So we got fingerprinted today. Yes. VERY exciting! Okay...not really...but it is cool that they don't use ink anymore. Guess we should have known that, but it was cool to experience the "electronic" fingerprinting system. And can I just say that on their forms they have you fill out, "pink" and "maroon" are listed amongst the choices for eye color?!!! I asked if they'd ever had anyone check one of those boxes. Surprisingly, they have not.

Other than that, we're patiently waiting for our home study report to be finalized. It's a rather big piece of the whole paperwork process. We're expecting it to be completed within the week. After that, we'll start filling out grant paperwork for as many grants as we can possibly find!

And Erin is still preparing for her trip to Rwanda and trying to work out the details for visiting the orphanage while there. We actually have a phone number for the orphanage now! Very cool!

We'll keep you posted!

I (Erin) am stealing the chance to blog from Jeremiah for this opportunity to share my heart about my upcoming trip to Rwanda.

God has been preparing my heart in so many ways for my trip coming up in less than a month. At first my trip, in my mind, was something separate from our whole adoption process. I would go to Rwanda and serve on a team there and learn more about the culture, but at the time I couldn’t see how much God would use this trip to prepare my heart for our adoption as well. I have come to see that in God’s awesome plan my mission trip to Rwanda is as much a part of our adoption as filling out paperwork and finishing our home study.

In this past week God has begun to absolutely wreck my heart to the very core of my being. Right now at church we are talking about living a life of service which has been convicting me Sunday after Sunday. I am reading the book “The Hole in Our Gospel” that is challenging the way I think about people in need all over the world, what it mean to really love your neighbor. But that’s just the beginning.

I have read articles about Rwanda and heard information at our team meetings, but this week God has overwhelmed me with love and compassion toward the people of Rwanda. Last Thursday night at one of our mission team meetings we watched the movie “Sometimes in April.” It is a true story filmed by HBO about the genocide that took place fifteen years ago in Rwanda. I knew heading into that meeting that it would be painful to watch and I found myself not even wanting to see it. Once the movie was over I found myself totally overwhelmed with emotion over the pain that this country faced. How selfish did I feel that I didn’t want to endure the pain of watching what had happened in Rwanda in a two and a half hour movie when they had to live that horror for 100 days. So many things in the movie caused me so much discomfort, one of the things that really disturbed me is how little we in America knew and did about what was going on there at the time. It is painful for me to think about what I was doing while one million people were dying and nobody was helping them. I was in high school, thinking about college, picking out my class ring, deciding what to wear to the prom…and one million people were dying, kind of puts things in perspective.

God has been convicting me so much in the past few years about how I spend my time and money, about living the life He has for me instead of the comfortable life I think I would rather have sometimes. Jeremiah and I have been on quite a journey that has lead us here, me going to Rwanda and us adopting from there. It is not always easy or comfortable but we are right where we are suppose to be doing exactly what God wants us to be doing…there is nothing in life better than that! I can’t wait to see what He has for us next!

Thank you so much for letting me share some of what God is doing in my heart. I think I anticipated that God would change me while I’m in Rwanda, I guess I just didn’t realize He was going to go ahead and get a jump start on it now. Please be praying for me and my team, not necessarily for safety as much as for the opportunities for God to use us in amazing ways for Him to make a difference in the lives of the people of Rwanda and to bring glory to Him in all that we do. There is a chance that I could visit the orphanage in Kilgali where our child could be from. Please be praying that all of that will work out however God sees fit. I’m sure that once I enter that place it will be hard for me to walk back out those doors. Thank you all for your ongoing support and encouragement. On the really tough days your kind words keep us truckin’. We love you all!

Quick update on the adoption process! We've had several documents approved and notarized and we're really moving along pretty quickly with everything!

Financially, we've about $1,000 towards our next chunk that we need ($5,000)...and then our next chunk after that is about $12,000. Yeah. That's a 12 with THREE zeros! Wowser! Needless to say, we're really anxious to get our paper work done and approved so that we can start applying for grants!

Erin's mission trip to Rwanda leaves in only 35 days! And it sounds like she might get to visit the exact orphanage where we will get our child from!!!!!!!! Needless to say, if it happens there will be a lot of pictures that we will, of course, share with you on this blog!

We'll keep ya posted!

We have officially completed our home study! All four visits have been made. Our social worker is finishing up the report that will be sent to and reviewed by our government and eventually by the Rwandan government! We were actually able to stop by the office for "Christian Family Services" on our way back from vacation to finish up our last visit. We became such good friends with the ladies working there that we ended up going out to eat afterwords...at the "Wing King Cafe." Mmmmm....

We're still working on paperwork and raising money for the next big check we have to write - $5000. We're about $500 on our way!

God continues to be faithful!