Turkey Pants!

Okay, I just HAD to [quickly] share a pic of these adorable corduroys for wee lads from Bonobo[y]s - Bonobo's new line of shirts, shoes, and pants for your little man! 

Aren't they CUTE?!

If Baby C ends up being a boy, I'm probably going to wish (next Thanksgiving) that I had bought these for him!

Blessings,
*mandie*

Blue Door and Eden Women's Ministry - China

Can you see what's peeking out from the pages of my book?  It's a beautiful "book cord" bookmark that was made by a young woman rescued from human trafficking in SE China through Eden Women's Ministry!

My mom recently pre-ordered herself and my sisters and I copies of her friend, Brenda VanWinkle's book In Love Where I Belong due out in April 2011.  Since the book won't be out for several months, all pre-orders get a very pretty, handmade "book cord" - neat!

Brenda and her husband have been in the ministry for over 20 years, specifically helping to plant churches in China and Southeastern Asia.  Brenda began Blue Door Ministries in an effort to free young women in Asia and around the world from bondages of all kinds, but especially the many injustices that face women born in countries where boys are prized more than girls and women have very little hope for upward mobility.

Blue Door ministry efforts from around the world benefit these young women and girls in China and throughout Southeast Asia to come to know a loving and compassionate heavenly Father through the works of his children who help give them shelter, food, clothing, and education to better their lives.  What an amazing ministry!!!!

One of the ministries specifically aided by Blue Door is Eden Women's Ministry in China.  I wanted to share a story with you from their ministry brochure:

"At only a few months old, Xiao Qing's grandmother had tried to kill her.  The culture in China favors boys and girls are seen as second class citizens.  The grandmother had poured boiling water over her.  Xiao Qing survived this, but still carries the scars today.  Her hands, body, and scalp are badly scarred, a constant reminder of her rejection.

At the age of 14, her family moved to the city; and she started to go to school, through other friends she started to meet new people and felt very flattered by the attention of a young man who lived nearby.  He invited her over to his place and then raped her.  Shocked and in pain she told no one and closed her heart completely, she ran away from home because of the shame she felt and resigned herself to just be a prostitute, a curse her grandmother used to speak over her saying, "You're only good to be a prostitute!"

After four years of working in the business, other friends introduced her to some Christian workers, she is now beginning to face the pain of her past and be healed in the deep places of her heart."
 -Eden Women's Ministry, China

Such a heartbreaking story.  I am constantly drawn to broken people like Xiao Qing, people with a past and a story, people who know what it's like to go through something terrifying and terrible.  Heck, my band is called "The Beautifully Broken"...we chose this name purposefully; because we know that we are all broken people in need of loving Father in heaven to bandage our wounds and put our pieces together again.  The only way to heal is to help one another - show God's compassion and mercy for us by showing it to others - like Blue Door and Eden Women's Ministries are doing.

If you are interested in having Brenda speak at your gathering or in pre-ordering her book (proceeds help Eden's Women's Ministry in China), I have listed her contact information below:

Blue Door
P.O. Box 494624
Redding, CA 96049

Website: brendavanwinkle.com
E-Mail: bluedoor@brendavanwinkle.com
To Pre-Order her book In Love Where I Belong (published by Destiny Image), e-mail to: bluedoor@vanwin.cotse.net 


I hope you are having a wonderful day in your part of the world!

Blessings,
*mandie*

Expecting from Ethiopia and Getting Stuff Done!

 

Isn't this necklace cute?!  I love it, annnnnnnnd I might need one!  The only problem is I can't remember which Etsy shop I found it in - oops!  

There are times during this adoption process when I feel a little jealous of my friends who are pregnant or have been pregnant, NOT because they had a biological child, and I am not; but because they got to have a physical reminder of what is coming.  I mean, you can't exactly ignore your belly at say, 36 weeks of gestation!  Ha!  I guess lately I've been really longing to have some adoption apparel, perhaps to sooth that very need in myself - I want to have something to remind me that I have (will have) a baby waiting for me on the other side of the world in less than a year.

Mr. C and I are in the process of making some super cute "Expecting from Ethiopia" t-shirt designs for our Cafe Press Shop, and I'm going to have to break down and buy one!  I guess I just want something physical to hold on to during this whole process; which is why I think the necklace above is so darn precious it nearly brings me to tears!

I've been been thinking about Baby C soooo much lately!  Not that I didn't before, but I think having moved into a house where there is a room painted and ready and purposefully set aside to be Baby C's is really hitting me hard.  I wonder daily the same things over and over: boy or girl?, what part of Ethiopia will s/he be from?, is his/her birth mother pregnant now? or will she get pregnant in the next few months?, are the birth parents together?, when will we get to travel to Ethiopia?, when will Baby C's birthday be?  And the list goes on and on and on forever.

It doesn't help that my mind is all over the place right now!  We've just moved into our new house; which is across town (about 20-30 minutes from our old house).  So far, we've managed to get loads done; but there's still LOADS to do!  All of this and adoption paperwork?  I might just lose my mind!

Anyway, I told myself that I need to start blogging about these little moments in the adoption process; or we would have Baby C home already, and I wouldn't have the time or memory to write them down.

Soooo, here's where we're at:  

We have scheduled our adoptive parent physicals for next week. 

We have contacted all of our friends and family members that will be our referrals for our home study, dossier, and official adoption agency application giving them SASE's, instruction sheets, and lots of THANK YOU'S!

We have contacted my OBGYN to get a special notarized letter from him saying that my surgery was a success, and I do NOT have pre-cancerous cells any longer (praise Jesus!). 

We have contacted a dossier service (KBS Dossiers) to help us authenticate our dossier documents. 

We have a conference call established with Gladney's Ethiopian in-country coordinator, Belay Tefasse, next week (majorly excited about this!).

We have gathered (nearly) all of our new "official documents" for our dossier (marriage licenses, birth certificates, divorce decrees, and all other such documents must  be no more than two years "old" at the time of the application/dossier process; so, we both needed new birth certificates and a new marriage license).

We have started filling out grant forms and loan applications.  (Note: If you are interested in adoption, but don't think you can afford it, just start searching around the web.  You will be surprised at how many grants are offered to help bring home special needs children and how many organizations offer low or no-interest loans to adopting parents.  I need to write a blog about this in the future to help those of you out who are interested; I think it would help a lot of people at least start their journey to have this info!)

Whew!  Now that I write it all out, it seems like we've accomplished a lot lately, doesn't it?  Hooray!  Now, I should also say that we have done all of this while having nearly ALL of our actual application type paperwork DONE.  Yes, all done!  By this, I mean that all of the "circle one", "fill in the blank with info", "write down your reasoning for ______" type of paperwork has been finished for about a week now.  I sat down one morning and starting writing and filling out and circling, etc.; and I didn't finish until about 4 o'clock the next morning, but I didn't care, it felt great to have that stuff done!

There's still so much left to do, but I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I went out and bought a fabulous 30-pocket, accordion folder to house all of the necessary info for Baby C's adoption - it's FULL!  Which makes me feel good, because that means we're accomplishing things! Yay!

Yeowza!  I didn't realize it was nearly 10!  I know it's not "that late", but when you've been moving for 4 days straight and barely sleeping more than 3 or 4 hours a night, it's LATE!  I've got to go to bed now...hopefully, Mr. C and I will keep up this frantic work pace on the adoption paperwork; so, that I'll have some more exciting updates for you all!

Sweet Dreams to You All!

*mandie*

We're Moving!

I just wanted to post a little something, because I don't know when I'll have time to do so again for a while.  We are (finally!) moving into our new condo across town!  Yay!  So exciting!  However, there's still a lot of work to be done since the whole building is new; so, we might not have Internet for a few days/week.  :-(

The best news about moving is that we can finally start working on the wee one's room, AND set up our home studies! Woo hoo!  I'm both excited and a little nervous for the home study.  I'm sure there's nothing to worry about, but I can't help but worry if everything's going to be "good enough" or "clean enough" or whatever, etc. etc.

I'm going to put up pictures soon of the new place, and the (for now) empty baby room to get ideas from you all on how to decorate a yellow and gray nursery for a gender-yet-unknown baby!  Can't wait!

Have a great night, everybody!

Sweet Dreams,
*mandie*

Hooray for Voting!

Did you vote today?  I finally made it to my polling site this afternoon - whew!  Long day...surprisingly short and easy voting process, though!  Hooray for voting!  We are so blessed to live in a country where our vote counts; I feel so lucky that I get to go and exercise my freedom.

On a side-note, Mr. C and I are slowly but surely CONQUERING the adoption paperwork piles!  YAY!  I am really beginning to feel as though this is more and more real - we are going to be parents in the very near future! 

Wow, God is so good!  He makes a path where the heart thinks there is no path to be found; for he is above all things and has already carved out, in perfection, the road we should follow from the beginning of time - eons before I ever existed, there was a plan just for me...to become a mom to a little boy or girl from Ethiopia - 7,000 miles away from where I am living now!  Wow.  Just...wow.

Things are getting exciting!  I can't wait to see how this adventure unfolds!


Blessings,
*mandie*