One Step Closer

Brent and I are excited to announce that on July 20, 2013, we mailed off all of our adoption paper work (dossier) to our agency to be forwarded on to Ethiopia!!  We feel like this is such a relief and accomplishment as this first process took about 6 months to complete all the paperwork and to gather all the necessary documents.  Our dossier has now been reviewed by our family coordinator and staff of our agency.  We have been told our official dossier to Ethiopia date (DTE) will be August 9, 2013.  This date is significant as this is the date we are officially placed on the waiting list!! The current trend in wait times from DTE to being matched with a child is 24 to 30 months.

July 20, 2013 mailing off dossier

Over the past three months we completed a last few documents that required extra time for processing including home study completion and federal finger prints in order to be approved by the US government to be able to bring our baby back in to the US.

The last three months while waiting we have been busy with preparing to sell our house.  We feel the Lord is leading us to sell our home to prepare financially for the growth of our family.  Brent and I originally bought our house as an investment and have spent the last five years making many home improvements, along with many fun memories with our family and friends and have truly found comfort and enjoyment in our home.  We will be honest in saying this decision has not been easy.  However, we will say it is incredible how over time as we have grown in our faith the Lord continues to show us joy and comfort in Him and has truly changed the desires of our hearts.  We are excited and hopeful we will be able to sell our house and are trusting His timing will be perfect!  

When we mailed off our dossier there was also a very large fee that was required for all the processing, translation, etc.  We are very humbled and grateful to say that with the help of all our families and friends donations and support we had enough money to cover this entire first process!!  We cannot express how much this is appreciated to have this covered prior to mailing off our dossier.  This has encouraged Brent and I both so much and has helped us to ensure our dossier to arrive to Ethiopia as soon as possible!  We want to thank you all again for your continued love and support.  We continue to have people to send us donations by mail, online, and through our family members.  We are so grateful!

We have had several questions about the best way to send donations.  To get a tax deduction on your donation checks can be made payable to AWAA using the form under the tab to the right of our blog "Support Our Journey Mailing Check". Print the form and send along with check to the address located at the bottom of the form. 

Or

Click on the "Support our Journey Online" by using credit card choose the link provided and at the drop down box for "Select Fee" scroll down and choose "Eternal Family Program".  In the notes section identify our family "Brent and Beth Hardin". 

We ask that you continue to pray for our child, this process, and for Brent and I.  We realize this process is going to be very long and we have actually learned in the past recent few weeks the process may even continue to be longer due to government issues and additional requirements.  We are hopeful as we know and believe our God is sovereign over all things.  One step closer.

Love, 

Brent and Beth

Pictures from the BBQ Benefit April 2013

Our Dad's

Brandon, Catie, and McKinley friends from our growth group

Beth's co-workers

Brent with his sister Alyson

Our Nieces McClure and Cora

Our Nieces Ada and Millie

Beautiful view of the Melton's barn

Thankful Hearts

Last Saturday our families hosted a BBQ benefit dinner to help Brent and I financially in our adoption process.  We want to give a very special thanks to our parents and sisters who worked so hard to make this event such a success!  We are so very grateful for all of your hard work.   We love you very much!

We would also like to give a special thanks to the Melton's for donating their beautiful farm for us to host the BBQ dinner.  We really appreciate their generosity.  The Lord blessed us with an absolute beautiful setting on a warm spring Saturday evening!

We also want to give thanks to all of our family and friends for coming to the BBQ last Saturday.  Your presence and support were greatly appreciated!  Even though it was tough to spend time with everyone it meant so much to Brent and I to see so many people in our lives support and love on us.  We cannot thank you enough! 

Thank you to all of our family and friends that have called, emailed, mailed, and sent messages that were not able to attend but have encouraged us with your words and donations!  We have been overwhelmed with everyones support. 

We have put this entire adoption in the Lord's hands but we will confess that we have worried about the financial portion.  We have full trust that the Lord will provide but it is was difficult to not pull out the calculator and estimate how much may be donated through the BBQ benefit!  During our second home study visit, our social worker informed us our invoice of $2,165.00 was due immediately.  I calmly resorted to the idea of using our credit card to cover this fee, however it took Brent a few deep breaths and prayers to come around and trust that this amount would be reimbursed through this benefit. 

A frequent question we are asked is how much does adoption cost? For Ethiopia the total cost is estimated to be $30,000.00.  The fees are due at various times and dispersed through the two year process.  The home study fee and dossier submission fee (paperwork to Ethiopia to officially be placed on waiting list) are the two largest fees that are due early in the process.  Brent and I were praying our home study would be reimbursed by our BBQ benefit.  In the back of our minds we were worrying and strategizing how in the world WE were going to be able to submit our dossier to begin the waiting process most likely due in July for a fee of $8,450.00!

After such a fun evening at the BBQ, Brent and I sat down on the couch opening cards full of words of encouragement, cash, and checks.  We were absolutely overwhelmed with joy and gratitude!  Words cannot express how we felt, we actually were speechless for a while and just cried!  The Lord provided through our family and friends who sacrificially gave to His purpose at total of $10,091.00!!  This will cover our home study and our dossier submission.  Praise the Lord!

This demonstrated how little faith we had in the financial portion of our adoption, worrying and taking it into our own hands. Once again the Lord continues to provide us with affirmation of His plan that he has already gone before us and has prepared a precious baby in Ethiopia to become part of our family! Our hearts are full of praise, joy, and thanks.  

Katie, Cora, and I preparing BBQ invitations

Patti, Alyson, and Katie making decorations for tables

Alyson, Patti, Mom decorating for BBQ

Dad, Patti, Alyson, Mom setting up tables

Tables inside

Tables outside

Donation table

Blessing table

Brent preparing for welcome

Our 5 year old niece Cora thought she was going to a party because we were getting the baby.  Ryan and Katie explained this party was to help bring the baby home.  A few minutes later she brought to her dad all of her money from her piggy bank to bring to the BBQ.  What a precious giving heart.  Thank you Cora Lee!

More pictures of the BBQ to come!  Thank you all again for your love and support. 

Love, 

Beth

Preparing our hearts, minds, and....home

It has been another busy month.  We submitted our paperwork to begin our home study on March 7th and had our first home study visit March 12th, again on March 15th, and our final home inspection March 21st.  Whew, what a whirlwind!  We are grateful the adoption process continues to be moving forward.

It seems as if God continues to prepare our hearts.  This past month has been a busy and stressful, but it has also been emotional.  When Brent and I first started this blog we wanted the title and the content to be glorifying to the Lord, to share with our friends and family how God has led us to adoption.  Ephesians 1 really spoke to Brent when I first approached him about the possibility of adoption, specifically verses 3-7. The Lord really pressed these verses on our hearts to gain an understanding that we are adopted by the Father through Christ Jesus, we were chosen to be His children by His glorious grace!  It just seemed fitting to title our blog "To the Praise of His Glorious Grace."  In the beginning of March our pastor began a sermon series in Ephesians.  The first sermon addressed verses 1 and 2.  The second sermon addressed verses 3-6, the sermon title was "To the Praise of His Glorious Grace." This title certainly had our attention! To hear our pastor teach and preach from these verses filled our hearts with joy.  Not only because we had begun the adoption process but to explain God's grace and love through adoption. Check out the sermon from 3/17/2013.

http://www.parkwoodonline.org/media.php?pageID=13

The home study process actually went very well.  Brent and I each met with our social worker at a coffee shop in Belmont separately, two days later together, and finally a week later in our home.  Much of the process is answering questions about our families, our childhood, relationships with our families and friends, our marriage, our motivation for adoption.  Our social worker knows everything about us from our medical history, finances, marriage, our strengths and weaknesses, how we handle conflict, stress, and grief.  It was a very humbling and at times overwhelming experience.  After the first meeting I left Belmont to go back to work in Gastonia when all of a sudden I was exiting on interstate 485 going toward south Charlotte!  Needless to say I was a little flustered but, finally got turned around in the right direction and made it back to work.

We have also began to prepare our minds.  We are currently participating in a 10 hour online training session for perspective parents of adoptive children, reading books and viewing DVD's to educate ourselves on bonding, eye contact, healthy touch, learning about sensory integration, and developmental delays.  Brent's personal favorite is a DVD titled, "Baby Baby Oh Baby: bonding with your brilliant and beautiful baby through infant massage :) All jokes aside we really are having fun learning and preparing for our baby!

Part of the home study obviously is to inspect your home to ensure safety and adequate space for a child.  It is one thing to prepare and clean your house to have friends and family over to hang out but it is definitely different to have a social worker come for an inspection.  All week long we prepared with replacing batteries in our smoke detectors, placing medications and cleaning supplies behind locked cabinets and out of reach of a child, cleaned, and organized closets and cabinets. Then there are our two dogs Hank and Ellie.  They are kept downstairs in our unfinished basement in a bathroom during the day while we are at work.  Their dog beds lie on sub-flooring which over time has become more difficult to keep clean and are kept in the room by a door without a door knob!  We just kept putting off this project of replacing the flooring in this bathroom.  So Brent with the help of our brother-in-law Ryan ended up replacing the door, adding a door knob, and adding new sub-flooring and also laying a laminate floor.  They really did a great job!  We felt proud of all our hard work and felt we had accomplished our spring cleaning and had finished another house project.  At the conclusion of the home inspection we walked with our social worker toward her car, saying our goodbyes when she turned to us and said, "I didn't even see your basement, but I don't really need to since you all don't live in that area of the house anyway."  She drove away and Brent just turned to me, smiled and said, "Really, did that just happen."  Hank and Ellie love their new and improved room!

Brent and Ryan Before

After

Our next step is to wait on our home study to be written and approved which can take up to 90 days.  We will then be one step closer to sending all of our documents to Ethiopia to officially be placed on a waiting list.  During the wait period we plan to continue to raise support financially for our adoption.  We have our first fundraiser coming up this Saturday.  We are very excited!  Please continue to pray for Brent and I throughout this process.

Love,
Beth

Encouraged

We wanted to give a quick update on where we are on the adoption process.  We are ready to submit our paperwork to our social worker to begin our home study!  The home study is a big part of the paperwork that is sent to Ethiopia and can take up 4 weeks to complete.  Our prayer is that things continue to go smoothly and quickly!  Looking back over this past month there is only one word that comes to our minds to sum up our thoughts and feelings... Encouraged.  Brent and I have been so encouraged over the past month.  Even though this last month has been extremely busy and stressful gathering documents, getting finger prints, doctors appointments, lab work, communicating with our employers regarding life insurance and medical insurance, gathering references from friends and family, and having EVERYTHING notarized VERY specifically to meet NC and Ethiopia standards.  All while working full time hours.

Paperwork

If you know Brent and I at all, you know we have a hard time asking others for help.  Not because we are proud but just the simple fact that we don't want anyone to have to go out of their way to do something for us, or cause more work for someone else.  It's just the way we are, just a bit timid.  Well... that certainly has changed over the past month!  We both have had more conversations, phone calls, emails with people we don't know, complete strangers basically laying it out that this is what we need and this is what you have to do to help us, in a nice way of course.  But these interactions with others have been so encouraging.  I just wanted to share a few stories.

One morning we took off a few hours in the morning from work to obtain a certified copy of our birth certificates at the register of deeds office which is right beside the county police station.  We had heard to get finger prints you have to make an appointment which means needing to take off more time from work and increased time to get our background checks back from the SBI which is included in our home study.  So we decided to walk in the police station and make an appointment.  We found our way to the appropriate office by the help of a police officer who reminded us we would have to make an appointment for fingerprints.  This lady approaches us who is obviously in a hurry asking us what we needed and why.  When Brent responded with "we need fingerprints for international adoption" she stopped what she was doing, just looked at us with a big smile for few seconds and responded with, "I will just work you in, have a seat." This was our first encounter with sharing with someone other than our family and friends of why we are adopting, why Ethiopia.  We had great conversation with this lady who reached out to help us, and encouraged us with her words.

Fingerprints!

Outside of police station

Another vital part of the paperwork process is our medical examinations.  This requires a doctor to fill out not one but two forms regarding our health history and lab work and they must write a separate letter for every medication we take and address every medical condition we have been treated for past and present.  On top of this a notary must be present to notarize the form once the doctor signs.  What medical professional has time for this??  This made me extremely nervous as this is a lot to ask for.  As it turns out again we were so encouraged as both of our doctors were extremely helpful and excited for us.  Brent's doctor actually had to make a correction requiring him to revise his letter with the help of a friend Teresa that was graciously willing to assist with this process.  My doctor as well was very helpful  making sure all the information was correct, taking her time to look over the paperwork several times.  She even said to me, "I am just nervous for you, I don't want you to run into any problems, let me add my middle initial here just in case" as she signed the forms.  The doctors office also was very helpful to ensure a notary be present at the time of my appointment.

A side story that was so encouraging for me was a few days prior to my doctors appointment I had my lab appointment.  I was called back by a lady phlebotomist, I gave her the instructions of what lab test were required by our adoption agency.  I sat in the chair, she placed the tourniquet on my arm as she asked, "If you don't mind me asking, where are you adopting from, and why?" In short I replied Ethiopia, as my husband and I felt the Lord has placed this on our hearts.  She immediately began to cry, having to step away and get herself a tissue! She responded, "you just don't hear people say that everyday, I'm sorry for crying."  Throughout our conversation we both dried up our happy tears, and I told her, she must stop crying, I was getting a little nervous for her to take my blood!  Here I was in the middle of having my blood drawn, crying and hugging a complete stranger, encouraged.

Brent and I are so blessed with wonderful family and friends, who have been so supportive to us during this process.  Our families have been especially supportive and encouraging.  It was so fun to tell our parents, grandparents, and sisters with their families that we were adopting.  We were able to do this separately with each family, each time was so encouraging!  Our nieces and nephews (7 total who are all under the age of 5) have been so excited. They were a little confused at first on what adoption meant.  It has been fun to see our families have a more personal understanding of adoption and to teach their children about adoption.  Our sisters have shared with us the funny things our nieces and nephews continue to say about our adoption.  They have a little trouble with pronouncing Ethiopia which is funny to hear what they come up with.  Our families are in the process of helping us raise support financially for the adoption process.  We are thankful and encouraged.

Brent and I have been visiting Parkwood Baptist Church in Gastonia, NC for the past seven months, in which we have recently joined.  This past month when sharing with our growth group we were adopting we have been overwhelmed with their support and help with us getting in touch so many other members of the church who have adopted or currently adopting.  They actually have an adoption/foster care support group that meets every other month. We had no idea this church has so many other adoptive families.  One of the adoptive families has recently called Brent and I to give us more information on the group.  To us this is affirmation of the Lord leading us to this body of believers.  We are grateful.

We realize with adoption there are unknowns, there are unpredictable and uncontrollable situations during this process, but we are encouraged.  We feel the Lord is guiding us in the process and that his hand is upon us.  We give all these encouraging moments to the Lord, for His Glory.

Beth

He who began a good work...

It was in July of 2011 our youth minster and good friend Patrick encouraged us to travel to Santo Domingo, Ecuador with our church youth group to serve as chaperones.  Little did we know how much the Lord would use this trip to begin to change our hearts and grow closer to Him.  This trip radically changed our lives in many ways.  Our hearts were transformed with this growing desire to love and care for others and to tell those who may not know or have not heard about Jesus Christ.

Over the next few months we continued to grow in our faith and were presented with an opportunity to travel with the same organization, NEXT Worldwide to Mombasa, Kenya.  Of course we were excited and were definitely on board and began to prepare for the trip!  We prayed often that God would somehow again use this trip to help guide us as we began to make decisions in our lives.  We felt God was continuing to place different situations and events on our hearts and we weren't exactly sure what we were to do, how were we to act?  Were we being called to be missionaries? To sell our house and move?  Should we have children?  We just continued to pray for clarity.  During this preparation time for the trip we began to feel more of a desire to have children.

In June 2012 we traveled to Mombasa, Kenya.  This again was such a wonderful experience.  It is really hard for me to write and put into words to explain the clarity that God ended up giving us through these two mission trips.  All that God has allowed us to see in two very different parts of the world including poverty, illness, misfortune, sadness, lostness has lead us to this strong desire to adopt.  

The growing desire for us to have children and to start a family in my mind felt atypical.  I seemed to always be surrounded with the idea of adoption.  Throughout the day at work I would just randomly think about adoption, I would hear others adoption stories as I have four friends from high school that have adopted children.  It just became this constant thought.  Brent and I had discussed adoption earlier in our marriage and we were both open and willing, but felt we would like to try to have children biologically. 

A few months went by, it was sometime after Christmas of this past year.  I remember we were driving in the car and I told Brent I really felt the Lord was placing adoption on my heart.  It was more of a feeling he was leading us to adopt NOW not later, and as PLAN A, not plan B.  Brent tentatively listened, supported, and helped me talk through what I was feeling.  We both felt like this was something we needed to pray together and separately about. 

Less than 2 or 3 days went by and we were getting ready for church. I came into to the kitchen and Brent was standing there waiting for me and he said "Ok I feel the same.  I am ready.  Lets do this. Where do we start?  We need to find an adoption agency soon.  How do we do that?" What a wonderful affirmation!

Through several circumstances and events we have found an adoption agency and have applied to adopt a child from Ethiopia!!  As of February 4, 2013 we have been accepted officially into their program.  We are up into our eyeballs in paperwork.  Every spare minute of our days are spent chasing down documents and gathering information. The entire process will be from beginning to end approximately 2 years.  We would appreciate your prayers!!

We have come to realize over time the Lord has graciously allowed us to be a part of His plan and that this is only the beginning. "And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."  Philippians 1:6

Beth

Ryan, Katie, Kenny, and I with very sweet kids in Mombasa, Kenya

Brent and I with Pastor Anthony and his wife Dorcas 

Kenny, Brent, and I playing with kids in Ecuador.