Thursday, September 16, 2010

WE HAVE NUMBERS!

In most of life I would complain if someone reduced me to a number. But, today I am excited to be given a number. As of right now we are officially on the wait list...actually two lists. It is hard to explain how it all works but here is where we are in the two lists.

MALE - #65
FEMALE - #92

Those numbers represent everyone who is adopting a children of any age. We are pursuing to adopt a child who is less than a year old so that means the numbers are a little deceptive. Here is a quote from our agency that helps explain it all.

"We take many things into consideration when issuing a referral and we will go down the list to find the best match for the kiddo at hand....a family may not need to be the first on the list to receive a referral, just the best match at that time."

A great Day for us! Now we wait.

Thankful to be a number.


Thursday, August 19, 2010

It's going out today!

I loved hearing those words today from our social worker. Our home study is on its way to us. Then we send our dossier to our agency. Wahoo! The wait before the wait is almost over. Then we just wait...

Monday, August 2, 2010

The Wait Before the Wait.

It has been a while since an adoption update. That is mostly because there is not a ton happening. We are currently waiting for our final piece of paper work for our home study to be complete.

All we are lacking is our FBI background check. So, other than that thing Shelley did when her name was not Shelley, when she was hanging with those people at that place when the deal went down and it happened, it is really just a formality. OK, so she has always been Shelley...she's clean.

From what we can tell we have about 4 more weeks to wait until we get a letter in the mail from the FBI saying, "No record found". At that point we will be able to have the home study approved and have our dossier ready.

I feel like this is just the wait before the wait. Once we send in the last bit of paper work then the real wait begins when we will have nothing to do but wait. Maybe this is just meant to be a test run wait?

We have been tossing around some name ideas. Since we do not have a preference between male or female, we are trying to come up with a name for each. James is pulling for Rumpelstiltskin or Pumpkin.

In the mean time we are referring to our new child as "Bean". That was our sister-in-law's, Christy, idea. Since we were drawn to Ethiopia through coffee, she thought "Bean" would be good. So we are going with "Bean", for now.

We do need for you all to continue to pray that God would prepare us for all that is to come. This is about a real life, not a process. So we want to be as ready as we can be to nurture a new life.

We also need you to continue to pray for the finances. We are in a good spot now. We have what we need for the next big chunk but there is still a bigger amount we will need in the future. Pray for our faith and faithfulness with our own money.

Thanks.

The Hunts.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Moo Moo

Eat More Chicken! Especially when it's free! The Hunts took part in Cow Appreciation Day at Chickfila on Friday. It was a fun time dressing up and getting to eat our favorite fast food FREE!

Our sweet friend Krystal joined us. It was fun to hang out and catch up with her.


Saturday, July 10, 2010

The 4th

We had a great time this past weekend with family. We did a lot of hanging out in Grammy's pool.


Playing with cousins

The boys being silly


And on our way home we stopped at an Ethiopian restaurant. It was so good! Fun times!

Emily loved it!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

pictures of recent activity




This is Doro Wat, an Ethiopian dish Shelley cooked. It was part of an assignment in our workbook. It was really good.




This was when we were getting fingerprinted for our FBI background check.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Catching Up

It has been a while....

Part of the reason that we have not updated lately is because you would probably be bored by what we have been doing: fill out this form, notarize those forms, make that call, etc.

Though it is not the most exciting stuff in the world, we have made huge steps forward in our paper work. Our home study is almost done. The big hold up is that we have to have child protection background checks done on each of us from every state we have lived in. That is 6 for me and 5 for Shelley (did I say "fill out this form , notarize those forms?")

We have also completed our on-line training courses. They were actually really good. We are also working through a self guided workbook that covers all kinds of topics. One of the assignments we have is to cook and try Ethiopian food!

We have been cleared medically. We have been fingerprinted for the FBI.

There is so much to be praying through and preparing for as our family changes.

One of the things that we are experiencing in the process is a higher sensitivity to racial issues. Adopting from Ethiopia will obviously make us a trans racial family. We know that will come with social challenges and we are preparing for that. But it is also opening our eyes and ears to how much racism there is around us all. Even in a "Christian culture" we are hearing people say things that don't seem very Christian. It is really sad. I am reminded of what Paul wrote to in Galatians,

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are ALL one in Christ Jesus."

We are excited that the oneness in our family is going to look a little different.

Please continue to pray that we would be growing in love for our child.
Pray that God would continue to provide all that we need.
Pray for Emily and James as we try to help them prepare for a new brother/sister.
Pray for the millions and millions of orphans all over the world.

I will leave you with this sobering statistic that should challenge us all to do something about the orphans in the world. Everyday over 30,000 children die because of starvation or curable disease. Lets pray for that number to decrease and all be willing to be part of the answer to that prayer.