Christmas

We have had a wonderful Christmas this year but it is not complete. We had hoped and prayed to have our two little girls home for Christmas but that has not happened. Here is a picture of our tree with their presents left under the tree. We are hopeful that we can go in a few weeks and bring them home and then we can celebrate their Christmas then.

News from the Embassy

We received word back from the Embassy yesterday that they had just received our paperwork from our agency and not to make any travel plans yet. Our agency had led us to believe they had submitted our paperwork and were just waiting for approval. An e-mail back from the Embassy today indicated that it would probably be another two weeks before we will be able to travel. This is very disappointing to us since we have already been waiting two months since our court date and since January will be so busy for us. Please pray that our agency does everything they need to take make sure that we are able to go on this date.

E-mailing the Embassy

We still have not found out if we will be traveling or not. Our agency said that everything had been submitted to the Embassy for a December 27 date but the Embassy did not respond to them today. We were asked to e-mail the Embassy and ask if we have been confirmed for this date. Since it is the middle of the night there we will not receive an answer until tomorrow (if they answer). We could possibly have to leave by Thursday to get there when they want us there. Please pray that we find out something definitely tomorrow and that we will get to go now since our work will get much busier in January.

Still Waiting

We are still waiting to find out if we will be traveling to Ethiopia for the December 27th court date. We are praying that we will be able to travel this time since our work will be getting busy in the next few months and this will give us more time to spend with the girls. If we will be traveling on this date every day that we have to wait to find out causes the airline tickets to go up. We are very anxious to go get our little girls and bring them home so that we can be together as a family.

Mike's dad is still in the hospital recovering from his surgery. He is hoping to come home in the next day or two.

Mike's Dad Surgery

Mike's dad is in recovery after his surgery. They weren't able to remove the tumor but removed his gall bladder and rerouted what they needed to. The next step will be to decide about chemo. Hopefully he will be home for Christmas.

Embassy Date and Surgery for Mike's Dad

We received an e-mail yesterday that they think our Embassy date may be on December 27. The Embassy hasn't confirmed this yet. We had hoped and prayed that we could go before Christmas but are thankful that at least we may have a date now. We would be traveling during Christmas and would not be here to spend Christmas with the kids but this way we can bring them home the Christmas present that we have been waiting 2 years for. Please pray that this date will work out and we will be able to get them and bring them home soon.

Mike's dad has surgery tomorrow to remove his tumor. They will be doing a lot of work while they are doing the surgery. Please pray that he will maintain his strength through the surgery and that the surgeon will be able to remove all of the tumor and accomplish all that they need to. We pray that he will have a quick recovery and be home in time for Christmas. Thank you for all your prayers!

God's Timing is Perfect

I came across something that someone had posted who has been waiting about 4 years for their daughter and are not finished yet. What an incredible reminder to us when want everything in our time.

"God whispers into our ears, "My child. Wait. Trust. I have an incredible plan that I am perfecting in this very moment." Yet we kick, cry and scream. "Why aren't things working out the way I want them to? Why is this taking so long? Why do things seem so unfair?" The truth is that HE HAS IT ALL FIGURED OUT. And His timing is perfect. That's right, perfect. Absolutely perfect."

Waiting for Embassy Date

Please pray for our Embassy date. It normally takes 4-6 weeks after the court date and we still have not heard when our Embassy date will be. We know that several couples were not able to go to their date on November 27th. We hope that this does not cause our date to be pushed out. It is our understanding that there are only two Embassy dates per month so this could possibly push our date until after Christmas. Since both of our jobs get busy in January this will get difficult for us to spend the time we need to with them when we get home.

Introducing Leah Hope Mayfield

We would like to introduce Leah Hope Mayfield. She was born on June 22, 2006 and added to our family on November 5, 2010. Her sister came on Friday and gave her permission for her to be adopted so she is now officially our daughter.

MOWA Meeting

We had our MOWA meeting for Leah last Friday and it had a positive result. Her older sister was not able to come in and give her consent last week. She is scheduled to appear before the court this Friday, November 5 to give her consent for her to be adopted. Please pray that this all goes well. After this happens we will have passed court for Leah and can start proceeding with the next step of getting ready for the embassy date.

Prayer for Mike's Dad

Please pray for Mike's dad. He has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. They took him to the hospital this morning because of very low blood pressure and vomiting. They found that he has an infection due to a stint that had collapsed in his bile duct. They are keeping him in ICU until they can transfer him to KU Med and meet with the surgeon about the cancer. They found out about the cancer while we were in Ethiopia and told us the day after we got home.

Introducing Rachel Faith Mayfield

We would like to introduce our newest daughter, Rachel Faith Mayfield. She was born on August 26, 2009 and added to our family on October 22, 2010.

Passed Court (Kind of)

We are home from Ethiopia. We were not able to get on the internet over there after court to post. We passed court for our baby without any problems. We found out during court that our older girl has a 26 year old sister who has not yet given consent for her to be adopted. We have been told that they will get her to come in next week and give her consent and then we can pass court. We do not have to travel back for this. We were told that the sister was aware of her and was not able to take care of her so she would be willing to give her up. This must be done before we can receive the MOWA ruling for her which is supposed to happen at the end of the week. Please pray that this will happen this week. The longer this takes the longer it will be before we can bring them home. We will post pictures of the baby soon after we get some rest and are able to get the pictures uploaded. Thanks for all of the prayers while we were there and traveling.

Got To See Them!

We arrived in Ethiopia on Tuesday morning and got to see Rachel on Tuesday afternoon. She cried when we first took her but quickly calmed down when we started singing to her. She seems to be a little croupy but they said she was fine. We wish that we could bring her home and get her to a doctor so that she could start feeling better. We saw Leah this morning. She came in smiling but a little leary. She was happy for about 20 minutes while we walked around and looked at toys. She suddenly started crying but we didn't know why. Another family came in to see their little boy and brought balls and toys. We started to get the soccer ball to play with and she pointed at the shelf. We got a balloon off the shelf and she instantly stopped crying and was very content. She sat on Sandy's lap after that happy to hold the balloon and play with a simple little toy that the other family had brought. When it was time to leave they said something to her and she came and gave both of us a hug and kiss. They would only allow us to leave a photo album for a gift for her. We went and saw Rachel again this afternoon and she cried a little bit at first but soon was content with us. She didn't do much since she is not feeling well so we just held her.

Ethiopia is quite different from the US. There is a bit of a culture shock at first. People drive in whatever lane they feel like and people walk across the streets and along the street while people are driving very quickly. It is a new experience. There is also a distinct smell to the city. It smells of diesel and eucolyptus. There are animals and small stalls set up all along the road to sell items. We have even encountered animals in the middle of the road. We are amazed that there are never any accidents and no people or animals ever get hit. The people here live in incredible conditions and we are now very thankful for all that we have. We know that we are richly blessed in the US.

Please continue to pray for us that all of our paperwork would be in order for our court date on Friday. We will update our blog when we are able to get access to the internet again. Thank you for all the prayers for us while we are here.

Today is the day!

Please say a prayer for Sandy and I because today begins our physical journey to see our beautiful little daughters in Ethiopia! Pray that we will have safe travels and that all paperwork will be in place for a smooth court appointment.

We will update our blog when possible.

Mike

Donations for new orphanage

The adoption agency we are going is in the process of starting a new orphanage in Ethiopia and are in need of donations. If you have any clothing, shoes, etc. that might be needed in an orphanage, we will be glad to take them with us next week. Whatever can cannot transport this trip can be taken on our return trip to bring our girls home.

Please pray for us as we finalize things this week in preparation for our departure.

Getting Ready for Court!

It is hard to believe that we are just a little over a week away from making our first trip to Ethiopia. This trip will be for our court hearing but during our stay, we will get to spend some time with our two precious little girls over there. We are praying that we will be able to go back before Christmas to bring them home for good!

Please keep our family in your prayers as we prepare to travel. Pray for safe travel for us, that we will get everything ready for the trip and that everything goes smoothly over there.

We will update our blog while in Ethiopia if at all possible.

Thanks for your continued prayers....we are in the home stretch now!

Revised travel plans

We found out a slight change of our plans today. The good news is that we will definitely get to see the girls when we go over for the court date on October 22nd. The not so good news is that the November 25 date we were given was not when we get to bring them home. It is the date when the Ethiopian government will issue the necessary paperwork to get the girls' passports, etc. We will then get to go bring them home either in late December or early January.

Please pray that we will have no more delays and that we will get to bring them home in December.

Finally a court date!

We finally received our court date. It is not nearly as soon as we would like it but our court date is October 22nd. We also found out that we will have to make 2 trips. Our second trip to actually bring home the girls will be the week of Thanksgiving. Obviously we were hoping to have them much sooner than this but we will just have to adjust our plans and start making preparations for 2 trips this Fall. Please keep us in your prayers as we enter this last stage of waiting!

Taking Flight

Please continue to pray that our court date will happen soon! We know other people who started the process much later than we did are having their court dates so that is very discouraging. A representative from our adoption agency flew to Ethiopia yesterday and is trying to get to the bottom of why we have faced so many obstacles and why the delays in getting our girls home. Please pray that they will get answers and will be able to get our adoptions expedited.

Paperwork completed but more prayers needed!

Leah's paperwork has been corrected and submitted to the court for approval. We do not know what the verdict is on it because our international contact has had difficulty getting a good phone connection with the attorney.

Please pray that we will be given a court date this week before the courts over there break for recess and that all the paperwork will finally be correct so we can bring our girls home soon!

Good News!

We received some very good news late this afternoon! We found out that Leah's paperwork has already been redone! We had anticipated this taking several weeks, if not months. The attorney in Ethiopia is going to take the redone paperwork to the courts on Monday or Tuesday of next week to see if the paperwork meets their requirements and if so, they will schedule an official court date!

Please pray specifically that all the paperwork will be in order and we can get a quick court decisions for both girls so that we can get them both in one trip. We can see God's hand at work over the past few days so please keep those prayers going!

Mike and Sandy

Keep Praying!

Please pray for our adoption process. The past couple of months have been incredibly difficult and frustrating for us because we feel like we are so close but yet so far away. A few weeks ago we found out that the reason our adoption was taking so much longer was because the older girl we were referred(Leah)entered the orphanage with a sibling that has since passed away. Our heart is just breaking for her because in the last 2 years, she has lost both parents and a sibling and she just turned 4 last month.

Today, we found out that all of her paperwork has to be redone before we will be able to pass court and bring her home. Rachel's paperwork is complete and it is ready for court and we can go get her as soon as she passes court. Currently, the orphanage is reworking our paperwork as two individual adoptions so that once that is done, we can have court date and go get Rachel. This complicates matters, though, for us because that will mean we will have to go back and get Leah once her paperwork is done and passes court, etc. Also, since Leah's paperwork has to be redone, the Ethiopian government is considering her to be under the new guidelines that mandate we travel for court and the embassy visit. This could mean we have to make three trips over there.

Please pray that we would have a divine intervention to expedite Leah's process so that we can get them both at the same time or at the very least that our trip to get Rachel will coordinate with Leah's court date so that at most, we would have to make two trips.

Please say a prayer right now that everything would work smoothly and quickly so that we can get these precious girls into our home.

Very close to court!

Sorry for not much news lately but there really has not been too much new to report. However, we did find out yesterday that our court date could be as early as the end of this week but we likely will not find out until the first of next week whether the court date actually happened this week or not. I know this sounds confusing because it it! We are just excited to think we are getting close to the end. As soon as we pass court, we can begin posting pictures of our beautiful little girls because once we pass court, they will legally be our children! Please pray that the court date will be in the next few days and that all will go well with the proceedings! We will let you know as soon as we hear anything else! Thank you for continually lifting our family up in prayer as we continue on our journey to our beautiful Ethiopian princesses.

Part of the wait is over!

Yesterday afternoon we finally received the information we had been waiting for for almost a month. A couple of weeks ago we received referral information (pictures and medical background) for the now 8 month old girl we are adopting but had nothing about the almost 4 yr. old girl we are adopting. That last piece of the puzzle came to us yesterday afternoon! We are so excited that we have made it to this next step. Today we will be getting our referral acceptance documents together and getting ready to send our referral payment to the agency! Once all that information is received in Ethiopia, we will then be waiting for a court date to be set. After they pass the court, we will then be given a travel date for bringing them home! We know we still have a lot of waiting to do but it seems like such a relief to put precious little faces with the names!

Thanks for your continued prayer support! We will keep you posted!

And the Wait Goes On.....

Sorry for the lack of posts but we haven't had much else to post. We received pictures and medical information for our beautiful baby girl who will be 1 in August but we have still not received pictures or medical information about our new daughter who will turn 4 in June. We also have learned that the Ethiopian government has extended timeframes between the different processes involved from this point forward so we are not sure how that will affect us. It is looking like it could be this fall rather than summer when we get our girls.

Please pray that things will start moving more quickly so that we can get our girls!

We Have Referrals!!!!!

We finally got the email we have been waiting for since July 30th! We received the referrals for 2 little girls! The oldest will be 4 in June and the youngest will be 1 in August. We don't have any pictures yet but know they are going to be beautiful! Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we wait to hear more details about the girls and as a court date is scheduled in the next month or two.

We are getting very close!

Thanks for your continued prayers throughout our adoption journey. We think we are very close to getting our referrals. We heard from our agency last Friday that our referrals will be the next ones given out by the orphanage will be for our girls! The agency indicated that we would get good news very, very soon! Keep the prayers going that the referrals will arrive very quickly this week!

Still waiting and still needing prayers!

Hello, friends! Sorry it has been so long between posts but there really has not been anything new to post. The waiting has really started to wear on us. When we were accepted into the system in Ethiopian on July 30th, we were told it would be approximately 4 months until our referral but it has now been nearly 6 months. We did hear today that our agency, IFS, had 2 other families besides us that were entered into the Ethiopian system on July 30th and 1 of those families just got their referral. We are praying that that means we are very close to getting information about our 2 little girls.

Please join us in praying that we will get our referrals soon!