The State of Adoption in Ethiopia.

Below are 2 emails that we received from our agency, America World, in regards to changes that are happening in the adoption process in Ethiopia! Please join us in prayer as we wait to see the outcome.

We are writing to ask your family to join us in prayer for the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs (MOWA) regarding the number of cases they will be able to process each day. They have made statements that they desire to decrease the number of recommendation letters they write each day. We understand that because of these statements  the Court and MOWA are in the process of meeting to discuss and work out  any potential changes or new processes regarding adoptions in Ethiopia. We want to blanket these meetings with prayer and ask you to come along side us in this.

We are sorry to be sending information to your family so late in the day, but we wanted to communicate this request to you before the weekend. We know rumors and concerns can arise from any information being shared in the adoption community, and our desire is to continue to primarily provide you with any confirmed information in a timely manner. Please rest assured we will continue to seek information on what is happening in the adoption process in Ethiopia and will share with you any new confirmed information we receive.

Email 2:

To follow up from the email sent on Friday, thank you for joining us in prayer. It is a blessing to know so many families are praying on behalf of the current situation in Ethiopia.  We would ask you to continue to pray as court and MOWA are still meeting and will continue to do so in the days and weeks ahead.

As of today, MOWA has begun to write fewer recommendation letters each day for families in the court process. This is something we anticipate will continue over the next few weeks as the court, MOWA, and other entities meet to discuss MOWA’s desire to decrease the number of recommendation letters they write.

We know many questions arise from difficult news, please be assured we will continue to inform you as further details unfold and will be in touch with your family directly as we have new information.

 

Help us Piece Together our Family

The countdown has officially begun… 10, 9, 8 months… our adoption paperwork, the dossier, has officially been completed and will soon be headed to Ethiopia; which means that we are officially done with the “paper pregnancy” and are now on the waiting list to be referred our next child(ren).

The wait is anywhere from 5 to 11+ months right now. In case you did not know we have 3 lovely biological kids Ava 5, Gavin 3, and Ashton 2; we are requesting a child 0 -18 months or twins or a sibling group 0 – 24 months. We have raised about half of the $30,000 that we need to complete this adoption, and during this time of waiting we are hoping to complete our fundraising so that we will be prepared to accept our referral and travel to bring home our next child.

Help us add ONE more piece to the puzzle so that there will be ONE less orphan.

Would you consider sponsoring a piece of our puzzle to help change an orphan into a beloved child? Each piece will be $10,and we will write the name of each person who buys a piece (or pieces) on the back of the piece, and eventually frame the puzzle in a double glass frame. It will be a constant reminder, to hang on our wall, of those who came together to help bring our next child home. Below is an image of the puzzle we are putting together:

1500 pieces @ $10 a piece = $15,000 raised

You can contribute towards our adoption in a few different ways:

• Use the PayPal link on our adoption blog to donate any amount (the direct link to PayPal is here). (A small processing fee is taken out of the donation.)
• To give a tax-deductible donation, please send a check to Lifesong for Orphans, PO Box 40/202 N. Ford St, Gridley, IL 61744. Please put our last name in the memo section Reich/#1685 adoption. *Note:  In following IRS guidelines, your donation is to the named non-profit organization.  This organization retains full discretion over its use, but intends to honor the donor’s suggested use. If you give through Lifesong please let us know, so that we can follow up with you. You can also give online at http://www.lifesongfororphans.org/donation.html just put add Reich/#1685 adoption to the comments. (Again, a small processing fee is assessed if you give online.)

For every $10 donated, we will write your name on the back of a puzzle piece, and our next child will forever know the loved ones who helped to bring him/her home.

Our goal is to raise the money for the final piece of the journey by May 31, 2011.

We would be grateful if you would help spread the word by posting on your blogs, facebook or twitter. (If you post, please leave a comment & let us know so that we can thank you!)

If you would like you can cut and paste this message onto Facebook:

Help piece together the Reich’s Adoption! The Reich’s are on the countdown to raise $15,000~ it’s as simple as $10 for a puzzle piece! Be a part of bringing their next child home to his/her forever family! Go to http://reichadoption.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/help-us-piece-together-our-family/ for details and donate today!

There is a huge task ahead to raise the money needed to complete the adoption. But we believe that nothing is impossible with God, and it is His hurdle to jump, His sea to part, His mountain to move. We believe that He has asked us to adopt a child(ren) who need a family, even though we do not have the means, we will trust Him to provide.

Thank you for all of your love, support and prayers! We are truly grateful!

Wedding Gifts and Adoption

Watch this beautiful video below of a couple getting married and how they are helping their friends who are adopting from Ghana. I love hearing stories like this!

[HT: Christian Alliance]

 

A Mother’s Heart

As part of the adoption process we are required to read a handful of books on adoption and parenting, one of the things that this reading has done has caused my heart to ever more aware of the plight of the orphan as well as the problems with attachment after a child is adopted. As we progress through the paper pregnancy my heart has started to love this child we don’t even know. It is weird to not know anything about our child; whether they are born yet or are even a twinkle in someone’s eye, if he/she is a boy or girl, the age, health and background. And yet my heart is starting to long for their’s. To know the sound of their voice, the touch of their hand and to show them God’s unconditional love as they learn to trust and attach to our family. I know that the journey may be long, but with Gods strength and knowing that we are called to expand our family through adoption, hopefully we will be the agent for change in our kids lives, just as much as they are for us. Please pray that as we progress though this journey that we will allow our hearts to feel the love for our child(ren) yet to be, even though we do not know them yet.

Adoption/Ethiopia Prayer Requests…

I wanted to give you all a little update on what is happening in Ethiopia right now in regards to adoption. Please take time to pray for our newest addition, as well as orphans across the globe. Consider what you can do to help alleviate the orphan crisis, here in the states and abroad.

- There is one, yes you read that right, one judge that overseas all of the court appointments related to all of the adoptions that happen in Ethiopia.

-The police in the Sidamo region of Ethiopia are fighting with MOWA, the primary adoption authority in Ethiopia, which is holding up ALL adoptions from that region. (This may also include the adoption of a sweet little girl by my cousin Erika.)

-Many of the orphanages in Ethiopia go without basic needs. Most recently, I heard of one infant orphanage that some adoptive parents visited that was without diapers or mattresses for the cribs. The children were wearing onesies with a bit of torn sheet placed in the bottom to catch what they can, needless to say this did not work well… Thankfully there have been many donations from the families that have gone over to Ethiopia recently, but there are still other orphanages that are not in the immediate area to receive donations from visiting families that are in similar situations.

-Sickness and death: there are still many children who are orphaned because of malaria. Many of the children who are in the transition home (a home for kids who have a forever family, but are waiting to pass embassy or court) are sick. In the discussion group that I am a part of, there are always requests for prayers because a child is on a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th round of antibiotics. Which means that kids who do come to the states get antibiotic resistant illnesses. Not to mention all of the kids who are not in orphanages or the transition homes who do not get the immediate care of a doctor when they are sick. If I remember correctly, there is one doctor to about every 30,000 people in Ethiopia.

-Kids who are transitioning home. As we read more about adoption, we are starting to realize that the transition home for many of these kids, especially the older ones, can be very difficult. Some of these children have been separated from their families because of death and disease, others because the family is unable to care any longer for their child/children. Some children have never had a consistent caregiver, so they have never learned how to attach to another human or how to trust. It breaks my heart, and makes me long to know and hold our next child. I know that the journey will not be easy, but to help show the love of God to a child who may never have felt love will be… worth it all.

The adoption moves forward in December!

There is quite a bit of waiting, and then a flurry of activity, going on in the Reich household, in relation to the adoption. Some of the biggest news is that we sent our i600a into the federal government… This may not seem like a big deal, but there is a story behind it. In order for us to get our federal governments approval to adopt, we need to have our i600a approved, which comes in the form of the 171h letter. (by the way, I have no idea what or why the forms are called that!) We knew that the fee associate with the i600a was going to be increasing as of November 23rd, but in order for us to submit our i600a we needed about $850 and our homestudy to pass court.

When we were in Phoenix a few weeks ago for the Acts 29 bootcamp we got a call from our social worker that she had received notice that our homestudy had passed court and she could not believe that it took less then month! In the mean time we had two families both give us $500, this covered the cost of the i600a! In God’s perfect timing we were able to submit the i600a, which homeland security received the 22nd of November, one day before the rates increased!

We have sent in and received from the secretary of state, two forms that needed to be state certified! Which means we have 3 things left to do/receive before we can send in OUR DOSSIER TO ETHIOPIA!

1. We are waiting to hear from Homeland Security when we have our “biometrics” appointment, (We need to be fingerprinted again!) and within a few weeks after that we should get our 171h to add to our ever growing dossier packet.

2. We have to put together photo pages to send along with our Dossier, I just need to take the last picture and put them together.

3. We have to raise $7200 to send in with our Dossier.

This last one seemed crazy impossible… BUT I guess I was forgetting that God is in and over all things. He has called us to this and He will provide. Some of you may know that we recently refinanced to get a better interest rate on our home. We knew that it would save us some money each month, and figured that would help to further the adoption as well as ease our budget each month; instead we felt like we needed to up our tithe, and give back the difference, plus some to God. In the mean time we applied for a grant through LifeSong, which we were denied, but now have the option to accept tax deductible donations! A few weeks ago we received a reimbursement from our escrow account from the bank for $725ish, I thought this was awesome, God using the refinance to help further our adoption. Then a few days ago we received ANOTHER check, this time from the title company, for a reimbursement of our already paid taxes to the tune of almost $1000! So now with some other donations and our savings we are a third of the way to the next benchmark!!!!!! I am praying a big prayer that we will have all of the money by the time we get our 171h back, so we will be ready to send out our dossier right away!

I am strongly reminded that God will provide, but that there are times for us to step out in faith before He provides. We are getting a front row seat to God’s great power!

If you are interested in helping us financially and would like to give a tax-deductible donation, please send a check to Lifesong for Orphans, PO Box 40/202 N. Ford St, Gridley, IL 61744. Please put our last name in the memo section Reich/#1685 adoption. *Note:  In following IRS guidelines, your donation is to the named non-profit organization.  This organization retains full discretion over its use, but intends to honor the donor’s suggested use. If you give through Lifesong please let us know, so that we can follow up with you, I am not certain that they give us a breakdown of money donated. You can also give online at http://www.lifesongfororphans.org/donation.html just put add Reich/#1685 adoption to the comments.

How God Provides

When Katie and I began this journey of adoption one of the things she said was, “I don’t think all the money will come in at once, instead, God will provide what we need, exactly when we need it.” Since I am a planner (insert control freak), this was not a great comfort to me, at first any way. I want all the money we need now. It makes it easier to trust God if all the risk is taken out of the equation, but then I don’t really need to trust God.

Throughout this process, God has provided at just the right moment when we have needed it. Almost like manna, just enough for that day.

The next step in the process, to send our paperwork to Ethiopia, we need to send a check of $8,000 with it. Right now, we have no idea how that will happen, but we also know God has been faithful this whole process and will continue to be.

It is starting to feel like a story where I want to know what happens next and how God will move next.

 

Things are starting to get exciting…

A few cool things have happened recently to help push us on to the next step of our adoption:

• We have officially had our last home study visit and will be faxing over the last piece of paperwork tomorrow!
• We should have the finalized home study in our hands by the end of the month, which means we should be able to accept tax-deductible donations by the middle to end of November! (We were hoping to have this by the end of the year!)
• You can now buy coffee through our online store to help support our adoption! Go to www.justlovecoffee.com/reich and place your order! I know that we will be using this to buy our coffee and support our own adoption!
• We received our passports in the mail!

All of this may not look like much, but there has been quite a bit of behind the scenes detail and paperwork going on. Plus, my cousin, Erika should be receiving her referral for their new child any day! It has been exciting to have a family member who has walked through the same process just a few months earlier, and to celebrate with them as they get closer to bringing another child into their forever family.

Check back soon as we keep you up to date on what is happening in our journey!

How do YOU talk about Adoption?

On our vacation to Durango, Colorado this summer, we met a pastor and his wife who had a family of 10 or 12 kids, with a majority of them being adopted. I was struck by the way that they talked about adoption, because I have always felt like I did not know how to talk about it, or explain to our family how we would like them to talk about it. The following article was sent to us from our social worker and it may help you know which words to use.

Positive Adoption Language Short List

The way we talk, and the words we choose, say a lot about what we think and value. When we use positive adoption language, we say that adoption is a way to build a family just as birth is. Both are important but one is not more important than the other.

Choose the following positive adoption language instead of the negative talk that helps perpetuate the myth that adoption is second best. By using positive adoption language, you’ll reflect the true nature of adoption, free of innuendo.

Positive language                  Negative language

Birthparent                                            Real parent

Biological parent                                  Natural parent

Birth child                                              Own child or Real child

My child                                               Adopted child; Own child

Born to unmarried parents                    Illegitimate

Terminate parental rights                      Give up

Make an adoption plan                       Give away

To parent                                              To keep

Waiting child                                        Adoptable child; Available child

Biological father or Birth Father             Real Father

Making contact with                            Reunion

Parent                                                   Adoptive parent

International adoption                         Foreign adoption

Adoption triad                                      Adoption triangle

Permission lo sign a release                  Disclosure

Search                                                  Track down parents

Child placed for adoption                    An unwanted child

Court termination                                  Child taken away

Child with special needs                      Handicapped child

Child from abroad                                Foreign child

Was adopted                                       Is adopted

Words not only convey facts, they also evoke feelings. When a TV movie talks about a custody battle between “real parents” and “other parents ” society gels the wrong impression that only birth parents are real parents and that adoptive parents aren’t real parents. Members of society may also wrongly conclude that all adoptions are “battles.”

Positive adoption language can stop the spread of misconceptions such as these. By using positive adoption language, we educate others about adoption. We choose emotionally “correct” words over emotionally-laden

words. We speak and write in positive adoption language with the hopes of impacting others so that this language will someday become the norm.

This Article was on several websites and was reprinted from OURS Magazine, May/June 1992

Time line up to this point….

I know when I was looking at adoption blogs I wanted to know what the process was like and how and when money was needed in the process… so in my laymen’s terms and general timeline I wanted to give you a sneak-peak into what we have done to get to this point:

April 2010: Initial application sent to America World Adoption ($250 application fee)

May/June 2010: Filled out additional paperwork explaining what our current financial situation is and how we will be raising the money for the adoption. Discussed options to change from Rwanda to Ethiopia, in the end, we decided to change our adoption to Ethiopia. Also, filled out paperwork to get a discount because Josh is a pastor.

July 2010: Officially accepted into the Ethiopian program! Put on our first Rummage Sale (with HUGE amounts of help), raised $1,800. Sent $1,125 to America World for the 1st agency fee.

The start of the “paper pregnancy”. Ordered birth certificates and marriage license ($53.50), 2 copies of passport photos ($20), police clearance letters ($20). The paperwork has been fairly extensive and includes autobiographies for Josh and myself, plus tons of financial information, verifying financial information and copies and notarized copies of everything in between. Thankfully we have a friend who is a notary! The crazy thing is that we have had to duplicate some of the work because we may need a copy for the home study, which goes to the case worker, but then we need a separate, slightly different, copy or information for the Dossier, which will go to Ethiopia.

August 2010: Put on our second Rummage Sale, raised $1,100.

September 2010: On the first we will officially start our Home Study. We will need to pay $2,979, which is broken down to the following fees: Home Study fee ($1800), Post placement fee ($1050), Travel fee ($129).