buenas dias!!!

Good morning to you all! Thank you for all of your prayers. 

Kella finally settled, and was asleep at 11:00 pm. She slept through the night until 6:30 this morning. 

Cody enjoyed his first smiles with her, since he got none of that last time with Kenzie!!! 

Steve and Cody went to the Embassy this morning, requesting our appointment for tomorrow. We hope!!

We are going over to the Marriott to spend some time with Lou Lynn and Essie before she has to give her back to the foster mom.

Pictures will come today...we promise!

we're here!!!

We arrived here in Guatemala tonight around 8:00 pm. We got into the hotel right before nine, and Jorge and my dear friend Lou Lynn and her precious babe Essie were here to greet us! We had such a great time chatting with them. Then came the foster mom, Norma, and her two sisters with our forever baby, Kella Hope. She was absolutely beautiful, and a little more grown up. It is so surreal that we are finally getting to bring her home after this long process. The handoff was a bit harder on baby Kella than we had predicted. She has a sense for what was going on. She is sound asleep in her bed now. We are all tired, so pictures will come tomorrow!!!

Once again, thank you all for your ongoing prayers, support and love! We will definitely be keeping you updated through our process! 

 

we're off.....to a land down south!!!

We are leaving tomorrow morning for Guatemala to bring our precious babe home. My sweet sweet friend Lou Lynn is down visiting her baby and called me this afternoon telling me to come on down. We would be receiving our pink slip on Monday, so we are going to go to the Embassy and request an appointment for the following day. We have been in contact with our attorney, and he is encouraging us to go ahead with this. We are all busy packing and getting organized and trying to love on our two little ones who are not going with us on this trip. They are so excited to get to spend time with the cousins. 

Please continue to pray for us as we continue on this journey. We feel peace in this decision of going.

We leave Bloomington at 10:15 am and arrive in Guatemala City at 7:00 pm. My heart is heavy for Kella's foster mom, Norma, as she is giving her last foster baby away. Norma has loved this little one from birth on. We are forever grateful to her for the nurturing and love that she has given Kella. We should have her by about 9:00 pm tomorrow night (they are an hour behind us in Guatemala) We're so glad to have our family and friends along for the journey and covering us in prayer. We love you all!!!!

The Krazy Krew

we're still waiting.....

To all of you who are as anxious about this as we are......we still haven't heard anything about getting "pink" status. We're just praying that all will go well in God's timing, whatever that may be! Thank you for all of your continued prayer and support. It means so much to us all!

We HOPE to be "pink" by today. We will keep you all informed!!!

PINK day!!!

We are anxiously waiting to hear that we are PINK! We told the girls that we all need to wear pink today. This was the outfit that our little Kenzie chose. Her very best pink! Chloe chose a cute pink top to wear! The girls have been ready to celebrate, even before we have any news!! 

We'll keep you posted!!!

DNA on its way!!!

Thank you to all of our prayer warriors! We found out today that our DNA results are done, and being sent back to Guatemala. We should be receiving "PINK" by this Thursday. We can't quite make travel plans yet, but we're hoping it will be very soon! We'll keep you posted!

Isaiah 30:15

In returning to Me and resting in Me you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength.

wait patiently...

Kella's DNA was done last Wednesday (7/16). We are still waiting to hear that it is at LabCorp here in the states. It should be here soon! (We hope!) It needs to go through a process at the lab to make sure that she is the same baby that we got on referral. It then is overnighted back to the US Embassy in Guatemala. Within 24 hours, we should have "PINK" status, which means that we have our visa appointment. Through this wait, I need to constantly be reminded to trust in the Lord and wait patiently for Him to act. 

Psalm 37: 3-4

 Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

We appreciate you praying for us through this process as our desire is to have Baby Kella home for a few days before we have to send our Kristin off.

Puppy Love!!!

do not worry...

we ran into another glitch in the system in getting our DNA done. we have an appointment at 10 am tomorrow. i am beginning to feel a time crunch, because of kristin leaving and us wanting her to get to spend some time with kella. although i began to worry, my devotion today from "Jesus Calling" was just what i needed. let me share it with you...

Do not worry about tomorrow!!!

This is not a suggestion, but a command. I divided time into days and nights, so that you would have manageable portions of life to handle. My grace is sufficient for you, but its sufficiency is for only one day at a time. When you worry about the future, you heap day upon day of troubles onto your flimsy frame. You stagger under this heavy load, which I never intended you to carry.

Throw off this oppressive burden with one quick thrust of trust. Anxious thoughts meander about and crisscross in you brain, but trusting Me brings you directly into My Presence. As you thus affirm your faith, shackles of worry fall off instantly. Enjoy My Presence continually by trusting Me at all times.

Matthew 6:34  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

2 Corinthians 12:9  But He said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

Hope this encourages you like it did for me! I trust God has every detail of this part of her story covered.

ORANGE ORANGE ORANGE!!!

Today we are orange!

I received a phone call from Jorge, our facilitator, letting us know that we have DNA authorization. We were expecting this early next week, so this was a pleasant surprise. By Tuesday, Kella will have her second DNA, and it will get sent to the lab in the US. We continue to be on our way to bringing our babe home.

hope...

hope. it's one of the greatest gifts we've been given.

it carries no price tag, but its value is priceless.

we cling to it when the future looks uncertain.

we praise it when things turn out better than we could ever imagine.

on this day, give thanks to Jesus for bringing us this far.

we are ready to come get you, Kella Hope.

one more X on the checklist!

July 7, 2008

Today is the day that we found out our birth certificate was approved. We praise our Lord for this. Things are moving now, at a better pace, and we are a little more certain of what will happen next, and the timing that it should happen in. Jorge said we should travel in about 3 weeks. We are one happy and thankful family! 

our hearts' journey continues...

Here we are a week later, still waiting for our birth certificate. We found out we have an extra week of waiting, but continue to know that God knows when she will get to come home. We hope by Monday, July 7th to finally have it. After that, we need to get our second DNA, and get the results back to the US Embassy, where they will issue our visa appointment. We are thinking that within a month we should be traveling to bring our baby home. During our wait, we continue to trust that everything is in God's control. 

Finally out!

June 12, 2008

What a day of rejoicing this was. We are overwhelmed with God's goodness for the great news we just received. We are officially out of the PGN and Kella Hope is our baby. Through this wait, we have grown and have been stretched again and for this we are grateful. My dear friend, Lou Lynn was the deliverer of the great news. She is the one who lead us to our attorney and to her we are forever thankful. That was the best phone call!!

We are thinking our wait will be around 6 weeks minimum. It is finally happening that we get to think of bringing her home.

We feel so blessed by so many of our family and friends that have so fervently prayed for us. We pray a special blessing on all of them.

We went to Steve's favorite Mexican place, Chevy's, to celebrate our great news!

4 Chicas & a bebe

April 3-6 2008

What a wonderful experience we had on our girls trip. This was a repeat of the trip that we took to visit Kenzie, just the oldest girls and I, except this time Vicki Taufer joined us. We took a red-eye from O'hare and were in Guatemala City four hours later. We were united with our precious baby girl a few hours later. We enjoyed the day with her by the pool and later went in for a nap. Our trip was amazing because of all the people that we were able to meet. I love the way God orchestrates gathering His people together. Vicki became friends with so many and was able to photograph many little babies that were in the adoption process. A big highlight was visiting Hannah's Hope, an All God's Children orphanage in Guatemala City. We all were able to love on these babies and children, and share some of Jesus' love with them. This is a truly amazing orphanage and these little ones won our hearts again. The same little girl that wanted to go home with Kaley exactly two years ago was still there. She is finally going home to her forever family. These children were simply precious!

Kella Hope was still so little. She was sick with what I thought was maybe ears and a cough. After a day in Antigua, and her not feeling well, we made a trip to the ER. It was in a private hospital, and I was very impressed with the care that we received, other than the nurses trying to stick her baby arms to take blood. She has such tiny veins, and I finally couldn't handle it anymore, and told them to stop. They said this is the rainy time and babies get sick with allergies and respiratory symptoms. They sent us home with medicine and she had a much better night. Praise Jesus!

I am more than grateful to Steve for allowing us to go and for keeping up the fort at home. He did a great job and it was such a blessing to get to love on our little girl again. Kaley had the hardest time leaving her. We are very blessed with the great care she receives in her foster family. Norma truly loves this little girl.

We are still in family court, which was a disappointment for us. We know God already knows when she is coming home.

We arrived back in Bloomington at 4:00 am, just in time for Vicki to get home and teach her workshop to a bunch of Irish photographers that same morning. What a memory for us. It was so much fun to watch God move in Vicki's life and get her excited for their road of adoption. She came home and they began their process with full speed ahead. We are so excited to see where the Lord leads them in this beautiful journey.

Heart Grown

January 24-28, 2008

Steve, Chloe and I went to visit our precious baby girl. We were so excited to have Chloe with us on this first meeting of our new baby. We had a great flight to Guatemala, and were met by Jorge at the airport. We went directly to the Westin. About an hour later, we ventured down to the lobby to await the arrival of our little girl. She was so precious!!! We went back up to our room and were able to visit with her foster mom, Norma. Jorge was so great and translated everything for us. Kella Hope was so attentive. So tiny. So sweet! Chloe quickly got to hold her baby sister. Kella just stared into Chloe's eyes. It was such a sight! Steve and I were instantly in love with our little gift! Adoption is such a beautiful experience of God's redemptive love for us.

After they left, we were able to just sit with her, ooh and ahh over her, kiss her and admire her beauty. Oh so sweet! We got her out of the little blue jean overalls that they had her in, and of course put her into a soft, pink little outfit. We enjoyed walking around the premises, meeting other adoptive parents, and most importantly, getting to know our new daughter.

The most precious sight was watching Chloe love on her new baby sister. She couldn't get enough of her, and quickly became another little mommy.

It rained more and was cooler than our other visits. Chloe still enjoyed swimming with Jorge's two little girls at the pool. I loved watching 2 spanish speaking girls and Chloe, who only speaks English (except for her few phrases she has learned with the big sisters around the house). They communicated in a way that was just incredible! They enjoyed a great afternoon together, although they had their own language.

We were so blessed by this first meeting with our little gift from God. She is so loved and taken care of, that I was able to leave with such peace. Yes, it was very hard to give her back, but the hardest was for poor little Chloe, who just sobbed when we had to let her go. I was not expecting to have her struggle with leaving Kella like she did. She was still crying on the plane ride home.

We are all so thankful for the gift of holding and loving on our little 4 1/2 month old babe. Kella Hope has grown in our hearts forever.

Just beginning... (Sept '07-Dec'07)

After much encouragement from all of my friends, I am ready to begin the blogging adventure. All of you know my computer skills, so please hang in there with me, and I'll give it my best. As you all know, the Lord has put the desire in our hearts to adopt again. With all the changes going on in Guatemala right now, we knew that the possibility for adoptions to be closing was very near. In July of '07, we were fingerprinted, and then in September, I began the mad paperwork frenzy. Through a blogging friend, we were led to use a private attorney. We truly believe that this was all part of His imminent plan. Due to not using an agency, the dossier was compiled by me, myself and I. Actually, I had a lot of contact with our facilitator (daily) which was of great help. In the beginning of November, we received our referral of our precious baby girl. The Lord clearly made it known that this was to be our little girl. We had friends that were picking up their little girl in November, when Kella was one month old. They were able to visit with, take pictures and videos of, and love on our baby Kella. That was such a tremendous gift to have. Through all of this, we knew that we had to have our power of attorney signed, and registered by December 31st. It was down to the last few days, but all was well. It was completed in His perfect timing. With all of this said and done, I was so relieved to let go of this stressful part of the adoption process. Now it was time to let go, and let God.