Happy Birthday, Maynara

We're still holding steady at about 99% certainty that the 4 darlings we've written about will be our children. We are still hoping that June or July could be the time when we finally meet the ones we've prayed for, worked for and longed to love for so long. It has been almost 3 years since we started in on the process of looking for and adopting our children. To have their little faces to look at makes us love them even more.

Today is Maynara's 10th birthday. Hopefully it will be her last birthday apart from her forever family. We are thankful for the caring individuals who have loved and nurtured her during her first 9 years and we look forward to embracing her from her 10th year on. We are talking and dreaming of ways to give her a secure and joyful childhood while preparing her to live a fulfilling and giving life as an adult. Our hearts break being so far from her on this special day in her life.

Maynara,

We are getting ready for you. There is a spot in our hearts and in this home--especially for you. No one else can fill this place. What a special young lady you are! We cannot wait to welcome you home.

A+ for the translator

Ines is our Brazilian translator based in Oregon.  USPS got our express-mail package to her (containing our homestudy addendum) on Tuesday before noon.  I'm told Ines got it translated in record time and express-mailed it to Brazil TODAY!  It should be in Brazil in less than a week!

In Luciana's words:  "All is looking good."  Her goal is for us to travel in mid-June or early July.  

So soon!!  

My mind is already trying to figure out details like car seats (in CT the law is 6 years and 60 pounds), bedtime routines (I've got a plan), household jobs (thank you Supernanny!), plane fare (Delta's right at $500 right now and James may have enough miles to upgrade our seats for the way home!!!), getting from place to place (we have a couple options), clothes (saw some sweet deals at H&M today!), quilts (thank you grandmas!), bedroom furniture (found the sweetest little set of twin beds at English Market on Chapel St.; for the rest, IKEA here we come!) and what I will say to my children the first time I look into their eyes (I still have no idea.  I'll probably be sobbing or giggling or something else that is very unprofessional-looking like that).

Here is the cute bed we found.  We may indulge in 99% 

bliss and go buy it this weekend while James' parents 

are visiting!

99%

We got an email from Luciana today.  I talked with her for while too.  Seems CEJA (Brazil's State Judiciary Commission on Adoption) looked at our paperwork on Friday and requested the translated homestudy addendum.  Luciana seems to think that this request means that CEJA wants to place the kids with us and just needs to make it all official.  She said they wouldn't have asked for it if they weren't serious.  (WAHOO!)  I expressed the legalized addendum (which arrived at our home on Saturday morning) to the translator in Oregon.  We figure she can translate it in a couple days and express it to Brazil before the end of the week.  Hopefully it will be in CEJA's hands in a week and a half or so.  After CEJA has it, we can be more like 99.9% sure.  The 1% uncertainty right now is the possibility of someone who is fully approved and ready to go submitting a petition for the same children between now and next week when CEJA receives our addendum.  Once they have our addendum, if someone else petitions, they will probably say, "we are already reviewing a family for those children."  I do not think we will get anything "official" granting our petition until after we're fully approved and we receive our invitation of invitation from Brazil.  But Luciana will let us know what she finds out.

She thinks we might be able to travel in mid-June!!

We have plans to go out to a super-nice restaurant tonight.  It's "restaurant week" in New Haven and lots of very nice eateries offer a prix-fixe menu at better-than-usual prices.  I've wanted to go to Ibiza forever and it's three weeks before our 7th wedding anniversary and we'd planned to celebrate early.  Now that we have this news, we're also going to celebrate our family--I promise we'll only celebrate 99%.

HOLY SMOKES!

We have sought council from 2 social workers, our family coordinator, both sets of parents, two adoptive moms, a mother of 6, our pastor, our closest friends and our Lord who has put us in this moment with great purpose.  We have not thought lightly about the possibility of adopting four children--and these four in particular.  We have received many wise words, many questions, and much prayer.  

Today we submit a document petitioning the court in Brazil for permission to adopt the four children we think God chose for us long before we began this process.  

When we told our dear friend Jay about this yesterday, his response was a good summary of everyone's words to us over the past couple weeks:

HOLY SMOKES!!!!  I am so happy for you guys!  What a big step, but if anyone can do it, you two can in the grace of Christ.  We will keep praying.

So, we take one more step today.  One more step in faith.  One more step without exhaling until we hear back from the court--hopefully in a week or two.

New favorite movie

What's the right way to start this post?   You know that twisty, windy, long and unpredictable road we've been on since 2006 when we decided to grow our family by adopting internationally?  Well, it's still twisting and turning.  I think some of the most beautiful locations are arrived at after a long walk on a bendy path, don't you?  

Anyway, let me tell you about my new favorite movie.  It's about twelve and a half minutes long, was filmed in a small orphanage in Brazil and has four main characters between the ages of 3 and 9.  And they could be our children.  All four of them.  One is giggly, one is an actor, one is a busy worker and one is a kind and nurturing soul.  

Crazy Love

Mary Jane Dunn recommended this book to me.  I devoured it in two days and am ready to change the world.  It has really opened my eyes to a new way of looking at God and His Word.  Here's why:

1.  God is Big.  Really, really big and powerful too.

2.  God gave EXTRAVAGANTLY to give us (and we're really small) a chance to be in a love relationship with Him.

3.  Our response to the extravagant love of God should be extravagant love and service toward others--for Him.

4.  That might be uncomfortable sometimes, but it's always better to love big than to love small or not at all.