Number 7!!!

You know what that means right?!!! We have now moved up to number 7 on the waiting list. We haven't received an update for Los Ninos this week, but at the end of last week when we received our update we found out that we are now number 7 on the list. Things are really starting to move, Praise God! We are believing God to go get her before the end of June. That is what our hearts' desires are.
The names, as everyone wants to know what we plan to do....
It really all depends on how old she is. If she is an infant then we will name her and leave her given name as her middle name (depending of course on the meaning). If she is on the older end of our age range then we will leave her name and give her a middle name (again, depending on the meaning).
Mike Willow and I went to Pompeii today and it was amazing. I will post pictures soon. Tonight we are really tire so we are going to go to bed, but I wanted to let everyone know what is going on.

Blessings,
Meg

We're Back

Well, I know it's been a while. I'm going to give a brief update. We hope everyone is doing well.
Laurie, congratulations on real estate licensing. Kristen congratulations on your marriage.

As you can imagine many changes have taken place since Jan. Our friends Joe and Lynsey received their two children from Ethiopia and they are beautiful inside and out. We will miss you guys here in Italy, but I'm sure your new duty station will be wonderful and you'll make wonderful new friends soon.
Another couple Marla and Matt are just about to go and get their little girl from China-CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

For us many things have changed also. Willow is now being home schooled and we love it! Talk about less stress, and it also provides a great time for just the two of us before the baby comes. Of course we can't wait for the end of the school year, just like anyone else.
Willow is still active in cheer and getting really good. I know, I know everyone wants to know where the baby is.
What we do know is that there have been two referrals come to our agency in the last couple of weeks, but they went to other families. We've moved up two spots on the list putting us at number 8 now. Now, as some of you know, being number 8 on the list doesn't mean we'll necessarily be the eighth couple to receive a child. We could be, but if a child is chosen that suits our family best then they will chose us. We are faithfully standing firm that God will bring her to us soon.
We hope all of you had a wonderful Easter, we sure did.
Love,
Meg

Mike is off to Colorado

A few days ago we got word that Mike would be going to Colorado for a conference and so we took him to the Naples airport Sat. morning bright and early at 4:30 in the morning. Ok, maybe it wasn't so bright, but man it was early. I talked to him briefly this morning and he is there and fine. I told him that I would find a way to ski is I were there for a week, but he said, to his surprise it is very nice during the day and just down to about freezing at night. I think we got the cold weather here. It is so cold!!! That's ok, I've gotten really good at making a big fire. We will get Mike next Sat. morning. He was so upset that he would miss going to get Hannah and Habtamu in Rome by one day, but we'll all see them soon.

Now that brings us to our own adoption. So far we haven't heard anything further from Los Ninos. Jason just keeps telling us that he hasn't heard anything either and that as soon as he does he'll let us know. That's fine, she's coming we know it. Just keep us in your prayers.

A few of you have asked me what our expenses are and while we are not allowed to talk about agency fees or even the country's fees; I can let you know that our goal was $25,000. We paid the agency all of their fee except one small portion due at a later time and have almost gotten all of the Vietnam fee together at this point!! What a blessing. From here we just start saving for the airfare, embassy and court expenses and all around travel expenses while we are there.

For just a little different spin on things and some different pictures check out our blog on our myspace page. The link for our myspace page is on the main page of our blog here under our favorite links.



Thank you for your continued prayers and keep on reading to see what comes next!

Ferris family adoption

As many of you know, our friends the Ferrises are adopting from Ethiopia. Well, they are now officially the proud parents of the two newest additions to their family. We are so happy to welcome Habtamu and Hannah Ferris!! Joe went to Ethiopia yesterday to pick up the kids, Linsey stayed here in Italy with their two younger kids Noah and Olivia. Joe was able to get Hannah and Habtamu today and they are doing very well.
Willow and I are going to take Linsey to Rome Fri. to pick up Joe and the kids at the airport so keep them in your prayers. Linsey is about off her rocker with excitement waiting on them to come home. If you would like to check out her blog it is ourferrisfamily.blogspot.com

Happy New Year

We hope you all had a blessed Christmas and New Year holiday; we sure did. We missed being home with family and friends, but were with friends here in Italy and enjoyed ourselves very much. As you look to the right you'll see some of our friends whom we spent Christmas.

The Christmas play was a wonderful success at church and about 350 people were ministered to over the two days that we performed. What a blessing!

Today I called Los Ninos to find out if there is any news, but have not had a response. Hopefully Monday we'll have some news to post.
Thank you all for your continued prayers.

Oh, Laurie I got your card and picture yesterday, man Cole is getting so big. He has completely
out grown that little kid look. Save us some jerky!!!

Blessings,
Meg

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!!!
We would like to share some updated photos with everyone. We have had a very blessed Christmas season; as we hope you all have. As far as adoption news. We do not have anything new to tell. We will let everyone know as soon as we hear something.

Well, here we go. There is a lot of back and forth news so I'll try to make everything as clear as possible.
About a month ago there was a problem with the American Embassy in Vietnam and one of the orphanages we work with. They felt like the Americans at the Embassy thought they could do what ever they wanted without going through the proper channels so they quit giving American referrals. They did start up again and we thought everything was ok. Then we got our license to work in the third province, wonderful. We just got word from Vietnam that we are only allowed to get referrals of children who come to the orphanage after our license became valid. There have been children to come to the orphanage since then, but the way it works is that the children, for obvious and very valid reasons are not available for adoption until Dec. For those of you not in the adoption world; the children have to go through health screenings, work has to be done to make sure these children are truely orphans- those types of things.
Now, we received word a couple of days ago that the orphanage director from the province that said he would not work with the US is now saying this again. Relations with the third province are going very well and we should start getting referrals soon, well in about 2 weeks. The first province is still working with the US and things are going fine.
We still expect our referral to come before the end of the year and that is fine. We know that our adoption is in God's hands and he will take care of us. You might remember that in the last blog I mentioned that requirements for the I600 had changed, but that we didn't know when it would go into affect. Well, it has gone into affect. It doesn't change anything for us as far as more or less paperwork, but it does affect our travel time.
With the new regulations the I600 is now filed at the time we accept our referral. That means at the time that we say "Yes, we accept this child." Before; we would have filed the paperwork when we got to Vietnam. They take about 2 days to go over the paperwork, declare her/him an orphaned child, we go to court and so on. Now, we send in the I600 the US gov. then spends 60 days per child to perform this investigation and then we travel, go to court and so on.
So, it is obvious that we will now be in Italy for Christmas. Before we hoped to be in Vietnam around Christmas. Hopfully we will be in Vietnam around Jan. or Feb. We are not going to try to guess at a date because Los Ninos at this time, of course cannot guess at when the referrals we will come in consistantly.
Blessings,
Meg

Good News

I just received an email from the Italian Embassy in Hanoi that they will issue us a Shengen Visa for our little girl after all. I received word today that I will call my contact there and meet with her and she will let me know what to bring with me to the Consular's office. Thankfully the lady that I have been in contact with is the same lady that we will meet with when we get there so that there is no confusion. This means we will have a couple of months to come to Italy with her so that we can adjust to being a family and rest, then come to the US. This, of course also means no trip around the world for the two of us and that Mike and Willow will more likely be able to come to the US when we come to finish the paperwork.

SO>>>God is good all of the time, all of the time God is good......You know the song.

Blessings,
Meg

Thank You Debbie

We would like to say thank you to Debbie with Adopt Abroad. She is the social worker who worked so diligently with us (and many others here in Italy) through our home study process. Debbie has been a great source of information, personable and truly showed each family how much she cares about us and our growing families.
As some of us have had to change agencies, programs, and regulations; Debbie has been nothing but patient and compassionate towards us.

So, thank you Debbie, and may God bless you and your family-

Mike, Meg and Willow

Tips on Saving Money - You Can Do It

Some of you have asked us how we are doing it...saving up that mcuh money for the adoption.
Here goes...First of all we must have faith in God that he will provide and boy has he.

1.) Don't run the AC. If I can do that anyone can-Meg

2.) Make lists and only make one trip in the car to do everything that you can in one day.

3.) Make a menu and only buy what is on your menu plus a little extra just incase someone pops in.

4.) Hang your clothes to dry-even when it's cold they will dry under a fan or in front of a heater

5.) Carry cash and when it's gone, it's gone-it's amazing what you don't remember swiping on that debit card.

6.) Printer ink is expensive so if you have a child that needs to print out reports; put it on a disk and send it to school with them for the teacher to print out or go to the computer lab at the school (thanks Lynsey)

7.) Also if you have many docs. to print- go to your local library many of them will let you print up to so many pages free of charge.

8.) Check how you can save on phone bills using the internet instead of calling from a land line.

9.) Turn off your cable

10.) Stop eating out- this is a biggie

11.) COOK breakfast-cooking instead of eating all of the fast breakfast foods will go much farther and you will be surprised at how much you will save.

12.) Walk, walk, walk- we are very fortunate to live in an area where many shops ect. are close to one another so we are able to park in a central location and walk. At over $3.00 gallon for gas it is very important to save where ever possible- check tire pressure, tune up your car- all of these things will help to better your milage.


When you get to feeling like you can't do anything - Purchase yourself, your spouse, your sister whom ever needs the card; a card they are inexpensive and bring joy for longer than you would think.
That's all I can think of right off the top of my head. If I remember any more that just are too good not to post I'll add it.