Monday, December 28, 2015

The NOC wait....

Here is a quick update for those following....

Last you heard we had accepted a referral for a 3 yr. old (now 4 yr. old) little girl. We sent our dossier (paperwork) over to the orphanage for their approval. They will then pass our dossier on to the NOC committee in India. The NOC committee meets once a week and consists of different staff and directors in CARA (Central Adoption Resource Authority). CARA will look at all of the family's dossier documents, referral documents, and approvals. There is no way to know how many dossiers are waiting in line for approval ahead of us. This NOC approval could take months to be completed which is why we do not have a time frame idea yet. Please pray for a quick and easy NOC approval for our family! 

Meanwhile, while we wait for our NOC approval, we are working on several other adoption "to-do's" on our end. Today, we applied with the U.S. Department of State for an Immigrant Visa and Alien Registration for little K so that we can bring her into the country. Please pray that our application will be processed quickly and that her visa will be approved!

We are also working on applying for a few grants to help out with our travel expenses when the time comes. The main grant that we are applying for is through Show Hope Organization. They only take a certain number of families based on their circumstances. Please pray if we are eligible, that we will receive a grant or grants to help with our India travel expenses! 

Lastly, we are brainstorming on India t-shirt design ideas so that we can have another t-shirt fundraiser. We are open to suggestions! We will also be hosting a final fundraiser dinner in the spring to raise the remaining funds needed to bring K home. If anyone has a connection with a venue, entertainment, food, etc in the Greensboro area, please email me at megananne1020@hotmail.com. We would love to have our family and friends involved in this event. 

We have roughly about $12,000 left to raise for us to be done with our fees, travel expenses, court expenses, etc. The Lord has been faithful in providing for us so far in this adoption process through fundraisers, donations, savings, etc. and we know that He will see us to the end. Your prayers and support are greatly needed and appreciated in this final year of our process. We are one day closer to bringing little K home from across the world! Yay!


Love you all!

Ryan and Megan











Monday, November 9, 2015

It's a Girl!

In celebration of World Adoption Day today, we figured it was the perfect time to share our latest India update with you guys!

It has been a long & exciting 4 months so here is a recap....

On July 24, we received "the call" with news from our agency that they had a referral for us. I (Megan) was actually away on a girls weekend so this news, although very exciting, did not come at the most opportune time (a.k.a. I was freaking out)! Our family coordinator, Elise shared some information about the child and told me she would send me the records. Ryan and I were shocked/excited/nervous/every emotion possible when we opened the email.

We had received a referral for a sweet, precious 3 yr old little GIRL!

Her picture immediately brought me to tears. I didn't know what to do in that moment other than cry. After communicating with Ryan via phone all weekend while I was away, I headed home so we could get to work. We were informed that same day that India's adoption authority (CARA) was putting some new guidelines into place in the near future for all international adoptions. This meant we had to act fast to secure our referral with India.

We had to immediately meet with doctors to review her medical files [shout out to Dr. Norris & Dr. Amos for working under such short timelines], talk with our family coordinator about what to do next, and pray A LOT for confirmation that this was the child that God would want in our family. After a crazy couple of days we accepted the referral on July 27.

We were so nervous on the days in between because we were ultimately choosing our child. It was a major decision, but one that was made evident by the Lord and we were filled with peace when we told our family coordinator, "yes, we accept this little girl." It was the hardest, but most precious few days that we had ever experienced because of how huge this decision was.

So you may ask, "what took so long for the announcement?" Well, we had to wait for her original documents from the orphanage and sign them before it became "official." Sounds easy right? Get the papers, sign them, move on......well after waiting about a month for these documents, we found out that they had been lost in the mail. Our family coordinator was actually planning a trip to India at the time, so she ended up retrieving the documents by hand and bringing them back with her. Hallelujah! We received them on October 16. 

Signed. Sealed. Delivered. >>>> Our dossier has been sent to India and we are now just waiting on our signed referral docs to come back from the Secretary of State from being apostilled. 

It is funny sometimes how God works to show us that He is present and to test our faith in Him. As most of you know we originally started in the Ethiopia program and with a big leap of faith, we switched to India. And then, with another big leap of faith we went with 1 female instead of 2 males. Everything has been the complete opposite of what we had planned, but that is why we are thankful that we rely on an Almighty God for all our decisions instead of relying on our own simple minds.

Thank you for reading and for keeping our daughter in your prayers!  We do not have a timeline yet on when we will get to bring her home, but we will be sure to update our blog when we find out!

Here's to #worldadoptionday !

Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. Psalm 63:3

To visit out fundraising site, click here. 

#worldadoptionday
pink packet for a GIRL!



 

 

Friday, June 19, 2015

We are APPROVED by India!

Hey guys!

Quick update on a couple of things......

We just got a call yesterday from our family coordinator at AWAA saying that CARA in India has looked over our home study and has approved us to adopt from their country! This is great news because now we can officially begin the search for our son or daughter-to-be!

Now we have to let AWAA know specific criteria we are looking for in a child. Once we do that, then our FC can begin looking on the CARA website each day to see if she can match us with a child or children!

When I mentioned specific criteria, that means we have to decide 1 or 2 children, boy or girl, age range, etc. This is especially difficult for us because we are so open to any child, so having to pin point is going to require a lot of PRAYER!

Good news is the India program doesn't really have a waiting list for referrals. This means that we could potentially be matched with a child or 2 by the end of the summer depending on if we find the right one.

It is so strange and foreign to us to think of searching for our child online like you would a house, but we are praying right now that God will make it known which child He wants for us. We are also praying for knowledge, patience, and peace. Easier said than done, I know! :)

So that is the update on the India progress! As for our fundraising efforts....we had a GREAT turn out last night at our Jamberry Adoption Fundraiser. Our online party will be available through midnight on June 23, so there is still time to order online! All proceeds are being donated to our adoption fund! Please check out the online store if you would like to help support us! Also - if you would like to host a Jamberry Nail Wrap Party with Melissa, 30% of all YOUR sales will donated back to our adoption as well.

Check out the online sale HERE!

A BIG thank you to all who came out last night and to Melissa for being such a generous & supportive friend!  :)

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Adoption Fundraiser feat. Jamberry Nail Wraps

YOU ARE INVITED!

Please check out our evite link below for our Jamberry Nail Wrap Adoption Fundraiser happening TOMORROW at 7pm! ALL proceeds from sales will go towards our India Adoption Fund!

http://evite.me/4T1EgBwmVS

Also - If you are interested in supporting our adoption, but you can't make it to the party, you can purchase the Jamberry Nail Wraps at our online store HERE. You can also donate to our Fundraising site HERE.

Thank You for all the love & support!!  




Wednesday, June 3, 2015

India Update!

Hi guys!

Sorry it has been SO long....we have a lot to catch you up on!

Here is an update on our progress with our India adoption:

We had to have our Home Study updated to reflect our switch to India. After a couple of months working with our social worker, Michele on getting the updated papers, we were approved (again) for 2 siblings (boy or girl) ages 0-6! Side Note: This 15 page Home Study gets typed up, reviewed by several people at America World, and finally gets mailed to us.

Now that the Home Study was good to go, our next step was to get registered with CARA.

What is CARA?
CARA (The Central Adoption Resource Authority) is the government organization in India that each adopting family must be registered and approved with in order to adopt a child from the country. 

Our family coordinator, Elise registered our family along with our Home Study to CARA on May 7. It typically takes CARA 8 weeks to approve a home study.

Exciting news is that once we are approved with CARA (hopefully by the end of June), then we are eligible to begin looking at and accepting referrals of children!!!!! Our family coordinator told us that as soon as we are approved with CARA, she will check each morning for a child or children that match our "requests." The way that she explained it to us was that CARA has a giant database that adoption agencies can access. The orphaned children have profiles on the database and agencies can search for children that match their waiting families requests (based on age, gender, special needs, etc).

Another piece of the puzzle that we have been working on is getting our I-800A application submitted to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). This application is a very important document that will allow us to bring international children into this country. This application process can take up to 2 months. Once we receive this, our dossier for India will be complete and ready to send.

As we wait we would especially LOVE your prayers....
  • Prayers for us to be approved with CARA (quickly)
  • Prayers that the child/children that God wants us to have will show up at just the right time on the CARA database.
  • Prayers that when we do receive a referral, that we will be content and at peace with the decision and not have a lot of confusion about "is this our child." We desperately want God to make it known to us when we see a child's face whether or not they are supposed to be a part of our family. 
  • Prayers that our USCIS app will come back quickly 
  • Prayers for fundraising projects, grants, and financial support
  • And most importantly that we are following God's will and doing what He wants us to do in all that we do. 
This crazy, long, stressful adoption process has actually been really fun since we started in March of last year. We can't think of anything we'd rather be doing besides what God has called us to do! We love seeing Him work in cool ways that you can only see when you are living by faith.

Whatever your life brings, I highly recommend living by faith and putting your trust in Him. As hard as it is to not be in control, it brings great rewards!

Thank you for taking the time to catch up with us!
 
To join our adoption efforts, please visit our online fundraising site here.

To check out an upcoming fundraiser event (for all ladies), click here.

Love,

Ryan & Megan

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Exciting News from INDIA!


Wow! It has been way too long since I (Ryan) have made a blog post. I hope everyone is doing well and having a great 2015 so far......Megan and I definitely are! However, it has been incredibly busy and lots of changes have been happening, hence the lack of blog posts.

The reason we started this blog was to fill everyone in on our adoption journey - what we are doing, where we are in the process, how the Lord is working, etc. We also started it to fill you guys in on some deeper, more personal things that the Lord is doing in our lives.

Well, here goes....

As many of you know, we started a 6-8 month paperwork process last March for our Ethiopian adoption. We FINALLY completed our dossier this past November. It was a lot of work with many frustrating days, but we saw the Lord working through it all. As much as we learned through the paperwork process, we couldn't wait to be through with it all. It took up a lot of time, patience, & money, but we knew that finishing it meant we were one step closer to being parents. We were so relieved when we heard that our dossier had made it safely all the way to Ethiopia. At that point, we simply began what was a predicted 36-48 month waiting process. The only thing left to do was pray for our children and wait for a referral. We faithfully did that.

Then came the month of December. Our adoption agency (America World) sent Megan an email regarding children in India that needed to be adopted. Megan brought this to my attention and mentioned that maybe the Lord was trying to tell us something. I laughed it off "knowing" Ethiopia was where we were supposed to adopt from. I thought nothing more about it (although I said from the get-go that I was willing to go and do whatever the Lord asked of me no matter how hard it was).

Well, a couple weeks later Megan mentioned that she received another email from our agency about the children in India desperately needing homes with no families in line to take them. To be a little transparent, my response was not at all Christ-like. I was frustrated that Megan would even bring it up again. However, she insisted that she felt the Lord tugging at her heart. She reminded me that we both said from the beginning that we would follow the Lord's lead. So, we agreed to pray about it and not discuss it the rest of the night (I am thankful for a faithful wife). In my head I wasn't buying it, though. Why? My mind was set on Ethiopia. It was what I wanted, not necessarily what the Lord wanted. I was simply being selfish. While I was frustrated, I knew I needed the Lord's help. I was scared and did not know why He would call us to Ethiopia only to lead us to India a year later!?

Well, here's the funny thing, and here's how amazing the Lord works. As I prayed about it that night, somehow, that very night my heart began warming up to the idea of India. It was very comforting, yet very confusing. Our agency had to have a decision by mid-January. Megan and I decided to pray daily about what we were supposed to do. We were faithful in that, yet as the month of January began, we had no idea. We loved both countries!

As the deadline approached, still no answers! In my spiritual journey, I am not sure I had ever been more confused. The night before we had to make a decision, we still had not made a decision. We prayed so hard and so honestly that night. The next morning (deadline day)......we still did not know, haha. Megan then called me at lunch, and the conversation was an emotional one. We both said our gut told us India even though it made no sense. We, then, laid everything out.........why India or why Ethiopia?

And this is the thought Christ put in my heart: The adoption process is a comparison of our relationship with Christ. We were completely and utterly helpless in our sins, yet Christ gave up everything He had in Heaven and adopted us into His family and considers us His children.

But here's the awesome thing - it doesn't matter who you are, where you came from, what color you are, what you have done, how bad you might have been, etc. Christ accepts you regardless. These emails were being sent to Megan because there was a desperate need for children to be adopted in India. While there is a major need for adoption in ALL countries, there was a need being met in Ethiopia with over 600 families currently in the program. The waiting list was, is, and will continue to be very long according to America World. However, the need for India was huge! No one is adopting these children.

So I thought about Christ adopting us. He has no preferences. He takes us in no matter what. I realized I needed to lay aside my prejudices and go with where the Lord was leading me. The more we talked, I could almost hear the Lord shouting, "INDIA! INDIA! INDIA!" Megan agreed, and she felt the Lord was telling her similar things along with some more personal reasons as to why she felt led to India. As the day went on, it was almost hilarious how the Lord started working. He confirmed our decision with several practical circumstances that arose.

With that being said - As of January 15, 2015, we are now officially in the India program! We still are requesting 2 siblings, age 0-6.

My mentor reminded me of the story of Joseph in how the Lord can take you in all sorts of directions to get you where He wants you. That is so true. You may ask, what now? Haha, well, we get to do our paperwork all over (fun stuff), as well as updating our home study, holding more fundraisers, and raising more funds! We know this may seem crazy and unrealistic, but we truly ask for your prayers as we get go through this transition. We trust the Lord led us to this point, and we trust He will provide for us. And when we weighed the pros and cons for switching, one of the cons was certainly a financial burden. Another one was repeating the paperwork. But the Lord led me back to the cross, and He said, "Remember what I did for you? I died for you." I have to pay more money? I have to do more paperwork? I am willing to "suffer" for my children. And please don't take this as me being "holier than thou." I take credit for none of this. It was clearly the Lord's doing.

We are now two months into the India process. But because there is such a great need for orphans to be adopted in India, the process is predicted to be much faster. Once we have an updated home study, we will be elligible for a referral and this could happen almost immediately with little-to-no wait time. We may know who our children are in India within the next few months!!! However, we may be looking at 8-14 months all-in-all for approval from the Indian government and travel time.

The Lord can do what He wants, and we trust His timing. Again, we just want to ask for your prayers. God is always good. His plan doesn't always make sense to us, but we know that His thoughts are not our thoughts, and His ways are not our ways.

Sorry for the lengthy post. Clearly just a lot of information. Love you guys.

To donate towards our adoption fund, please visit our fundraiser link here