Love coffee? Or do you know someone who does?

We're SO excited to be able to announce a new fundraiser for our adoption. COFFEE!!! It's a really cool deal started up by a guy who has adopted in the past and understands firsthand the difficulties of raising money for an adoption.

Here's how it works. We have a website to sell coffee from (link below). For every bag sold, $5 goes toward our adoption! It's that simple!

There are 6 different beans to buy (including Rwandan...and I can tell you first hand that Rwandan coffee is AMAZING! I've also heard the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe is amazing as well). We even get a percentage for any t-shirts, scoops, mugs, hats or bags that get sold too!

And FYI, 2 bags of coffee cost the same as 1 to ship!
You can even sign up for a membership!

Makes great Christmas gifts!!! (just sayin')


FOLLOW THIS LINK!!!

So we got our I-171H form in the mail today!!!!

What the heck is that?

It's our "notice of favorable determination" from the department of homeland security! In other words, it's our LAST piece of paperwork for our dossier! We just have to get all the paperwork "state certified" and then we'll be able to send all of our paperwork to AWAA (our adoption agency) for them to assemble and send to Rwanda!!!

Oh, and we have to send $5,025 with it. We have $3,375 of that...which we're INCREDIBLY grateful for. So now we're trusting God to provide another $1,650 within one week. Prayers would be GREATLY appreciated!!!

We'll keep you posted on what happens next!

So there isn't a whole lot of new changes but we wanted to take the chance to update you on a few things...

First, we have made a decision about the age ranges and genders of the children that we plan to adopt. We will be requesting a boy ages 0-2 and a girl ages 2-4. We are in the process of updating some paperwork changes that have to be made because of our decision to adopt two children instead of just one. Mostly minor changes, nothing that should slow down our process.

We had another yard sale on Saturday and were able to raise about $400 (thanks to the kind donations of our friends Chuck and Randi Bader). With the money that we raised from the yard sale we now have about $1,650 left to raise in order to be able to send our paperwork to Rwanda.

We are expecting our immigration paperwork anytime now and that will be the last piece of paperwork that we need for our dossier to be complete! We are really excited to be to this point and are getting really excited about sending our dossier to Rwanda. Once it is received by the Ministry of Family and Gender in Rwanda we will be waiting for about 3-6 months before we receive approval from their government.

Please be praying that the timing of everything works out and that we are able to get all of our paperwork together and sent out as soon as possible. We are so blessed to have the prayers and encouragement from all of you! On those days where we feel impatient or frustrated your encouraging words mean so much to us.

So we've officially made the decision to adopt 2 children instead of 1!

I know, I know. We don't know what we're getting ourselves into.

If we adopted again separate from our current adoption, it would cost at least another $25,000. And we do want to adopt again. Adding a second child to our current adoption process will only cost another $4,700, at the most.

Not a bad deal.
These children desperately need someone to help them.
We can't ignore that.

Financially, we were already asking God for a miracle anyway. We have no doubt that He's able to handle another $4,700. There's a difference between faith and stupidity, and we've been weighed that thought carefully. We've thought through this thoroughly, bathed it in prayer, made the ol' pro's/con's list, and sought wisdom from people. We can think of a million reasons that people may argue that we're doing the wrong thing. But we can't think of one reason that God would not be honored by this decision.

Of course, the Rwandan government may tell us "no." They may not let us adopt two children. They may not even let us adopt one! But, in the wisdom of my father, we've come to realize that their decision can in and of itself be God's final answer. If He wants us to have two children, we believe that He'll allow that to happen. If we're wrong, He can easily take care of that too.

Again, our desire in all of this is not just to have a children. We're excited about it, of course! But our main motivation has always been out of a conviction to help children in need. It's what the Bible calls us to do. This isn't about us.

We're not naive. We know full well that having two children is dramatically different than having one and that we can't possibly understand what it's like until we have them here. And we know people may think we're crazy adding that much more to our already overwhelming adoption costs. But we would not have peace about this otherwise. This is what we must do.

We're trusting God to provide and to guide. He knows what He's doing! And we're just excited to be a part of His plan. We want desperately to be used by Him, no matter the "cost."

In the meantime, we're we would covet your prayers as we are needing another $2,800 by the beginning of November. We're waiting to hear about the two grants we've applied for, but we won't have heard anything in time for this chunk of money. Once we get that money, finish our paperwork, and get one last form from our government, we will officially be sending our completed dossier paperwork to America World (our adoption agency) to be compiled and then sent to Rwanda!

Well, I (Erin) had an amazing time on my mission trip to Rwanda. It is so beautiful there and I loved all of the people that I met during my time there. I heard amazing stories about how God is at work in Rwanda and how He has healed people from a great amount of pain.

I learned so much about myself while in Rwanda. I learned that God can use me in ways that I never imagined as long as I let Him have control of my life. I know that Jeremiah shared on a blog post that I spoke to over 1,000 prisoners while I was in Rwanda. For anyone that knows me well at all you know that would be incredibly difficult for me to do. When I got done I realized that the only way I was able to do it was because God wanted me to and because He wanted me to do it He equipped me to do it. Since speaking at the prison I've also had the opportunity to speak at a church in Kigali, Rwanda as well as at our church here is South Carolina. God continues to teach me what it means to truly follow Him and stop living a safe, fearful life.

I know that Jeremiah also shared that my day at the orphanage didn't go exactly as I had hoped. I was not able to hold and play with the children. Once I spoke with some of the people at the orphanage I learned that it was out of protection for the children as well as for me. They didn't want me to get attached to a child since we really have no say in what child we adopt. They felt that me getting attached to a specific child would only make our process more difficult and painful. Though I didn't get to spend a lot of time with the children I was able to make some really important contacts that day that will hopefully help us in our adoption process.

I must say that I will always cherish the time that I spent in Rwanda. We were able to work with so many different people. From homeless children to prisoners, people affected by AIDS to pastors giving up what they want to serve and love the people of Rwanda, people that took part in the killings during the genocide to people that are choosing to forgive in spite of the loss of their entire families. Such powerful things are happening in Rwanda and I could see the fingerprints of God everywhere. I think that my heart will always feel at home in Rwanda. People keep asking me if I'm happy to be home and even though I am I feel like I left part of myself in Rwanda. I can't wait to share with our child about the amazing country that he's from and the wonderful people that I met during my time there. It's amazing to me that when Jeremiah and I travel to get our child there will be a part of me that feels like I'm going home.