More Decisions made...

I hope this finds you all well and safe. We have been passing a silly little cold bug around and I was able to avoid it until the last couple days! But I am thankful it has given me time to update you on the mountain God is moving.

Steve and I decided that we are going to do this adoption independently. Uganda is one of the few (it might be the only) country that let's you do an independent adoption. We have been in contact with a lawyer in Uganda, we have found an agency to do our home study, and we have started gathering the necessary items to get the process moving. My prayer is that our kids are home for the holidays next year.

The sweet girl that we are hoping to adopt is in her preteen years. As I mentioned before, she has a little sister that we were hoping to locate but were gently warned not to get our hopes up to high because there was not a high likely hood that we would find her. Well I emailed everyone I could think of and have connected with a lady who is actually going to Uganda in December and she said she knows that the girls have an uncle and she thinks that she will be able to find him and have him help her find the sister. As my mom and I were out gathering some small things to send to this sweet girl, I could not help but think of that sister and how much I did not want to leave her in Uganda alone. I came home and noticed I had an email. It was from one of the contacts I had made to inform me that yesterday, someone had brought the younger sister to the same orphanage as the older sister!  They were now together and ready to be adopted!! This is a miracle! I have to tell you every time I shut my eyes I see Gabrielle the angel with his mighty wings, wrapped around this precious little girl, delivering her to the orphanage so that she too, can have a family, her forever family. I cried and cried and praised the LORD! What a wonderful Christmas gift!

Now we await our beautiful son. I can't wait to see what God has in store for us with this little boy. I know he will be the perfect addition to our family! Please pray for all of "our" kids, the current and future ones!

Well that is it for now. If you have any questions, send them my way!

Many blessings ~ Janelle

I can't believe I FINALLY get to write this!

I have wanted to be able to write this blog for a long time and I can't believe I am finally able too!

What an amazing experience we are going through right now! I have met some amazing people on the Uganda adoption website and with them by our sides, we are moving full speed ahead on adopting and think we have found a match with a sweet little girl. We also learned she has a sister and we are trying to locate her and see if she is still available for adoption AND to make our family even better, we are going to add a little boy to the mix. SO God willing, we will have not, two, not three, not four but five children in our home! Can you imagine all the love? We are so excited!!

About a month ago when we knew we were really serious about this, we started saving all our coins towards the adoptions. Today, Elliot went into our room and got the jar. I was telling him to put it back but he said just a minute Mom, I want to show you something...so a little reluctantly I allowed him to take the jar. Elliot put the adoption jar next to his piggy bank, and unloaded his entire piggy bank into the jar!!! He said he wanted to help bring our kids home! I was filled with such pride and joy for this little boy that as a five year old, gets it! He really gets it. I cried and cried. I told him that Jesus was jumping up and down because he was so happy and proud of Elliot. What an amazing heart that kid has!! SO if you would like to help us toward our adoption and bringing our kids home, one of things you could do is please consider saving your change. It is pretty easy to just throw in a jar and let it add up!

I promise to post more soon!

Love you all!

Another decision made, Moving forward.

Steve and I finally decided that we are going to adopt from.......UGANDA! We are really excited and ready to start the process. We are still trying to find an agency to work with. I will keep looking into our options over the next couple weeks and we hope to make a decision by Christmas. As a dear friend said to me, this is as important as selecting your doctor. It is someone who will walk with you through a lot of ups and downs and it is best to have someone we feel 100% comfortable with. Right now there are not a lot of agencies working in Uganda so it should not take us to long to decide.

Steve and I decided that we wanted to start saving our change for our adoption...Change to make a change! We were laughing that we are now $21.36 (just a guess!) closer to our goal. I honestly don't know right now how much it is going to cost but I can tell you I could not put a price tag on these two precious lives I know God has waiting for us! If anyone else would like to help us by saving their change, let me know! We are trying to find something to use to give to people to gather their change in for our adoption. I know that a little bit of change can sure add up to a lot fast!

Back again

I have been wanting to start blogging again about our adoption and where it stands, however there has been nothing to post about. As most you know, we put our adoption on hold while Steve was on deployment and now that we are looking into adoption again, we are trying to figure out what country we want to adopt from and what agency we want to help us through the process. Right now it seems to be the hardest decision we have to make. It is not about the money, it is about making the right choice for our family.

I am so excited to be starting the process, again. I will try and post more often as decisions are made and the process gets going...it is still a ways away but I honestly feel "the call" getting stronger and closer!

Blessings to All!