Some big- no...Really Big News!

Breaking news but be warned: we haven't been hacked and we have not lost our mind  :) 

We are adopting a sweet 11 year old girl...but wait there's more...literally more...because ya see there's 2 of them...yup the Turner's are adopting twins! 

It took me a few days to get scraped off the floor but now we are bouncing of the ceiling with joy!  For the love- you have to read the story behind this because you cant even make this stuff up!

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Everyone knows we have been waiting a very long time for this adoption thing to actually work (you know- a child come's to your home)

Well, even without having met these girls we would have waited all over again!  I know some may think that we just got tired of waiting for a 'little one' but we would say yes to these girls a thousand times over because we are that sure of the fact that God wants them in our family....and so, with no further wait, I give you:

            

               "The proof we aren't nut's, wouldn't you have said yes too?"

One lovely day I felt like I should advocate on facebook for a few sibling groups that our adoption agency was having trouble finding homes for.  (note so self:  don't ask others to do something that you yourself think is a bit nuts...good thing they weren't triplets;)

3 days later- woke up with a huge burden to pray for the adoption.  I didn't even know what I was praying for but if felt like a battle call.  I felt God was saying, 'keep praying, break through, I'm really doing something here!'

THAT afternoon we received an email from our agency.  They sent us information on the twin 11 year old girls from Ethiopia-because they knew we were open to 'older children.'  I thought, 'yeah...a five year old...and that's singular.'  But my heart did skip a beat and I must admit something drew me to them...but I quickly clicked off.

That SAME afternoon (you remember... the one where God told me to pray cuz he's doing something)  we got a letter from US Immigration stating that our forms to bring an orphan into the country was sent back to us because they saw a few mistakes. The 'overlooked' mistakes included: our child age request was worded wrong, they told us to go back and have our social worker fix the wording on our AGE request AND whether we were approved to adopt a single child or Multiple children! (yeah...you could say it was about here where God got my attention)  These 'mistakes' should not have been overlooked by so many.

I went back and read the girls background information and that's when my heart felt it's first tug.

BUT- I knew it was not for us because we wanted to honor the kids feelings- I knew they did not want older siblings...Jacob (8) was adamant about this from the start.  Well you guessed it...when I mentioned the girls to them they jumped up and down begging us to adopt them- they were relentless and non stop about if for days- which shocked us. They immediately acted crazy writing letters to them for, 'when they come.' The kids wrote the date down, 'to tell the girls when we first knew they were our sisters.'  Jacob slept with their picture for 2 days and they literally would not stop talking crazy talk such as, 'how are we going to tell them apart?" and I may or may have not yelled, 'they are not your sisters!"  You see, God used each of our children to speak to us in our adoption decisions...and they were starting to make me nervous.

The plan all along was that we were going to take Jacob with us to Ethiopia. We thought it would be an awesome opportunity and life changing-his 1st mission trip. ...he has been looking forward to this for so long but he offered to give up his plane ticket, 'so my sister can come home- I'll give it up!!'

It was all it bit much- not the children's crazy reaction- but all the other stuff even before this.  Even though it was crazy...Mike and I talked about it- what this would look like, what would this mean for our family and the 10 good reasons why this was a bad idea.  But then we prayed about it- we gave it to God- and said, 'this certainly looks like you are trying to get our attention here- and even though you pulled some crazy stuff off to make us even consider twin 11 year olds...you have to 'pull out all the stops' on this one!  We'll be open...but you have to be REALLY clear on this one God!"

(this is where it get's Really good)

 The next day I saw a friend of mine who had NO idea of what was going on.  She was uncomfortable with what she had to tell me but she said she had been wanting to tell me something for a while.  She said, ' Several months ago I felt God speak to me concerning Jacob going to Ethiopia- I heard him say that Jacob should not go to Ethiopia.  A few months later it happened again- I heard, 'Jacob should not go to Ethiopia'- I felt uncomfortable telling you this because he was so excited!  BUT then...' a couple weeks ago, I was praying when Jacob just popped into my head- then I heard God say it again, 'Jacob should not go to Ethiopia because his plane ticket will be used for another child.'  Then she heard him speak, 'There is another child" over and over in her head.

I'll pause here for a moment to let that sink in...

AGHHHHH!!!! 

 I found it amazing that God gave us such awesome undeniable clear confirmation...he obviously knew we just needed to hear it point blank.  The best part of it all is that he used her in perfect timing.  He spoke to us first- we were totally feeling it- but it was just so scary to us that we needed that boost of faith to step out in!

2 more crazy things:  To adopt a sibling the fee's are drastically reduced- the additional fee's that we would have to pay to adopt the twins is: $3500

Remember our '7 for Seats fundraiser' going through facebook?  (the one I started because I felt that we needed to 'prepare' even though we didn't have a child match yet?)  Yeah well can you guess how much we raised so far?  You guessed it: $3500

I now know that God inspired me to set that up so that we would be ready and have that fee.  (Yes, please don't point out to me that we are now starting fresh with the travel funding...you can bring that one up to God please)

Last crazy thing (for now):

a friend of mine reminded me of  what may be just coincidence but for me it's another wink from God....

last year for my birthday she gave me a willow tree set of  those family figurines.  She gave me 2 boys, a girl, and she said she couldn't find any singular babies....so she bought me a set called 'Twins' with 2 children in it.  We put one child away and I laughed saying, 'I always wanted twins!' and she laughed back, 'hey, ya never know, maybe that was prophetic...'  I'm sure God was laughing with us saying, 'If you only knew!"

So in conclusion:  Mike and my conversation that changed the course of our family and grew us from 5 to 7 went something like this: 

 We have tons of reasons why we can say no.  We thought this through- we know this will NOT be easy.  We are going to be dealing with a scared, culture shocked, non-English speaking, grieving, pre-hormonal girl -Times Two.  We can say no and stick to our plan and wait for a younger child to come along- and I'm sure it will all be good.

BUT we both know that would not have been the actual Plan A for us- God's plan.  He made it so clear to us and even gave us the desire for this- it was just all the earthly fears that swarmed us.  But we know that God's plan is greater than mans, and his grace is sufficient.  We choose God's will for our lives...because we know that's were we will find the most joy and blessing and where we will see his glory be made known on Earth the most.  Bring it on!

                          

Psalm 68:5

Father to the fatherless, defender of widows—
this is God, whose dwelling is holy.
 God places the lonely in families;

Helen and Jerusalem we are coming! 

PS.  We now  have an 'updated' version of  $7 for seats....Please pass it on through your circle of friends and networks, we truly appreciate it!

check it out: http://www.acharityproject.com/f/7forseats

update

Wow, it's been a while!  I think I've been avoiding this blog because of the lack of anything interesting to say!

We are still #3.  We were #4 for a few months and then bumped up one in November.

Here's the scoop if your interested, from my adoption agency on WHY there is no movement:

"To answer another of your concerns about pushing orphanages to get paperwork completed faster, it is much more complex than filling out papers. That process for our families in the US is fairly straightforward. In Ethiopia an orphanage may have to send staff out many times to distant locations to try to reach people in person to gather information. I remember talking to a social worker at one of the orphanages we work with about his job. He shared that he had to take public transportation (which would often take an entire day) across his region to try and locate a specific family member. No addresses. No telephone. Just finding people by word of mouth. It may take many days and weeks of attempts. They may need to arrange to have that person brought to a specific office for testimony more than once. They may be ill, or not available to travel any time soon. It can take a great amount of time for just one encounter to occur. There are multiple interviews and people to locate. Perhaps one social worker is responsible for many, many families and has to travel repeatedly to other areas to see adoption authorities. They may have to wait for a doctor to come to town to examine a child. What are simple blood draws to us may be taken great distances to a lab that will process them. And they are slow as obtaining the results is never fast. They are working with such limited resources that nothing functions there at all like it could here. Things are not a phone call away, or an hour away by car. The social worker I talked with told me about the constant roadblocks and difficulties they have to gather the needed information and the time it takes to do it successfully. Again, I liken it to the many, many months it can take a family to go from the start to the finish of their own adoption paperwork processes. Except when in Ethiopia, I see it as happening as if moving through honey. It takes a lot of patience!




Another challenge we experience is that our families are accustomed to how things work in developed countries and the mindset that goes along with that. Planned meetings and timeframes. An email away, or Fed-Exed overnight. As a culture Ethiopians get things done when they get done. They may have a goal for something to be done in a couple of weeks, but if a couple of months pass, that is nearly the same. To push for a specific time frame with so many challenges and pitfalls and limited resources they know nothing can be promised nor deadlines easily met. Nor do I see them striving to live like that. They are more relaxed and do move forward and are doing so at their capacity. However when interfacing with what we know is possible in the West, it is hard for families to understand or imagine this. Their mindset is not the same as ours. So unfortunately the preparing of a child’s legal adoption documents is not one of only papers needing to be filled out but most are fraught with complicated information gathering with limited resources in which to do it. Thus the waiting until it is done for each child. "

WOW!  That put it pretty plainly to me.  I cant imagine that the social worker has to track down each child's info like that.  Insane...just actually recieving a child's refferal now will look like a  miracle in it's self after learning how they have to track down this stuff!

It will happen!  Praying for some forward movement!  My heart is learning a lot through all this and I'll never regret a minute of it.

Soccer Days!

Oh, how I love soccer... Little one's playing soccer is rather a sight though :)

My kids were easy to spot- they were the one's usually upside down on their heads or turning cartwheels...


The Stars!
                                

 And they're off!

 Oh,oh...will the sister score on the brother?

 Bring it on!

 Victory walk

The fans :)

Why I cant make mommy friends clip ;)

Definatly got me laughing out loud...maybe because of a few mommy conversations I've had myself...too funny!


http://youtu.be/OSpFIlEz3Mc

Impact time

check this out- be moved- and make a move

http://vimeo.com/13831236

School Days

School:  One month down...8 more to go. 
This past month we did a unit study on India, Mozart, and Van Gough.  India was the fave.

 we did mapping

 learned about the art of Henna painting, read many Indian Chilren's Classic Tales,

 learned about their holidays and then decieded to celebrate one of them :)

 Diwali is in October and the most favored holiday in India- celebrating light overcoming darkness.  We celebrated w/ an Indian meal including a delicious Diwali rice pudding :)

 Last month Sova -Grace started Piano lessons, Jacob is continuing on w/ violin.  We took a year off of dance to try soccer-and Sova and Caleb are on the same team.

 Nature Club has started back up...Jacob is working on a picture study of a mushroom :)

Here's my little kindergarten'er!  He's doing great!  Im so happy w/ our start to the year- I feel like we already did so much...what to do next- hmmm.