Redeeming Journey

After a little over two months of waiting for information we got a call from Lawanda, our Social Worker, letting us know that we received a court date for February 10, 2010.  We can't wait to get there and meet our little guy and legally make him our son.  We are excited with the overwhelming feeling of "we have so much to do" all at the same time.

I wish you could have been in the office today when I got the call.  Laurie, Shelley and I were in the conference room finishing up the Christmas ornaments talking about how the adoption agency will be closing at noon on the 23rd.  I told them if we do not hear anything by noon tomorrow then it will be after Christmas before we know anything.  I walked out of the conference to go to my office and before I got to the end of the hallway Laurie handed me my phone and told me the agency was calling.  God's timing is so perfect.  The timing of all of it made the two months of waiting worth it.  I immediately hung up and called Coty, who is very sick, woke her up and started jumping up and down telling her the awesome news.

So what's next?

It looks like we will leave the states on Sunday, February 6th and arrive in Ethiopia on the 7th or 8th.  We will be able to spend a couple hours each day with him and then also have a chance to tour Ethiopia and learn as much as we can about their culture, food and where Journey was born.  We go to court on the 10th and then head home, without him, on the 11th.  Once we are home we will PATIENTLY wait for him to receive a passport, visa and other travel documents before we can go back and bring him home.  They said it should take about 4 weeks before we can go back and get him.

Be praying as we make our travel arrangements (THANKS UNCLE LAMAR and AUNT PATRICIA), finish gathering all the necessary paperwork and while we are traveling.  We will be without our girls for a little over a week.  I am sure they will be fine, but daddy and mommy will really miss them.  Also pray for Journey.  He is going to have a lot of major transitions coming up in his life.  I can't begin to imagine what he will be processing.  I told someone in my family this week that I am longing for the day that he says, "Hey Dad."  I have been praying for him and loving him from a distance for so long now and I can't wait for him to call me dad.  It is coming...very soon.

Thanks for loving us and praying for us.  We hope you all have the best Christmas possible.

Love,
The Melvins

Just wanted to update you on where we are in the process.  We are officially still waiting.  We are still waiting to be assigned our court date to make the whole thing official.  Every time the phone rings or I get an email I hope it is from Lawanda, our case worker, letting us know of our court date or an update on his condition.  Keep praying for "M" and for us.  We are so ready to bring him home.  God has provided in some huge ways this weekend and we are honored and blown away by God's goodness.  One thing is for certain, God loves this little guy and you can tell by the way he is providing ways for him to be a part of our family.  I will keep you posted if we hear any new information.

Jeffrey

Well we are now one week post referral and our minds are still spinning.  We were and still are overwhelmed by the love and support so many people have given us and "M".  Lisa Easton was in the office this am and told me she had been praying for him everyday since she heard the news.  She is not the only one praying for "M" and for us and we wanted to say thank you from the bottom of our hearts.  I am sitting here looking at his picture on my desk and my heart melts and longs to hold him, tickle him and just hold him close.  Coty's mind is running like crazy planning the design of the nursery and all of the fun "mommy" things she gets to do.  Ri and Ro say hi to his picture when they pass it in the kitchen and know him by name.  It is the little things that make him feel like he is already a Melvin.  It really is the strangest feeling to know that our son is out there and we can't get to him, but we know that God has him in the palm of His hand.  When we close our eyes we imagine what that first moment will be like when we see him.  He will probably be scared and cry, but as long as he is in our presence we will be complete.

Where are we now and what is next?  We have signed and submitted all of our acceptance documents.  They were sent to Ethiopia last week.  We are now waiting to be assigned our court date.  We are hoping and praying it comes quickly.  It could come as soon as the end of the year or into the first of January.  We are also hoping for picture updates in a few weeks.  It would be so exciting to see additional pictures of "M" and hear how he is developing.  We will keep you updated as we receive a court date and our first travel trip.

WE ARE GETTING CLOSE!!!!

Coty and I are so excited.  We received a call today out of the blue from Bethany, our adoption agency, to give us some exciting news.  We received our referral of a healthy and energetic 3 1/2 year old little BOY!  (We are going to refer to him as "M" online.)  That is the short story, now here is the long drawn out story that explains everything.

A lot of people have been asking, "How long does the entire process take?"  I wish we had an answer.  What I do know is what we have completed and how long it took us to do those steps.  I wanted to document some of our time frame so we would remember ourselves, but also to help other people who are in the process or praying about adopting an international child.

May 2009:  We began praying and researching a couple of different agencies and options available.
June 2009: Identified an agency, Bethany Christian Services, and completed a preliminary application.  We were approved, but were told we needed to wait until Rowen turned 1 at Christmas.  (That was a blessing to have that extra time to wait)
January 2010: Completed our formal application to Bethany Christian Services and were approved.
February 2010:  Began our home study.  The home study consisted of 3 meetings with one of our case workers, Autumn Andretta, at her office and our house.  The process taught us a lot about ourselves and the adoption process.  It definitely was a great experience.  It was during this time that we identified the age (1-5 years old) the sex (little girl) and the special needs (deaf/hard of hearing with other minor correctable needs)
April 2010:  By the end of April our home study was totally completed and written up for approval by the higher ups at Bethany.
May 2010:  We filed our Immigration paper work (I-600A).  We were told this would be a 4-6 week process.  It wasn't :)
June 2010:  Began work on our Dossier.  We weren't prepared for the amount of work, time and energy that goes into this document.  We have a greater respect for our case workers and other families who are working on their Dossier.  Basically, it includes every document both legal and personal that we sent to Ethiopia.  Every document (40+ documents) had to be notarized, thank you Aunt Shelley and Aunt Lauren, authenticated by the county clerk and then sealed by the Secretary of State office from which the document originated.  This included birth certificates from Maryland for me and New York for Coty.  We had a couple of "redos" on notarized forms and other rewrites of information, but we finally wrapped it up.
July 2010:  By the end of July we had our entire Dossier completed with our immigration paper work in hand.
August 2010:  We turned in our completed Dossier on August 2, 2010.  At that point we concluded 7 months of hard work and prep work on our part to get to the point where we are today.  Our documents arrived in Ethiopia around the end of August.
September 2010:  WAITING

What are we waiting for?  According to Mr. Sebilu, our Bethany representative and country director in Ethiopia, here is what the next few months should look like in the process.

Be aware that Ethiopian courts close annually for 1-2 months between August
and September.

1.    Sebilu receives the dossier and takes it to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be authenticated.

2.    The authenticated documents will be translated into Amharic.

3.    The translated documents will be verified and registered in the Ministry of Justice.

4.    Copies of the dossier are given to the Addis Ababa city Government Social and Civil Affairs Bureau.  The Bureau will inform our Director when they have children to refer.

5.          An official referral will be sent to the adoptive family and the family will respond with an official acceptance letter.

6.    Once a referral is accepted, the Orphanage center and Sebilu will submit an application to the Court asking for a date to hear the case of adoption of the given child to the prospective adoptive family.

7.    The Court will asses the above application and give an appointment (court date) to hear the case. At the same time the Court will write a letter to MOWA (Ministry of Women’s Affairs) asking for their suggestion/recommendation. The orphanage representative, adoption agency representative, birth parent(s), adoptive parents, and child (depending on his/her age) are required to be present on the day of court appointment.

8.    After interviewing the above persons and reviewing the letter or recommendation from MOWA, the Court will give a verbal decision on the day of appointment.

9.    The Court issues a written declaration that the child will be adopted by the specific family (usually 3-7 days after the verbal approval).

10.   Once court approval (written declaration) is in hand, our in-country team them works to secure the child’s birth certificate and passport. Once those are secured, an application for a Visa appointment is made.

11.   Once an Embassy appointment is secured, the family will be given the invitation to travel.  Once they arrive, they will take all the documents and go to the Embassy appointment, after which meeting they may travel home.



We are not exact on the time frames from this point forward.  We are planning on having her home around the spring of 2011, but that is our plan.  We will keep you posted as we learn new information.  Please keep praying for our daughter and for us.  We know God has already chosen the little girl for us, we are just waiting for his timing to reveal her to us.  I recently came across this video on youtube of a couple who adopted from Ethiopia.  We can't watch this video without crying our eyes out in anticipation. 




Thanks for supporting us and loving our new little girl wherever she is.

We are excited to report we are getting closer.  We FINALLY completed our Dossier and all of our information is in Ethiopia.  Many people have asked, "What is a Dossier?"  This is our packet of everything we have been working on and compiled stateside to send to Ethiopia.  It includes birth certificates of us, marriage certificates, passports, county, state and federal paperwork and our immigration approval.  The entire document was over 60 pages.  At one point I thought they were going to request copies of our neighbors birth certificates.  All joking aside, it was a full 3 month project of requesting official documents, notarizing and obtaining State Seals on everything.  As soon as I dropped off the packet to Lawanda, our case worker, I took a deep sigh of relief.

So, where does this leave us now?  Dr. Seuss says it best:
"Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite. Or waiting around for Friday night or waiting perhaps for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil or a better break or a string of pearls or a pair of pants or a wig with curls or another chance. Everyone is just waiting."


We ask as we wait that you join us in praying for the following:


1.  First and foremost pray for our little girl.  We have not seen her face or know exactly who she is, but she is ours and God already has her on this earth waiting to connect with us.


2.  Pray for Coty, Myself, Riley and Rowen.  Pray that we continue to depend on God through all of this and allow Him to do what He does best.  Pray for us, and the girls, as we begin introducing the concept of bringing their new sister home.  We are covering the girls with lots of prayer because they will be facing lots of adjustments as well.  Their dynamics (oldest/youngest) dynamics may be changing.  Pray that we do not grow frustrated or weary while waiting.


3.  Pray for our parents (Tom, Kirsten, Jim & Angie) and Jeffrey's sister and husband (Jennie and Shane) as they will also be facing lots of adjustments and becoming grandparents and aunts and uncles to our new child.


4.  Pray for our process.  Pray that our paperwork ends up in the right hands at the right time to lead us to the child God created for us.  


Thank you again for walking this journey with us.  You are each very special and dear to our hearts.  I can't wait to host our homecoming party with her and each of you.


Jeffrey, Coty, Ri & Ro

Hey there little one!  That is the thought that keeps running through my mind tonight.  As tough as life can feel here in America at times, there is a little one that may never hear "I love you" but needs to feel it.  Picking up the phone is not an option, but whoever you are we want you to know that you are already loved and cherished.  We are fighting and praying to get to you and wrap our arms around you as soon as possible.  We check the mail daily waiting for the next piece of the puzzle.  We received documentation for our fingerprinting through the Department of Homeland Security for our scheduled appointment in the mail this week.  God has already ordained the time we will meet.  Until then we will earnestly and patiently wait on God to reveal you to us.

Ephesians 1:3-6 says:
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves."


As we have been praying and spending time thinking about our new child, God has been sending the word adoption to us through scripture.  This is a verse I have read over and over again and even taught on it as a student pastor, but within the last 5 months it has come alive.  We are adopted as God's sons through Jesus Christ.  That kind of love and passion that flows from God blows my mind away.  If you put it into context of what we are walking through with this adoption, you will understand God in a whole new light.  We have never had contact or even seen our future daughter, but the love we have for her is growing and blossoming.  It is a love that we can't explain.  She has done nothing for us, given us nothing or even interacted with us, yet we feel like she is our child.  It is so hard to explain, but when I read that verse in Ephesians it makes me realize how much God loves us as His children.  The word adoption is defined as, "taking into ones family."  God has chosen to bring us into His family.  I am grateful for all of the lessons and God moments we are having with this process, because every time I look into our child's eyes I will be reminded of God's perfect plan and love for us.  


As I am writing I am also internalizing an additional thought.  I have always thought I was going to miss out on some of crucial bonding moments in the beginning of this child's life that we had with Riley and Rowen, but in this moment God is showing me how wrong I am.  Since we are adopting a toddler aged child I will not have had the privilege of rocking her to sleep or watching we crawl or walk for the first time, but God is bonding us.  This journey He is taking us on is bonding us with Him and His heart and in turn with our future child.  I may miss out on some of those initial moments, but I would not trade the journey God has been taking us on and will continue to lead us on for anything.  Our foundation and memories of this child's life has already begun and her history with us began in Christ.  Too cool.  


We have also been overwhelmed with love and support of friends and our family that are helping us break down the walls.  This process of adopting comes with a lot of waiting, uncertainty and an enormous financial burden.  Coty and I have always believed that God called us to this and this is our financial responsibility, but we have been overwhelmed by the amount of people who are wanting and willing to support us.  Our good friends Amanda Lowe, Lauren Duplantis (former Lauren Irons) and Kim Adamski have stepped in to help us raise some additional financial support.  Amanda designed a t-shirt that we are about to begin selling. The shirts will be $15 a piece and of that $10 will go directly towards our adoption expenses.  This is more than a logo or shirt design.  It speaks volumes to our expression towards Africa.  The red love in the design is in the center of Ethiopia.  Every time you see the red love on these shirts remember to pray for our future child and for our process.  We are overwhelmed by all of the love and support we have received.  We can't wait to update you again on where we are in the process.  Once our paperwork gets back from the Federal Government we will be ready to send everything to Ethiopia.  

It has been a month since we posted last.  We were hoping to have an exciting update about our process to share with you, but much like a lot of the adoption process, we are in a waiting period.  We are still currently waiting for our immigration paperwork to be approved.  Everything has been filed and submitted, we are just waiting for the government to approve everything.  We are hoping this will be returned within the next couple of weeks.  Once this is done and in our hands we will send everything to Ethiopia for them to begin their approval.  One thing we have learned about the process is every step in the journey comes with an at least 6 week wait to hear anything.  We will keep you updated on the process as we move forward.

We have also started applying for adoption grants.  There are many grants available to offer financial assistance to families who are adopting children with special needs.  Our goal is to complete 3-4 applications per week.  Please pray that God continues to open doors and direct us to the specific grants that we will be approved for.  It has been very eye-opening researching these different grants and all that the various organizations do to support and provide care for orphans around the world.  If you come across any grant options while online let me know.

On a personal note we have been staying busy as a family.  Life keeps moving forward faster and faster.  We are enjoying the time we have with our girls while they are little, but always have that special feeling in our heart that God has our other family member out there waiting for us.  We have been committed to mastering how to love our kids by embracing 1 Corinthians 13 as much as possible.  With all of the adoption training we have been through and will have to complete, the best form of preparation is God's Word.  So that is where we will be spending most of our time preparing for the arrival of our child.  Thank you for praying for us and for partnering with us.  We can't wait to celebrate our new family member with you in the near future.

Jeffrey, Coty, Riley and Rowen

This week has been so refreshing and exciting for us.  Not much has happened in regards to the adoption, but God has smiled down on us and our life.  We have been overwhelmed with the love and support of so many people in our lives.  We did not anticipate this much love and encouragement.  God continually uses people to speak into our lives and remind us of His plan for us and the impact that this child will have on so many people.  Thank you for your love and commitment to us and our future child you have never met.  It is exciting to know that there is someone out there that God created for us.

In regards to adoption process here is what went on this week.  We made another payment for our stateside process and are waiting on the immigration paperwork to come in and be completed.  Pray for us this week as we continue to apply for and seek out grants that will help offset some of the costs.  There are a lot of potential grants out there, but we have to go find them and apply for them.  Continue praying for our child wherever they are and for whoever is taking care of them and protecting them right now.  We love you and are overwhelmed by your love and support.

In the spring of 2009 we began asking ourselves, "Who did God create us to be and who is He calling us to be?"  After some time meditating on this and just stepping back from our lives for a little bit we both came to a realization that we felt God created our family to be redeemers.  At the time we were unsure what all this meant, but were open to whatever God was doing in our lives and what He wanted for us.  In May of 2009 both Coty and I felt strongly that part of being redeemers was for us to adopt an international child.  We did not have a specific country or child in mind or even an idea of where to start the process, but knew that God was definitely leading us in this direction.  As we personally began processing everything and continually feeling God opening doors for us, we started looking back throughout our lives and began identifying specific life experiences that had prepared us for this moment.   Towards the end of May we began researching different adoption agencies and all that went into the process.  We decided to go with Bethany Christian Services.  We found out once we began filling out the paperwork that our youngest daughter, Rowen, needed to be 1 year old before we could officially begin.  We spent the next 7 months praying and seeking God and through this time period He birthed a passion in us for our future child.  During this time we strongly felt led to adopt a special needs hard of hearing or deaf child.  While this seems like it came out of left field to a lot of people, for us it led us straight to the heart of God.  This is what He meant when He called us and created us to be redeemers.  We are to help redeem a child who has been passed over in orphanages, or is not the first on the list, to be adopted due to a hearing loss and/or other special needs. 


So, where does that leave us today?  We have officially completed our home study and have moved into the immigration process to adopt a child between the ages of 1-5 years old from the country of Ethiopia.  Why Ethiopia?  We didn't choose Ethiopia, Ethiopia chose us.  We only qualified for 4 international countries due to our family size, income level, ages, etc.  Out of the four countries three of them had barriers and obstacles with travel times or expenses that we were not able to overcome.  God clearly directed us to Ethiopia.  Our case workers from Bethany have told us the average time from this point in the adoption is 12-18 months.  Due to the fact we are adopting a deaf child who is not an infant, we do not fall into average time frames.  It could happen a lot faster or it could be a much slower process.  Either way is ok for us.  Keep in mind Rowen is only 1 and Riley is 2, and we have our hands full right now.  We should have all of our immigration paperwork done and all of our other stateside requirements completed within the next month and hopefully have everything submitted to Ethiopia before the beginning of June.  


Why the blog?  We wanted to invite you to be on this journey with us.  A journey that we hope will help lead you to the heart of God.  God is continually revealing Himself to us in this process through people we have met, scripture we have encountered or the moments where He speaks into our chaos and reminds us who He created us to be.  Check back throughout the next couple of weeks and months as we update you with what God is doing in our hearts and lives through this adoption and where we are in the journey.  We would ask that you begin praying for us.  Pray for our continued pursuit after the heart of God, for financial provision, for our future child, for Riley and Rowen as they will be making some major adjustments when our new child arrives and for our marriage.  We know that whenever we step out in obedience, the enemy is waiting to fill our minds with lies and distract us from where God is leading us.


We are so excited and can't wait to keep you posted throughout this journey