Slowly By Slowly-Negrete Adoption

Many of you saw my intagram post rejoicing as we passed the 1 year mark on our adoption journey but anticipated a possibly difficult call the next day from our case worker. Then many of you saw the instagram post pleading for prayer as our hearts broke hearing new news. Here's a brief synopsis of what we heard... To go into more depth, there is a panel that has been established in Uganda. Their main job is to find permanent homes within Uganda. This panel works at the local and national level. There are 19 children's homes willing to work with the panel to first and foremost find kids permanent homes within Uganda. There are some who sit on this panel who are in favor of international adoption and there are many who are not in favor of international adoption. Our agency had worked with 5 children's homes: 1 is fully working with the panel, 2 are extremely cautious and going to use the panel as a last resort and 2 are unwilling to work with the panel at this ...

We've spent a few days in Phoenix with family  which was agonizing not knowing if our I-600 A was sitting in the mail box. Chris went home yesterday and it had arrived!! As of today we are officially paper pregnant!!   We emailed it off to our adoption agency and they emailed back and we are #11 on the wait list. #11 This number can fluctuate a bit depending on what family is best fit for the child/children. Things may quiet down a bit as we enter into a season of waiting. The only thing we are going to need to do between now and accepting a referral is to keep our home study, biometrics and I-600a current...none of which needs to be done in the next 18 months. We will keep updating as we move up the wait list but we would love prayer as we prepare to bring our child home! We have also set up an adopt together account. Any money donated to here will go directly to our agency and adoption expenses. It is also tax deductible! You can also follow our journey in pictu...

Happy New Year!! We hope you and your family had a wonderful holiday season! We spent time  in Northern California with Chris' family and get to have a few days in Arizona with my family! We rang in the new year with dear friends and had a great time! Starting off 2015, I'd been thinking about a word or phrase to set the tone for this year. We don't expect much in our adoption as once we're on the wait list (still waiting on immigration to come back) we will just wait....probably all of 2015. I struggle with not being able to do anything or have control of but I'm learning to trust and wait in the Lord. For the past few weeks I've been thinking about the wait and wanting to wait well and in a way that honors God's sovereignty instead of my control. Advent this year has shown me how waiting isn't futile, it prepares our hearts for what's to come. A few weeks ago Sarah Hagerty wrote: "Waiting, in Him, isn't sitting, it's expecting. It...

Yes, we chose this.  Yes, we were told starting out how long this process would be. Yes, we knew we would still be a family of 2 for Christmas this year. But, empty arms are still empty arms. I wasn't told how bad I would ache. I wouldn't know looking at our beautiful tree how much would feel missing this year. Two ornaments hang in anticipation of a little to know they were thought about long before we had a face and a name. We don't know him...her...them? but we wait with heavy expectation for the Christmas when they delight in the lights, songs, food, family and friends and ultimately in Jesus. Advent has had a deeper meaning this year. I understand the ache and the anticipation just a little clearer. The excitement of the celebration is fogged a bit with the "not yet." I've found myself prayerfully whispering, "Come, Lord Jesus, Come" and simultaneously "Bring them home, Lord Jesus, Soon." I ache with the groaning world for our s...

Huh? Spring break....yeah we know it's a ways away but we have been planning our spring break since October!! Let me back up a bit, we have an amazing orphan ministry at our church, it's actually the reason we switched churches a little over a year ago. We knew we were going to need support and wanted our child to grow up and be celebrated in their adoption both legally and in Christ.  Project Hope  has become our family, they've rallied arounds us and we've been able to rally around families and individuals who are passionate about caring for orphans both locally and globally. A while back the leadership of Project Hope began dreaming of how to globally care for orphans well other than just through international adoption. One of the venues they began investigating was how to empower local churches abroad to care for their orphans well, to teach on the importance of permanence to families who had taken in children and how the gospel is the center of all of this. Mos...

Another check on the checklist, another task marked off!! We submitted our I-600A less than 3 weeks ago. We were told to expect up to a 2 month wait for our biometrics (fingerprint) appointment. I prayed and prayed we would receive our appointment date by the end of this week. I came home Monday to 4 letters from USCIS with our appointment date set for noon on December 12. It was such a direct answer to prayer, exceeding our request for an already speedy process! Silly government people who assign random times during normal working hours. We both couldn't do it but we've heard from numerous other families that they will often take walk ins. So today, I left school early and we rushed over to the office...we got a little lost on the way, stupid iphone lead us to the completely wrong place! When we arrived we were told we had to speak with the immigration officer to see if he would allow us to walk in. Thankfully we saw the nicest immigration officer there is and he did...

Before we tell you how God provided in amazing financial ways, we first want to give you clarity on all the behind the scene miracles that made this possible. I had a magic number of wanting 100 items for the auction. I almost gave in and thought 50 is enough, I can settle. Then 75 is great God can use that but something kept moving me forward, kept encouraging me to email more and more people. Boy am I glad I did! We were blown away by having over 100 items donated by family, friends and strangers...135 to be exact! If you are an adopting family, we hope the numbers encourage you to press on. It's a long, time-consuming endeavor but the blessing is far greater than just the monetary blessing. We met many amazing people who wanted to walk this road with us and met many amazing adoptive families. Some of our greatest joy came from connecting with other families who were banding together to bring kids home! First: The Numbers (Ironically I'm not a numbers person, I hate ma...