Do You See?

Sara Groves

Logged w/ the Courts

I received paper from the Maricopa courts that our application to adopt has been filed and we now have an official court case number. Now they’re just waiting on our homestudy to be filed.

We have all of our dossier paperwork together except for our 2004 taxes (which we need to find in the attic) and our police clearance letter which we will go get on Tuesday.

W-boy and B-girl get to “meet” us

Michelle, the Executive Director of AWOP, will be traveling to Ethiopia this week and checking in on all the kids who have referrals. That means she’ll be paying a visit to W-boy and B-girl. So in a couple of weeks we should get updated pictures of the kids and we are so excited.

We weren’t sure that we’d be able to send pictures with her because of where we are in the process, but late this afternoon I got an email from our case manager saying we could email Michelle a couple of pictures and she would show them to the kids.

I wonder what they will think of their new family?

Natalie’s Bedtime Prayer

Last night the kids got to bed late because they were with grandparents while we had a Valentine Date so Natalie was tired. I asked her to do her prayers and I heard nothing.

“Natalie, say your prayers.”

“I can’t think of anything. Oh wait. I thought of one thing. Dear Jesus please keep W-boy and B-girl safe while mommy and daddy go get them and while we’re not there with them. Amen.”

Now she just has to write it…

So I had my individual appointment with the social worker today. Mark’s took 3 hours but mine only about 90 minutes Guess I’m not as complicated, kidding honey.

So now she has to write up our report which she’s hoping to have a rough draft of by the end of next week. It has to pass through a few people and get revisions, etc before she sends a final copy to the AZ courts.

One step closer

Blog Uganda

Compassion is doing something really cool right now. They have taken 15 Christian bloggers to see
the ministry’s work firsthand in Uganda. Two of the bloggers - Shannon and BooMama - are ladies I already read but I am enjoying reading some of the other blogs as well - particularly Chris & Heather Whittaker (whom I’m partial too because they are adoptive parents).

Some statistics on Uganda:

50% of the population in the region we’re in is infected with HIV/AIDS.

66% of the country’s children have not received basic vaccinations.

10% of mothers give birth alone.

42% of births take place in a hospital.

78 out of 1000 children die before age five.

435 out of 1000 mothers die during or because of child birth.

30% of mothers pass HIV on to their babies.

For the complete list of bloggers - go here. You can make a difference by sponsoring a Ugandan child for $32/month. How many cups of Starbucks is that - 6? You can click the link on my sidebar or all of the bloggers have links too.

Status Update

We’re making progress on our home study. Mark had his individual appointment with the social worker on Friday and I have mine this Thursday. At my appointment hopefully I can get a better idea of how long before our report is ready to file with the Arizona courts.

Blankets for Ethiopian Babies

Owlhaven is a blog I’ve been reading for a year or so, long before our thoughts turned to Ethopian adoption. Mary and her husband have 10 kids in all including 4 from Ethiopia and 2 from Korea. Her parents and sister are traveling to Ethiopia this summer to work with a hospital there so she is having an awesome fundraiser to raise money for baby blankets (most mom’s leave the hospital with nothing for their newborns) and a commercial size washer for the hospital.

As of 3 p.m. donations had reached over $2,000. I’d love to see it reach even higher. Go here to read how to donate (PayPal) so it’s easy.