie decided that she wasn't done having kids. She felt that our family was not complete. Natalie prayed about it. We had many discussions about it. Natalie brought up the idea of adoption. I was not on-board at first, as I had worries about not being able to love a child that was not biologically mine. Not long after this, I went on a missions trip to Guatemala. I was able to see first hand the kids in the orphanage. My heart broke for them. I made a return trip there to do some more work, and once again my heart went out for them. I came back to the states with a heart for orphans. I was now past the idea that I could not love a child that wasn't mine.

Natalie and I felt that there was a great need for kids to be adopted internationally. We questioned, "is a life from the US more valuable than a life in another country?" The obvious answer is no. We felt that we were being called to adopt from Ethiopia, as there was the greatest need there, and everything pointed towards yes.

Our next hurdle was money. Adopting is not cheap. I struggled with the idea of how I could not afford to do this. It doesn't make sense financially to do it. It is not the logical choice for our family right now. I kept feeling this overwhelming feeling that I had to control this myself. About 4-5 weeks ago, I heard a great message in our church service, and I finally realized that I had to leave the finances of this adoption in Gods hands. I let go. I told Natalie and she ordered the paperwork right away.


The following week, we were sent our application from Holt International to fill out. http://www.holtinternational.org/
We chose this agency because we had a few close church friends that had each adopted from Korea through this same agency. We filled out the initial paperwork, which consisted of the following: an application, a picture of our family, a picture of our home, & a little of financial/tax info. We mailed this in, and waited.

About 3-4 days later, we received notification that we were pre-approved. We, then, were sent this overwhelming mound of paperwork via email. At first glance, it felt like we wouldn't be able to complete this crazy amount of data entry & hoops to jump through. We had to complete everything from a 17 page essay-form personal data document, to HIV testing, to criminal background with DNA fingerprinting, to financial statements, to child abuse screenings, to insurance information, and much more. It took us about 2 weeks to get all of that completed. I think I drove Natalie nuts, as I wanted to get this part of the process done and over with.

After choosing Ethiopia, we starting researching flights, as we will have to travel there twice for paperwork/legal processes & to pick up our new little one. We found out in our research that the connecting flight is Amsterdam! This is where Natalie's sister & family just moved to become church planters. Does God have a plan in this? We think so! We are so excited that they will be able to be a part of this too.

So, now our next step is to meet with our social worker, Judy Young with Holt International. She will be coming to our house to do a home study, which is basically an in-depth interview of your family. This study will cost $2500, which is just a sliver of the entire cost. We know that God has a plan for us in this, and that he will provide. We are excited to see how He will complete this.

Once the home study is complete, we will be on to the next step, in which Holt will submit all of our information back to the Ethiopian office. We will keep you informed of our progress in this new journey. Please pray for our family, our future little one, their birth parents, that God will provide for us financially, and give us the grace & patience that we need throughout this journey.