Go Time?
Dear Friends and Family,
Sorry for the lack of updates, but it's been a little crazy on our end the last few weeks. I am writing because we have some news, but not enough to add exclamation points yet :)
About a week and a half ago we received a call from our orphanage director letting us know that our lawyer in Uganda expects us to travel in the next few weeks(!!!!). As far as we understand, they are hoping to get all of their open cases closed by 4th of July weekend (that's us!!). The tricky part is that in Uganda, the courts close every year from July 15-August 15 for their summer holiday. So with keeping that in mind, we not only have to have our court date before July 15, we have to have our written ruling from the judge (granting us legal guardianship of our boys) by July 15. This is no small task. Typically from court date to ruling is anywhere from 1-3 weeks, so that means if we have a court date in mid-late June we HAVE to have our ruling at a faster pace than expected. Nonetheless, our lawyer is confident this will happen and we are believing that God will move mountains on our behalf. On top of it all, we will need to be in Uganda at least 3 days before our court date in order to 1) meet our boys (can't process this yet), and 2) take a tour of historic landmarks in Uganda (many judges require it at some point, and admire you if it's done before court). With that said, we could have only a 3-4 day notice to travel which has sent us into nesting mode. And quick. We have been slowly packing over the last 3 months, but now that's it's almost go time, it's been insane. There's so much to get done and very little time to do it. Paul and I are still working full time and then staying up until all hours of the night packing, ordering items for our trip, working on the boys room, and making lists upon lists upon lists. Things are coming together slowly but surely, and we are trusting God with the rest.
The last couple weeks have been a lot of hurry up and wait as we fully expected to know our travel date by this time. We are trying to rest in God's timing and just get things done with the extra time we're given. I'll admit I've let myself get a little excited at the prospect of traveling soon, which has not been good for me. I didn't expect for us to travel until August or September and I was peaceful with that knowledge. But now that things are moving faster, I've been feeling the anticipation of {FINALLY} meeting our boys, which is not a place I've let myself go the entire process thus far. The unknown of when we're going to travel and how it will all fit together before July 15 has left me discouraged, frustrated and overwhelmed. I know much of this is coming from a place of sheer exhaustion, but this process is so emotionally draining, and once I got a glimpse of our precious boys in my arms, I was done for. I've spent many nights this week in tears or fighting back tears and despite my best efforts to reel myself back in, I may be too far over the line. This whole process has been a HUGE step of faith and this time of limbo is no exception. We are continuing to trust God in every breath, every word and every thought. We've been fervent in my prayers and we KNOW God has us. Better than that, we know He has our boys and that's been my only source of peace. I've said it before, but I'll say it again, adoption is messy and hard and frustrating, but it's been worth every minute because of the lives of our sweet boys. I know our time in country will be a whole new host of challenges and emotions, but I take courage in that time because we will have our boys with us. They will finally be Stevens and with that in mind, we continue moving forward.
We ask that you please continue to partner with us on this journey. Your support, love, prayers and encouragement is life to us, and we really couldn't do it without you. I know this all seems crazy (sometimes I think we are! ha!), but we know we have been called to adopt and we can't wait to finally be a mom and dad to little J and little L; and finally give them a family. Every child deserves a family and we are SO blessed to be able to be that for these 2 boys. Many of you have been kind with your requests to help us and we SO appreciate it! So much of our to do list has to be done on our end, but below are some ways you can help that are invaluable to our process:
1) Pray for us!
- Pray we get our court date SOON and that we will receive our written ruling before July 15.
- Pray our boys will "attach" (that's the adoption terminology) to us quickly; that they will feel safe with us and trust us.
- Pray for all of our travel details to come together and for us to arrive in Uganda safe and sound WITH all of our luggage :)
- Pray for our peace and emotional health. Lord, do we need it!
2) Consider contributing financially
I know so many of you have poured out your love and your finances to help support our adoption, and we can't tell you in words how much that has meant to us. With that said, we still need roughly $15,000 to complete the adoption process in country and immediately when we arrive home. At this time, we simply don't have it. $6,000 of that will go toward airfare alone, and the rest will be used for lodging, drivers, food, and court/embassy/medical fees for the boys. If you feel led to contribute tax deductible donations can be made through project hopeful at this link: http://www.
Other donations can be accepted through checks or Paypal at stevens.paul.s@gmail.com
3) Hand me down clothes and shoes!
We are accepting hand me down clothes from little boys everywhere :) Our boys are small but will probably fit into a 4T-5T once they're home and fed and loved :) They guesstimate they wear a size 9-9.5 shoe, but some larger would work too! We have some new clothes from people, but are still in need of pants, shorts, jackets and shoes. Thanks in advance!
We love you all and we can't wait to share our beautiful little ones with all of YOU.
xo,
Sorry for the lack of updates, but it's been a little crazy on our end the last few weeks. I am writing because we have some news, but not enough to add exclamation points yet :)
About a week and a half ago we received a call from our orphanage director letting us know that our lawyer in Uganda expects us to travel in the next few weeks(!!!!). As far as we understand, they are hoping to get all of their open cases closed by 4th of July weekend (that's us!!). The tricky part is that in Uganda, the courts close every year from July 15-August 15 for their summer holiday. So with keeping that in mind, we not only have to have our court date before July 15, we have to have our written ruling from the judge (granting us legal guardianship of our boys) by July 15. This is no small task. Typically from court date to ruling is anywhere from 1-3 weeks, so that means if we have a court date in mid-late June we HAVE to have our ruling at a faster pace than expected. Nonetheless, our lawyer is confident this will happen and we are believing that God will move mountains on our behalf. On top of it all, we will need to be in Uganda at least 3 days before our court date in order to 1) meet our boys (can't process this yet), and 2) take a tour of historic landmarks in Uganda (many judges require it at some point, and admire you if it's done before court). With that said, we could have only a 3-4 day notice to travel which has sent us into nesting mode. And quick. We have been slowly packing over the last 3 months, but now that's it's almost go time, it's been insane. There's so much to get done and very little time to do it. Paul and I are still working full time and then staying up until all hours of the night packing, ordering items for our trip, working on the boys room, and making lists upon lists upon lists. Things are coming together slowly but surely, and we are trusting God with the rest.
The last couple weeks have been a lot of hurry up and wait as we fully expected to know our travel date by this time. We are trying to rest in God's timing and just get things done with the extra time we're given. I'll admit I've let myself get a little excited at the prospect of traveling soon, which has not been good for me. I didn't expect for us to travel until August or September and I was peaceful with that knowledge. But now that things are moving faster, I've been feeling the anticipation of {FINALLY} meeting our boys, which is not a place I've let myself go the entire process thus far. The unknown of when we're going to travel and how it will all fit together before July 15 has left me discouraged, frustrated and overwhelmed. I know much of this is coming from a place of sheer exhaustion, but this process is so emotionally draining, and once I got a glimpse of our precious boys in my arms, I was done for. I've spent many nights this week in tears or fighting back tears and despite my best efforts to reel myself back in, I may be too far over the line. This whole process has been a HUGE step of faith and this time of limbo is no exception. We are continuing to trust God in every breath, every word and every thought. We've been fervent in my prayers and we KNOW God has us. Better than that, we know He has our boys and that's been my only source of peace. I've said it before, but I'll say it again, adoption is messy and hard and frustrating, but it's been worth every minute because of the lives of our sweet boys. I know our time in country will be a whole new host of challenges and emotions, but I take courage in that time because we will have our boys with us. They will finally be Stevens and with that in mind, we continue moving forward.
We ask that you please continue to partner with us on this journey. Your support, love, prayers and encouragement is life to us, and we really couldn't do it without you. I know this all seems crazy (sometimes I think we are! ha!), but we know we have been called to adopt and we can't wait to finally be a mom and dad to little J and little L; and finally give them a family. Every child deserves a family and we are SO blessed to be able to be that for these 2 boys. Many of you have been kind with your requests to help us and we SO appreciate it! So much of our to do list has to be done on our end, but below are some ways you can help that are invaluable to our process:
1) Pray for us!
- Pray we get our court date SOON and that we will receive our written ruling before July 15.
- Pray our boys will "attach" (that's the adoption terminology) to us quickly; that they will feel safe with us and trust us.
- Pray for all of our travel details to come together and for us to arrive in Uganda safe and sound WITH all of our luggage :)
- Pray for our peace and emotional health. Lord, do we need it!
2) Consider contributing financially
I know so many of you have poured out your love and your finances to help support our adoption, and we can't tell you in words how much that has meant to us. With that said, we still need roughly $15,000 to complete the adoption process in country and immediately when we arrive home. At this time, we simply don't have it. $6,000 of that will go toward airfare alone, and the rest will be used for lodging, drivers, food, and court/embassy/medical fees for the boys. If you feel led to contribute tax deductible donations can be made through project hopeful at this link: http://www.
Other donations can be accepted through checks or Paypal at stevens.paul.s@gmail.com
3) Hand me down clothes and shoes!
We are accepting hand me down clothes from little boys everywhere :) Our boys are small but will probably fit into a 4T-5T once they're home and fed and loved :) They guesstimate they wear a size 9-9.5 shoe, but some larger would work too! We have some new clothes from people, but are still in need of pants, shorts, jackets and shoes. Thanks in advance!
We love you all and we can't wait to share our beautiful little ones with all of YOU.
xo,