Request for Evidence

Our Dossier has been in Colombia since December. It got there just before all of the Holidays began so we've been patiently waiting to hear any news about it. Well this week we got some news. We got a "request for evidence". This is a fancy way of saying they had some more questions. From what we have been told by our agency and others this is slowly becoming the "norm" now and almost every family is getting asked further questions.

This is good. We want them to ask questions. I mean come on, even we think it sounds weird that a couple with no infertility issues, as young as we are, would want to adopt, adopt internationally, and on top of that adopt more than one child! Nick and I thought we would loose some hope in their system if they were to NOT ask us more questions. Our home study and dossier have everything in it except for hair samples (which are probably somehow in there too) but we knew they still want to know more. The questions they asked were reasonable. We will now have to answer them and return our answers, translated and sealed, to Colombia as quickly as possible so they can continue to review our family.

We just wanted to update you and let you know we'd appreciate your prayers while we hurry all over town to see Dr.s and Psychologists to write letters and "evidence" to support our family in our attempt to adopt. We are praying the people that accept the answers will indeed accept them and approve us and we can move forward. The scary thing is there are no "for sure" situations in adoption, and this, unfortunately, is one of those not for sure times. We could submit these answers and they could move us along, or they could say no. We aren't really thinking about what would happen if they said no. Only that God is in control of every detail (see last post) and we are confident in that. That being said our "details" that we give to the Colombian government need to be quick, accurate, and honest.

Thank you for praying along with us.

Back in School

So last weekend we left Empowered to Connect conference in Birmingham. We got to meet some new friends and got to see our favorite social worker from Lifeline. Our brains are on total over load right now. We loved every minute of it! I'm finding myself just loving to learn lately. It seems like just about everyday I'm reading an article, practicing Spanish, searching blogs, and now after this weekend we will be doing more research into nutrition and sensory issues that our kids will be dealing with. In the midst of all of our learning I'm feeling a little stuck. I'm stuck thinking when are we actually going to get to use this stuff. How much longer!?

 Nick and I are both not emotional about many things, I am the more emotional one of the two, but friends even comment to us, do y'all not ever get mad or upset or sad. I think I only cried at two points of our wedding day.Ok... maybe three but compared to most I'm a little dry. It's not that the emotions are not there. It's not that I hold them in and then explode either. I'm not sure why God has made us this way.I'm not sure and that's ok. 

While we were in Birmingham we were at church on Sunday with one of our most admired pastors and speakers. We missed our home church family but were happy to be at church with our Lifeline family. He reminded us that as they have been reading though Genesis just as our church has, at all the details and what some call "coincidences" but what he referred to as an "orchestra of God's moves". This picture of God orchestrating all the little details has just been so prevalent on my heart lately. He made mention of his family's adoption journey and how in their failed attempts at pregnancy and adoption that God was using that to culminate to him leaving to go to Nepal (where they had to stop their adoption). He said never would he have made up or even dreamed up that years ago after their struggles and often asking "God why"" that he would be going on this trip. 

So to be honest with you, the sibling group we are currently reviewing has a little girl in it. She is the younger of the two girls and her birthday was during the conference. We both made it though the day, we prayed for her and thought of her often. Because we don't know if officially she is ours I wasn't as heartbroken as I thought I might be that we'd missed her birthday. God once again why did you make me this way? I want to be emotional about it,I want to be overwhelmed with love for this little girl who is now another year older and without a mom and dad. The second little girl in this sibling group has a birthday coming up in only a matter of days. Please pray for her as she too, only days after her sister, will be missing a mom and dad on her birthday. 

The fact that God is orchestrating our details, rather they lead to her and her siblings or to different kids, or whatever,

the thing I keep getting overwhelmed and "emotional" about is the fact that we serve a God who is always planning, always doing, always figuring, always loving, always disciplining, always true, always real, and always faithful. 

I try to be so many things and it's ok if emotional wreck is not one of them right now, I'm sure that will come with time and then I'll wish I was back the way I am now. But I just love that even though I'm on information overload God had reminded me that He has called us to Live Recklessly for Him and he is using each feature of who he is to bring us closer to our kids and to make us into every detail he has designed us to be as believers, as parents, as husband and wife, and most importantly as children of His.

Thank you God for allowing us to learn so much it hurts. Thank you that in your prefect timing we'll get to unleash it all on our kids with love and that until then we can laugh about all the "use your words" and things we say to each other anticipating having to say them to the kids one day. God keep us sustained though this journey. Please let little M & B feel a special kind of love on their birthdays. Let them know they are fiercely being pursued and that we are able to do so because you so lovingly pursued us and have taught us what it looks like to love like crazy and trust in your details.

In the next day or two I will try to post an update on our actual "process" after talking with our Social Worker.

I am going to also be posting more information for you as our family and friends so that you can Learn along with us, so stay tuned! Here is the one for Empowered to Connect.
http://empoweredtoconnect.org/

Dossier In!! Now What?!

HUGE PRAISE and Awesome UPDATE!!! Our Dossier is in Colombia and is fully translated! What does that mean?!
Let me back up. What is a Dossier? dos·si·er
noun-1.a collection of documents about a particular person, event, or subject.

So our "collection of documents" has pretty much everything in it except for real life blood samples! I think I caught our social worker stealing hair from my brush for this thing. (kidding about the hair) but seriously they do know our blood types! So for weeks they were translating this mega folder...anyone picturing a 10 ft long filing cabinet... and translating can be difficult when you want it to be as accurate as possible but also have to watch out that something said in English might be reworded in Spanish and sound weird. We can't have us sounding weird, we are already crazy! So we got a call from B at the agency and she said she had great news before Christmas and it was that our Dossier had arrived Safely and fully translated in Colombia. 
-Sidenote-whew so glad someone at fedex didn't steal every ounce of our personal info and get this thing into the wrong hands, this is the reason I pay $20 to ship a package :)

We have been assured that (contrary to our original thinking) it would not begin to collect dust on someones desk that they are actually reviewing our family and our files get passed around to multiple offices, officials, regions, etc. So nice to know its moving somewhere and not just sitting there. So right now the courts and ICBF close for a few days for Christmas and New Years and after that they open back up and will be back to reading ours (and numerous other families) Dossiers and decide rather to approve them or not. 
-Scary little known fact, even though the USA said we are approved that does not mean Colombia has to agree. They could say no. We are confident, however, that if the Lord has brought us this far he will not drop us off (literally) on someones desk to be told NO!

So now we wait a little bit. About 3 months is average for the officials to approve a family. 
During this time you will be anxious to know what we are doing....well....we are reviewing files! Yes reviewing, like reviewing as in we get to PICK, it sounds terrible and confusing and heartbreaking and it is a little of all of the above but also a little cool too that God would guide us in the direction of what Colombia names "waiting children." These kidos are who our agency has such a heart for. They are mostly "special needs" - If you do not know already about what is considered special needs in other countries please look up some examples of it before you come chasing me down asking "what are you doing!" You will gasp and gag at what they call "special needs" in other countries, some of them are huge lifelong needs and some are as minor as needing glasses, it floors me that they are all in the same category and that no one wants these kids because of these big or small issues. 
(END of rant about that)

We currently have files for a sibling group of 3 kids we are praying about. We are praying God would reveal to us whether they are our kids or someone elses. We are praying for their safety, for their health, for their hearts, and most importantly that our Savior would grab hold of them for his name sake and find them a family! We are having some files translated (3 English pages=30 Spanish pages) so its fun to see and "get to know" them through paper and through tests that tell things like "she's artistic" or "he likes pets". Things that would not make or break our decision in any way but just things to start to get to know them.

 Think of it like an ultra sound. We are getting to hear their heartbeat and see them move and grow 

(sort of) :)

So what can you be doing? I only have 1 answer for that, or maybe two. 
--ONE- PRAY, pray for us, pray for our agency, pray for our kids (whether its them or not that we currently have these files) pray for our life after we're home, pray for us to be diligent in our Spanish learning attempts. 
--TWO-Encourage. Don't get me wrong we both need to hear the "my friend has these kids and they are crazy" stories but please if you are going to "encourage" us with opinions let them first be thought through twice and please also remember that we have thought this whole thing through and even though there are about 1,000,000 answers to questions we don't have right now one HUGE answer we do have is that God is behind us and yet pulling us through this at the same time. He is the one who has CALLED us to do this and even though we know you love us (think we're crazy) thats ok! We like being different, we like being "not normal" we like being known as the crazy couple adopting siblings! We are excited and nervous all at the same time. 

We are thankful and happy to have you as a part of this with us. THANK you for staying with us and thank you for asking~ It means a lot to me, personally, and to Nick, to get to talk about it with friends and people who are curious.

Goal for 2014: Update the blog once per month! Here's to January!

Both Hands Project Complete!

UPDATE: I thought we got this post published back before Christmas and just realized our Blogger account had some issues when it was posted. We are so sorry for the delay!

So a few weeks ago we finished an awesome weekend of crazy hard work called BOTH HANDS. It was an amazing time serving our widow Ms. Ethel and getting to raise support for our adoption. There were so many people who helped, donated, painted, cut brush, scrubbed, nailed, scraped, scrubbed some more and did countless other tasks to make the 2+ day event happen. Yall we had paint donated by Home Depot, food cooked by the Vances, we had people who stayed all 2 days with us, we had people who came by just to give hugs, everyone that came out made it even more of a blessing. It was so cool to see our friends and family working together. It didn't feel toooo much like work and Praise God we got one of the last semi warm days of the year!
Take a look at the before and after pictures! We even had an awesome video done by Mr. Shaddix to highlight the day!

Jenn & Nick & Ms. Ethel

Before

After

If you would like to still support us you are welcome to. The account at Both Hands stays open until our kids are home. Total to date we have raised over $4500 through those who have donated! That blows my mind! I have literally laid awake a few nights since and just thought to myself about all the hard work and our friends and how a silly "thank you" letter is about the silliest thing I can think of to give them and it doesn't even begin to say thank you. We can never repay them for all their SELFLESS help and love shared with us and with Ms. Ethel and her daughter.

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Even the news station came that day! How cool will it be one day to show our kids all the work we did that day. Prayerfully they might get to meet Ms. Ethel one day and hear her stories she told us that day.

One of our favorite projects we did was actually the inside of her house where we gutted her entire bathroom pretty much. (this was supposed to be a labor intensive project...told y'all we were working our butts off for these kids!) We just didn't know our friends would so much too!

Before

After (new tile, beadboard walls, shower surround, handicap bars, etc!)

If you would like to see the video of the days work and more before and after pictures please take a minute to watch our quick video!

Also if you would like to find out more about Both Hands foundation this is their site and our specific page. They are an awesome group to work with. Their team loves the Lord and loves these adopting families. They were around to answer all our questions and now that we were the first family to do this in Knoxville we are able to help others if they want to follow in our footsteps. If you have any questions about the project or are considering completing one for your adoption please contact us as we would love to help and have some great tips for getting a good project completed.

http://www.bothhandsfoundation.org/nick-and-jennifer-sanjines

In the new year I am going to try to better about posting once per month so that we can keep a better journal of our journey and help keep our family and friends involved in the steps as we near closer to our kids. 

May God bless you this Christmas and may you Praise him as we head into a new year where HE is in control and we have no idea what to expect! 

Uno Dos Tres Quatro

Uno Dos Tres Quatro Cinco... This is how we would count in Spanish to begin to number the children that we have been receiving files on lately. Let me first begin by saying we are in the hands of a Mighty God. One who has control over everything. I pray you know this. I pray he continues to make this known daily to me and my family.

To update you: We are done with our home study, about half way done with our dossier and are waiting to hear from USCIS (US Immigration) for approval of our family as we speak. It sounds like we are coming along, and we are, but don’t let me fool you, although God’s timing is perfect and he knows when and for who exactly we will be in Colombia for, we still have a long way to go! But it’s definitely progressing well!

So as we count in Spanish or English or the exciting mix of both a.k.a Spanglish that I am ever so excited to hear echoing down my halls (yes that’s in the dictionary-Spanglish-I checked!) As we contemplate over kiddo’s files we also pray. We pray that God will give us that “there they are” moment when we first hear of them or see them in a pdf file that will most likely come at some random hour of the day and lead me to jumping out of my chair and my co-workers laughing at me. We pray for them at night. We have immediately known that some are not ours but still we want to pray for them.

Last week we were looking over the files of a sibling group. As I re-researched on WebMD and Mayo Clinic all the huge long medical words that I did not go to school for… which side note: no matter how many times you look up medical conditions they always change when you look at individual kids…crazy cool how complex our bodies are that God made!

Anyway…my point in writing this was to share this beautiful realization we had! That feeling when you have been trying to describe something and WINNER finally are able to put it into words! Halleluiah! As we prayed for these kids we laid in bed and I just could not stop thinking of things to pray over them:

Lord help them deal with “fill in the blank”

Lord surround them with love tonight

Lord be present in their lives

Lord let them lean on each other

Lord help him focus in his studies

Lord help them diagnose her more clearly

Lord let them know they are wanted

Lord show them they are desired

Lord give patience to the workers keeping them

Lord let them feel safe right now

Lord show their future family who they are 

Lord help her know she is beautiful

Lord tell him he belongs to a King

God help US to discern!!

As we said our amen together I still laid there and couldn’t shut my mind up! Holy Spirit don’t you want me to get a good night sleep! I hear:

Pray for their bodies to heal

Pray for their biological mom

Pray for them to be calm

Call out their names to me

Pray for opportunities to arise for them

Pray for them to have fun being kids

Pray for them to know someone is coming for them (maybe us maybe not)

Pray for their extended family who can’t care for them

Pray for the government as they decide who their future family will be

Pray for their paperwork that it is translated correctly

Pray that someone will show them Jesus and teach them about him

Pray that they don’t give up hope of a family

Pray for her to know that she is cherished

On and on I couldn’t get my mind to calm down with things I felt specifically I should be praying for them for. Honestly they were coming to fast into my mind that I had a hard time keeping up with what to pray for. Some were so specific (some I cannot share due to confidentiality promised to their government)

Pray for her face

Pray for his emotions

Pray for his artistic side to explode and him enjoy being creative

Pray she knows that she looks different for a reason and that She was made in God’s image

Finally after laying there and feeling I was going to fall asleep from being tired of praying (sad I know) I had this sense of calmness… like Hey I’m done for right now. Weird to explain but I immediately felt the Holy Spirit say quietly to my heart…

“You are praying so much for them right now because no one else has before.”

 I turned to Nick and said Hey I think I’ve figured out why I can keep thinking of things to pray for for these kids (not just this sibling group but other kids too)

We are blessed to go to a great church, I work in an awesome Christian school, I am around many Christian families and friends on a daily basis. I realized that these kids I’m around get prayed for! maybe not on a daily basis, depending on home situations, but I know for a fact that our teachers pray for their kids, I know for a fact that my friends pray for their own children, I know that people at church are lifting up their children to the Lord on a daily basis. With the exception of people praying “Lord help the orphans” or our agencies daily prayer time for the kids that are placed in their hands to advocate for these kids are NEVER PRAYED FOR. Or at least that is my assumption. I would love to be wrong but I’m pretty sure no one else in the world is sitting in bed praying for ____, ______, & ______ or praying for _____ & _______ or for little ______.

I suddenly felt a great sense of privilege as I thought of a passage that explains this so well. In my weakness to pray for these kids that we know nothing except for 2 pages of info about…. We pray in our weakness and the Spirit intercedes for us!

How cool that God chose last week to use Nick and I to pray for these kids that we may never meet, but to go to sleep knowing they had been prayed for specifically and BY NAME, was such a peaceful feeling.

  

Romans 8:23-27 says: ²³ Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴ For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

²⁶ In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ²⁷ And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

As he searches our hearts he knows the mind of the Spirit. How cool that when we would have had no other way to pray for these kids and not known what to ask for, the Holy Spirit totally takes care of it on our behalf and also on theirs.

Lord thank you for giving us the privilege to be the ones to pray for these kids! Lord our heart is that many more of them would be prayed for BY NAME and that we would cry  out to you when they are unable to or do not know to. Lord I pray you hear our hearts and answer our prayers for these kiddos. Thank you for being the great advocate for us! Thank you for speaking to us in such a cool way and letting us hear from you in such a clear way. May you continue to speak clearly to us daily, and may we continue to trust you and your promises even when we feel like we can’t hear you.

Thanks friends for sticking with us through this. I ask that you would pray for a specific child one you know by name from somewhere specific. It doesn't have to be an orphan, but think of someone that may have not recently or EVER been prayed for! Ask the Lord how to pray for them and see what happens! May he bless you through it!

Till they are home,

 

In Other News....

How excited were we when Allie from WVLT emailed us asking if they could do a story on us. I was like am I dreaming? God how big are you! We know up to this point that he clearly has shown off in this process but this was huge! I had families at school tell me they saw it too! Our prayer before doing the interview was to help make it known that the Lord called us to adopt and that HE has and will continue to provide. They focused on the crowd funding aspect of it and how much it costs. I think they did an awesome job! Take a look for yourself!

Local Couple uses Crowdfunding to Adopt

Till they are home,

Math

Math... Nick's good at it...I used to be good at it... I think I was even considered "ahead" at one point in school (where are those days now!) and most recently Nick gave me a hard time for counting 24 hour time on my fingers on our recent trip to Spain. The reason I bring up Math is not to highlight my stumbles failures or Nick's smarts but to brag on our awesome God who is the creator and perfecter of all things...including MATH! 

Update: April 4th, 2013 was a tough day. We sat down for about the 3rd time to review and edit our support letter for our adoption. We argued over the smallest phrases, prayed over the big ones, and laughed at how humbling it was to write to our closest family and friends and ask for help. We sent out those letters in the first week of April. As we had prayed, people began to help us by praying, supporting financially, donating items to be sold, ordering tshirts, giving us custom furniture orders.... it was overwhelming to say the least. We collected items for a huge Saturday Yard sale! In case you don't believe me that people literally packed our house with stuff here are some pictures. 

 Thank you to everyone who let us borrow tents....it rained...and rained...and rained.... and overnight? It RAINED!!! 

 This stuck with each of our friends that helped us and we all rocked our adoption t-shirts! "Even as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him, In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will" Ephesians 1:4-5

The fill a bag idea was perfect! See that rain on the sign!

We had so many items left over we loaded up 4 vehicles and took items to Amvets. We then still had enough to have another sale the next weekend. 

Nick's face was the smiling the opposite of this, when we decided to do it another weekend! It was exhausting! 

After the second yard sale we still had enough for 4 more vehicles and a trailer of stuff to go to Karm. 

Needless to say it was a success. We couldn't say thank you enough for all the help of friends, family, people who donated, people who spent time with us days and days before pricing, organizing, laughing, and praying for our little ones that all these efforts would one day bring.  

So back to this Math issue. We took all the checks and cash to the bank. I pleaded with the teller to not turn me in as a drug dealer (I sure looked like one with all that cash)! We got home that day and looked back at the calendar. We realized it had been 2 months approx since we first sent out our support letters humbly asking for prayer and support. In approx 2 months we had raised Thousands of dollars and all of it was to HIS Glory! We have poured money into savings each month and time after time HE shows us that he is good at the math, he is good at providing, and he is good at knowing all things!

Since the yard sale we still have price tags on the bottom of our shoes, we have ordered more adoption t-shirts, we have received more donations, and more items to sell (on craigslist) hehehe Yard sale is currently a bad word at our house (don't tell Nick I even brought it up). Yet most importantly we are many steps closer to having our kidos here with us. And the yard sales were well worth the lack of sleep and our sanity!

God is good at Math, he knows exactly what we need, how much of it, he keeps track of it all providing every penny. The Lord showed me this passage of scripture back before the yard sale and it has continued to stick with me as a testimony of our support group. It says: 

"2 In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. 3 For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, 4 they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. 5 And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us. " 2 Corinthians 8:2-5

This has totally been the hearts of our family and friends. Verse 2, we are in a very severe time where everyone needs money, food, items, people have lost jobs etc and  yet their generosity has welled up! Verse 3. Our support of friend and family have given as much as they are able and more! Verse 4. They have asked us how can we help, they want to be a part of our story and Verse 5. They and the Lord have exceeded our expectations. By first considering what the Lord would have them do they then gave to us in Love and support. 

We cannot say thank you enough for those who have been a part of this. 

We finish our home study this coming Wednesday and will have the vast majority of the American part of our adoption process completed. We will then move to the Colombia side of paperwork, which is the Dossier full of more interviews, fingerprints, medicals, etc. 

Again...Thank you for praying for us and thank you for letting the Lord use you in this way!!

Till they are home,