Hebrews 11-13

During my morning "quiet" time I read Hebrews 11-13 and it really spoke to me and gave me encouragement.

It is scary stepping out of my comfort zone and into the unknown. I try to remember when I am feeling discouraged of all of the great people in the bible that had to go through so much more than I do to follow God's will. (Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, etc, etc, etc...)

Right now what scares me is the finances of our adoption. I know that God is in control of this, but it really scares me. God wouldn't have asked us to do this if he wasn't going to put all of the pieces together. What I need to do is give Him total control of this and every part of my life.

Hebrew 13:21
equip you with everything good for doing his will.
(God will equip us with all we need for this adoption because we are doing His will)

With all of this being said, though, we can't even put into words all of the excitement and joy we have going on this journey. We can't wait to welcome a new baby into our family!

Please continue to pray for our family and our new baby

Major Restaurant East African authentic food

Tonight our wonderful friends Stacey and Tommy watched the girls while we went to a local Ethiopian restaurant! Above are a few pictures. We forgot our camera so they are cell phone pictures. Sort of blurry.

When we first walked in there were some children playing and the owner and family were sitting down socializing. When I looked at the children they reminded me of the pictures of all of the Ethiopian kids that I have seen. They are so beautiful! Me being emotional I started crying. I have this emotional attachment with our child and this experience brought me closer to him or her.

The people at the restaurant were amazing! The food was different, which we imagined it would be. I will have to admit I wasn't too fond of the taste. Adam seemed to like it more than I did. We ordered Y-beg Watt which is lamb stewed with spicy sauce then flavored with onions, garlic and ginger root. Adam mostly ate that and I had a few bites. The thought of lamb sorta grosses me out! We also ordered Dora Alcha Watt. It is a Drum stick marinated in lemon then stewed in a mild sauce of onion, garlic, ginger, green peppers and rosemary. It sorta tasted like stuffing. The injera (bread for dipping) was a spongy pancake like bread used for scooping the Watt and bean, veggies and lentils. It was all served on this massive plate and sat on a small wicker table. It wasn't bad at all and actually Adam is taking the leftovers for lunch tomorrow. The lady that made our food was very nice in explaining how to eat it. It was sorta weird dipping into the Watt with the Injera. After we were done eating she made us some coffee or Buna. It was roasted beans and ground right there and served in a clay pot we also had incense. The coffee was thicker and stronger than what we are use to but with a lot of sugar it was really good. She served it with popcorn. And she gave us the coffee for free! We like free stuff!

We were there for about 3 hours! It was very slow paced. The ladies there were all about telling us about Ethiopian dance, culture, food, and language. I felt this connection with them and didn't want to leave. I think it was because I came as close as I have so far with Ethiopian culture.

The owners sister was dancing for us and put on a couple of DVDs of Ethiopian dance and music. Adam was even up trying to learn how to dance! He said he felt like he looked like a chicken. He kinda did, but did a great job!

We cannot wait to learn more about the culture and we plan on visiting the restaurant often. Next time we are going to bring the girls, but we will probably have to bring taco bell for them to eat!

The night was amazing! It was very eye opening to experience this. We are so excited for this child and to learn about the culture.

It is hard not being able to carry this child in my belly, but we plan on experiencing as much of the culture as we can to help us to feel close even being so far away.

Fundraising Garage sale

Family and Friends

We are holding a fundraising Garage Sale to help with the expenses of our adoption. Perhaps you can help by donating any gently used clothing, household items, toys, furniture, etc. to our fundraising sale being held July 31st & August 1st. Please contact us through email or call to let us know you are interested in donating and/or volunteering your time before, during, and after the sale. Please let us know by July 17th if you are interested. We will be accepting donations between now and July 24th.

Letter sent out to family and friends

Dear Family and Friends,


"Once our eyes are opened, we can’t pretend we don’t know. God who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls knows that we know, and holds us responsible to act." – Proverbs 24:12


Believing in Proverbs 24:12, we are excited to announce that God has put it on our hearts to add a new child to our family through adoption. I know this may be a huge surprise to some of you, but certainly it is surprising to us more than anything, I assure you! We both have felt a tug at our hearts from God wanting us to adopt from Ethiopia. The discussions actually began back in high school, but now is when we have received confirmation from God that this is His will for our family.

We really felt that adopting would be next to impossible because of the high costs of an international adoption. We also feel that the Lord is leading us to adopt and believe God is bigger than finances, so we are truly relying on faith that God will provide.


Our adoption will cost in the neighborhood of $23,000. I know that sounds like a lot (and it is). We are relying on God $1 at a time. We would be amiss if we didn’t also ask for help from families and friends who may be willing to donate to get us one step closer to Ethiopia – no amount is too small! Our plan is to apply for as many grants as possible and pray that doors will open for the money to come through. We believe that through your support that you are not only helping us bring home our baby, but helping millions of other orphans find homes as well.

A special account has been set up at Chip In for anyone wishing to donate. You can donate athttp://thederloshons.chipin.com/our-ethiopian-journey. If you would like to donate and don’t feel comfortable donating online you can send a check.


Please prayerfully consider helping us bring our baby home. If you are unable to send a monetary gift of any amount, perhaps you can help by donating any gently used clothing, household items, toys, furniture, etc. to our fundraising garage sale being held July 31st & August 1st. Please contact us through email or call to let us know you are interested in donating and/or volunteering your time before, during, and after the sale. Please let us know by July 17th if you are interested. We will be accepting donations between now and July 24th.

If you would like to follow along with us on our journey and learn more about our adoption you can visit our blog at:http://knowingnobounds.blogspot.com.

Most importantly please pray for our family as we embark on this adoption journey to bring home our new family member.Your prayers are greatly appreciated!

Love,

Adam, Christie, Maggie and Hazel

home study rough draft

So we received our rough draft of our home study on June 9th. We were on vacation and just returned last night, so we are just now going over it. We plan on getting it back to our home study agency via email tomorrow. They are waiting on one of our background checks to come back, so we are hoping to get the home study completed and our dossier sent off to agci within the next month. I know it is very optimistic! We have just been moving through this really fast. We are so excited! On vacation we completed our With Eyes Wide Open workbook and will be sending it to AGCI this week.

We had an awesome time on our vacation. It was a much needed one! I told Adam that it felt weird to leave all of our Dossier stuff at home. I felt like it should have came with us! I feel this attachment to it. I guess because I have spent so much of my time on it.

We discussed the adoption a lot this past week while on the beach and we are so anxious and cannot wait to meet this baby that God is going to place in our family.

I will post a few pictures from our vacation later. The girls had an amazing time. Well Maggie did. Hazel wasn't too sure about the whole thing. They are both glad to be back home, though.

all paperwork together!

We have ALL of our documents turned into our home study agency and have ALL of our documents together for our Dossier! YAY!

We are sooooo very excited to get all of this part DONE! I had told Adam a few weeks ago that I would get all of the documents together before we go on vacation...well...vacation starts Friday and I have it all together!

I am very happy!

I had a phone call with Kiersten from AGCI yesterday and ask her what the numbers looked like right now and she said for the boys waitlist it is around 10 and for girls it is 30 - 35.

We are getting ready to send in our I600A application this week.

I can't think of any other updates right now.

I will just be glad to get the homestudy and Dossier sent to AGCI!

I was looking at our checklists and all we have to get done is our medical forms for both our home study and Dossier. Our appointments are Monday. So then we will have all of our paperwork together. YAY!!! We are taking our last adoption class tonight too! We also still need to apply for I600A. I am excited how fast we got everything together. Now it's waiting on the home study to be written. I am assumming it wont take too long. We will see....I am soooooooo overly excited!!!! I can't wait to meet our baby!