Earlier today, Miles and I were making cookies and listening to some Christian music. I raised my arms in the air and was singing to God. Miles said, "Mommy, What are you doing?" I said that I was singing to God. He said, "Why?" And I told him that I needed God in my heart. He said, "I want God in my heart too!" I love my little man!
May 19, 2008
I Want God in my Heart too!
Earlier today, Miles and I were making cookies and listening to some Christian music. I raised my arms in the air and was singing to God. Miles said, "Mommy, What are you doing?" I said that I was singing to God. He said, "Why?" And I told him that I needed God in my heart. He said, "I want God in my heart too!" I love my little man!
Peace
It has been almost three weeks since I mailed our I600A to the CIS office and did you notice...I haven't posted my anxiety rants about how impatient I am? LOL! Honestly, I've been so consumed by out upcoming move, I haven't had the time to worry about our adoption. See, God does work in mysterious ways. Maybe He knew I was going to need this move to focus on right now, to keep me from worrying about whose desk our paperwork is on and if they are actually processing it or if it is acting as a coaster...lol!
As many of you may remember and if you don't please read below, we always need your prayers. I was asking for the Immigration Stuff to be back to us within 5 weeks. Please remember us and our prayer list. So hopefully we'll get some kind of notification of something really soon. Our agency's waiting list is growing quickly and we need to get on that list asap to avoid having to wait another year for our baby to come home.
Yes, we know God's time is our time! But we have to do our part as well and after we are on the waiting list, then we are waiting on God's time and will accept it as that. I hear that a lot. "You know, you should wait on God's time." Okay people, we get that. But God is not going to bless laziness. We have to do our part to insure that all the paperwork is in and that we are on the waiting list in Ethiopia. I suppose a better way for some people to understand this would be a person praying for a better job and more income. "Well you should just wait on God's perfect timing." Yes you should. But you need to do your part. Get any job, go to school, better yourself for the market, like my pastor says, "get moving!" Don't just say you want something and don't work towards it and then claim that you are waiting on God's perfect timing. So if you see me and I'm anxious about our adoption, please know that I understand that He will give us a child in His time. But we have to do our part, and that is to get on that waiting list. I KNOW He is going to give us our baby girl in His timing. But again, we have to do our part and this paperwork stuff is it! Unless you have adopted before or are adopting right now, please just be our friends and family and love us and pray for us. This is already a hard wait as many of you know. There are so many of you that have had children since we began this journey and we are happy for you, please don't think I am talking to you. Just please don't judge us unless you've walked in our shoes. Okay, so I had to get that off my chest...and now I'm at peace again...lol (as my title states)!
There was a couple that got a referral of a little 2 1/2 year old boy within 2 weeks recently. WOW! Basically, there weren't any families before them requesting a boy of that age. Well we are looking for a girl up to 18 months, so maybe our referral will come sooner as well.
As many of you may remember and if you don't please read below, we always need your prayers. I was asking for the Immigration Stuff to be back to us within 5 weeks. Please remember us and our prayer list. So hopefully we'll get some kind of notification of something really soon. Our agency's waiting list is growing quickly and we need to get on that list asap to avoid having to wait another year for our baby to come home.
Yes, we know God's time is our time! But we have to do our part as well and after we are on the waiting list, then we are waiting on God's time and will accept it as that. I hear that a lot. "You know, you should wait on God's time." Okay people, we get that. But God is not going to bless laziness. We have to do our part to insure that all the paperwork is in and that we are on the waiting list in Ethiopia. I suppose a better way for some people to understand this would be a person praying for a better job and more income. "Well you should just wait on God's perfect timing." Yes you should. But you need to do your part. Get any job, go to school, better yourself for the market, like my pastor says, "get moving!" Don't just say you want something and don't work towards it and then claim that you are waiting on God's perfect timing. So if you see me and I'm anxious about our adoption, please know that I understand that He will give us a child in His time. But we have to do our part, and that is to get on that waiting list. I KNOW He is going to give us our baby girl in His timing. But again, we have to do our part and this paperwork stuff is it! Unless you have adopted before or are adopting right now, please just be our friends and family and love us and pray for us. This is already a hard wait as many of you know. There are so many of you that have had children since we began this journey and we are happy for you, please don't think I am talking to you. Just please don't judge us unless you've walked in our shoes. Okay, so I had to get that off my chest...and now I'm at peace again...lol (as my title states)!
There was a couple that got a referral of a little 2 1/2 year old boy within 2 weeks recently. WOW! Basically, there weren't any families before them requesting a boy of that age. Well we are looking for a girl up to 18 months, so maybe our referral will come sooner as well.
May 9, 2008
Lovin' My Boy With God Speed
Being a PAP (Pre Adoptive Parent), it's so easy to get caught up in the whole obsession of adoption. If you are a PAP or an adoptive parent, you know what I'm talking about. Your entire life becomes adoption. You speak adoption everywhere you go. You search engine is filled with adoption research. You read about 20 adoption blogs a day and you love looking at other peoples adoptive children, imagining what your family may look like one day. You search for songs about your adoptive child and cry like a baby. You read adoptive books. You belong to adoption forums, like 10 of them...lol!
In the whole "waiting" stage, it's so easy to focus so much on that baby that you can, in a small way, forget to appreciate the baby or children you already have. In no way have I forgotten that I already have a child. But I feel like God is trying to get me to focus on my little man. God I love him so much! He has been such a gift and right now I'm focusing time on my baby boy.
This morning, on the way to school, I asked Miles if I could pray for him. He said "sure!" So I thanked God for my baby and asked for Him to cover him with angels to protect him. After I finished praying, Miles said "thanks mommy." And then he asked if he could pray for me! Awww! To hear my three year old praying made me cry. His prayer went like this, "Dear Jesus, Help Mommy. In Jesus name keep Mommy safe. In Jesus name, Amen." I told him thank you and he said "your welcome!"
I found this song, "God Speed," while searching for adoption songs...lol, see I told you it's an obsession. I had to stop and dedicate a blog entry to Miles.
May 8, 2008
The View from a Three Year Old
A few days ago, we were outside as a family and I wanted a few pictures. Miles wanted to take some pictures too! Here is what he thought we should have pictures of. Looks like we might have a photographer on our hands!
May 6, 2008
Dossier Almost Complete!
I drove to Austin yesterday with a friend and had about 95% of our dossier authenticated by the Secretary of State. So.....we just need our I 171 (Immigration approval) and we submit our dossier to our agency, who then sends it to D.C. and then off to Ethiopia! For our prayerful friends, please be praying that:
- CIS San Antonio will process our application in the next 5 weeks
- God will provide us with the money we will need to pay for the remainder of our adoption expenses
- For our baby girl. For her health. That she feels the love of God and that He is her Father always and she always finds love, peace and faith in Him. And wherever she is right now, that He is creating her to be our daughter and she is loved and held and fed and cared for
- For our baby's birth parents. For the toughest decision they may ever make. Or for their health. I truly feel the pain that this family may be going through and please pray that this is their only and last option
- For our agency. That they continue to understand the anxiousness that adoptive parents feel and process our paperwork accordingly and ethically
- PLEASE pray that our dossier will be out of our hands and in Ethiopia before we move on August 15, 2008!
- For a referral of a girl under 18 months, court date and travel before December 31, 2008
- For us to become the parents that God has called us to be to this baby girl. To give us the knowledge and wisdom we will need to be her parents
- For Miles, that he bonds and loves his baby sister
- That we will continue to stay focused and not to want this adoption more than we want our God
May 2, 2008
And it's Off!!!
We finally got our homestudy and drove it to the post office to mail with our CIS (immigration) application the next day! So we are one step closer!!!! Yay! The San Antonio office is 3 months back logged, but I'm praying for a miracle. Our dossier paperwork is almost done, so we are just waiting on CIS and then we are officially on the waiting list, as if we haven't already been waiting...lol! We are also applying for a grant through Shaohannah's Hope, boy would that be nice! Keep us in your prayers for that one!
In getting ready for our move, we are going to be putting our house up for rent, which will be our first time being landlords....lol, how funny does that sound? We are so excited to get to experience a different part of the country.
Well all I can do right now is thank God for getting our homestudy done and pray for Him to help us hurry up and wait, and oh yeah, to speed up the San Antonio CIS office!!! Amen
In getting ready for our move, we are going to be putting our house up for rent, which will be our first time being landlords....lol, how funny does that sound? We are so excited to get to experience a different part of the country.
Well all I can do right now is thank God for getting our homestudy done and pray for Him to help us hurry up and wait, and oh yeah, to speed up the San Antonio CIS office!!! Amen
April 23, 2008
The Neverending Homestudy...
We won the award for longest time to compose a homestudy! Okay so maybe not, but whew we are close! We started our original homestudy May of 2007 through the Texas state foster/adopt system. We had it verified and signed in October of 2007. Why did it take 6 months to verify and complete? Well that's another story! We changed agencies to go international in January 2008 and well... it's almost May again. I don't recall praying the prayer for patience...lol! I don't understand how hard an update can be, really! First it was going to be by the beginning of March, then I was promised our homestudy this Monday and it's Wednesday and it seems like no one is returning my calls and now it looks like next week again! I really don't understand how almost 5 months after starting with our new agency we still don't have an update?
April 2, 2008
Understanding Adoption
Adoption isn't just what people do when they can't have "their own" children, it isn't plan B. Adoption is a true calling. It's knowing that your child is out there somewhere. It's yearning for him or her to just come home and not knowing when or where they are.
I believe that God put this yearning in us because we are already parents of a little girl, we just don't have her yet. He knew this was how He was going to complete our family and we know that by the desire that He put in us to adopt. Adoption has been something we've talked about since very early in our marriage. We have always been surrounded by adoptive parents through our church and always felt that "one day" feeling. Well our day is here and our daughter is in Ethiopia!
Imagine for a moment that YOUR child is in a foreign country. You have no way to communicate, no way to know if they are healthy, safe, if they are being loved, held, if anyone is wiping their tears or stroking their hair. You don't know when you'll get to see them again. You have months possibly even years of paperwork, visits, documents to complete. And then you still wait. Imagine YOUR baby thousands of miles away and you can't comfort them. You would do whatever it takes to just get YOUR baby home! You would redo paperwork you've done 3 times before. You would take documents back to the notary to have it re notarized with a clearer signature. You would beg your friends for references and them beg them to redo them when they aren't notarized properly or because they didn't date it. You would wait 3 months for an adoption visa because your towns immigration office is backlogged. You'd hear people around you saying "why don't you just have more kids?" and ignore them, because YOUR baby is out there. You would empty your savings, get another job, sell everything you own...just to get YOUR baby back! This is understanding adoption.
We know that most of the children in Ethiopia are very well taken care of. I only use this example to show that has parents, by however we got the part, we always yearn for our children to be loved, safe and cared for. As adoptive parents, we just trust that our babies are cared for until they come home.
I believe that God put this yearning in us because we are already parents of a little girl, we just don't have her yet. He knew this was how He was going to complete our family and we know that by the desire that He put in us to adopt. Adoption has been something we've talked about since very early in our marriage. We have always been surrounded by adoptive parents through our church and always felt that "one day" feeling. Well our day is here and our daughter is in Ethiopia!
Imagine for a moment that YOUR child is in a foreign country. You have no way to communicate, no way to know if they are healthy, safe, if they are being loved, held, if anyone is wiping their tears or stroking their hair. You don't know when you'll get to see them again. You have months possibly even years of paperwork, visits, documents to complete. And then you still wait. Imagine YOUR baby thousands of miles away and you can't comfort them. You would do whatever it takes to just get YOUR baby home! You would redo paperwork you've done 3 times before. You would take documents back to the notary to have it re notarized with a clearer signature. You would beg your friends for references and them beg them to redo them when they aren't notarized properly or because they didn't date it. You would wait 3 months for an adoption visa because your towns immigration office is backlogged. You'd hear people around you saying "why don't you just have more kids?" and ignore them, because YOUR baby is out there. You would empty your savings, get another job, sell everything you own...just to get YOUR baby back! This is understanding adoption.
We know that most of the children in Ethiopia are very well taken care of. I only use this example to show that has parents, by however we got the part, we always yearn for our children to be loved, safe and cared for. As adoptive parents, we just trust that our babies are cared for until they come home.
April 1, 2008
Waiting is the hardest part
As many of our family and friends know, we've been at this adoption thing for almost 3 years. Well, we talked about it for awhile, then became foster parents within our state hoping that we would find our daughter through a state adoption. Well after a lot of tears and about a year, we felt God calling us to an international adoption through Ethiopia.
Waiting for her is so hard. In a pregnancy you know in about 9 months a baby will come. You typically would know the sex and the health of the baby. In an adoption, it's just pure faith. Faith that it will ever happen...lol! We know that His timing isn't ours, but the human part of us takes over and our excitement of having another child sets it, and we wait....and wait.
We were hoping that we would have her home before our move to Missouri, but it probably won't be until late this year, possibly early next year. I tell you what, waiting has made us just a bit more Christlike. It has taught us that our eyes should be on Him first. We have given our wait to Him and trust that He will bring her to us in the right time. In the meanwhile, we dream of her and our lives together.
Waiting for her is so hard. In a pregnancy you know in about 9 months a baby will come. You typically would know the sex and the health of the baby. In an adoption, it's just pure faith. Faith that it will ever happen...lol! We know that His timing isn't ours, but the human part of us takes over and our excitement of having another child sets it, and we wait....and wait.
We were hoping that we would have her home before our move to Missouri, but it probably won't be until late this year, possibly early next year. I tell you what, waiting has made us just a bit more Christlike. It has taught us that our eyes should be on Him first. We have given our wait to Him and trust that He will bring her to us in the right time. In the meanwhile, we dream of her and our lives together.
Searching for our baby...
Hello friends! Welcome to the Hyman family blog! We are Brandon, Elisa, Miles and soon to be baby hyman by way of Ethiopia! Please keep our family, our daughter and her family in your prayers. We are praying for a smooth transition and a healthy baby. We are currently awaiting a Homestudy update and then will apply for CIS in San Antonio, TX. All before our move to Springfield, MO. this summer! We look forward to sharing this adventure with you all!
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