Adoption Update

So...I'm not a great blogger. This is not a surprise to me, :) but I'm just definitely not the person to post family updates every few days, few weeks, or obviously even few months. I'm keeping this blog primarily for our adoption, and because there is not a lot going on, there have been very few blog posts.

Anyone who reads this probably knows that we are also expecting another biological child. I'm now in my 35th week and due August 5. This obviously caught us by great surprise. Though our adoption process had slowed down, we had come to the place where we were very content with where our family was at and with God's timing in our adoption. We thought that it would probably be beneficial for our children to be a bit older before this next (adopted) baby comes, and I had even planned a trip to Ethiopia with a few ladies from church to see the country and begin investing ourselves there and getting involved in any way that we can.

A few weeks after purchasing my plane ticket, I found out I was pregnant. Imagine our shock...obviously this was not a part of our plan. In fact, we had dropped the maternity coverage off our insurance as we were quite sure we were done having bio. children and wanted to primarily grow our family through adoption. So suddenly we were faced with a pregnancy we hadn't planned on in the midst of an adoption, no maternity coverage, and a huge trip to Ethiopia along with a non-refundable, non-transferrable, very expensive plane ticket.

It was highly recommended to me that I not travel to ET as I would have been about 11 weeks pregnant and there were just so many risks, one main one being that I hadn't yet had my vaccinations for the trip and they could be harmful to the baby. It ended up being a wise decision as I had the worst nausea I've had yet with pregnancy and it would have been a pretty miserable trip.

Praise God, I was able to get an individual policy through my job, but it does require me paying for it all out of pocket. This is a very expensive baby. :) God is handling our finances and though I had a "freak-out" moment in the beginning, everything has worked out fine. As always, God continues to provide for our every need, exactly when we need it.

As we are nearing a month from my due date, we have obviously accepted the fact that we are having another biological child and are getting excited to meet him or her. However, we have never doubted our calling to adopt from Ethiopia and remain in that process as well. We had to update our homestudy this past spring, which involved more paperwork, but overall was less work than it had been the first time around, thankfully. Our total current wait time for a referral is 28-30 months from the time our dossier was sent to ET, which was about a year ago, so right now we have about 16-18 months (estimate only) until we receive a referral.

The longer wait times in ET, though very frustrating, do have benefit to us now as they will hopefully place around a year of age between this child and our 4th child. We hate that there are so many orphans waiting for parents, but we trust that this is the timing the Lord has for our family and this is how He has chosen to grow our family. I am continually reminded that we may try and make our own plans, but it is His purpose that will prevail!

One Year

On October 31, 2011 we submitted our preliminary application to adopt through Bethany Christian Services. Its hard to believe how many things have changed since that time. When we announced our adoption, we were given crazy looks and some odd responses. We had 2 biological children - a girl and boy, 2 1/2 years and 6 months old. Why would we want to do such a thing? Our son was so young - why would we start this all now?

We knew we were crazy, and yet we could not shake the feeling of the Holy Spirit drawing us to take this step. Its been several months since I have posted, and to be honest, I've just had nothing to post. No profound words or exciting news. A month or so ago we were given updated wait times for our adoption because of the changes that were occurring in ET. Our wait time is now 29-34 months, a great change from the 12-14 months that we were told when we initially began! Our agency has been very upfront and honest throughout this process, so we do not hold any hard feelings against them - they have given us information as soon as they have it, and I'm thankful that they don't give us false hopes that things may happen sooner than should be expected. Because of the changes implemented in southern ET, there has been an incredible slow down in referrals, and we hit it just wrong. :)

But - God knew that this would happen. His Spirit urged us to begin, and quite honestly, if I would have known that it would be this long of a wait, I don't know if we would have started this journey at this time, especially if we had waited any longer to begin it.

Most days I am ok with this - I have come to terms that its going to look very different than I had first imagined, I live my life, go to work, take care of my children, buy groceries, clean the house, and life goes on as normal. Some days, I am filled with such sorrow - so many children, desperate for parents, living in orphanages - and I would take them in a heartbeat!! I have so much - two beautiful children who keep me busy and can be exhausting - but God has stirred my heart and knows that I yearn for those little ones without parents. How I can't wait to hold my own child from ET in my arms someday!

The wait can be oh so hard...but I know too - God forms us during the wait, He works on our hearts, He teaches us lessons... and when the waiting is done, it will be oh, so worth it.

Amazed...

Its been two months since I last posted and so much has happened! Its been so busy, and continues to be busy, but hoping that things will slow down soon here for Todd especially. He has been putting in sometimes 14-15 hour days with spring planting and his customers needing their seed as well as treating beans, so he has barely seen our kids awake all week! :) We all will be extemely glad to have him back again. However, it is good for me once and a while to experience life without him around, b/c it makes me extremely grateful for my husband! He certainly does his share of cooking, picking up around the house, getting groceries, yard work, and lots and lots of helping out with children...so I really notice not having him around and wow do I feel like a lucky woman to have married such a wonderful, hardworking, selfless man!

To recap the past couple months...besides using the word "busy," I would use the word "amazed." First and foremost, I am amazed by God's goodness and faithfulness to us. As I write this, tears immediately come to my eyes b/c our God is so much more incredible than I deserve. He continues to shower blessings upon us and I am the least deserving of them. Every single doubt I have...He takes away and shows me that He is taking care of us.

A lot has changed over the past couple months, including a lot of changes happening in Ethiopia with adoption. I won't go into a lot of details, but things have slowed down a lot and what looked like a 10-14 month wait time for us is turning into a 18-24 month wait time at least. Though that is dissapointing to us in that we are so excited and anxious for this child, part of the reason things are changing so much is to cut down on corruption that can occur with adoption, and so we understand why things are changing and we feel very confident yet in moving forward with adoption from Ethiopia and through Bethany Christian Services. There are many times that I have doubted, but God has shown me time and time again that this adoption is truly what He has called us to - from this country and with this agency.

Second, I am completely and utterly amazed by the grace He has lavished on us by his financial provision through many different avenues and people. I'm going to be very honest - and not to make adoption about money or our personal finances - but I know that money often is a hindrance when people are considering adoption, and we are truly living in the middle of seeing God provide in amazing ways for us that I never would have dreamed of. I want to give Him all the GLORY b/c He is so worthy and none of this is b/c of what we have done or b/c we deserve anything!!

I know I have said this before, but this was not currently part of our financial plan. :) We had a plan, and God made it very clear that we were to trust that His plan was better, but that doesn't mean that it was or has been easy to trust! We started out this journey with very little saved. We had a plan to pay off student loan debt over the next couple years yet, and so we don't keep a lot of savings as we are trying to get rid of that as quickly as possible. So we had about $1000 literally to start off with for our adoption. $500 immediately went to our formal application fees. Then, over the course of the next month, our fridge died, our van needed new brakes, and Todd's truck needed something with the 4-wheel drive fixed. So in 1 month, we had about $2500 of additional expenses!! I'm not going to lie...it was hard to trust in that moment...it just didn't make sense to me how all this could be happening!

But, from November (when we first put in our formal application) until our dossier will be ready to go to Ethiopia (hopefully within the next month!) we have had and will have about $16-17,000 in expenses, and we have been able to pay for all of them! I am just completely blown away by that! God is amazing, and that is not even a good word to describe Him - there simply are no words that are good enough. I get chills as I write it b/c He truly has done the impossible in our lives.

Our coffee fundraiser has brought in about $500 so far...our bake sale brought in $2300 initially and I got a few bake sale donation checks later which probably brought it closer to $3000. We've had people randomly give us donations which totally blows me away b/c we have not asked for a dime, yet God has put it on other peoples' hearts to give, and they have been obedient to it, even though I know they could have easily used the money themselves! I am just humbled and amazed by the generosity of others and their selfless giving!

Last year Todd's bean treating business didn't do quite as well as the previous year - it was hard at the time, but b/c of it, we got an incredible tax return just when we needed to make a big payment for the adoption. What seemed at the time last year to be a bad thing, God turned into an incredible blessing.

Adoption is expensive...but I am seeing firsthand how God does miracles. If you are thinking of adopting, please do not let your financial situation control your decision! God is so much bigger than any amount of money! To most of us, that amount is overwhelming, but to God, the Controller and Owner of the universe and all that is in it - it is literally pennies! We feel so incredibly blessed - we know that we don't deserve this blessing, but wow, I am telling you that we can't wait to pass it on!

In regards to where we are at in our adoption - when I last wrote, our homestudy was submitted. Well a couple weeks after that it was approved. Shortly after we submitted our I-600A - an "Application For Advance Processing of Orphan Petition" from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. They send us a date that we have to go to Sioux Falls to get FBI fingerprinted (the 2nd time of fingerprinting) which we will have this coming Monday - not exactly good timing for Todd and his work, but its a hard process to change the date, and thankfully his boss was very gracious about it.

We are very close to completing our dossier paperwork, which the I-600A is a part of. Hopefully once we receive that form back (1-4 weeks after fingerprinting) everything will be ready to go! Of course the dossier will have a few stops to be checked over before heading to Ethiopia, but by that point, our paperwork will be done! We leave for a week vacation with Todd's family at Lake Shetek the 1st full week in June, and it would just be amazing if it were out of my hands by then, so that is my goal, but ultimately it just depends when we receive that document, as well as our passports which we are waiting on.

Anyways...enough paperwork talk - here's a couple pics of my cute kids to end this very long post!

 My sweet Avery Sue turned 3 years old! She wanted a pink kitty cake for her birthday!

 The day of her bday - can't believe my baby girl is 3 already!!

 We got her a bike and she could not have been more excited!

 My baby boy has been on the move since he turned 8 months old - wow he is a lot to keep track of. I thought my Avery girl was a busy baby - this boy is a whole different level of busy!!

 completely naughty and cute as ever!

 This boy loves the fridge - if I leave it open for a second - he bee lines right over!

 Easton and cousin Calvin having a nice chat :)

 sweet baby face :)

Lots of love from these 2 siblings - Easton cracks up at Avery all the time, and Avery loves to  love on her baby boy - she is quite the mother hen. :)

Have a great weekend and a great Mother's Day to all you mothers out there! I can't say enough how thankful I am for the two mothers in my life - they are two of the most giving, selfless women I know and I pray that I will continue to grow to be like them!

Blessings,

Tanya

Bake Sale Fundraiser and HomeStudy Update

Big News! Our Homestudy is complete! In a previous post, I explained a bit of what a homestudy includes, but I received the actual document today to review, and it is 19 single-spaced pages summarizing everything that we have discussed with our social worker during our meetings, all of the paperwork we have filled out, and the references that others have filled out on us. I was amazed at the amount of information that was included and the detail that was involved. Thankfully some of it also includes our dossier paperwork, so I feel like we have a head start on getting our dossier paperwork done. Anyways, we are very excited about this, and will have fun "celebrating" this weekend. I have a continuing education course in Des Moines, so Todd is tagging along for a weekend away without kids. I will be in class from 8-5 each day, but hopefully we can go out to eat at night and enjoy a peaceful dinner together. :)

Also, we wanted to share that we have begun working on our 2nd fundraiser. A couple friends of ours have offered to do a bake sale at the Sioux Center craft fair on April 7. They were able to pull a few strings and get us the very first table when you enter the craft fair, so we have a great location to sell our baked goods. If you are in the area and want to donate some baked goods, we welcome any/all donations...or, if you hate to bake, please stop by! I know that we will have lots of yummy items. I'm really excited about this fundraiser, just b/c I think it will be a lot of fun with friends and a good opportunity to share our excitement for adoption. I think I'm also going to try and have some of our coffee there to sell as well. Anyways, please pray for God's blessing upon this bake sale, that we can serve Him through it, and that we can bless others in the process. We feel so very grateful for those around us supporting us!

Tanya

The Banner

A few weeks ago I had a phone interview with a reporter from The Banner, CRC's monthly publication. They wanted to write an article on our coffee fundraiser. It wasn't quite what I was expecting, but we pray it somehow continue to raise awareness for adoption and the orphan crisis!

You can check it out here:

http://www.thebanner.org/news/article/?id=4076

In other news - I believe we should have our homestudy submitted for approval this week. We are SO very excited to celebrate this milestone on our adoption journey! It will be a huge weight lifted off our shoulders to have this step completed.

Happy Monday to all!

Tanya

About time!

Well its about time I posted an update! I've been waiting for something big to happen, like our homestudy being done and approved, but its taking a bit longer than expected, so I thought I would go ahead and write a little update anyways. Our homestudy is very close to being done, however (I'm hoping by the end of the week!)

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the adoption process (as I was prior to this experience) our homestudy (I'm sure it varies by agency)was 3 in-depth meetings with our social worker in our home. Each was around 2-3 hours in length and one of them was interviewing Todd and I separately. She asks us all sorts of questions about ourselves, our families, our upbringing, our relationships with others, our friends, our jobs, church, our marriage, our parenting and kids, etc. She also took a tour of our home to make sure that it was safe for a child to live in. :) Overall we had a really good experience with each interview and I would say it gave us a good time to reflect on some things as well.

Our social worker then writes all of this up which takes a couple weeks, and we also have a bunch of paperwork that has to be submitted with the homestudy, in addition to 10 hours of training each. So hopefully by the end of the week this will be complete, and we'll go to move onto the next step (more paperwork!). :)
We did decide on officially preferencing either gender. We debated about preferencing a girl actually, as we did worry a bit about how close in age this child would be to Easton, and that it might be better if they were opposite genders to eliminate some possible competition between the two. That, and b/c Avery continues to say that she is going to get a new sister. :) But ultimately neither Todd nor I felt like it was what we were supposed to do, so we are leaving it at either gender, and we also preferenced 0-12 months at time of referral. This will hopefully keep at least a year of age between Easton and this child, which we really preferred so they won't be in the same class in school and hopefully eliminate some of the issues that may arise. Ultimately we know we need to give it to the Lord and trust Him with the make-up of our family.

For those of you who have tried our coffee, I want to THANK-YOU so much and I hope you have loved it as much as we have! This coffee fundraiser will continue through our entire adoption journey, so please continue to use it if you feel led, and share the link with others! We currently are drinking the "Valentine's Blend" and it is wonderful!
https://justlovecoffee.com/about/beneficiary/rowenhorstfamilyadoption/

We are working on a couple other fundraisers as well, so stay posted on those - I will have more information soon, but want to finalize a few things before I post on them, but I am excited about both!

I have been really amazed at the emotional rollercoaster this journey has been for me already. I didn't honestly think that I would get this way already, but it has been hard for me actually. I already feel an emotional attachment to this child, and even though my life would be completely nuts if we were to get another child this very moment, I want this child home. I know that's hard to understand, I thought the same thing about my dear friend who adopted in the past year - but its like being pregnant. You begin to form an attachment to this child growing inside of you - you dream about what he will look like and you make preparations for him to arrive. There are many days of course when life is obviously busy and I don't spend much time thinking about it, but then there are days when I just think of these children and my heart just hurts so badly and I want him/her home with me so that I can love on them, feed them, hug and kiss them, etc. I can't wait for that time to come!!

The financial aspect of it has been another journey, but God has been good and provided what we needed so far each step of the way. He has brought me to a place where I do trust Him to provide every penny for this adoption and I can say that with complete honesty. Though worldly wisdom continues to tell me that this isn't wise and isn't what we should be doing - certainly we should be investing in our future, getting money saved for retirement, even finishing paying off our student loan debt as quickly as possible. Those were my goals - that is what we had planned to do with our money over the next couple years. So there are days when I have this internal battle going on between my worldly wisdom and what God has called us to do - its very hard when you're a planner and you envisioned everything going a certain way. :) But do I really think that God is going to leave us out in the cold when we're 70 b/c we didn't put this money aside for ourselves right now at the age of 28? It sounds so silly even while I'm writing it - "putting this money aside for ourselves" vs. using it for this adoption.

This past week I read this in Crazy Love - (Ch. 7)

"This place of trust isn't a comfortable place to be; in fact, it flies in the face of everything we've been taught about proper planning. We like finding refuge in what we already have rather than in what we hope God will provide...God wants us to trust Him with abandon. He wants to show us how He works and cares for us. He wants to be our refuge."

"But God doesn't call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we are in trouble if He doesn't come through."

Well, I don't know if I've completely come to the point where I am "unafraid" but this is my prayer - that I will trust Him with abandon.

I am humbled to be on this journey, and I pray that God will use this experience to bring Himself glory, despite me!

Blessings to you all,

Tanya

COFFEE Fundraiser!!

We are excited that we are moving along smoothly so far in our adoption process. We have only 1 more meeting left to complete our homestudy and have started working on our dossier paperwork. Hopefully by the end of January our homestudy will be completed, and my goal is to have our dossier in Ethiopia by Easton's birthday (June 6). That means we will finally be put on a waiting list and our waiting time will begin. :) Until then, there is lots to do and though it will keep us busy, this stage is probably better for me as I can keep busy and feel like I am getting something done to work towards this. I have a feeling waiting and doing nothing will be harder for me. :)

Anyways, we have some various ideas for fundraising, but our first idea is to sell coffee! Well, we specifically won't be selling coffee, but we are partnering with "Just Love" Coffee Roasters. They are a company with an incredible mission - to help adopting families raise financial support for their adoptions, but also, they are helping people around the world make a living by selling their coffee.

Here is a bit about them that I found on their website:

Rob Webb grew up in the coffee business. When he was 2 years old his father started a coffee company in Murfreesboro, Tennessee that Rob runs today. For years he dreamed of roasting his own specialty coffees. In the spring of 2009, Rob and his wife, Emily, added to their family of 4 by adopting from Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee. While preparing for the adoption, Rob and Emily immersed themselves in Ethiopian culture by reading, talking with Ethiopian-Americans, and learning Amharic- the most widely spoken language in Ethiopia. Being immersed in the culture of Ethiopia and in the adoption process kindled an idea that began to take shape. What if he could create fine, artisan coffees and use some of the profits to help other families raise the funds to adopt? From that idea, Just Love Coffees was born.

Next came the vision of not only creating outstanding coffees, but coffees that are fair and sustainable. Fair- meaning that the coffee farmers are paid a living wage for their work. Sustainable- meaning that the coffee cherries are grown and harvested in a way that protects our precious natural resources. Just Love coffees purchases only organic, shade grown, coffee beans- Fair Trade Certified, when available. In addition, Just Love is a Fair Trade Certified company.

In early 2011, Rob and Emily began to discuss what more they could do through the company to help the plight of the orphan. What could Just Love do to not only help place orphans in permanent homes, through both domestic and international adoption, but help to prevent children in the developing world from becoming orphaned? Through friends, Rob and Emily had contributed to the non-profit organization Charity: Water, and learned about the immense need for clean water in the developing world to promote wellness. They decided that 5% of all sales of Just Love coffee would go to Charity: Water through the Coffee to Water program.
Every bag of Just Love Coffee you purchase, every cup you drink at a café, is a blend of coffee and love. Thank you for helping us Share the Love!

So, you can order from their website through our storefront:
https://justlovecoffee.com/rowenhorstfamilyadoption

Spread the word!! Thank-you so much for considering this!! I think they have a great mission and I can't wait to get my coffee that I ordered today!

Blessings on your day!!

Tanya

PS - just wanted to quick add - after I ordered my coffee I just checked - I bought $25 worth of coffee (2 different kinds) and $10 of it went towards our adoption which I felt was really an incredible donation on their part. If you know coffee lovers with a heart for orphans and a heart for God's people around the world, please share this link! Thanks so much!!