We have NUMBERS!

Oh, happy day!   All of our paperwork is DONE, our homestudy is revised and complete, and we have officially reached the waiting list!  A week ago, we overnighted our notarized homestudy and our dossier off to our agency, anxiously awaiting great news that no revisions had to be made and we were officially on the wait list.  While all of our paperwork looked great, we have one tiny revision to make and resend.  We overnighted that the next business day, and received the call on Tuesday, October 2 that we are officially a waiting family! 

So, now you are probably wondering what our waiting list numbers are.... 

The reason it took a few days to get it posted is that we wanted to have a creative way to display our numbers.  The only problem is, there is not a whole lot of time for creativity in our home right now!  Between school, coaching volleyball, Curt's job and transition to a new job, it's been a busy fall.  But, we chipped away each night this past week, and here are our OFFICIAL OCTOBER NUMBERS!!

For a baby girl, we are number....

For a baby boy, we are number....

For a sibling set, we are number....

So what do these numbers mean?

These numbers tell us how many families are waiting for a child.  Some families are on the waiting list for just a girl, some are on the waiting list for just a boy. Many families, like us, are on multiple lists, so when a referral goes out, there is a good chance that your numbers will go down in multiple areas.  Also, each family has their own set of parameters for their age preference of the child.  Some families prefer a toddler or older child, some families have a wide range from infant through child, and some families have parameters for an infant.  All of these variables affect the numbers and timing of referrals.  

What we do know is that God has already chosen a child for us.  The most amazing part is this child is likely not even born yet or even conceived.  But God has him/her/them chosen to be a little Bolhuis.  We find so much comfort in that as we begin this long wait ahead!  

We ask that you continue to pray that we will trust God's timing and provision completely.  Please pray that we will be patient and find joy throughout this next waiting phase of the journey!  

What's next?

It's time to relax for a little bit!  It's been a busy 3-4 months of paperwork, homework, and paper chasing.  We are ready to sit back a little and spend some time learning more about the Ethiopian culture, as well as reading some books about international adoption.  Each month, we will get updated numbers as to where we are on the waiting list.  We plan to share these numbers through the blog each month, so stay tuned!

Thanks for your prayers and support!  

Big Update!

Friends,

We sincerely apologize for our lack of posts over the past several weeks. We’ve been busy, and we have many updates!

Garage Sale

Wow! What a success!  Let me begin by thanking everyone who donated items and everyone who volunteered their time during this four-day event.  We simply could not have done this without you. 

So many items were donated that one garage and driveway was not enough!  A special thanks to the VerMeulen family for their graciousness as we took over their garage for a week, too!

The garage sale helped us raise over $3,500!  This amount is far beyond our expectations, and it’s truly a testament to God’s provision.  Thanks again to all of you who were involved in the event and to all of you who prayed for us.  The sale brought us one step closer to bringing our child home!

 

Garage Sale- Day 1

 Garage Sale- Day 2

 Garage Sale- Day 3

 Garage Sale- Day 4

Puzzle Fundraiser

Why don’t we just show you how far the puzzle has come…..
 

Incredibly, 984 pieces have been sponsored, leaving only 16 unsponsored pieces!  To everyone who has helped us come this close to completion: thank you!

If you do the math and total the amount we’ve raised between the garage sale and the puzzle fundraiser, you’ll see that we’ve raised about $8,500.  When I was crunching numbers before this process started and I tried to show God how the adoption wasn’t going to work because we simply could not afford it, he had a plan.  He knew how generous and caring and selfless all of you are.

I want to take a brief moment to let all of you know what your donations are funding.  It’s well known that adoption is expensive, but if you were like me four months ago, you have no idea why it’s so expensive.  Let me break it down in simplified terms:

About one third of the cost of our adoption will be to pay for two trips to Africa.  Four round trip tickets (and a one way lap seat for our child!), 14 nights of lodging, and food.

One fourth of the cost pays for the wonderful service our agency, All God’s Children International, provides.  So many people at AGCI are involved in our process, and we’re so grateful for their guidance and expertise.  The service they provide is invaluable.

One sixth of the cost is associated with our dossier, or our official paperwork that is sent to the Ethiopian government.  This international fee helps to ensure that the child we are referred is not a victim of child trafficking, among other things.

One eighth of the money pays for childcare once we are referred a child.  There will be a period of time when we will know who our child is, and they will be cared for at a transition home called Hannah’s Hope.  Our child will be fed on demand and cared for by a handful of wonderful people called Special Mothers.

The rest of the money is used for various things: adoption application fee with the U.S. Government, fingerprints, background checks, medical expenses, etc.

Again, we could not pay for all of these services without your help.  Thank you so much!

So, Where Exactly Are You In the Process?

We’re so close to being on the official wait list! Our homestudy is almost complete, then we will send our dossier to AGCI’s headquarters for approval.  Once it's approved, we will be on the official wait list!  We’ll keep you updated as each step unfolds.

What’s Next?

The summer has flown by.  The week after the garage sale, Stephanie and I took a few days off and spent some time in Grand Haven.  We came back just in time for Stephanie to begin volleyball tryouts, and she has been busy with her JV volleyball team ever since.  Stephanie has already gone back to school; her first day with students is next Tuesday!

Since Stephanie will be busy with volleyball and a new school year in the coming months, and since I have many projects to complete around the house that I’ve neglected to do all summer, we’re going to take a step back and focus on these responsibilities.  All of our paperwork is in order, and we’ll be ready to send it off as soon as our homestudy is done, so we will not be holding up the adoption process at all.  Additionally, we’re only able to take time to focus on other responsibilities thanks to your generosity which was outlined above, so thank you.

Garage Sale Fundraiser

We are collecting many treasures for our upcoming garage sale!  Here is what our garage is looking like right now....

As you can see, we are stocking up on items!  We have a little bit of everything, and this doesn't even include most of the furniture that has been donated.  We are looking forward to getting it all organized, priced and ready for the sale NEXT WEEK!  We will be having it in Hudsonville at Curt's parents.  I'll post more information later this week on dates and times, so stay tuned! 

In the mean time, if you have items to donate, we'd love to come pick them up and put them in our sale.  Thanks for your support! 

Social Worker, part 1

Last Monday, July 9, was a very special day for three reasons:

1. Our social worker was coming for our very first visit!  We were filled with excitement and a touch of anxiety at the same time.  We spent HOURS organizing every shelf and every drawer in our house, along with dusting every surface and nook and vacuuming every inch of carpet.  Necessary?  Probably not.  But we didn't know what to expect, and we missed Spring cleaning this year ;)
 
2. It was our second anniversary.  Really, is there a better way to spend/celebrate an anniversary than meet with our social worker and take a giant step closer to our babe?  We decided this will probably be one of our more memorable anniversaries!  On a side note, it was not only our anniversary, but we also learned that it was our social worker's anniversary as well!  She walked in the door and one of the first things she said was "Hey! Happy Anniversary!"  We looked at each other a little stunned, wondering how in the world she knew it was our second anniversary.  She went on to mention that she happened to glance through our personal profile sheets and noticed our anniversary because it was the same as her and her husbands.  Great first conversation starter, and a great way to kick the initial jitters.

3. Curt went and got our mail at lunchtime right before our social worker was due to arrive.  In the mail were two envelopes that looked pretty important, and maybe just maybe what we have been waiting for.  Curt tore him open to find that our FBI background check came back (and of course, we were clear)!!  Now this might now seem very exciting, but we were told that these could take a LONG time.  Months.  We were VERY pleased to have them back in roughly 4 week or less.  This was one step that could have potentially slowed up the process a bit.

We spent about two and a half hours with our social worker, and it went very well. She is very easy to talk to, and she is genuinely interested in us and our lives.  We got to talk to her mainly about our relationship with each other, from beginning until now.  We also talked about how God led us to this big decision in our life and how He is continuing to work through us and others to bring our precious child home.

We will meet with our social worker again on Tuesday of this week for individual interviews.  I will spend about an hour with her, and then Curt will spend about an hour with her as well.  We will wrap up our time together on Saturday morning for a couple hours to talk about........

....PARENTING!  Yikes!  Nephews and a niece, babysitting kids, volleyball camps filled with young girls, a class full of energetic first graders..... those seem easy compared to parenting! :)  We are very excited to begin the journey of parenthood when God is ready for us to have this child, but oh how difficult it will be to not get wrapped around that sweet babe's little finger! 

Gojo Ethiopian Cuisine

As a part of our education experience for the adoption process, we were asked to visit a restaurant that serves authentic food from Ethiopia.  We've heard about Gojo from a few different people, and for the most part, heard nothing but great things!  So, last Friday, Curt picked me up after work and we headed to Eastown to a little place called Gojo Ethiopian Cuisine!

First off, this place is so neatly decorated!  (Of course, I forgot my camera, so we had to take a picture with Curt's phone.... therefore, it's quite blurry!  You can get the idea though).

See?  Isn't it cute and welcoming?  I loved the straw huts and the authentic decor throughout.  Not to mention, the owner has precious pictures of many children adopted from Ethiopia that have dined at Gojo!

So we found a seat by the window and enjoyed the yummy smells!  The different spices smelled delicious!  We looked at the menu, and really weren't sure what to order.  The owners name is Sam, and he is originally from Ethiopia.  He suggested we try to lamb sampler platter.  Curt and I weren't so sure... we have never tried lamb, but why not.

In the Ethiopian culture, it is common to share a platter of food community style.  Also, rather than using utensils, you tear pieces of a spongy tortilla shaped bread called injera to scoop up the food to eat.

So our large platter of food came out, and of course I forgot to take a picture, so here is one that I found that looks similar except there was a large portion of lamb on it as well.

 So below all the food is the injerra bread, however, you get extra injerra bread on the side.

So now you're probably wondering... what is it?  Well this is what was on our plate:
Doro Watt- Spiced Chicken
Atkilt Alicia- Mixed Vegetables including cabbage, potatoes, peppers
Misir- Spiced Lentils
Shiro- Spiced Chickpeas (my favorite!)
Ethiopian Salad (not pictured above-- looked more like a salad you might picture in your mind)
Then there was another chicken and the lamb (not sure what they are called exactly).

The first few bites were very tasty (but a little spicy)!  It definitely was a lot of new spices and textures to get used to.  Curt and I enjoyed the experience, and enjoyed the food, but it will take some getting used to.  We are excited to go back again though, and try more!  We do believe that it is important that we bring the Ethiopian culture into our home when we bring our child home.  Their culture is and will forever be a part of them, so we look forward to celebrating their culture and its beauty with them!

Onward!

- 10-12 hours of online trainings.... check!
- 177 pages of With Eyes Wide Open handbook... check!
- 51 page personal profile completed by Curt... check!
- 51 page personal profile completed by Steph... check!
- Doctor's appointments... check!
- Blood tests and TB tests... check!
- Employment letters... check!
- 8 Letters of Reference... check!
- Local, State, and FBI background checks... check! (Well... still waiting for some results)
- Child Abuse checks... check!
- Lots of other random paperwork... check!

WOW!  The past three weeks have been a blur!  But.... bring on the Social Worker!  Our Social Worker will be visiting us Monday!  We will be doing our combined interview, and then we will each meet with her one on one another day.  We are one. step. closer!  From there, we will wait for her to complete our homestudy, then we can compile our Dossier and get that sent off.

Please pray that this process will continue to go smoothly with few bumps in the road. 

Psalm 95:1-7,
"Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us should aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
For the Lord is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care."

Blessings!

Wow!  We have been taken aback and humbled by all of the donations to our puzzle fundraiser.  We haven’t kept up with weekly updates to the puzzle simply because we could not put the puzzle together fast enough.  THANK YOU to all of you who have already graciously supported us through this fundraiser.  To date, 740 pieces have been sponsored, leaving only 260 pieces until puzzle completion.

We learned a couple lessons in our haste to keep up with all of the donations to our puzzle:

1.      Our puppies love to chew on puzzle pieces, as evidenced by a piece of the large elephant’s abdomen and the left wing of the bird directly below the elephants.  Replacement pieces are on the way!

2.      God provides, and he has done so through many of you who are prayerfully following this blog.  Many donations have come from completely unexpected sources and can only be explained by God’s movement in all of your lives, too.  Again, we thank you.

We will soon be entering into a waiting phase.  The paper chasing and education processes have already slowed down to a manageable amount.  We’ve been so diligent in taking multiple steps each day towards taking our child home, but now we simply need to trust God and his timing.  We know He already knows our child by name.  Just as He has shown we can trust Him to provide for this journey financially, we know He can also be trusted with timing.  Friends, please pray for our patience.