Here We Go

We just received word that the government in Tobi's country is accepting paperwork in just 2 short weeks! They are opening back up a month early to accept submission of dossiers! We had hoped for this, but with everything going on in Russia, were truly not sure that it would actually happen. Today the request was signed and registered to make it official! We are one month closer to rescuing our boy from hopelessness to bring him into our family! What does this mean? It means that in the next week we are scrambling to get the last piece of our dossier in Tobi's country to get translated and then ready to be submitted as soon as it is possible! There are no given dates at this point, there is no such thing as a true timeline. That said, we have watched the last several families and have somewhat of a pattern hat we can unofficially go on. If we are submitted when we hope to be, we will be granted a travel date by around mid February. Typically there is 1-2 weeks notice before our actual travel time. That given, we are planing to travel mid to end of February. That leaves us less than 2 months to get just under $20,000. Wow, that is scary!!! We have seen God move in amazing ways already. I have been amazed at the generosity that has been shown to us. Every bit has meant so much to us. It is not easy for us to ask for help. But we cannot do this on our own. This is for our boy. We need to raise his ransom and we do not have much time to do it. Would you donate to Tobi's grant? We receive 100% of all money given through the donate button on the right side of this blog. It is tax deductible. You have 1 more day to get it in for this tax year. Please consider what you might be able to give. I am not sure how God is going to meet this need, I just know that we must be faithful. If you have already given, please know that it means the world to our family. It means the world to a little boy that has NO idea what family means. It means a future and a hope that he would not have without a family. We have been blown away by the many people who have given already. It is strange to be on this side of the giving, but God has truly blessed us.


2 Corinthians 8:8-14

⁸ I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. ⁹ For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

¹⁰ And here is my judgment about what is best for you in this matter. Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. ¹¹ Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. ¹² For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.

¹³ Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality.¹⁴ At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. 

Merry Christmas

As we celebrate our Christmas Eve and ready things for morning, I cannot help but think of our Tobi tonight. A lot. We sat behind a family with a baby boy that looked about Tobi's age and as everyone sang Christmas carols, it was all I could do to hold myself together. I looked at that sweet baby boy and wondered if anyone will hold our boy tomorrow. Will someone whisper in his ear, tell him that he is loved? Sadly, I think he will probably lay in the same crib as every other day. It is so hard to be happy knowing that he is spending his first Christmas alone. I am so thankful that we found him while he is so young. So many others have spent many Christmas' alone. My heart hurts for them. I am thankful that this time next year our Tobi will be home. He will be getting matching jammies and there will be another candle on Jesus' birthday cake. His stocking will hang with the others and there will be a few more gifts under our tree. Better yet, there will be a little boy in my arms to keep quiet in the Christmas Eve service. As you celebrate this joyous season surrounded by friends and loved ones, would you do me a favor? Will you think of our Tobi and the many other children all alone and say a prayer for them?

Joy to the World?

Christmas has always been my favorite time of year. The colors, the lights, the happiness, the cuddly jammies, giving gifts... I love it all. But this year has been very different. I am struggling. Badly. For a couple of reasons. I am torn. Torn between being present and active in our family, making memories, experiencing the magic of this season with my children and knowing that one of our children is a half a world away, unaware that we are out here, doing our best to get to him as quickly as possible. He is spending his very first Christmas in the same crib that he has spent everyday of his life. It is as if someone were to take one of my 5 and tell me they will keep them in a room and give them the minimum they need to survive for an undetermined amount of time, just go on with your life. I would not be expected to just be okay with that. I never understood how hard this part would be. I just did not understand the reality of the love felt for a child one has never met. I cannot explain it myself, I only know it is true. I am trying to trust God and find a balance. I have been blessed with 5 amazing children. They know genuine from fake, and so things are a little different this year. We are surrounded by pictures of orphans, we pray for them by name. We are focusing much less on the giving and getting of Christmas and much more on doing and caring. I cannot bring every one of these lost ones home. Oh how I wish we could. What we can do is make sure that they are prayed for and cared about. We will build the gingerbread house like we do every year. This year we will pray for those children that do not have homes as we do it. We decorate the tree, but along with all the regular ornaments, there are photos of children that we as a family are praying for. We will go Christmas caroling as we do each year. This time we will try harder to focus on those we visit, instead of just the fun we have with our friends. We will be together, our hearts broken for those that are alone. I think that might be what Christmas is supposed to be about. He came to seek and to save the lost. That IS the JOY.

It Is Finished...Almost

Here it is. THIS is our dossier (pronounced doss E ay).

 This is the paperwork that we have spent the last 2 months gathering, notarizing, and getting apostilled. I remember opening that first email from our stateside parent facilitator that contained the list of documents to complete this. By the time I opened the three attachments full of instructions and documents we would need, I was in shock. Truly, I closed the email and sat there stunned. We were sure that God had called us to do this. We were NOT sure that we could pull it off. I fell back on God's promise to give us the grace and peace that we need when we needed it. I will not lie, there were times I wanted to scream and cry and pull my hair out. But, even then, God was faithful. We did one thing at a time. Not long after we really dug our feet in, determined to get it done, we realized that it was not as bad as it looked. We were glad that our initial fears did not turn us away from our calling. I am so thankful that we had Tobi to work toward. God gave me a fierce love for our little boy almost immediately. I did not expect it nor did I understand it. Looking back, I think that love is what drove us on. So, this is it. The majority of it is headed to another family that will be traveling to Tobi's country to meet their own little one. A few pages had to be corrected but are ready to go to the next family that travels. So, what comes next? We are waiting for USCIS to issue an appointment for fingerprinting. As soon as the fingerprints clear, we should have our approval within 48 hours. That is all that we are waiting on at this point. It will be apostilled and will be on its way to Tobi's country as soon as we have it. Once the team there has the complete dossier, they will submit our request to adopt to Tobi's government. We will then wait to be given an appointment to meet with them ourselves. At that appointment, we will learn about our boy. His birth name, true birthdate, his birth story, his family history, his medical files. At that time, we will accept his file and be given permission to meet him in person. Once we meet him, we can officially accept him and begin the process of his adoption. We will stay in his country usually about 10 days (sometimes a bit longer) until we are granted a court date. He will remain in his orphanage during this process, but we will be given visitation. Typically 1 hour morning and night, although it is left to the director to set those times. We will be granted custody at the court date, but there is a 10 day wait before it takes effect. During that time, we will probably come home. We will take that time to get things ready for him and get ready to bring him home. One or both of us will go back at the end of the mandatory wait to chase paper. It will then FINALLY be gottcha day. We will get him out of there once and for all. It will take a few more days to gather what we need to bring him into the US, but he will remain with us during that time. 

It Is Time For an Update

Here we are, 7 weeks since we requested a homestudy and began the process of officially committing to Tobi (Fletcher on Reece's Rainbow). It has been an interesting journey so far, filled with many emotional highs and lows. Our homestudy has been almost done for several weeks, waiting on one child abuse and neglect clearance from the state of Michigan. Every other state came back, even those sent out much later. We were getting ready to send out a second request, assuming it had been lost somewhere along the way. We took a quick trip to Michigan to visit family for Thanksgiving. While we were there, we called a contact that we had in the local DHS office and asked if there was a way we could do it quickly while we were in town. They said to come down and fill out a new form and they would do their best. The next morning, we got a call that they were done and we could pick them up. We scanned a copy and sent it to our social worker and she was able to get everything final. We returned from our trip on Saturday and received our finalized homestudy on Monday! Just like that, it is done! One copy is being routed through the must stops, on its way to USCIS, where it will be united with our I600a application. That will grant us permission to bring Tobi into the country and will make him a citizen as soon as the airplane lands! Two more copies get put into our dossier (the official package of paperwork that will be presented to Tobi's government). It feels like we have been flying nonstop for weeks to get this set of paperwork finished. Suddenly we are finished. All the busy work is complete and I find myself obsessing about very silly things. We decorated for Christmas this week and the fact that there is an empty spot where Tobi's stocking belongs breaks my heart. I have been searching frantically to find him one that matches the other kids'. I have been in tears because I could not find it, after literally hours of scouring stores and the internet. If we were not saving every penny, I would replace them all so they can match. I know it is more important to get him home than for him to have a stocking that matches everyone else's right now. There will be time to figure that out next year. But that empty spot threatens to rip out my heart. It is a very visual reminder that he is missing. It is strange how a little person that we have never met can have such a definite, almost tangible place in our hearts and our family. I pray often through the day that he will somehow know that we are out here, working our hardest to get to him. That we love him dearly and that he has reason to hope, and to hang on.

Would you pray with us that his orphanage would be protected from illness during this season. Sickness in these children, so weak already, can get very bad very quickly.

"This is MY Hudson"

Would you watch this video?

And now would you act? Have you considered saving one that is precious but lost? You can see so many waiting children at http://reecesrainbow.org/new-family/thechildren. They wait for someone to be moved to act.

If that is not where you are being called, would you help us? This is OUR son. Would you please help us get to him? Would you help us spread the word? 

 Would you help us call the body of Christ to be His hands and His feet. We are doing everything that we can think of to get our boy home. Would you help us get to him?

Orphan Sunday

Today is the day. Orphan Sunday. The church's attempt to highlight the need of orphans. Our church joined with many others across the country and even the world to bring to light the plight of so many children without families. The ones that so often go forgotten. Now what? The day is over. Will we go on rushing through our busy lives choosing to forget? Can we see and not act? We are God's hands and feet. We have been given a great responsibility to care for the widows and the orphans. The most vulnerable. Orphan Sunday is a good start, but those children will still be orphans tomorrow. Those children need to be fed, held, and cared for more than once a year. Tobi and the many many like him will wake up tomorrow and stare at the same crib bars and drab walls as they have all their lives. Many of them have never experienced life outside of one room. They do not hope for a better life because they do not have any idea that any other exists. God has given us, as His followers, the responsibility to care for them. We are failing them. The question is, what are you going to do? Are you going to continue on with life tomorrow? Will you research ways to help? It may not look the same for everyone. Some of us are called to open our arms. Others are called to research and truly pray for the great needs. Others are given positions to advocate for the helpless. Others still have the means to support and encourage families like ours who are adopting or those that have already opened their arms. Each of us, with many different gifts, in so many areas need to do our part. One day a year is not enough. Orphan Sunday is over. What are you going to do tomorrow? 

PLEASE don't forget! 

I challenge you to look through the many faces of waiting children listed on Reece's Rainbow. Even if you cannot bring one home, you can pray over them. You can advocate for them. You can care about them. You can find them here. 

We have been so blessed to have a church family to come along side us. They are there to encourage and pray for us. It has meant so much to our family. To know that our church cares about and is praying for our boy and us as we go through this process to bring him home means so much. If you know a family going through adoption, would you encourage them? Would you pray for them and let them know that you support them. This is truly a spiritual battle. Would you hold them up as they fight? The support from our friends and family has made a world of difference for us.

If you'd like to give to help us meet the great financial cost of ransoming our son, you can press the donate button on the top right of this page. Every bit helps! If you do give,  please send me an email at bringmehometobi@gmail.com with your address so we can send you a wrist band and a big thank you!