Two New Gumms - identified!

We had such fun on Christmas day making a big announcement to all our present family members. After everyone opened their gifts we presented them with one last gift - a framed picture of the little boy and girl that will be the newest members of the Gumm family!

That’s right, we know who they are already.

Early on in the process as I was researching adoption agencies I found The African Widows and Orphans Project. They had a photo listing of waiting children and so I emailed the director and asked for the password, etc. to view it. She said that they were going to be updating it very shortly as well as having a new DVD of waiting children video interviews and she would send them as soon as she got them.

To make a long story short (although I’ll post the long version sometime) there were two sibling groups that matched the age ranges we were looking for - both adorable. I went to bed with a heavy heart, grieving for these children and the loss they have suffered. I continued to pray for them throughout the week but one of the sibling sets kept coming to the front of my mind over and over. Finally about a week later during one of these times I just asked the Lord “Are these the kids we are supposed to adopt?” and I heard a resounding (but not audible) “YES!” I know without a doubt (although I can begin to doubt if I let myself) that it was God giving me an answer.

So, we are “tentatively matched” with these wonderful children. When our Home Study gets officially approved then we can be “officially matched”. I cannot share pictures until much further down in the process but for now we’ll be referring to them as W-boy and B-girl.

W-boy is 8 years old and very social. He speaks some English and likes to read and play soccer. Younger sister B-girl is 6, seems a little shy, and likes to read and play jump rope. She is in 1st grade so she is just beginning to learn some English.

We are all very excited and already feel as if they are becoming part of our family. It makes the paperwork all the more pressing and is spurring me on to action

Little Miracles

Anyone who has adopted will tell you that the amount of paperwork you have to process is overwhelming. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that our adoption and home study agencies both require less paperwork than some - no letters from the vet, etc.

Fortunately I have a pretty good filing system at home so I was able to find most things. It’s also nice that we were both born in and got married in Arizona which made securing certified copies of birth certificates and our marriage license pretty easy.

Mark’s military discharge form was a different matter. It wasn’t where we thought it would be and we feared it was in one of the boxes of old papers stored in the attic. Neither of us was looking forward to the hunt for that. I went ahead and ordered a copy online, figuring it was better safe than sorry since it would take several weeks to arrive.

But the other day as I opened a less-often used filing drawer I spotted the Army seal on white envelope. Lo and behold the D-214 was inside. Yeah! One more thing I can cross of my list

Helping in Little Ways

A lot of people may want to help orphans, but just do not know how. Obviously adoption is a large step, and not for everyone.

So from time to time I’ll post ways which you can support orphans or information about different organizations that do great things.

The first way is easy - and yummy. Buy coffee!!!

When you buy a pound of coffee from Saint’s Coffee you feed an orphan FOR A MONTH! The coffee is 100% fair trade and organic and comes in several different blends.

Home Study Begun

Today we met with our home study agency, Adoption Specialists of Arizona. We had a brief intake interview, the took our fingerprints and then gave us ANOTHER stack of paperwork to fill out. I am relieved to hear that they don’t require as much paperwork as Jen’s home study agency (no letters from the vet, etc.) Whew!

Seems the spa in the backyard may be an issue. There are state codes and city codes and it’s all kind of confusing. Our city codes states that we need to make our sliding patio door self-closing and put keyed locks on any windows that open to the backyard. But the guy at ASA said the state may require us to fence the spa.

It seems ridiculous to pay to fence a spa that we hardly use. Can we just drain it? Oh well. We’ll sort that mess out after the 1st of the year.

I’m rolling through the paperwork. Have doctor visits scheduled etc so I’m feeling good about where we are at.

About Our Family

For those of you who don’t know us personally I thought I would introduce our family a bit.

We have two darling kids. Noah is 8 and in second grade. He is wild, all boy, very smart and loves to build stuff with Legos and K’nex (and various household items). Natalie is 5 and in preschool. (Both kids have late fall birthdays). She is the social butterfly, drama queen and cheerleader of the family. And the talker. (Though I can give her a run for her money.)

Mark and I have been married for 14 years - together 18 years if you include 4 years of dating. (When I went to the clerk’s office to get the certified copy of our marriage license I handed her my application, she looked at the date and said “You’re too young to be married this long.” Made my day.) We are both native Arizonians though we spent 4 years in Arkansas for college (go JBU!) and 6 years in Texas (San Antonio & Dallas). Go COWBOYS! We moved back to Phoenix when Noah was 9 months old so that our kids could grow up around their grandparents - both sets live here in town!

Mark is the Executive Pastor at Palm Valley Church. I also work part time at the church as a graphic designer. We are so privileged to work with a great staff - they are like family. When we told them the news on Monday they were so excited and prayed over us.

I’m looking forward to making new virtual friends along the adoption journey. (Big “Hi” to all of Jen’s friends! Thanks for coming over.)

Double Little Gumms, Double Fun

Welcome to our new blog that will chronicle our adoption journey.

Over the last year, God has really laid a burden on both of our hearts
to care for widows and orphans as we are called to do in scripture.
There are many ways this can be done - financial, missions trips, etc.
and we are looking at all the ways in which we can be a blessing to
this special group of people. But one way we know that we can get
involved is to open our homes and our hearts.

We are applying to adopt an older sibling group (between the ages of 5- from Ethiopia,
Africa. We have just begun the arduous paperwork process and it will
most likely be 9 months or so before we bring our new family members
home. The kids are super excited and pray daily that “God will help us
find the right kids to adopt”.

We appreciate your prayers as we go through this process - for wisdom and especially patience! We are very excited about this lifelong journey that God is taking us on.