OUR children are waiting for us to come get them!

When I watch this video and others like it my heart swells. I feel love for every one of those beautiful children, all 4.8 million of them. Two of those children in Ethiopia are ours and waiting for us to love them, feed them, play with them, teach them, and just hold them. They are yearning for a family and I can't wait to give them that. My arms can't wait to hold them and my eyes can't wait to see their smile.

As Christians we are all in some way responsible to meet the needs of the orphans and widows. "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27 So that makes me think, what is OUR role? We are bringing two home soon. What can YOU do? Whatever God leads you to do; pray, give, serve, help, feed, educate, or adopt. There are so many ways we can help these children in Ethiopia have hope. That is why we want to extend the Penny Jar Project to go beyond our adoption and help others to adopt or help a certain orphanage. We don't know yet what God has planned for the Penny Jar Project, but we know it doesn't end with us and our adoption. Please watch this video and them pray for these children.

This video is from Children's Hope Chest...

Penny Jars Coming In...

We have Penny Jars coming in all the time now. It is so fun to see them coming to us on paypal and people just handing jars to us. Today I had one of my students in swim lessons (3 years old) hand me a bag of pennies for the Penny Jar Project. It was so sweet and so cute! Thanks Savannah! And thank you to EVERYONE who has given us their jars so far. Please don't forget to take a picture of yourself (kids) holding the jar and send it to Scott on the http://www.pennyjarproject.com/PJP/Welcome.html website. We have to pay our next big chuck of money for the adoption this month, so if you have your Penny Jar ready send it our way. Our family is going to go door to door in our neighborhood to see if anyone has some change and see how much we can get that way. We are trying to think of creative ways to do the Jars. If you have any other ideas send them our way. Thanks again! The Penny Jar Project Rocks!!!!!!!

Gladney Approved!!!!!!!

We are officially Gladney Approved as of July 9, 2009. That means we are approved to adopt a child(ren) from Ethiopia. Our dossier (foreign paperwork) is almost complete. All we have left to get is our CIS approval letter (after we get our fingerprints done). That is exciting news. We are so excited to be done with the paperwork part of our journey. It took us 7.5 months to complete the paperwork. Soon we will be on the waiting list for our kids in Ethiopia. We can't wait for that. I can't tell you how much we already love these children. We always tell people that we have four kids, but two are in Ethiopia waiting to come home. God knows the exact time that we will hold our kids for the first time and not a moment sooner. That is what we are holding on to right now. We want them home now, but we are patiently waiting on God's perfect timing. Keep up the praying! We feel all your prayers daily, thanks! We will keep you posted.