Journey through Adoption: October 2014

Phillipians 1:6 And he who began the good work within you, will continue his work...

Driving (Miss Baby)

Well, with summer over and the school year well under way I'm beginning to feel I have some focus back. Well, sort of. We set the adoption journey aside for a few months to enjoy the summer months with the girlies. And who wants to hear "still waiting" every week or two anyway?? I know it's hard for us to wait, so the constant reminder is, well honestly.... not.that.much.fun.

I will be honest and say it's a bit frustrating that each time we ask for an update, the time period lengthens. As of last week, we are now up to 12+ months for a potential match. We started a year ago with "approx a year from start to finish". I wonder if we just stop asking if the waiting period will miraculously shorten? I doubt it. And I'm guessing this is the very thing that every adoptive family goes through, so we're not special, unique or different. Although I'd like to think so ;)

That said, it's giving us time to evaluate, plan, and save. Those are positives and the areas we choose to focus on.

Exploring

I know most of you know the story of when we moved to Bend last Fall. We had initially planned to have a house here, then within the year, buy a condo in Portland. So we bought on the smaller side to accommodate both. We wanted the flexibility of being able to live between the two, as the girlies are in Salem with their mother during the school week and we thought it would be nice to pick them up, and hang out in Portland on the weekends; less driving for all of us. Well...things change and we all love Bend soo much and the driving hasn't been an issue (Thank god for good company :) that the Portland condo no longer feels necessary. So instead of buying a condo in Portland we were looking to buy a condo in Bend as a short term rental as we will need to reclaim the space in this house that we were using as a short term rental once the baby(ies) come(s).

Partying (Ashlyn's 9th)

As we evaluated all of our options we found that we could actually purchase a bigger house in Bend, and keep our short term rental in our home (no having to traipse across town to clean, do yard work or maintenance). As well as keep our current house as a long term rental. So we began looking and found a beautiful home, about twice the size of this house with a guest suite already setup and plenty of room for little feet!

We couldn't be more excited! We’re set to move on Halloween.

Floating

Our current house has been leased for a year starting November. Moving into landlord-ism is a little scary and unpredictable but we hired a good property management company to lead the way. Perhaps in a year or two I will have learned enough about Oregon law to manage it ourselves. Or not. Having 2-4 kids and a full time job may be enough!


Summiting

We are looking forward to getting this move under way to get settled into our new house. I look forward to decorating the new ST Rental space and getting it booked up again! Hopefully just in time for the holidays. I already have paint colors picked for the girlies and baby room when we get there. (Painting may just be my favorite (non-athletic) past time.)

There is disappointment in the ever moving target for meeting that beautiful little girl we are soo (patiently) waiting for, but we trust that we were given this time for a reason. Time to find a bigger house for this growing family and more time to save for the adoption expenses.

Hiking

Please pray for our patience and even more importantly, everyone in Ethiopia. Yesterday we read of potential terrorist attacks in Addis Ababa (where our orphanages are located) as well as conflicting news about Ebola spreading from Western to Eastern Africa.

Although we work through the disappointments in timelines and worries in travel, we feel eternally grateful for the opportunities presented to us the past few months.

Back to (His) work!

xoxo