We've been approved!!

We have been approved and have recieved our 171-H form in the mail today!! I am so excited. We just need to mail our Dossier to Virgina tomorrow or Monday and we will offically be waiting (expecting!). Thank you all so so much for your faithful prayers, we could not be more excited! God is good...the theme for my life! :D

My friend just had a baby and gave me an announcement and the verse she used was,

"The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy." Psalm 126:3

I am praising God with this verse today...He has done great things for us and we are filled with JOY!

May your week/weekend be filled with God's joy...

God is yet again faithful...

I know I already mentioned "the BIG deal" but I need to elaborate...
God is so faithful to provide. Charlie got the BIG deal we'd been praying about. The commission from this deal will pay for more than half the adoption!!!! We have yet to get a deal even a 1/8 this big in the 7 years Charlie has worked at Containment Corporation and now we get it??!! Why do I continue to worry, doubt and fret? I know God has shown us that He wants us to adopt...why do I worry? He will provide for the journeys He takes us on. It's as simple as that.

I also checked our agencies blog and the wait time for a referral is now 6-8 months for a boy and 9-11 months for a girl. This is about a three to four month LESS wait. This could change at anytime but that is the current trend. I can't wait to meet this little one God has placed in our hearts and lives!

God also provided this chapter in Psalms for us to rest in...God is good. :D

Psalm 146

"Praise the Lord,
Praise the Lord O my soul
I will praise the Lord all my life
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.

Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortal men, who cannot save.
When their spirit deparst they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
the maker of heaven and earth,
the sea and everything in them-
the Lord, who remains faithful forever.
He upholds the cause of the oppressed
and gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets prisoners free,
the Lord gives sight to the blind,
the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down,
the Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the alien
and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

The Lord reigns forever,
your GOd, O Zion, for all generations.

Praise the Lord." (italics mine)

PRAISE!!

Just a quick update...We just found out that Charlie got the "BIG DEAL" we'd been praying for to come through. He gets commission on this "BIG DEAL" and after taxes it's going to pay for more than half of the adoption. YES...MORE THAN HALF!! We do indeed serve a mighty God who has resources beyond our imagination...if He wants something to happen...it'll happen. No need to fret, no need. TRUST...it really is a theme I am learning. Thank you, THANK YOU for your prayers!!

Happy 4th Birthday Emmy Grace...

I am not a pro at the blogging yet so these pictures posted backwards. The picture at the bottom of the post is first and the picture at the top is last. Sorry!! :D
We had a great day yesterday celebrating our sweet Emmy's birthday. She is four years old!! I don't know how that happened...honestly. She is so sweet, loving, funny, kind, caring, and just adorable. She has lots of questions and lots of love. We just love, love, love being parents to such a beautiful girl inside and out. We are so blessed by our sweet Emmy Grace. Thank you Jesus for our sweet little surprise you blessed us with four years ago!! :D

The day was a blast as you can see.

Queen Mommy and her princess

The staff at Ariel's grotto singing Happy Birthday to Emmy...she was embarrassed.

The King with princess Ariel

Emmy got to dress up and meet the real Ariel!

Emmy magicially transformed into Ariel at Disneyland

Emmy picked It's a Grind for her birthday breakfast...Chocolate milk and a bagel. :D

On Vacation...

So we are in beautiful Central Oregon (BEND, OR to be exact) for our family vacation, post graduation getaway trip! We are having a blast and love, love, LOVE it here.

Random thought I will share with you...this morning I went running on this beautiful trail two minutes from my sisters house. It's much harder for me to run here because of the altitude, yet at the same time the beauty distracts so perfectly you don't need an ipod and find yourself continuing past your normal stopping point because you want to keep seeing the beautiful views!! It's awesome. I stopped at this one part and stretched and just enjoyed the view. I was praying and just in awe that God spoke into existence this beautiful, marvelous world with just His words. He so beautifully fashioned each and every animal, plant, flower, mountain, river, rock everything with His strong powerful words. He took such care and detail to create it all for us to ENJOY! What a beautiful thought. This led me to think how God has and will beautifully fashion my life. He already has the plan and He is step by step putting together what He wants for Charlie, Emmy and I. He will carefully plan, and create with such detail what His best is for us. I need to TRUST HIM. (Do you see a pattern here?!) Trust in His timing, His plan, His grace to save me when I go off His path. He is good.

Please pray for peace in our hearts as we are getting closer questions arise, doubts, fears, excitement we can't contain, and such a longing for this sweet child to be in our arms. Pray for the ORPHANS around the world. Pray that God will ensure justice for these children without a parent/family to stand up for them. PRAY to our mighty God to rescue the fatherless. That they would know they have a heavenly father...

Thank you faithful prayer warriors! :D

Waiting...and Praying.

So sorry it's been so long since I've written. It's been a crazy two weeks.

First Charlie finished School!!!! This truely deserves a page full of exclamation points but these four will have to do. {wink} We are so proud of our Charlie for accomplishing this major milestone. Although it was a rough 3 year ride we are at the end looking back saying THANK YOU JESUS for helping us all through this. Truely it is all by the grace of God. Thank you everyone for your prayers.

Second, I finished all our our paperwork for the adoption!!!! Yet again I need a page full of exclamation points. Agh...It was alot of work. It really really was. I have to be honest and say I am having some doubts...worries...concerns. Emmy and I went to LA today to get our state certification done and I was praying the whole time. I was just overwhelmed with everything. How are we going to get $7,500.00 in a couple weeks, what if our child is sick, how long will the referal process take, should we bring emmy to ethiopia, what if I get pregnant and we have to stop the process, what if the adoption is haulted, what if we don't pass court over and over like so many others, etc.

Well if any of you have driven to LA, cars like to cut you off often. During my many visits there I have learned this. Well once again a car cut me off. On the bumper was a sticker that read "Jesus es mi paz." I was so comforted by this sticker even if the driver was an idiot. {Joke} Jesus is my peace....I repeated this man times. Alone in HIM I will have peace and rest in His plan for our family. Whatever it looks like. All I can do is trust Him...and I will.

Well we leave this Friday for Oregon for two weeks and we could really use your prayers as we start this new journey of no school and no adoption paperwork. We really are praying for God's guidance to show us where we should be living, and what we should invest our time in while we wait for our little Ethiopian prince or princess. :D We would appreciate prayer for our 171-H to arrive quickly also. Thank you everyone!

USCIS Application turned in...

So...we turned in our USCIS application. We are really getting closer to turning our dossier in and being on the waiting list. The processing time for USCIS is approximately 6-8 weeks right now. Pray with us for God's favor and for the Lord to move swifly. We only want the child He has for us...the child that is supposed to have the last name Beal...who is supposed to be emmy's brother or sister...and who is supposed to be our daughter or son. So if it takes longer we too know this means that child, our child is not ready yet. Thank you so much for your prayers!! :D