One Paper Away

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning..." James 2:17

 "..A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven.." John 3:27

So many of you have been texting/emailing/asking on Facebook, etc about where we are in the process. I wonder why??? I am CONSTANTLY updating this blog.. just look at the last time I wrote. ;-)  Honestly, I wish I could say we have new and exciting news, however, we aren't much further in the process than we were the last time I wrote.

One exciting thing that has happened is that we passed court. Hooray! We didn't find out until months after, but we officially passed court on December 5, 2012. This means Judah and Jewel are officially Neelys! We are so thankful and excited that we have two more children. Truly it is a blessing from God!

So many ask, "If they are officially Neelys, why can't you bring them home??" Oh how I wish this was how it worked! To make a long story short, there is a lot of paperwork that needs to be filed with the US government (USCIS) and the state of Alabama (DHR) in order to bring them into the country. Without it, they cannot approve the babies to be brought onto US soil.

The paperwork has been in the hands of the missionaries at the orphanage for a couple of months now, however, we are missing one document. ONE DOCUMENT.

As soon as the lawyer (in Africa) brings this document to the orphanage, the package of papers will be mailed to us.  It will take about 5 days to get here and as soon as we have it translated, we can file with the US government and the state of AL. Once they approve it, we travel!

We assumed this would have been in our hands back in February, early March. And that we would be traveling by now. Oh how our plans are so different from God's sometimes.

In my flesh, it is so easy to lash out and say,

"Really?! One document??! ONE DOCUMENT IS BETWEEN US AND OUR BABIES?!"

It is so easy to grovel and complain in what I would think would be a worthy and deserved response to this looooooong and frustrating waiting period. It would be so easy to say to God, "Haven't you heard my cries to you? Don't you see us, more importantly, don't you see the babies lying in those cribs hour after hour? Waiting? Sometimes crying themselves to sleep? MY babies? Alone. Don't you see?!"

Then by God's sweet grace, He hears my cry, comforts me, and then gently reminds me that His plans are best. His timing is best. He will never leave me nor forsake me. He is El Roi, "the God who sees." He sees me, them, our family, just as He saw the Israelites in all their turmoil in Egypt (Ex 3:7). And just as he heard their cry, He hears ours. And just as He chose to wait to deliver the Israelites, so He has chosen with us.

It is not one document holding us from our babies. It's Him. 

He is sovereign. He is God. He wrote the story. It is for His glory. We are His. He is good and He loves us.

"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose" Romans 8:28

I need to be reminded of this daily. Hourly. Minute by minute.

Thank you, Lord, for your goodness. Thank you that it is not all about me. (Oh the mess we would be in if it were!) Thank you that it is not all about the babies. Thank you that is is all about you and your glory. And thank you for loving us in the midst and calling us according to your purpose.

Here are the next steps:

1) Lawyer in Africa brings the last needed document to the orphanage.
2) Missionaries go to DHL and mail the package to us.
3) We receive package 4-5 days later.
4) We have documents translated.
5) We receive translated documents 3-5 days later.
6) We overnight package of translated documents to USCIS.
7) We email translated documents to our social worker to send to AL DHR.
8) WAIT (yes, again) for approval. The wait time can be 10-90 days. (We expect somewhere around 40 days.)
9) Get letter saying we are APPROVED!
10) Wait until the approval reaches the US Embassy in Dakar, Senegal. (about 10 days)
11) Make Embassy Appointment on the next available Tuesday. (They only do appointments on Tuesdays)
12) Travel the Wednesday before our appointment to pick up babies from Guinea Bissau and take to appointment in Dakar.
13) Get visas and COME HOME!!

Please pray God's will over all these steps and that our hearts will continue to be drawn to rely on Him and Him alone. Please pray against fear and anxiety. Please pray our babies' hearts will be ready to meet us, and our hearts to meet them.

Thank you, as always, for all your support! We love each of you and praise God for you!

By His Grace,

Kimberly

PS: This truly deserves a blog post of it's own, but we have officially raised over $25,000!!! Praise be to God Most High! He will ALWAYS provide if He has called you, my friends. ALWAYS.

And They Were Called...

"For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.  My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.  Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them." Psalm 139:13-16 (emphasis mine)

As I sit here, thinking of how God led us to the names of these precious babies, I am in awe that He is concerned with every detail of our lives. He is a great God who designed and wrote our stories before the foundations of the world, yet He cares for us in each moment of each day.

I have wrestled whether or not to share the names that the twins' biological family gave to each of them, and have decided against it, as to keep their identity hidden until they officially become Neelys. We want you to know that we kept these names and they will come first. Therefore, the names the Lord led us to give them will be their middle names, officially, but they will likely be called by them.

When we found out we were matched with twins, a boy and a girl, we were overjoyed and shocked and super excited! Honestly, it wasn't for a few days until we really started discussing/praying about names for them. We didn't know their names, nor did we have pictures, and that was reason enough for us to wait.  However, once we saw them and learned their names, we began talking among the three of us, throwing out different names we all liked.  In some ways, this is a great way to "narrow down a list.." find out which names the other parent (and kid, to a degree) doesn't like and they get crossed off. I was hoping this would lead us to a small list of boy names and girl names that we each liked and could begin praying about. Well, our list of boy names had 6 or 7 names on it, but our list of girl names had 1 name. Haha. Clearly, this time we agreed on many more boy names than girl names!

For the next few days, we thought about them and prayed about them. Had our 3 year old daughter been a boy, Nathan and I both agreed he would be named "Josiah." We've always loved that name because of who Josiah was. However, neither of us felt Josiah was the appropriate name for this little boy. We were shocked a bit after having talked about this name through the years, but I thought that it was pretty neat that we felt the same way.

In further discussing, we found we both really liked the name Judah for our son. So, I began praying that God would lead us to scripture or meaning for Judah that would speak to our heart something about Him and this precious boy. It took a few days, but during a Scripture reading at church, Isaiah 40 was read and one specific verse jumped out at me. Verse 9 says, "O Zion, You who bring good tidings, Get up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, You who bring good tidings, Lift up your voice with strength, Lift it up, be not afraid; Say to the cities of Judah, 'Behold your God!'" My heart leaped as my prayer for this little boy is that one day, he will passionately follow God and will return to his "city" and say to them, "Behold your God!" Oh how I long for the people of Guinea Bissau to know Him and walk in His ways. This verse was precious to me, and a great conformation of the name God was to have us name him: Judah.

As for our daughter, we all three liked one certain name. However, after some thought and prayer, it didn't quite "settle" right, so I began praying specifically for God to lead us in another direction. A few days went by and still no direction.  Then, we got an email from the missionary at the orphanage asking for the names that we would like on their birth certificates. I panic-ed *a little* and told Nathan right away. We both were searching the internet (him at work, me at home) for girl names in hopes that something would stick out to us.

That morning during breakfast, I read Psalm 40. Verse 8 jumped out to me; it says, "I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart." I prayed this for her and noticed the word, delight. I wondered if there was a pretty girls name meaning "delight." I did, yet another, internet search. Nothing jumped out at me.  SO... alas, I typed in, once again, "biblical girl names." I scrolled alphabetically through all these names for awhile and then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw "meaning: delight." I looked next to it and the name written was Jewel. Precious. Next to me was my bible. I quickly turned to the concordance and found "jewel." There were two references. One was Malachi 3:17. It reads, "They shall be Mine, says the Lord of hosts, on the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him." "Jewels," here, literally means "special treasure."  Precious, once again. It was very clear to me in that moment.. her name will be, Jewel. This verse just grabs deep down in my bones every time I read it.. there is so much there. God is talking about His people. I pray that Jewel will be His. That she will know Him. She is a special treasure and delight. God saved her life and placed her in this orphanage. There is even more that has been confirmed to me (that I may get to share on this blog one day) concerning this verse and her situation. God is good. He led us and we are grateful.

What is funny to me is that their names both start with "J" and actually sound a bit similar. We had no necessary intentions of this, God just led.  I think it's pretty neat.

Judah and Jewel.

Please join us in praying for them, by name.

As always, thank you for loving us.

In Him,

Kimberly

Mere musings

Dear friends,

It's been a while since I've written on here--I've let Kimberly handle most of the more recent blog posts.  It's been an exciting few weeks with the news of the twins, and we are just praying that everything moves rapidly in both governments so we can fly over there soon.  We picked out names this week, and we'll share them with you soon.

The direction of this post will be more centered on a blog post I read from desiringgod.org this morning. While there was nothing necessarily new or profound that was presented, it was a sweet and timely reminder of the impact that we as leaders/parents/teachers have on our children/students/pupils.  So often, as that article explained, we are encouraged to focus on how much we are growing individually, and as long as we feel like we are moving forward, or standing our ground against sin, etc., then that's enough.  However, the truth is that faith is so much more than me or you getting to the end of our lives and feeling good about what we've accomplished (or even what God has done through us).  What legacy did we leave?  What advice or truths did we instill in the people that continue living out the faith after us?

That's the challenge for me as I chew on these questions.  Yes, my faith is important for me, but it's so much bigger than that.  If I do nothing to pass on that faith intentionally to others, then am I giving up before the job is done?

Oh, may we not waste the opportunities.

"Expecting Adoption" Photo Shoot

We're clearly getting really excited about our adoption of these two sweet babies! C is more than ready to be a big sister and we are working on the nursery! So fun.

In our excitement, we got to do a photo shoot with the amazing Cindy Shaver over at Life's Captured Moments! She was so sweet to do our shoot-- even in the rain! That was a first for me :). Head on over to her site and take a look! She's been super kind to us throughout our adoption journey. Thanks, Cindy!

Here are a few of the shots:

 Growing in our heart!

 She's SO excited!! =)

We had a blast!!

Stay tuned.. I'll be writing about their names, and meanings. We're excited to share!

Until they are home,

Kimberly

Journey to the Finish Line: 10 TO THE END!

"Shout for joy to God, all the earth; sing the glory of His name; give to Him glorious praise! Say to God, 'How awesome are Your deeds! So great is Your power that Your enemies come cringing to You. All the earth worships You and sings praises to You; they sing praises to Your name.' Selah. Come and see what God has done; He is awesome in His deeds toward the children of man. He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot. There did we rejoice in Him..." Psalm 66:1-6

We received pictures this past week!! Wow. Can I just tell you these kiddos are PRECIOUS. Seriously precious. They are beautiful. They look so much alike, too! We are in awe of our great God who has caused this journey and willed it to be. He chose for us to walk it and I am overjoyed/nervous/excited/reserved/passionate all at the same time! I know that if He has begun it, He will complete it, according to His will.

I want SO MUCH to show you their pictures, however we have chosen to wait until they are officially Neelys to do so. (so, a couple/few more months) BUT, I can't leave you without anything, so here is a crop of our son's hands and a bit of our daughter's forehead. See.. precious!!

 

Notice the bears in the background!! It's just so exciting that they can hear our voices. I hope the orphanage workers won't be too annoyed by them. Haha.

Our sweet friend over at gracenotwasted was so kind to take video and pictures of our precious babies. She held them and loved on them we will be forever grateful!  She also has had some crazy/amazing things to say about her journey so far! I encourage any of you who want to know what our journey might look like to head over to her blog and read the past 4 posts. WOW. Needless to say I know specifics to be praying already!! I spent two months in West Africa and it was life changing. Many of the things she mentions reminds me of my journey, however I can definitely say it was not as dangerous!! Check it out.. but be fore-warned.. it's a difficult read (emotionally!).

Now that we have a direction in which to go, we've been surveying our finances and are excited to share with you all that we've raised $16,000 of our (now) $20,000 goal!!! PRAISE OUR GREAT GOD! He truly owns a cattle on a thousand hills.. and all the hills the cattle stand on! (Thanks, Dr. Robinson at UM for always reminding us of this!)

SO .. we are on the Journey to the Finish Line.. of the start line (haha!). Seasons, seasons. We are thankful that we are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel for this season, however we are SO very grateful for this journey of waiting. It has been hard, so hard. I love how each season of life and sanctification brings about a different, but deeper (in ways) faith journey. God is so faithful! We know we still have a few months to go, and let me tell you, after seeing pictures, it will be a looong few months. =)

This "journey to the finish line" led me to think and pray about how we might raise this last $4,000 that will allow us to travel to bring our babies HOME. Remembering an idea from the adoption conference I attended back in March led me to the launch of our next (and possibly LAST) fundraiser:

10 TO THE END!

We are asking each family that feels led by the Lord to click our "donate" button on the top right side of our blog and donate $10 to help bring our babies home! 

Also- if you would like to go further, please share this vision with others that might be interested in supporting us!

If you feel led to help us to this finish line, we want you to know that we are so very grateful to you and your family. We pray God's richest blessings on you. 

Please remember that we covet your prayers most of all! Please continue to pray for us and for our babies that are many, many miles away. We cannot thank each of you enough for your love and support. 

Blessings,

Kimberly

We've Been Matched!! To God be the Glory!

We have BIG news!

We have been matched with TWINS from AFRICA! HA! Only God knew... :-).

We got an email from a missionary at the orphanage on Wednesday saying there are twins waiting for us! (Totally not expecting this..!) A boy and a girl, about 5 months old. PRAISE OUR GREAT GOD! We were all home, as we got the email before Nathan left for work. (So early....!) Thankfully, at the orphanage, they are 5 hours ahead, so the news was waiting for us when we woke up. We read it together and were just overwhelmed with excitement!

We honestly have no other details about them.  However, a good friend is leaving THIS SUNDAY to go get her little girl from the same orphanage! We were super excited to find out before she left. Now, Lord willing, she gets to take pictures AND video (!) of our babies!! She will hold them and tell them we love them and are coming for them! ALSO, we (very) quickly, mailed her two "stuffed-animal-blankies" with our voices on the inside to take with her and give to them. When the bear's noses are pressed, there is a message with all three of our voices!! This way they can get to know the sound of their family until we can get to them. :)

For those of you who might wonder, we bought the blanket-animals and then went to Build-a-Bear to get a "record-able-sound" to put inside of them. We had 10 seconds to record and this is what we said, "(Nathan) This is your daddy! (Kimberly) This is your mommy! (C) This is your sister! (Nathan) We love you (Kimberly) and can't wait to meet you (C) one day!" We had SO. MUCH. FUN. recording it!

Here are pics of C with them:

Many of our friends and family have asked, "What's next!?"

Here's a quick low-down:

The lawyer in Africa will begin all the paperwork for the twins (gathering birth certificates, death certificates (if applicable), signatures of any living family members, health tests from the doctor, etc) and file that, along with our paperwork in the courts over there. Once we "pass court," the babies will *officially* be ours. At this point, they will get new birth certificates with the "Neely" name on them and passports with their new names. An EXCITING day that will be!

Next, the paperwork will be mailed to our house. Upon receiving it, we will *immediately* =) scan it and send it to get translated into English.

Once we get the translations, off the paperwork will go to USCIS and AL DHR for US/State approval.  When we get their approvals, the information will be sent to the US Embassy in Africa and we can make Embassy appointments. Once we have the appointments, we BOOK FLIGHTS AND TRAVEL!

There is no possible way to know how long this process will take, but it can take as little as 3 months (VERY unlikely) or as long as... well, our guess is 6 or 7 months.

I would love to share more, but I am currently being "dressed up" by a very active 3 year old who *desperately* needs a playmate right now. Haha!

We're so excited and praising God! Praise God with us! To Him be the Glory!

Quick prayer requests:

*The courts will STAY OPEN in Africa (as the government is very, very "shaky" right now..) and our paperwork can be processed quickly.
*DHR will be easier to work with than they were with our friend.
*Our hearts will be content and we will "worship while we wait!"
*Our babies' health, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

THANK you, friends and family for praying for us, being excited with us, and praising our GREAT GOD.

By His Grace,

Kimberly

Gearing Up for Change

...[He] rules by His might forever, [His] eyes keep watch on the nations. Psalm 66:7b

I've been pondering this blog post for a while- as some things have "changed," and others are still in "limbo." I feel as if I need to have an update to give, instead of saying, "still waiting.........."

So the update is: We're still waiting! Ha. But in all seriousness, we have had one semi-change.  We heard from Africa recently that, though they have many kids at the orphanage, the families are not willing to give them up for adoption as of now. [There has to be signatures and statements of living parents and/or death certificates of parents in order to adopt a child. If both parents are not living, extended family members must give their consent by way of signature and statement.] What blows my little mind in regards to this, is that because there ARE so many children (100+), I would think we should be able to find at least one who's family would "sign off" to allow them to be adopted, and two if possible! However, so far this is not the case.  Of course, I fully believe it's God's sovereignty holding these family member's "yeses."  This is all going to happen in His timing and the child/children we will adopt will be perfectly and distinctly placed into our family.

Once we heard word that the missionaries are having a hard time finding a match for us (we turned our "letter" into them one year ago this month), we decided to put in our application and send our homestudy, etc to a local agency in Alabama. This was a tough decision, in a way, as we have such a heart for the nations.  It was hard because we know there are many children who go to sleep in orphanages night after night with no mommmies and daddies to tuck them in, who have one set of clothing, few, if any toys, and sleep in rooms with many other children or babies.  Of course, there are many orphanages with great workers who share Christ with these children, love them, comfort them when they cry, however the ratio of workers to children just cannot provide adequate love and comfort to each child. (Of course, we trust God to bring families to these children to be His hands and feet, or comfort them and love on them in supernatural ways that He is clearly capable of.) So it just made sense to us to go get one (then two!) of these children.  They are there, many in need, many waiting for a family.

However, we had no idea it would be this hard, no idea of the doors God might open, and then close.

So, we are currently in "limbo" as we have no idea if the situation in Africa will change in the near future or if the agency in Alabama will have a child for us soon either. What I do know is that God has given both Nathan and I a complete peace about the domestic agency, while not giving us a peace about shutting any doors in Africa.

If I can be completely raw here, this is a bit unnerving to me to say the least. (AKA, a perfect opportunity to "work my faith muscle." Haha)  The domestic adoption, if it works out would cost $22k+ and the Africa adoption, travel and all would cost about $18k+ (for two kids). I do not foresee (though God owns it all!) us having enough money to do both. Also, I have absolutely no idea how to plan, how much money to raise, or which to be excited about. But, what I do know is that God will completely take care of us and provide for all of our needs right on time. He has never left us, nor will He now.

The timeline for the domestic adoption looks to be from about 3 months up to a year from now. We will not know if we've been chosen by a birth mom, or anything until we get a phone call to come pick the baby up.  This usually happens 5 days after the baby is born because in AL, the birth parents have 5 days to change their minds.  The agency we are working with chooses to not let the adoptive parents know until they are sure the child is "adoptable."  Therefore, we would get a phone call one day (any day) and would drop everything, travel to the agency and pick up our new baby! Exciting, yet a bit crazy for me, as I'm a big planner. Haha.

There isn't, nor has there ever been a timeline for the Africa adoption.  We could get an email any day- on. However, what is important to note here, is that our homestudy and paperwork will expire in June of next year. It will be a big pain to deal with updating it, as everything will have to go back through two systems, USCIS and AL DHR. No fun, I tell you, no fun! Oh and not to mention the money that would go into this.  We prefer to not have to do this, however, if we have children waiting for us, we will do everything humanly possible to get to them!

All this to say, I feel confident (*Though feelings are not everything! God could have other plans..) that we are within months of bringing a child/children into our home to love.  Therefore, (especially due to the chance of a domestic phone call at any time) we are "gearing up," making sure we are stocked and ready for a baby.  Our daughter is almost 4, so it's been a while and it's amazing how much I have forgotten! Diapers, bottles,... what else?!

I know that a domestic adoption can seem to be a bit of a drastic change from what we've been moving towards for the past year and a half, but our hearts are still for the nations, and always will be. All the nations- including America. It's the heart of our Father, and now ours, as He promises we are being sanctified daily.  We will be grateful if one day He sends us overseas to share the gospel with those who haven't heard, or encourage and help to support our brothers and sisters, or to adopt. If and when that will happen, we do not know, but for now, we will, by His grace, abide.

I am thankful that His eyes are keeping watch on the nations! I am thankful that He is God and I am not. We get to trust that He's watching over all the little ones in orphanages.  And we get to trust that, in this season, we may not be the hands and feet He chooses to hold, love on them, and bring them home.  We get to trust that His ways are perfect.

Here we are, hands open. God, it's Your move. Show us, lead us.

He will.

Thank YOU for being apart of this journey. We could never fully express our gratitude for your giving, your prayers, and your love.

Please pray with us and hope with us... for all the waiting children... and the GLORY OF GOD.

With a heavy, but satisfied, heart,

Kimberly, for the Neelys