Slowly By Slowly-Negrete Adoption

We are praying daily that "the" call comes but so far it's just been quiet. Friday evenings are especially hard as we know the soonest we could get the referral is the next Monday. But, today's Friday afternoon is a little brighter!! At the end of school, when my kids were packing up to go home (all teachers know how crazy those few minutes are) I got a call from a grant organization. They have approved us for a $4,000 grant!! Hallelujah! We are so grateful and excited for this extra financial help!! Please pray we get our referral by Christmas, we wait with expectant hope...exactly what this season is all about!

We have over 100 items listed in our auction this year. We are continually blown away and so blessed by each and every item and all the people who have stepped in to help in this way. You can check it out here https://www.facebook.com/groups/1435369746717958/ Bidding starts on Wednesday and goes until Saturday at 9PM PST. Get some Christmas shopping done early!! Here are just a few of the items: Happy Bidding!!

This past weekend we had the amazing opportunity to live out James 1:27 through our Both Hands project. I've wanted to do a Both Hands project long before we began our adoption. It's such an amazing blending of caring for orphans and widows at the same time. JT's (the founder) story is amazing (https://vimeo.com/49870537), he's seen the power of blessing the orphan and the widow first hand. This same care goes into all projects under his organization. They were easy to get a hold of, quickly responded to calls or emails. We had numerous phone calls with JT himself, we felt cared for and supported all along the way. We got to spend the day blessing sweet Greer. This amazing woman suddenly lost her beloved husband 3 years ago. We remember him as the man around Biola who wore the big straw hat. He cared so well for the students and faculty of Biola but was an even more amazing father and husband. He is so deeply missed! It's not to late to sponsor our team, visit h

Friends, I'll keep it short and sweet but we are dancing around here. We're #1 on the wait list!! That means the next child/children approved for adoption that meet our parameters will be ours!! You hear that...ours, our son our daughter. We will be parents, a mama and papa! We are so so excited! Please be praying for us and our future kid(s) in the wait! Come on God, move mountains!!

Look, isn't it beautiful!! We finished the puzzle 2 days ago. It's going to look amazing hanging in the kid room! We can't wait to read all the names on the back with our future child/children. It's overwhelming to see all the people who donated in this way. We have been so blessed by so many who have supported us not only financially but in every way. We are so grateful for each and every one of you!!

Our Both Hands project 2 weeks from today, we've been busy preparing, getting donations, taking pictures and measurements to bless sweet Greer. We can't wait to tangibly bless her in this way! We've assembled our team and spent multiple Saturdays at Home Depot, Lowes, Ace Hardware and True Value seeking donations, we'd appreciate your prayers that these stores are willing to partner with us! Our  Both Hands  page is up and running and we have our letter sending party tonight!! We've already seen God's blessing on our project in many ways. We had all our colored copy letters printed...600 of them for free! Two local shops agreed to split the cost. Both mentioned business is slow but were still happy to partner with us saving us hundreds of dollars in printing! We had another Both Hands family send us 200 envelopes and stuffing envelopes they had left over from their project. They sent it as their support for our project and saved us money as well!!

Nothing has changed on the adoption front but we are hitting fundraising hard! Just Love has updated their website and our profile. You can support us and enjoy yummy coffee at  http://justlovecoffee.com/ Beneficiary/Profile/2509 Our Both Hands project is in fully swing, you can check out our profile at http://www.bothhands.org/project/negrete-5059 Other than that, we're still truckin along at #2 waiting for "the call". I have my sub plans all ready to go for referral day so I can jet off and be with Chris! Please Jesus let it be soon!

Can you tell we're a little excited around here. Like laugh and cry at the same time which sets off an asthma attack (true story). WE ARE #2 ON THE WAIT LIST!! WE EXPECT A REFERRAL IN 6 TO 12 MONTHS!!! Wow, thank you Jesus, Praise God, we are going to be parents!! After 18 months of discouraging news, setbacks, indefinite timelines, suspensions it doesn't seem real that we will probably become parents in 2016!! When we left our first agency, we were #11 on the wait list with an indefinite timeline. When we first began talking with our current agency in March, we were told there we would be #4-5 on the wait list when we completed our dossier and wait time would be 12-18 months. They were able to make a couple matches in May and we've moved up to #2!!! Please be praying for us, we are so excited and reality is setting in that our home will be filled with a little person (or persons). We are so grateful for God's sovereignty and provision, we are so excited

The lovely Seven Arrows is hosting a flash sale for us today through Wednesday!! Head on over to Seven Arrows  to Each necklace is $25 and they are gifting us $10 per necklace! We're so grateful for their support, it's been amazing to see complete strangers walk this road with us. Our next fees will (hopefully) be travel and in country fees! We are still about $12,000 away from having those fees saved! We are so grateful for this flash sale to help chip away at that expense!

We officially completed our dossier this week! It was such a relief to send it off. (A Dosseir   is a collection of official documents about you and your family. Some of the required documents include birth certificates, criminal clearances, and home study. The documents sent to Uganda are reviewed by the government officials, judges, orphanage directors, and others who will evaluate your ability to be a good parent.) Our Dossier included: 1.                        2 notarized copies of the Passport Data Page                                          2.                        2 Certified copies of Marriage certificate                                      3.                        2 Certified copies of birth certificates for each  household member                                        4.                        2 notarized copies of Employer letter (s)                                5.                        2 notarized copies of State criminal clearance                 

Thank you for all the encouragement and prayers over the past few weeks. In our weakness so many have stood with us and prayed for us. We've been so blessed by the body of Christ wrapping around us. In our last post we mentioned we were given three options (switch countries, go on hold or stay active). We took time to pray, seek the wisdom of others who were less emotionally involved, talk with other Ugandan adopting/adoptive families, looked into other countries, had multiple phone calls and emails with our agency and prayed more.  Ultimately, we don't feel like we're being called away from a Ugandan adoption. So that left us with two options with our agency: 1. go on hold or 2. stay active. Both of these options came with the reality that we would not be adopting any time soon so we began to look elsewhere. We finally decided to switch agencies so we could stay in a Ugandan program. This was from when we sent in the application fee and initial documents and agr