The Journey Continues!!

First off, I would like to THANK everyone for all their thoughts and prayers through this wonderful journey!!  Amy and I started this process over 14 months ago and God has blessed us all the way through the journey!!

Here is a little history of our journey:  For many years Amy and I have wanted to adopt once our two boys, Stephen and Coen, were a little older.  We have heard the call that we are to provide a home for orphaned children.  We contemplated domestic and international adoption, and then after I went on two trips to India, I saw the need.  After prayer, God led us to adopt from Bulgaria.  Amy and I decided that we would like to adopt a child(ren) between the age of three years old and younger than Coen.  We would also consider adopting a sibling group.  In February, we received the “Waiting Child” list from our adoption agency (Children of All Nations – CAN).  The Waiting Child is a list of children that are either a sibling group, getting close to ageing out of adoption, and/or have special needs.  We reviewed the list and it only contained two Bulgarian profiles.  The first was for three great looking brothers, but two of them were older than our boys and we wanted Stephen and Coen to be the older siblings.  The second profile was for an almost 9 year old girl.  We read through her profile and as we read we started to feel that indescribable feeling like she is the one.  She had been in the orphanages since she was very young and is socially behind.  We continued to review all we could and that is when Amy said the words I will never forget….”Sounds like she needs a teacher for a Mommy!”  That is when it felt right!  Then we see the bottom of her profile and the phrase “File Pending.”  We were heartbroken.  The next morning, Amy and I decided we still needed to ask for more information, even if it was just to know more about this precious little girl.  So we did.  Within an hour, Amy received a phone call from the agency.  They were ecstatic!!  Apparently, the family looking into adopting her had to discontinue their adoption process for reasons not pertaining to this little girl.  The agency can only hold a child’s profile for so long and that period was only five days from expiring.  We went from heartbreak to warm hearted and requested the rest of her profile.  On Valentine’s Day, Amy and I signed an agreement to adopt this precious little girl.  From here on out, I will refer to our daughter as “Z” for privacy reasons.

From February to May we completed all our adoption processes and received our home study approval.  Then during the summer we received our approval from Homeland Security.  Our dossier was sent to Bulgaria and by mid August, we received our approval from the Ministry of Justice in Bulgaria. 

That brings us to today, November 6, 2013  Amy and I are now packing our bags to head to Bulgaria (well I guess I am typing a blog….but I have started to pack).  Tomorrow, after Amy completes her day of teaching, we will deliver the boys to Amy’s parents and we will drive to Dallas.  I want to THANK Johnny and Cindi Walker and my parents, Mark and Jan Hollis for watching the boys while we are in Bulgaria.  We fly to Bulgaria on Friday and will arrive in Sofia, Bulgaria by Sunday afternoon.   From then on, we will be taken care of by the AMOR (the adoption agency that partners with CAN).  They will pick us up from the airport in Sofia and help us get settled, and will even take us site seeing on Sunday.  On Monday, November 11, we will travel to Montana, Bulgaria.  This is where we will spend the week. 

November 11, will be a glorious day!!  We will travel to the small village where the orphanage is and we will get to meet “Z” for the first time!  We will actually get to see our daughter that we have been praying and dreaming about for almost 9 months!  WHAT AN AMAZING DAY THIS WILL BE!!!!!!

I will stop here (as I need to pack and make another dreaded trip to Wal-Mart).  I will do my best to keep everyone posted during our travels.  Please feel free to share this blog with others, but for those that do know our little “Z’s” name, please do not share it over the Internet for privacy reasons.

Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers.  Please pray that we will be able to communicate and bond during this time.  Neither she, nor anyone at the orphanage speak or understand English, so we will have a translator from the adoption agency present during the whole trip.  We pray that our new daughter will be at peace and accepting of us.  She most likely did not know about us or the adoption until about a week or two ago, so this very well can be frightening for her. 

Thanks for all the support and prayers!! Tom and Amy