Another Adventure!

Today I have to laugh at myself for getting all worked up over the last couple weeks over all the things we have going on the next few months. I took the time to pray this morning over them, and one by one, God has begun to answer. I don't understand why sometimes I don't pray first BEFORE I choose to get all worked up!

I suppose I should fill you in a little on what is going on =) We are well underway in the adoption process, homestudy is nearly complete (should be done by Friday!) which is a huge marker in the process because as soon as it is finished it will join all of our other documents in our Dossier and go to Ghana to await approval. When the Ghanaian government approves our Dossier, we will be given a court date at which to appear to receive our adoption decree, as long as the judge grants the adoption.

We received new pictures of our precious little boy yesterday, which was so exciting for us! We have had the same few pictures since March and have been wondering what he looks like now, after 6 months or so has gone by since the first pictures were taken. We even got a picture of him smiling which was so neat to see! He is beautiful, and Jeremey and I both are having the hardest time waiting to hold him. We are just beside ourselves with joy about the thought!

Here he is! His name is Akwasi Amoah, which we will be replacing with Akwasi Merrill. We are still deciding on a middle name....he will be turning three in August =) As far as it depends on us, our adoption is going as quickly as possible. We are told that the normal wait time for approval from Ghana is 90 days from the time the Dossier is submitted. We will be making our first trip around September (if all goes well) to go appear in court, visit the orphanage and get to meet our precious boy! We will stay for approximately 10 days, then come home while we wait 6-8 weeks for the U.S. Embassy in Ghana to approve his visa and clear him for travel to the U.S. I have a feeling that will be a hard 6-8 weeks of waiting!

A little bit about our adoption journey:
We have been talking about adopting again since about a year or so after we brought Rosie home in September of 2006. We always felt that we would adopt from Africa, no particular reason really, just something we felt. And it turned out that we don't qualify for many of the other countries because of our age, number of children, etc. so that kind of settled that!

Last summer we decided to apply to adopt from Ethiopia, so we put in our formal application, and were getting together paperwork when at the same time, Jeremey separated from the military in August. Without having a future job secured, we had to withdraw our application from Ethiopia because of not being able to prove sufficient income. At the time, we were a little discouraged but knew that God had his hand on the process and it must not have been the right time.

Fast forward to this March, in a three week time of prayer and fasting church-wide, we had lots of prayers we were searching for answers on during that time but on the top of the list was God's will for us in adopting again. On the Friday of the last week of the fast, we got an email from a photolisting agency who had just posted a picture and information on an African boy. So out of curiosity, I clicked the link and logged in, which I hadn't done in nearly a year since we had been looking before, and here was this adorable little boy named Akwasi Amoah from Ghana, 2 years old, which was the age we had talked about considering.  I immediately called Jeremey and sent him the information, should I call the agency and ask about him? To which he replied, yes, call them and yes find out more about him and if we qualify for adopting from Ghana. Well, I called the agency and was still holding onto some pessimism because I figured if he had made it onto that photolisting, he probably had some severe special needs of some sort that maybe they hadn't described on the listing. (usually if children are "waiting" children, they have special needs) It turned out that a small cut on his head had gotten infected and bumped him up to the waiting child list. Ok....good news. And we met EVERY single requirement for adopting from Ghana. Ok....wow!

So I called Jeremey back and we decided to pray again and start the paperwork to adopt him. We started the training, and our homestudy process immediately. We are aware that we will meet some challenges, bringing home a 3 year old boy, of a different race, disrupting the birth order of our home. These are all things we had to consider, and pray about our willingness to handle the challenges we may face. But God has been so good to remind us (and specifically remind me because I keep asking!) that we can handle all things through Him who gives us strength and He will equip us along the way just as He always does!

We are thrilled and it becomes more of a reality with every day. Much like when your belly grows while you are pregnant and all of a sudden you realize, "oh my goodness there is going to be another baby joining our family forever soon!" I can't wait to hold him, to welcome him home, and to see all four of our children playing together. What an amazing journey God has given us, that we are so privileged to be a part of.