December numbers

There hasn't been much movement in the numbers lately. So we were excited to see this movement. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We are praying that 2012 is the year we bring home our baby!

GIRL #

BOY #

New Numbers...Finally

Not much movement this month...

Girl #

Boy #

Yard Sales and God

Sometimes (like right now) it is so hard to put human words to God actions. But, I am going to give it a shot.

Today we put on a yard sale to raise funds towards our adoption. The decision to do the yard sale came about a month ago after taking a long break from doing any fund raising. We experienced a couple of really amazing things in the process that can only be attributed to God.

1) We were loved well by people. Several families and individuals donated items for us to sell. We had all kinds of things from clothes to tools to baked goods. Some of our baked goods were shipped to us from Alabama and Boston! We had other people come to our house and help Shelley organize and price everything. The night before the yard sale someone brought us dinner. We had college students and a co-worker show up at our house at 6:30 am (while on their fall break) to help (Thank you Tyler, Brenna, Kaitlyn, and Jeremy!). One of our favorite families, the Hyatts, drove up from Charleston to spend the night and work the yard sale (Thank you Peter, Tanya, Hannah, Lauren and Stone). They are such great servants of Jesus.

Just being loved in all those ways is very humbling.

2) God provided through the yard sale in very unexpected ways. About 2 weeks ago a friend of ours walked up to our house and said, "We don't have anything to donate but wanted to give you this for the yard sale". It was an envelope with $400 in it! BLOWN AWAY! Three days ago a letter came in the mail with this sentence in it, "I don't have anything to donate but figure you would take money". In it was a check for $2500! Yep...$2500! BLOWN AWAY AGAIN! (This is also is being loved by people....)

So before the yard sale even got here the yard sale had made $2900. If you are wondering, that is not normal for yard sales.

Then today another $785 came in from selling stuff. So, not being very good at math, I am pretty sure that adds up to $3685.

We also still have a $400-$500 worth of stuff that is for sale on-line.

That is crazy and something only God could do. He keeps amazing us. He keeps reminding us that He is so good and completely for this adoption. We know we don't deserve any of this.

So to everyone who had anything to do with this yard sale, we can't even begin to thank you.

Amazing.

YARD SALE on October 15

We are having a yard sale to raise money towards our adoption on October 15th.

Our next major expense will be the referral fee. That will be when we get a referral for a child. That amount is $4950. We still need $1200 to reach that amount. Then, the next expense will be travel to Ethiopia twice. The cost for 2 trips/4 plane tickets will be at least $6000.

We are asking people to donate anything you want to get rid of. We will take anything! :) We can pick it up or you can deliver it. Just let us know. You can email me at shelleybean12@hotmail.com.

So, please look through your stuff to see if you can give. And, pass the word around! Ask your family, friends, and neighbors!

We will also be having a bake sale at the yard sale. If you can bake something for us to sell please let me know that as well.

Thanks in advance for helping us bring home our child from Ethiopia.

Getting closer...

We have new numbers. We were surprised on the movement this month. It feels so close yet so far away...

GIRL

BOY

Lastest Numbers

Boy


Girl

Everything

Tens years ago this summer I recorded a handful of original worship songs. At the time they were the songs that were being sung by the college ministry I was leading. They have "sat on the shelf" since with no real present purpose.

Recently I found myself singing a couple of them in my mind as prayers for for our adoption journey. There is one particular line from one of the songs called Everything that really captures part of this journey. It says. "Make me smaller and You'll be greater. I give my life to you, I take my hands away."

It is amazing what God will do in you and through you when you genuinely pray those words and open your self up to Jesus being your everything. This adoption journey is not about us or even about the baby (we and the baby will gain from it though!). It is about God showing Himself, and His heart to us by allowing us to be in this journey.

We, as children of God, are all adopted. He chose to love us like a Father. Now, He is allowing us to have a small glimpse into what that is like.

So far, it is amazing.

I have recently taken some of those songs "off the shelf" and would be grateful to anyone who purchase one or two. They are $1 each. All of the profit goes into our adoption fund.

Click HERE and you will be sent to the site where they can be downloaded.

Adopted...and Adopting,

Doug

July Numbers Etc.

Well we never gave our June numbers....but now we have our July numbers and we are very excited.

We are also coming up on the time when our home study is going to expire. What that will mean for us is going back and redoing some paper work, background checks, and pay more money we were not planning on paying. It is going to cost us $380 to have that done.

Please continue to pray for God's provision. He has been so good to us along the way! There is not really that much to go and if you would feel led to give, we would be very grateful. You can either donate through this blog or mail the donation to:

Doug Hunt

416 Rock Creek Rd.

Clemson, SC. 29631

HERE ARE THE NUMBERS!

BOY

GIRL

Another set of #'s

We are continually encouraged by our numbers. Here you go.

GIRL

BOY

Numbers and update

It has definitely been an interesting month in the world of Ethiopian adoption. Even with all of the changes beyond our control, there are definitely some encouraging things going.

We received an update today from our agency that told us a couple of really good things.

1. Court dates have been set for families that received referrals after the changes that were made in early March. That tells us that things are still moving along. That is very good news.

2. We received our new numbers and those are moving along better than expected as well.

So here they are:

GIRL

BOY

New numbers and update on changes

Girl#

Boy #

We received an update on the changes happening. I am copying some of the information into this post. It's a little hard to follow but basically it's not going to be as bad as we thought. We were very encouraged.

Today we want to update you on the feedback we received yesterday from our foreign staff in Ethiopia, which was confirmed in a discussion with our adoption colleagues in a Joint Council caucus call later in the day.

At this time, all Foreign Staff on the ground in Ethiopia are reporting that MOWA has completed their staffing changes and are now currently working at full capacity to complete those adoption cases currently re-scheduled or assigned a court appointment through the courts of Addis Ababa. Our staff believe this to be around 800 cases they are working at full force to complete with no restrictions on the number of cases processed each day. This is great news! We are thrilled to hear these drastic changes do not seem to be going into full effect.

We are also pleased to report that for new cases moving forward; it appears the original changes proposed by MOWA will not be implemented to the degree of 5 cases a day. At this time it is unknown whether or not MOWA will issue a formal statement regarding how they will process cases in the future, but from all discussions it will not be a drastic decrease from before. Through the continued work, meetings, and advocacy of many Foreign Staff members in Ethiopia, it appears any future changes within the case processing for MOWA will avoid sweeping and disproportionate alterations to the number of cases processed each day. Rather, the hope is that MOWA, Joint Council, Adoption Service Providers, the US Department of State and other NGO organizations can come together to support the government of Ethiopia in strengthening the process for ethical adoptions to continue while also improving the general social structures to assist with family preservation in Ethiopia. This plan was acknowledged in the recent posting by the US State Department this morning at http://adoption.state.gov/news/ethiopia.html. We understand the US Department of State cannot issue a formal statement without MOWA issuing a retraction. Based on the information we are receiving, MOWA is concentrating on processing the current adoptions and the new staff is not focused on numbers, but doing their jobs.

Major Changes

There is a lot happening in the world of Ethiopian adoption right now that will most likely have a major impact on our process. It is one of those things that is completely out of our control.

The simplest way to explain it is that the Ethiopian government is making a change in the number of adoptions they process each day. We are being told that the number is being reduced by as much as %90. From what we can tell this is due to the Ethiopian Government believing there is a lot of corruption going on. This change effects every agency that processes Ethiopian adoptions, not just ours.

Think of it this way, this will mean that over 3,500 children that would be sent to good home over the next year will have to stay in an orphanage. Or, it means that a child will be in an orphanage 5-7 years longer than before. It is really sad for those children.

You can read official info about this by clicking HERE and HERE

January #'s