Travel News!!!!

I can still remember receiving the email last December from our soon to be adoption agency outlining all of the many documents that were needed to adopt from Ivan's country and region, not to mention the hours of online courses and books to read.  Only hours before I had gotten another similar email from our homestudy agency.  The feeling was completely overwhelming.  I remember thinking (and probably saying out loud), "how will we ever do this? I don't know how we will get all this done!"  I wasn't even considering the money in that moment.

Little by little we chipped away at it.  We hung our only picture of Ivan in the kitchen with check off lists and celebrated everytime something else was completed.  Step by step, we did it!  And now here we are, 9 months later.

Yesterday morning, I laid in bed debating whether or not to check my email.  Finally, at 6:45am, I logged on and the tears came.  I read aloud to Derek that we had a date, an official court date and time. 

We will stand before a judge in less than 2 weeks on Sep. 6 at 10am (1am here) asking permission for Ivan to be our son forever! 

Because of time change and needing to be there to see him before court the day before, we will leave here on Sep. 3!  That is 1 week from this Sat.!!!!  Can we say that complete freaking out is totally called for?!?  We have so many things to do.  My head is swimming with the details...childcare, meals, last minute purchases (pack n play, sling, etc.), gathering donations for his baby house, apostilling extra documents, confirming airfare, details of travel, and on and on.  Only by the grace of God!!!!

Thank you all for praying with us and rejoicing with us during this time!  Ivan Samuel coming into our family is happening because many many people stepped in and made it happen...a beautiful picture of sacrifice and obedience.  Thank you just doesn't do it!  Just.So.Grateful.

We can't wait for you all to meet him!  Right now, we are estimating that we will return on Sep. 14th.  We would love to see as many of you at the airport as possible.  I can't even believe we are at this part of our journey!  We will keep everyone updated on our return information.

And because many of you have asked, our adoption t shirts are getting picked up tomorrow!  I am so excited to see them.  Also, we think that we are about $2000 away from being fully funded (we sold our car and that really helped, YAY!)...talk about a big God that we serve.  It may seem like a lot to come up with in 2 weeks, but last Dec. I had no clue how we were going to come up with $30k plus!  I can't even believe that we are almost there...so close!  Our chip in is still open and this is important, if you want to give tax-deductible, our family page through Reece's Rainbow will only allow donations until he is home.  Once home, we move to a different page and donating to our grant is not possible.

Finally, some of you have asked to help with donations for the baby house.  Leaving many children behind will probably be one of the hardest parts of this final trip.  What a beautiful thing it would be to leave them with many requested items!

Here is the list:

***Tyenol (generic is fine....need children's and infants)

***Ibuprofen (again generic is fine...children's and infants)

***Diaper Creme

***Hydrocortisone 1%

***Teething Medicine

***Pedialyte (they make a powder now that is mixed with water, obviously the bottles are too heavy)

***Cothing and Shoes

***Monetary donations for diapers (a large box that we would buy here between $25-30 is $50 + there)

Anything that you can donate will be such a blessing and I will be glad to pick it up.  If you go to church with us, this will be our last Sunday before we leave.  We are trying to figure out a good spot to drop off.

Thank you all for being on this journey with us.  It has been a wild ride and God has shown himself to be so true and so faithful!  May He continue to be glorified over and over and over again in all of the details!