It's a Girl !

It's a 6 year old girl at that! Yup! Remember in my last post that I told you I was hoping to inform you of some details soon? Well, here it is!

When we switched to the Uganda program, we knew we were changing to specifically pursue adopting this one girl. Well, on Monday our agency extended the "official referral" to us of this sweet, sweet little 6 yr old girl. (Sounds official, huh?) All that means is that we were able to review her entire file and decide if we wanted to proceed with adopting her or not. This is NOT a decision to be taken lightly, so we took a couple of days to really fast and pray about it. And today, I'm happy to announce .... WE SAID YES!! We would love to adopt this precious child!

So what's next ? Well, the Ugandan lawyer begins to process what is called an Affidavit. We then compile our Dossier - the remainder of the International paperwork (so backwards from every other country). That won't take long. It's a really short Dossier, and because we were already finished with our entire Dossier for Ethiopia, hopefully we already have whatever it is they will ask us for. (Each Dossier is different. They will ask different families for different things.) At that point, they file for a court date. We will have 2-4 weeks notice once the date is appointed, and we go! There will be two trips of 7-10 days, and only about two weeks in between the two trips. Because of this, we are praying about the possibility of me (Jody) staying in country the entire time (3-5 weeks total).

Unfortunately, I can't give any more details about her over the Internet right now. But the story of how God has worked in our hearts to lead us to her is a story I can't wait to tell. As for her story, well - we can't wait to find out more of her story, and graft her into ours. We are in awe that out of 150 million (give or take 10 million) Orphans in the world, God is leading us to this one.

We could use your prayers in several ways.
1) For her little heart. May she receive with excitement the news of being placed in a family - in our family. Pray that the feelings of confusion and loss are pushed aside as she instead feels the freedom to once again feel the hope of love, and family, and acceptance.
2) Pray for all of our hearts as we prepare to make room for one more in our family. There are of course a lot of practicalities that need to take place before she comes home as well - so you can pray for endurance for us all as we move rooms, sort clothes, paint walls, etc ... Pray especially for our 4 kids now, that they would grow in selflessness, as they will have to share Dad and Mom with one more little one.
3) And finally, please pray that her paperwork would be processed quickly, and that we would be able to bring her home THIS SUMMER before Court closures. Similar to Ethiopia, Ugandan courts shut down for a month or two. This happens usually from July to August ... but it could happen as early as June (and still last through August). Oh how I remember being in this same exact place of wondering if we'd squeeze in before court closures with Malachi. We didn't - and it was really, really hard for me. So I'm already praying for an extra measure of grace if we don't make it again this time.

This is all happening so fast, and yet we see the hand of God over every detail. We can't thank Him enough for his work, and are beyond blessed that He's entrusting us with one more life. We do not deserve such gifts, this I know.