We are officially on the wait list at number 73!!! We have waited long and worked hard for this day to arrive and it is finally here! So now we breath. Now we wait.
This number essentially means there are 72 other families ahead of us waiting for their referral. Each month our number should change. We will go down the wait list as other families receive their referrals. We will keep you updated each month as we move closer to number one!
What happens when we get to front of the line? We will then receive our referrals. We will be sent the names, pictures, and stories of the two children our adoption agency has matched to our family. Once we officially accept those referrals we will be off of the wait list and moving forward to bring those 2 specific children home!
We are in the Advent season. I have been daily reflecting on the mystery and glory of God coming to earth. Of the fact that he did. Marveling at the powerful way that he came. But mostly praising him for all that is means for me- for us- for this world.
HE CAME.
He promised his people that he would and they WAITED.
They HOPED.
They LONGED for HIS COMING.
And- HE CAME.
I am pausing this December to remember his coming. I am quieting my soul to listening for what he wants me to know about His first coming and what he wants me to know as I wait for his return. We are pausing in a season of waiting and anticipation. How fitting that we should be placed on our agencies wait list now. We wait. We hope. We anticipate these little children coming. As I remember the Child who came.
Abraham and Sarah waited for a child. They waited long for the promise of God to be fulfilled. I imagine their hearts ached and I imagine Sarah lost hope. But "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise…" (2 Peter 3:9)
He fulfilled his promise with a child. Isaac- meaning "he laughs". He filled their longings and proved himself faithful. He filled them with joy after the hard of the waiting.
And when Jesus- The Child- came, the earth was filled with this joy- all of our longings were satisfied and God indeed proved himself faithful.
Ann Voskamp puts it this way:
"we who were barren now graced with the Child who lets us laugh with relief for all eternity. There is nothing left to want. There is nothing left to fear."
Because this Child came in the stillness of the night in the little town of Bethlehem I can "laugh with relief for all eternity".
As we wait for our little ones from Ethiopia we remember that "God is not slow in keeping his promise…" We wait in hope and in anticipation. We quiet our hearts and focus on the Child who has made all things new, the Child who brings hope to the world, the Child who came after the wait.
Our dossier is GONE! We mailed it two days ago to the "Assistant Stork." This is a courier service that will carry it to the Ethiopian Embassy in D.C. and the Department of State in D.C. to be authenticated. Then this courier will mail the authenticated dossier to our Agency in Michigan. We expect it to be in Michigan within the next 2 weeks. Then we will go on our agencies' wait list. I feel like I can stop and just breathe and rest.
What does the next phase of our adoption journey look like? Well, we will be on the wait list and waiting for our referral. We cannot say with any amount of certainty when we will receive a referral but our hope will be for a referral sometime this coming summer.
In the meantime, we will be reading books on adoption preparing both our hearts and lives for our new little ones. We will be doing a few fund raising projects. We will be continuing in prayer.
Thank you for your prayers and for joining us on this journey! We are grateful!
Hi friends! We have been moving along steadily in the "gathering documents" phase of this adoption journey! What seemed never-ending only a short while ago is actually coming to a close. The end of this paper chase is in sight! We hope to have our Dossier completed and sent off this coming week! Since we last updated we have received our fingerprint appointment from the US government. Then just one week after being fingerprinted we received our approval letter from the US government! We could not move forward with our Dossier for the Ethiopian government without this approval, so the past week has been spent finalizing details in our Dossier. Through our agency we have an online portal that we find a running checklist of each step of the process. As we complete tasks on our end we are able to upload documents for our agency to approve and then each task is virtually checked off on our portal. Over the past week almost all of the 30 tasks for this phase haven been checked off and approved! With each new day and each task complete I feel a weight removed from my shoulders! We have been anticipating this time for months! We are thrilled for it to finally be here!
This coming week we will head to FED EX to send off our Dossier. We will send it to a special courier called "The Assistant Stork". This courier will deliver our dossier to both the Ethiopian Embassy and the Department of State in Washington D.C. Our dossier will be "authenticated" at both of these places. (honestly I really don't know what this entails) Once "authenticated" the courier will send the completed and authenticated dossier to our Agency in Michigan! Once we have paid the fees owed at this time we will go on our agencies wait list!
Going onto the wait list will begin the next phase of this journey for us- the WAIT.
What are we waiting for? We are waiting for a referral. There are many other families on our agencies wait list. As families are referred children we move closer to number 1 on the list. Our agency knows our guidelines for the children we are adopting and they know the children who are in need of families and connected to the orphanages our agency works with in Ethiopia. When we get to the top of the wait list they will match two children with our family. When they feel they have identified the children just right for our family they will send us the "referral." We will then know their names, see their faces (via email) and know their stories. This is what we will be WAITING for starting next week!
Thank you all for joining us on this journey! Please continue to pray for us! Pray our documents are in order and delivered quickly and without incident. Please pray for provision for the coming financial needs. We have a very large payment due before we can go on the wait list. Please pray for our children- both here and in Ethiopia. Please pray that God would continue to show us more of himself through this process and that others who are following this journey would see him as well!
We read this book for a second time as we waited for approval letters. It proved to be as challenging and inspiring the second time as it was the first! If you have not read this- I highly recommend!
Mailing documents to the U.S. government!
Seeking his face each day. Drawing close to him and relying on his strength. And on a side note- beginning a coffee habit. :-)
Receiving letters from the U.S. government!
Getting state seals on documents
The result of 6 months work- gathering and detailing these documents!
We are hoping to have some exciting news regarding our adoption process later this week! We hope to be moving forward (finally) in some of our paperwork steps! Check back soon and we will share as soon as we can!
While we wait I wanted to share with you a bit of what I am processing in this season of my life. I am re-reading the book "The Hole in our Gospel" by Richard Stearns. If you have not read this book- please get a copy today and read it. As I read it a second time I am more convinced and convicted regarding our call as believers to live more radical, compassionate, and justice focused lives.
The book this week references Ezekiel 16:49:
"Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy."
Most of you reading this have some ideas that come to mind when we hear of the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. It has been taught in churches and referenced in culture. Most of us think of grievous sexual sin, and while that is true, read again what God says is the sin of that wicked nation. They were arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned. They did not help the poor and needy. A city known for it's wickedness and the destruction that came as a result is a city that is arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned, and they did not care for the poor or needy.
As I read these words thousands of years later I am haunted by the truth they speak of the very country I call my own. But more than speak to this country, I tremble at how truthfully they speak of the Church in America. Us. We- who call ourselves followers of Jesus. Me.
The "Hole in the Gospel" argues that the Church in America has reduced the Gospel- the Good News of Jesus Christ- to a sort of "fire insurance". We have taken this message with words only. We have taken it to people with eternity only in mind while ignoring (or at least disregarding) their current state of suffering and despair. We have failed to live the "Whole" Gospel as Jesus did. Proclaiming a truth that has the power to redeem this entire world order. This "Whole Gospel" has always been meant to save people for eternity and redeem their circumstances right here and now. Jesus' life on earth demonstrates this with every healing, with every move of justice, and with the compassion he demonstrated for hurting people.
I believe the church has (along with reducing the Gospel to "fire insurance") become complacent and has increasingly believed the lies of this world and subtly and slowly started to blur the lines between people of faith and the world surrounding us. We have been numbed to the pain of the world and told lies concerning our responsibility in it. Generations have been brought up believing the lies of the American Dream. And generations of church-going people have been told that this is also for them. Generations of church-going people have been taught politics and religion as if they are one in the same, as if America and it's values and concerns are and should be the primary concerns of the people of God.
"The first Reformation..... was about creeds; this one's going to be about deeds."
~ Rick Warren
As I read this book for the second time I am more convinced that God is calling his people to repentance and action. The words of the prophet Ezekiel should cut to our hearts. Arrogant. Overfed. Unconcerned.
Arrogant.
Overfed.
Unconcerned.
Church- we need to repent. We need to ask God to show us our arrogance, our indulgence, and our lack of concern. We need to ask for mercy and forgiveness and we need to ask him to begin to break our hearts with the things that break his.
I am no longer content to go about life acting as if the world isn't hurting. As if I can't do something. As if my petty discomforts take precedent over the lost, hurting, and dying in this world. What Jesus calls us to is radical. Following him means sacrifice, compassion, justice, and surrender.
I have recently been led to learn more about a country in Africa called the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is a dark and horribly violent country. People are being killed, raped, and tortured by a number of rebel groups from within their own country and from surrounding countries. 6 million people have been violently slaughtered since 1996. Countless more women and children raped and abused. The US government has known and effectively done nothing. The UN has known and done nothing. The world knows now and is doing nothing. I watched a 26 minute video yesterday detailing the DRC's situation. It was very difficult to watch. I wanted to turn it off continuously through the 26 minutes. I wanted to walk away and pretend I had never seen it. But then I remembered that real people are living this horror right now. Real parents watch (or have watched) their children murdered in front of them. Real children have watched their mothers raped in front of them. Real families live in fear of this right now. I had to sit in air conditioned safe home and watch 26 minutes of the lives of other people- real people.
And I was broken. It was far from comfortable. But I had asked God to begin to break my heart with the things that break his. I had asked him to break my complacency. And he is doing that.
Because I believe that God is compassionate, he is just, and he loves deeply every soul suffering in the hell of the DRC. I believe in the room lined with orphan babies- silent because they have learned in the first months of their life that crying gains nothing- he is there. His heart aches. I believe he sees the injustice and hears the cries of his people. And I also believe he has purposed and called his people to be his hands and feet. He has called us to:
"Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked."
Psalm 82:3,4
As the 26 minutes came to a close I felt overwhelmed. What could I possibly do in the face of such widespread violence in a country across the world? I am still (and will continue) to seek answers to that question. I do believe that each of us can do something.
The DRC is one example of suffering and pain in this world. One place where the Gospel of hope can bring life and power and can turn upside down the current order of things. But the world is full of this need. It is full of pain, suffering, and injustice.
I believe that the church in America (with all of it's resources and influence) can be and must be a part of God redeeming work in this world. I believe God is calling the church to a reformation. But this reformation must begin with individual followers of Jesus.
Each of us must ask God to "break our hearts with the things that break his."
And then ask him "What are you calling me to?"
Here is the video I watched yesterday. This video is not for children as it describes extreme violence and shows the devastating effects of it.
Hi friends. We are getting closer. Our paperwork is slowly and I mean s.l.o.w.l.y. coming to the end. We are waiting for our final homestudy draft. Our social worker has emailed twice this week with 2 different drafts. She told us yesterday that she hopes for the final one to be complete today! (for those of you where this is just a bunch of adoption lingo all blurring together- the written home study is a 18-20 page report on our family after the visits our social had with us and reviewing a bunch of paperwork we turned in) If it is completed today she will email a copy to our Adoption Agency in Michigan. They will review it and if satisfactory they give our social worker (here in Minnesota) the green light to mail us a notarized official copy!
As soon as that is in our hands we mail out our USCIS packet to the U.S. Government!
Would you pray today?
Would you pray for speed.
Pray that we would not need any revisions.
Pray for our social worker here in Minnesota and our agency in Michigan.
Pray for us that we can have all documented paperwork correct and ready for the second our home study is in our hands.
Today I will be putting together all of the paperwork I have had ready for months. I will be calling our agency to make sure everything is as it should be with what I have done. I will be getting a mailer and addressing it to the government office where it will be sent.
Sophie asks me pretty regularly if I am praying for a miracle. I guess I do pray for miracles pretty regularly. Today I ask you all to keep praying for miracles in this adoption process.
I have prayed from the beginning of this whole process that we would be done with our paperwork by the end of September.
I am still praying this.
But it would be a miracle.
Thankfully I know the God of all Creation - who daily works miracles. Every step of this process as been nothing short of miraculous.
After the USCIS paperwork goes out (praying by early next week!) then we will have 2 of our 3 main steps in our paperchase done!
After we get our approval from the U.S. government we can send off our Ethiopian Dossier!
Then we can breathe.
Then we can wait.
Thank you friends for joining us on this journey. Thank you for praying us through this and for coming alongside of us in so many ways.
We are grateful.
As I type this Levi is talking to Dan about "when his babies come home".....
"For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are those who wait for him!"
Isaiah 30:18
There are a few phases of the adoption process. The first is the paper chase. I have spoken of the details here before. It is a laborious and tedious part of the process. We are in this process now. The second phase is a waiting phase. After all of your paperwork is submitted and sent to the appropriate officials both here and in Ethiopia we go on a wait list with other families who are being matched by our adoption agency. During this phase you wait. You can still fund raise and pray and prepare in some ways but as far as the logistical work of the adoption process you are waiting. Waiting for a referral, where you will see your child's precious face and then waiting to go meet them and then waiting again to bring them home forever!
We are in the final stages (hopefully) of the paper chase. We have been gathering documents, filling our paperwork, and meeting with social workers for the past 3 months. As I have mentioned before the three main things we are working on are:
1. Homestudy
2. USCIS (US Government packet)
3. Ethiopian Dossier
We have done everything we can for the home study and are now waiting on our social worker to essentially write up the official document. This is an 18-20 page report detailing everything she learned about our family and making determining if we are fit to adopt.
We cannot send in the USCIS packet without the home study.
We cannot send in the Ethiopian Dossier without the home study and US approval.
So, we wait.
We wait with an unseen burden of work undone resting on our shoulders. I feel this burden probably most in our family. I have paperwork that needs finalized and notarized. I have steps to take to send in certain documents and wait on others. I have State Seals to get and confirmations to receive.
We wait with the burden of our sweet children (mainly Levi) asking each day, many times a day, "When are our brother and sister going to get here?" "When is 'next year'?" "Can we buy that for our new babies?" "When our babies get here- they can sit 'here' and 'here'." And our answer continually being "I don't know sweet heart." "I hope soon"
We wait with the burden of 2 of our children somewhere else. Maybe born. Maybe in another mother's womb. We wait wondering, "Are they okay?" "Are they safe?" "Are they being shown love?" We wait praying for faces and hearts not yet known to us. We wait with urgency for our children to be "orphans no more".
As my mind ponders these things. As I bear the burden of these things my gracious and compassionate God speaks promises to me. He reminds me of truths I know and truths that I can cling to and rest in.
"Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens."
Psalm 68:19
"Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ears too dull to hear."
Isaiah 59:1
"Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!"
Isaiah 30:18
For the Lord is a God of justice. He has shown us over and over again his heart for and defense of the fatherless in this world. He has called us to join him, in his work, of defending the cause of the fatherless and making orphans sons and daughters. It is HIS work. His plans will stand. He is a God of justice. Who is working even when I sleep and who is moved by the cry of all forgotten and oppressed and he is even moved by me in my impatience and small burdens.
So I wait on him. So I trust in his purpose and his plan. I believe in his love for, his compassion for our children. I believe he is working all things together for their good.
Prayer Requests:
1. Will you pray for our home study to be done and in our hands this week?
2. Will you pray that we can be done with our paperwork by the end of September?
3. Will you pray that each step would be uncomplicated and fast?
My sister's facebook status this morning said this:
Praying for my future nieces and/or nephews in Ethiopia today!
And it included this picture:
So many thoughts come to mind when I see this picture and when I read her status. First, I love my sister! Second, I hope others who have bought these bracelets are praying too when they look at their wrists- praying for the man or woman who made the bracelet in Haiti and praying for our children in Ethiopia, their birth parents, and us as we navigate through this journey to adoption.
But mostly when see the status and the picture it is a reminder of a real people and difficult circumstances somewhere across the globe. In the craziness of this adoption process and the other daily distractions in our lives it is easy to lose sight of this reality: we either have now, or will have soon children that we do not yet know living apart from us in another part of this world. Children that will one day be deeply known to us, children we will one day cuddle and read books to at night, children we may teach to walk, children we will pick up when they fall and laugh at the funny things they will say.
If our children are not yet born their birth parents are and living today. They could be facing deeply painful circumstances and decisions at this moment. Adoption is born out of tragedy. Orphans are not God's plan they are one of the many devastating results of a fallen and broken world. So, I feel it is safe to assume our children's first parents are facing painful and hard things.
It is a helpless feeling to think that I have children somewhere else in the world facing hard things. The pain they possibly are facing losing their first parents is heartbreaking to me as I sit across the world unable to comfort or help.
The only thing I can do is pray, because while I do not know what my children or their birth parents are going through- my God does. They are deeply known and cared for by him.
We are learning so much about trust as we walk through this. We are trusting the Lord for his provision financially, for strength, and we are trusting him to care for our children in Ethiopia.
So, we pray and we ask that you would join us in praying for our children and their birth parents. Pray that they would be safe and protected, pray that they would be loved and nurtured. Pray for their birth parents- that they would know the Lord and feel peace even in their hardest moments. And maybe pray for us- that we would be brought to our children soon and continue to have what we need persevere and finish the race!
"Listen to me, O House of Jacob, all you who remain of the house of Israel, you whom I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you."
We first watched this video clip a few years ago. It left a lasting impression on us and challenged us in many ways. Take a minute to watch for yourself. Be sure to push the pause button on the music bar at the top of the blog before you push play on the video. :-)
Hi friends! You have probably noticed by now that we have added music to the blog! I have created a play list of songs that have been encouraging to us as we have followed God in this adoption journey! The controls for the songs are along the top of the blog. You can pause it at anytime if the music is distracting while you read. If you would like to see and hear the other songs you can skip forward to the next song at anytime from that same tool bar along the top. If you would like to see the full play list push the little square with the lines in it to the left side of the tool bar along the top and you can see the entire play list. Enjoy!
Our adoption journey began with a simple step of faith. We had sensed God's call in our lives to adopt for around 2 years. We waited, prayed, considered, read, prayed, read some more and finally we knew it was time to act. When we began to walk forward on what we knew to be God's very clear call we did so with very little means of our own, financially or otherwise. We saved the amount due for the formal application. That was it. We believed God was calling us to this task and we believed he would provide. Then before our application could be officially processed we were told the first payment (and a few other misc. costs) of around $3,000 dollars would be due as well. My heart sank and basically I started to panic. What?! Where in the world would we get $3,000? Days before I was full of faith, believing in God's provision and at the first payment due I panicked.
I realized quickly that the walk of faith began the moment we said yes to this call and I had better start living that way and believing in his provision. So I prayed. I prayed for a miracle. I fully believed God could drop a check on the counter (though I think he is usually more creative and surprising than that!) and I also began asking him what could we do while we waited for a miracle. What could we sell? What odd jobs could we do?
Exactly 2 days after I first prayed this prayer, God answered. Dan had missed a phone call from a close family member the week prior. They finally got a hold of him 2 days after I prayed for the miracle to let him know that if we ever considered adoption they wanted to help. Dan let them know we actually were adopting! They asked what did we need at that moment, Dan told them, and they gave generously exactly what we needed!
God had already worked in their hearts before we even knew we had a need. This couple had talked weeks earlier, they had tried to call Dan the week before! He had already answered my prayer with a miracle before I even asked.
He is good. What He does is Good. What God calls us to he equips us for.
Since that time another loving family member called asked what exactly we needed at that moment and generously gave just as we needed it.
As throughout the entire adoption process there are always current financial needs/deadlines. While we wade through paperwork, paperwork related tasks, and other family commitments the financial deadlines creep up on us.
We are doing one small fundraiser now and selling things on craigslist and saving from our regular income but adoption is expensive and stretches us still.
I started to feel a little anxious over the course of the past week. We had a deadline for our final home study payment. Our homestudy cannot be completed and turned over to us until this payment is met. We cannot move forward with any other part of the process until we have the homestudy. So how do I respond? Even after seeing God provide miraculously for every financial need thus far? Anxiety, fear, a bit of panic.
In spite of my sin- my lack of faith- how does God respond?
This week a different close family member hands us a check for the exact amount due to our homestudy agency for the finalization of our home study!
I am humbled and amazed once again. I am thinking on God's provision this week and my own lack of faith.
Before we began our adoption journey I believed that the entire process was going to be a deeply growing season for us and that we were going to see God move and work in our lives and the lives of others in ways that we had never known before. I anticipated these things because of the witness of the other families I had followed as they went through their own adoption journeys and answered God's call.
I also believe that adoption is for the whole Church. I believe God desires to use all followers of Jesus to meet the needs of the orphan. I think that in his creative plan he has different roles for how each member of the body does this. Most of us can sponsor children financially. All of us can pray for the orphan. All of us can educate ourselves on the lives of orphans world wide. Many can foster children. Some adopt and others help them adopt.
We are getting to see his beautiful plan for including others in the adoption of our future children. God will include many of his people to bring these 2 little ones into our family- not just us. I don't think it was ever in his plan for it to be, just us. His people work beautifully together to bring his little ones into families.
I believe that we are going to see God supply us with everything we need to follow him. I pray that at the end of this journey we are people of deeper faith. I pray that we begin to live in such a way that we anticipate God's provision and are not continually surprised by it!
Each answer to prayer, each financial need met, every area of growth in our own hearts, remind us of his purpose in all of this. They demonstrate his sovereignty and very real presence in every single aspect of this call. We are being filled with confidence as we walk forward holding his hand as he leads us to a place we do not know.
I have been reflecting on Israel and their 40 year journey through the desert before entering the promise land. God supplied all of their needs every day but he did not give them an abundance, only what they needed for that day. There was no self reliance in this but a daily trust that He would sustain them yet again. I feel like God is calling us to trust him every single step of our journey, to trust him to provide just what we need when we need it.
It is my prayer that as we go along my response will increasingly be more Christ-like. That my responses to financial needs, to long waits, to all of the unknowns will be driven by faith and not fear. I pray that God would use this process, the financial trials, the paperwork, the waiting, to make us more like him and to see him and hear his voice more clearly.
So I purpose to walk forward into each new trial anticipating his provision. I will stop asking "How in the world can we every do this?!" and start saying "I wonder how God will reveal himself this time?"
Witnessing this reality in our lives right now:
"And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus."
We are so excited to announce our first official fundraiser in our adoption process! We are partnering with a Christian non-profit organization called "The Apparent Project:. The Apparent Project seeks to help and empower women in extreme poverty in Haiti care for and provide for their children! We will be selling bracelets made by women in Haiti. A specific portion of each bracelet goes directly to the Apparent project and the women in their artisan program. The remaining portion of the cost of the bracelet goes directly to our adoption. We are thrilled with the chance to partner and help women keep their children, thus preventing more orphaned children, while at the same time bring home 2 orphans into our family! We believe this fundraiser is a chance for our friends and family (and yours) to care for orphans and widows in 2 vital and equally important ways!
Attached to every bracelet is a picture and a short biography of the very woman who made your bracelet! We really hope that you will use this opportunity to put your money toward something that has such a life changing impact for these mothers and for our two children we are working to bring into our family! We also believe this is a great opportunity for families to give their children chances to get behind something that is meaningful and lasting. Each person who buys a bracelet will have a picture and profile of the woman who made it. Families can pray for that woman, and pray for our children in Ethiopia every time they wear their bracelet!
Here is the link to the Apparent Project Website:
http://www.apparentproject.org/
Here is another adoptive mother who describes this fundraiser in a great way:
http://www.walkingbytheway.com/blog/favorite-adoption-fundraiser-ever/
Part of the mission of the Apparent Project:
"This is why we are called the "Apparent Project". We are trying to help mothers and fathers in poverty be A PARENT to their children. We are educating and taking care of street kids who don't have A PARENT. We are using media and the arts to make the needs of Haiti APPARENT to those who can help, and we are doing this all with the hope that the love of God will be made more APPARENT to those we humbly serve and that He will be known as A PARENT to the parentless."
You can buy these from us in person or we will ship them to you. We are selling each bracelet for $9.00. We will ship any size order for an extra $3.00. You can email me at amandaborgelt@yahoo.com to place an order or if you are local call or ask me in person! Please pass on a link to this page to anyone you think might be interested! Share it on Facebook or through email with your friends and family! Also, if you think that you could sell some to your friends and family or at your place of work feel free to ask for some and we will pass them on to you to sell for us! If you would like to host a bracelet party at your house with your family and friends for us we would be thrilled to bring along bracelets!
As we plug along in this stage of the adoption process we have a few specific things we would love prayer for!
1. For the remaining paperwork. That we would be able to gather everything smoothly, without any delays. That we would be able to find focus and time for these tasks during this extremely busy season in our families' life.
2. For our final home study visit and all that we must accomplish before that meeting. We are meeting on July 3rd at 10:30 am with our social worker for this visit. Between now and then we must gather the remaining paperwork, we must complete our education requirements, and come up with the remaining funds for the home study.
3. We are seeking the Lord concerning the specific things we are looking for or open to in the child our agency will refer to us. In adoption you must fill out paper work to list what you are looking for in a child. (ie. age, gender, and medical conditions) Our agency has a birth order policy that says our newly adopted child must come into our family as the youngest child in the family by 9 months. That would mean the next youngest child must be 9 months younger than Levi. Since our current children are so young this narrows the age window for us. We are trying to be as open as possible within that window. We are having to consider all kinds of medical conditions and spell out to our agency what we are open to and what we are not. We have said from the beginning we would be open to either gender. (though Sophie desperately wants a sister!) We know that we are open to any age from 0-3 (or whatever 9 months younger than Levi is at that time) We also said from the beginning that we are open to siblings. We have recently been feeling led to consider bringing home two children. So our specifications would say "siblings or 2 unrelated" children. Would you pray for us in this? We are seeking God specifically concerning "how many" and concerning the medical/emotional conditions and family history. We must know these things by our final home study visit, which is July 3rd.
4. For all things financial in this process. Adoption is expensive. We are continually working to cut expenses in our life, sell things, or take on extra jobs. We will do a few fundraisers as soon as our home study is over. (I am working on a great one where we will sell handmade bracelets from women in Haiti!) And most importantly we are trusting in our God to provide. We believe he has led us to this and that he will lead us through it. We knew from beginning this whole process would be one of faith and trust and funding it is one of the more obvious areas we must do that. We believe that God is faithful to all he has promised. We have already seen his miraculous hand at work since we stepped forward in faith and we honestly anticipate seeing him provide all of the way through. We believe adoption and orphan care is for the whole church and that God desires for his body to work together with their different gifts and calling to reach out and care for the fatherless. So we pray that God would send some and use others to help send. Would you join us is praying? Pray that God would increase our faith and trust in him and his promises. Pray that God would continue to reveal more of himself as he provides every step of the way.
For mother's day this year we celebrated by driving to the Twin Cities for lunch at an Ethiopian restaurant. This was our first experience with Ethiopian food. What better way to spend mother's day than by remembering and preparing for our sweet Ethiopian children to come! We ordered a large sampler platter for us all to share. They do not use silverware but instead use a large flat bread called injera for scooping food. I was really proud of Caleb and Sophie for trying most of what was on the platter. We all found things we liked and were able to distinguish what we didn't. We feel a bit more prepared for our next meal of Ethiopian food. Thankfully, they had chicken fingers on the menu so Levi didn't starve! Throughout the meal Levi would say (very sincerely) "These chicken fingers are sooo good! These are the best fries I've ever had!"
We also had a garage sale as our first adoption fundraiser. It was fairly successful. We simultaneously listed things on craigslist as well. Caleb, Sophie, and Levi sold cupcakes and lemonade to help bring their little brother/sister home! Dan ran most of the sale while I watched our little ones!
For our home study we are required to both complete 10 hours of education/training in the area of adoption. Some agencies have specific training tools that they use for everyone. Our home study agency is much more personalized in their approach. They have a number of recommended resources that they share with couples. Each social worker looks at each family situation and then works with the couple to decide the areas of adoption that would be most beneficial for them to learn more about. For us our social worker recommended that we cover attachment and bonding after adoption and the unique challenges that come with being a multiracial family. She then left the remaining required hours up to us to choose as we saw fit. (with the agency's approval)
We had already read the book "Adopted for Life" by Russell Moore. (see our recommended resource page on blog). This book will count toward our required hours. If you are considering adoption yourself or are close to a family who is adopting, we cannot recommend this book enough. It is a truly fantastic book and gives great depth of insight into the relationship between our spiritual adoption in Christ and the physical act of bringing orphans into families on earth.
We are reading a book called "The Connected Child" by Karyn B. Pruvis. You can find it here.
This book talks in depth about what it means to attach and bond with your adopted child when they come home.
We are also listening to a variety workshops from recent adoption conferences.
So far we have listened to a few on becoming a multi racial family and some on adoption in general.
You can listen to a number of free sermons and workshops here and here.
These two sites are found at the Together For Adoption ministry page. If you are looking for some great sermons and resources for yourself as you explore adoption or as you come alongside of someone close to you who is adopting.
Hi friends! So sorry for the long delay in posting. Our days and weeks are flying by in a whirlwind of adoption paperwork, VBS planning, homeschooling, 3 busy little ones, and traveling! We are in what is referred to as the "paper chase" portion of the adoption process. This feels most days like I am swimming in papers to fill, forms to notarize, phone calls to make and documents to gather. I thought I would take a minute to break down this phase and give you a glimpse of what we are doing these days toward the end goal of bringing home our children!
The paper chase is broken down into essentially three areas. We are working to compile/accomplish these things:
1. Ethiopian Dossier
2. USCIS
3. Home Study
Those three things look so small and simple sitting there in a neat little numbered group on this screen. That little list is terribly deceptive I am sorry to say! :-)
Ethiopian Dossier
This is the largest and most detailed task before us. It overlaps with the other two as well. This is a packet of compiled documents that will be translated and sent to the Ethiopian government. This is a packet the things that are required by the Ethiopian government for intercountry adoption. The list of things that must be included in this packet is LONG and PARTICULAR. We are gathering certified birth certificates, health exams, criminal clearances, and many many more of the like. Most of these things have to be worded in a very specific way and most of them notarized and on particular official paper.
USCIS
This is another packet of documents. These documents are what the United States government requires of us to adopt from Ethiopia. It is not quite as long as our list for our dossier. It has specific timing for completing some of the tasks and, like most of this process, involves financial cost and tedious work.
Home Study
This is a process we go through with a local, licensed adoption agency here in Minnesota. This portion involves gathering documents and completing tasks in order to meet federal, state, and Ethiopian country requirements. We work one on one with a social worker. We will have 3 face to face interviews with her. She will look over our home and meet with our children. We also have a list of paperwork (some overlapping with other paperwork from dossier and USCIS) and education requirements that we must complete and compile before our 3rd and final visit with our social worker. She will then take all of the paper work and what she has gathered from our interviews and write up our "Home Study". This is 15-20 paper document detailing her assessment of us as a family and her recommendations for us concerning adoption. This document will be a part of our Dossier and our USCIS packet. So where are we in the process? We have been working daily to gather these documents and complete these tasks. We have already had our first 2 home study visits and have scheduled our final visit. We probably have 70% of our documents gathered for the home study and dossier. We still have to get our paperwork notarized and we are still waiting on some documents to come in the mail. We are working to complete our home study required education/training. We are reading a few books and listening to a few online workshops relating to adoption more specifically attachment/bonding after adoption and becoming a multiracial family. (I will post in more detail about what we are learning about attachment, adoption in general, and multiracial parenting in another post.) I am also directing our Vacation Bible School. I have been directing VBS for almost all of the past 10 summers in multiple places around the country. I have directing VBS while having other very big life challenges going on simultaneously and this year our adoption work is bringing with it a new level of challenge for me while attempting to direct this large outreach of our church. I have directed VBS while: - planning my wedding (that was taking place in another state) -VERY PREGNANT two times (with both Levi and Caleb) -after loss -with very young children in tow (3 under 6/7 yrs old 2 times) -while simultaneously homeschooling (those same little ones both years) -after recent moves cross country This year has been a new kind of challenge. My mind and time is torn is two very different directions with very long lists of tasks in both of those directions. I have had to rely on the Lord for grace to "let go" where I must and for the energy and focus to complete what is front of me daily. I am seeing in new ways God's strength being made perfect in my weakness and his daily carrying of my burdens. I don't feel as "in control" as I normally would (my mind is in so many places now and normally I am living and breathing VBS for the weeks prior) walking into VBS week but I am at peace knowing God's purpose will stand and that he is capable far beyond anything I can contribute to this! We are slowing seeing a light at the end of this tunnel and slowing seeing the crazy jumble of tasks and paperwork start to become sorted and organized before us. We have hope that we just might be nearing the top of this paperwork mountain. We truly desire and need your prayers. Please pray for the details of the paper work and tasks. That they would be done correctly the first time and that we would not see any major delays in getting those things submitted. Please pray that God would supply all of our needs, both financial and otherwise. Pray that we have His perspective in each and every step of the way. Pray that this time would not be in vain but that even the checklists and trials of paperwork would serve to show us more of him, to make us more like him, and to prepare our hearts and lives for the adoption of our little ones to come. I do not plan to let this much time go by in updating the blog again! I hope to update weekly. Please feel free to hold me to this! :-)
We are in what is called the "paperchase" phase of the adoption process. This involves an enormous amount of paperwork, gathering legal documents, getting a lot of things notarized, reference letters, education requirements, and a home study (which includes it's own massive list of things to do and sign and pay for). It threatens to be very overwhelming. The sheer number of tasks combined with the highly specific and tedious way in which we must accomplish the tasks, and the large amount of money that seems to be required for every step of the way..... feels at times like something that simply cannot be accomplished. Last week I was in the middle of my third day of phone calls in a miserably failing attempt to find a local home study agency I stopped and sat down in tears of frustration. I was feeling like I was getting nowhere. The adoption time line is a long one. This phase of the process is the only part that we have any control of. There will be a season upon us shortly when this paperwork is done, and we are waiting. Waiting for our agency, our government, and the government of Ethiopia. This is the only part of the process we can change the pace of. So I felt a sense of urgency to complete our part as quickly and effeciently as possible. And three days of phone calls, three days of emails, three days of unreturned calls and emails, and three days of closed doors, felt like we weren't moving forward in anyway at all. I had been simultaneously working on other paperwork, requesting legal documents, and having a few things notarized, but those accomplishments felt small and not enough.
In my tears that third day and in the days following God spoke gently to my heart. We are called to persevere through this. We are called to keep pressing on, we are called to fight the hard fight as we keep our eyes on him.
The next morning our agency posted this quote from Jen Hatmaker on facebook and God used it to motivate me and help me gain some perspective: "When you say YES to adoption, you are saying YES to enter the suffering of the orphan, and that suffering includes WAITING FOR YOU TO GET TO THEM. I promise you, their suffering is worse than yours. We say YES to the tears, YES to the longing, YES to the maddening process, YES to the money, YES to hope, YES to the screaming frustration of it all, YES to going the distance through every unforeseen discouragement and delay. Do not imagine that something outside of "your perfect plan" means you heard God wrong. There is NO perfect adoption. EVERY adoption has snags. We Americans invented the "show me a sign" or "this is a sign" or "this must mean God is closing a door" or "God must not be in this because it is hard," but all that is garbage. You know what's hard? Being an orphan. They need us to be champions and heroes for them, fighting like hell to get them home. So we will. We may cry and rage and scream and wail in the process, but get them home we will." -- Jen Hatmaker God's word has been encouraging us and helping us as we press on. "The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." Deuteronomy 31:8 "The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it." 1 Thessalonians 5:24 "Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed it, so it will stand." Isaiah 14:24 "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grown weary and lose heart." Hebrews 12:2-3 So we will fix our eyes on Jesus through this paperchase. We will trust that he is sovereign and faithful. We trust he will provide all that we need for all that he has called us to. We think of our future child and the beautiful plans that God has for their life and we believe that all of this is worth it.... that they are worth it.
We are the Borgelt family. Welcome! We are glad to have you here following our adoption journey. Our names are Dan and Amanda and we currently have three sweet kids: Caleb, Sophie and Levi. Dan is a pastor in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and Amanda is a full time stay-at-home, homeschooling mom. We have felt led over the past couple of years to expand our family through the miracle of adoption.
Our adoption story began 2 years ago a few weeks after the birth of our youngest. I (Amanda) watched the following video and felt God stirring almost immediately.
From that point forward God began working in our hearts and the circumstances in our lives to prepare us for this journey. We began reading the scriptures and seeing all throughout God's heart for orphans and his commands to his people to care for them.
We became aware of the world's orphan crisis as we discovered the horrifying situations and numbers of orphans around the world.
We read together David Platt's book "Radical" were reminded of the radical call God has placed on our lives and surrendered again to whatever he wills. God reminded us during this season that this Christian walk is one where we give every part of our lives for his glory and that this surrendered life is a life full of abundant joy.
Our hearts began to break for the fatherless. We asked ourselves "How do we respond to all our eyes have been open to and to this ache in our hearts for these little ones?". God answered these questions in a number of ways and began to call us to orphan care through sponsorship and beginning a whole church partnership with an orphanage in Haiti. However we knew that God was calling our family to more than that. He began to clearly lead us to adoption. We have room in our hearts, our home, and our family for more children. So we said "yes" to his call and we committed to following wherever he leads.
