I have talked with our social worker on the phone and we have scheduled our first home study interview for Monday, January 7th at 12:30.

We sold Eric's computer to my cousin and were able to use the money for the adoption. Thank you Ryan for buying it from us. Thanks to my husband for being willing to sell his favorite toy. Between the computer money, the change we've collected, and contributions from family and friends we have been able to pay all of our fees to both Lighthouse and Gentle Care on time. So far this has come to a grand total of $2300.

Jen spent a ton of time this weekend organizing our paperwork and getting us ready to assemble our home study documents and our dossier. We're moving in the right direction.

Our home study packet came in the mail today. wow. It's really overwhelming, but it's time to push forward with this as quickly as possible. We have been assigned a social worker, her name is Denise. According to the letter that accompanied the packet, she should be contacting us shortly to set up our home visits. Hopefully "shortly" means Monday. So, we are also going to pay our dossier fee to Lighthouse and then we can begin aggressively working on our dossier while we are working on our home study. Many of the documents we will need to gather for our home study are needed for our dossier as well.

I had a dream about our children in Liberia last night. We went to pick them up, but we were told they weren't ready and we had to come home. It was devastating.

As I have been preparing for Christmas this year, I have thought often about what Christmas might look like next year. Maybe there will be two extra stockings. Maybe Santa will bring something pink. Maybe there will be two extra little people in my bed, all cozy under blankets, reading The Night Before Christmas with me. I sure hope so.

Have you read anything about Liberia yet? Have you seen the pictures? Have you read their stories? You should.

Just a quick update on where we are in this process. Our application and check for our homestudy were sent in on Monday. Lighthouse and Adoption by Gentle Care were able to work out an agreement and so Gentle Care will begin our home study process shortly. This is really happening. Now this dream of ours, that we believe was given to us by God, is on its way to becoming a reality. The home study makes me nervous and I'm ready to be on the other side of it. I always get nervous trying to explain who we are as a family and why we do what we do. This is probably because I honestly feel like we are criticized often by people who don't understand our choices. Now I have to explain our family to a complete stranger. But, this step is necessary and so we'll begin praying now for the grace we need to complete it. Another reason we need it done is that we can not begin applying for grants until it is completed.

How you can pray for our family...
Pray that the social worker assigned to do our home study is a good match for our family.

Pray for the financing of this adoption. Riley and I have been talking a lot about Jesus feeding the 5,000. He believes with his whole little heart that God will multiply our money in the same way. I want that kind of child like faith.

Pray that we will have wisdom as we continue to work on paper work and begin to gather the documents we need for our dossier.

Most importantly, pray for the children of Liberia. Pray for the care givers at the orphanage. Pray for those who are in leadership at Acres of Hope and Lighthouse Adoptions. We have heard that a large number of children are almost ready to be referred to families. We are not far enough along in this process to be one of those families, but pray for these children and the families they will be matched with.

Thank you for your prayers and support.