It's a....

BOY!

We received our referral early last week (I know, I should have posted this sooner). We got a referral for a 7 month old little boy in DR Congo. I wish I could post pictures! He has the sweetest, cutest face! He looks very healthy and happy-which is a huge praise! We received new pictures today and he has already changed so much! I can't post a picture or name at this time, for privacy and legal reasons, but for now we will refer to him as A.

We should be able to send him care packages very soon! (We might be able to do it already). I can't wait to go shopping for him! Jim and I are going to hit a few stores this weekend. I didn't realize until we received our referral, that there is so much LESS boy stuff than girls.

Now we just wait. We have to wait for all the legal stuff to go through, and to be honest, I'm not sure what what all that entails. It will probably be 8-12 months before we go to Africa to get him. I'm praying that we can go before Christmas. Until that time, we should receive monthly updates and photos-it will be so hard watching him grow up in photos. We also have to fill out forms for grants and begin some fund raising.

I would like to ask you all to pray for us and that precious little boy. I will give you more details as I'm able to.

Erin

Waiting...

I've been putting off updating our blog because I was hoping to have more news. Jim and I are patiently waiting to receive our referral. For those of you who aren't familiar with the adoption process, a referral is a picture and brief summary of a child that best matches our needs. We then have the choice to either accept the referral or wait for another one. After speaking with our case manager, it looks like our adoption agency is trying to match us with a baby (boy or girl) that is 5-6 months old or less. Our agency would like the adopted child to be younger than Jade. I spoke with our case manager about a week ago, and she told me that we should have our referral in 1-2 weeks. The referral will come to us via e-mail. Needless to say, since then I have been checking my e-mail about every 10 min. I am really hoping that the next post that I write will be telling you all about our referral.

I am very anxious to receive our referral, but God has given me a peace that has kept me grounded. I had this same peace when I was pregnant with Jade. I just knew that God had this situation in control and I just needed to yield to Him. At the time we lost our little girl Abby, I never thought that I would be able to endure another pregnancy without significant fear, but God has given me the faith to trust Him because I know that I am not in control.

"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." Hebrews 11:1