4 months down.

Today we have been DTE (dossier to Ethiopia) for 4 months! I received an email this past week from our family coordinator saying that our estimated wait for a referral is still 10-16 months even for a child over the age of 3. So...we have about 6-12 more months of waiting to see our little guys picture. These past 4 months have both flown and crawled by but we know this is God's timing so we patiently wait.

The boys had a wonderful Christmas with all their family. I don't think they noticed we cut back this year but they also didn't ask for much either. Next year we are going to cut back even more and try to do some things a little different. We have a whole year to plan. Hopefully our little guy will be here to join in all the fun.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to fabulous 2012. I hope a new addition comes to the Branger's home in 2012, we'll see...

Melkam Gena (Merry Christmas)!

Merry Christmas or Melkam Gena as they say in Ethiopia. The Brangers are in full Christmas mode with our manger scene up, tree decorated with presents under it, and Christmas music playing on the radio in the car. Christmas is my favorite holiday. It doesn't make me stressed like some. I love the whole season and I start November 1st but I end December 26th. This year with the adoption in the works Mike and I decided to cut back on some things. One of those being our Christmas card.... so this year our blog is our Christmas card.

We want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas season and hopefully next Christmas we will be a family of five.

What's new...

We wanted to thank everyone who donated, helped, came, prayed... for our dinner/silent auction fundraiser. We raised $5100 toward our cost. It's amazing how God works... when we receive a referral for our son we must pay $5500 to accept it. :)

I don't know if you can see the detail on Samuel and Will's shirts in this picture but they are super adorable. They have the outline of Africa with the word brother in Amharic (official language of Ethiopia). They are both very proud of this shirt. Will ask me the other day if his little brother will be here for Christmas, I sadly had to to tell him no. I also told him he probably won't be here next Christmas either and we need to pray that he is being loved and taken care of every chance we have. Will is now ready to share his room and can't wait to have his little brother in the bottom bunk of their "new to them" bunk beds.

Please continue to pray for our family.

Auction Items

I promised a list of auction items to all those coming to our event Saturday, October 8th. Hopefully there will be more added before that night. So to those who like to preshop here they are.............

• UK basketball tickets


• basketball and t-shirt signed by John Calipari


• U of L basketball tickets


• PF Chang's gift card


• Charleston, SC basket


• one hour photo session with Elizabeth Johnson


• hats and scarves made by my Granny and Aunt Betty


• Anytime Fitness one year membership


• Club Fitness one year membership


• 2 signed prints


• Thirty One bag


• Just Jewelry set


• Mary Kay basket


• Buffalo Trace basket


• Rusk hair care basket


• UK market tote


• Bullitt East basketball camp for next summer


• Bullitt East soccer camp for next summer


• Bullitt East baseball camp for next summer


• Little Caesars gift cards


• Hometown Pizza gift cards


• restaurant gift card


• Mega Cavern gift card


• Premier Jewelry set (necklace, bracelet, and earrings)


• hair cut and style from Stephanie Langley


• cakes by Toni Dorris and Julie Howlett


• frog and 2 monkey stuffed animals made by my mom (adorable)

• aprons made by my mom, Granny, and my aunts


• Vet dental cleaning

I'm terrible at this...

I'm terrible at blogging. I feel like I have nothing interesting to say especially now that we are playing the waiting game. Our dossier has been in Ethiopia almost a month now. We have no idea how long this process will take for a referral or picture of our little man. Our agency is saying 11-17 months for boys. There are many of us out there waiting for referrals, it's a hard wait but all in God's timing. The idea that I have no control over this hit me two weeks ago and anyone that knows me knows I like to have MAJOR control. I had a hard week, rainbow Twizzlers were my best friend. Then last Monday it hit me that it's OK for me not to have control over this, God is in control and that is way better than anything I could do. I used to always pray for patience, they always say be careful what you pray for.

I have had many things to keep me busy. Samuel is in full 4th grade swing which means tons of homework and difficult science test, so we have been studying hard. He's also running cross country which he likes, one day he hopes to run a marathon with his Dad. Will's 1st grade work isn't so daunting, plus he's my come home, do homework and not complain kid. He's loving soccer this season and his team is amazingly good. Mike says we are winning it all. GO WIZARDS!!!!

I've also been keeping busy with our big dinner/silent auction fundaiser on Saturday, October 8th. Mike's mom Janet is doing all the food for our meal and she's amazing so I don't worry about that at all. Mike and I have been asking for donations which neither one of us feel too comfortable doing. We have collected quite a few so I'm excited. Once it gets closer I'll post what they are so those that are coming can "preshop".

Something close to my heart that I want to share is the impact that this adoption has made to my boys. They are so excited for their little brother to come home (what a lucky boy to have two sweet brothers). They also see the impact that God has on their lives with this adoption. Samuel was asking me the other day about missionaries around the world especially Ethiopia, we had a lengthy discussion and he said that it would be cool to be a missionary. Will said he would get tired of walking and talking, that's my Will. They pray every night for their brother and tell everyone about him. I have also made them aware of the trials that he may be going through now and how when he comes home he might be sad or angry. They told me they would help him, play with him, and share their toys. I hope it's that easy. I'm so thankful for these two sweet boys I have and the love they have in their hearts.

Dinner/Silent Auction

Mike and I are hosting a dinner/silent auction Saturday October 8th at First Baptist Mt. Washington as a fundraiser for our adoption. We've had a couple of friends do this fundraiser and it has been very successful. Our guest will have a lasagna dinner, salad, breadstick, dessert, and drink all prepared by Mike's mom (and I will assist her), Ms Janet as everyone at FBC calls her. There will be a small charge for dinner. We are having some friends, Lenny and BethAnn Raley give a short talk about their Ethiopian adoption and maybe their 8 year old Yared will share his thoughts. Yared came home this summer.

During dinner there will be silent auction items to bid on. Some items we've already received are a signed basketball and t-shirt from Coach Calipari, jewelry set from Premier Jewelry, an embroidered market tote from That's Sew Chic Boutique, and a couple of gift cards. We are working on getting more items for the auction. If anyone has anything they can donate it would be greatly appreciated. Things we have seen in the past are gift cards for hair salons, massages, restaurants, etc... helicopter rides, sports games tickets, golf packages, house painting, gift baskets with an assortment of items or a theme, baby quilts or afghans, etc... anything you have seen at a silent auction before. Just let me or Mike know if you have anything you can donate, it would be greatly appreciated.

We also want to invite all our family and friends to come!!!!!!!!!! We will be doing facebook invites and word of mouth, please let us know if you want to come and how many so we know how much food to make. The other events we went to like this were so much fun and everyone who bid and received their items were so excited.

Us at the Stump's family Silent Auction/Dinner (yes Samuel looks like a little weird).

Heather Mason, me, Allison Stump, and Angie Dunn at the Stump's Silent Auction/Dinner

Fundraising

I have had multiple people ask me how much adoption cost, I tell them and they get a semi-stunned look on their face. I also tell them what others told me, don't worry about the money it will come. One example is I had a Premier jewelry party, the jewelry rep gave me 100% of the profit which equalled $890. I just mailed a check yesterday to the immigration office for our child's visa, the check was for...........$890. We also had a yard sale yesterday, I'm having one July 29 and 30th (if anyone wants to stop by or donate their stuff too), and my mom is having one on August 5th and 6th in Lexington. My aunt had a jewelry party fundraiser, my mom is having a ThirtyOne party, we are also planning a dinner/silent auction night. Some of these items may seem like they don't make a dent in the cost but everything adds up and not all the money is required at once. You make payments over the entire time of the process and for us it will probably take 18 months or more (please not more). There are also multiple grants your family can apply for. We have applied for one through Lifesong called Both Hands, both hands coming from pure religion in James 1:27 in caring for the orphan and widow. The website is http://lifesongfororphans.org/bothhands if you want to check it out.


Don't get me wrong the cost was very intimidating to us at first. For those of you who know Mike and I well you know we follow Dave Ramsey's plan and don't want any debt and try to pay cash for everything. After talking to many adoptive families we realized we could do this without debt, it just takes time and some hard work, me working extra this summer BOOOOO!!!!, really I don't mind and Mike has been working with his friend doing landscaping.


If your family is thinking about adoption please don't let the cost be the reason you don't. Every check we have needed to write the money has been there and I trust in God that it will be there in the future. If you want to see the specific cost for our agency (America World Adoption Association) check out this link http://awaa.org/programs/ethiopia/cost/aspx, all adoption agencies are around the same price and every country differs in cost.

End of Homestudy and Vacation

Today was our last visit with our homestudy coordinator, now we just wait for him to write it up and finalize it then we apply to immigration to do our fingerprints for our child's visa. After this is complete we send our dossier (or paperwork out the yingyang) to Ethiopia and wait.......... We hope to have the dossier sent by sometime in August. We have no idea how long the wait will be to get our referral. Before the slow down in March we had heard of people who requested a 3-5 year old boy get a referral in a week but that won't happen anymore. Because of the slow down they can't give any time frame, no one knows but we are expecting at least a year wait for a picture and then 6-12 months longer to bring him home. This amount of time can be discouraging but we still feel God telling us to proceed and it will all work out to His glory.



We are excited to announce some friends of ours are bringing their 8 year old boy home from Ethiopia this coming Saturday. Samuel and Will can't wait to meet him and play soccer, basketball, etc... with him. We are going to the airport next Saturday for the welcome home party.


The Brangers did have some fun last week, we took the boys on a cruise to the Bahamas. We booked this vacation last October before the adoption was in process. I struggled with still going but we had already paid for it and it will be the last vacation before we go to Ethiopia. I'm glad we went, Samuel and Will had a blast (voted the best vacation yet by both of them). We saw beautiful beaches in Freeport and Paradise Island, I always say I'm closest to God at the beach, it's my favorite place in the whole world and always so amazing. The boys loved the water slides on the ship, the food, the comedy shows, towel animals at night, the way the natives yelled at each other, putt putt, ping pong, etc... I ask them what they thought the first vacation their little brother should take and they both said "a cruise!!!!!".
Beautiful Lacaya beach in Freeport, Bahamas

On the ship before dinner

Going down the racer water slides, Will won this time.

Orphan Summitt

We met with our homestudy coordinator on Wednesday and he was wonderful. He and his wife adopted a three year old boy from Korea 30 years ago. He went over some orientation items, our safety check list for our home, and gave us more paperwork to fill out (he said he didn't send it all at once because then it's really overwhelming). We meet with him again on June 8th for our home safety study, he said we weren't being graded on how clean our house was, darn :).

On Friday I went to the Orphans Summitt VII at Southeast Christian. I went to two sessions on having a multi-racial family. It was wonderful! In the second session there were three adults who were adopted by white parents, 2 South Koreans and 1 biracial from Detriot. They gave great insight and I realized Mike and I are "very white" (a term they used) and we are going to have to help our little guy understand and embrace his race and ethnicity. They did an exercise with beads, each color representing a race, with each question you were to put a bead in your cup (your race, your husbands, kids, doctor, pediatrician, neighbor, boss at work, hairdresser, etc)... then you put your adopted childs race in the cup. I got a little choked up when I put the little guys in because he was the only non-white bead. We have got to do better and I'm going to need some advice on how to do this better. The picture of my cup is below, can you see his black bead in the center...

After the seminar I went to Mimi's Cafe to meet with other America World families and people that work at America World. The creator of the agency was there, it was neat to meet him, you see him in the intro video but meeting him and thanking him for what he's done means much more. About 40 were there including families and employees, it renews your paperchasing spirit to talk with others that are doing the same or have already been there.

On a non-adoption note Samuel ran his first 5K this Saturday and I ran with him. He did great and never walked once. We finished at 29:55, he finished two seconds before me because that is what moms do, he said all week he was going to beat me and he did.

Homestudy

I'm new to this whole blogging thing so I know there hasn't been any new post, sorry. We have been busy at home. As you can see my boys looked very handsome at Easter, I don't know how long they are going to let me dress them in matching outfits. I hope I can do it at least once when our new son is here.

Samuel's soccer team played in the Jefferson County tournament this weekend and for the second season in a row they were the tournament champs, Yeah!!!! Go Celtic!!!!! Will's team hasn't been able to play much because of all the rain we've had and this weekend is Derby and all of Louisville shuts down, so no games :( .

Mike and 2 of our friends ran the Louisville marathon last weekend, it was the first marathon for them. Mike did fine except for all of his bathroom breaks, I think he counted six times, maybe he should get that checked out. :)

I haven't been doing anything exciting except the normal mom stuff AND trying to get all the paperwork done for our homestudy. They call it "paper pregnant", it's overwhelming but I'm trying to do bits at a time. We meet with our AWAA social worker next Wednesday, this will be our first face to face meeting, we've had a number of emails with all my questions. I'm excited to meet him, he adopted a 3 year old boy from Korea 30 years ago. I'll let you know how that goes. I know Ethiopia has become a longer wait in the past 2 months, I told my friend Allison who's also adopting from there that I just want to submit my dossier and then wait, that way I know it's out of my hands.

I met a mom this weekend at the soccer tournament who has 2 boys from Ethiopia, one is now 9 and the other is 5. They have had the 9 year old since he was 5 and brought the now 5 year old home in September. This gave me a lift meeting her and the boys, she was so encouraging and the boys were adorable. The 5 year old was speaking great English and she said he had adjusted very well. God gives you these moments, I was overwhelmed and my new worry is attachment disorder, then God brings this mom with her 2 boys in and I feel refreshed and renewed. Only God can do that!

Adoption

Mike and I have been thinking and praying about adoption for over a year now. Little did we know our friends Allison and Jamie had also been praying for us too. We become very serious about it in January of this year after a sermon our pastor did on declining Christianity in every generation. We knew we had the desire and the means to help someone on the other side of the world know God. Mike and I felt God leading us to Ethiopia. Ethiopia has a large population of orphans (over 1,000,000) due to poverty and disease. The more we researched Ethiopia the more we fell in love with it. We discussed adoption with our two wonderful boys Samuel and Will and they were very excited, they even argued over who would share a room with the new addition. Mike and I were both in agreement that we wanted another boy ("our three sons") and we wanted an older child, 4-5 years old. Most people want babies and older children seem to be overlooked plus we are done with the baby thing :). Everyone has been very excited and supportive of our decision, we have wonderful families and friends that we thank God for everyday. This process will probably take around 2 years, recently Ethiopia has slowed down the referral process in order to avoid corruption. We are willing to wait and view this slow down as God getting our little guy prepared for his new forever family. Please pray for us and him, I have already had restless nights over the paperchase process and I can't even think about what our little guy is doing right now because I would go crazy. We pray for him, his health and safety and that he is being treated and cared for lovingly. We can't wait to meet him and become his Mommy, Daddy, and two wonderful big brothers.

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