One Sought Me

I just had to give a shout out of "Thank you LORD!" that MOWA (child protective services equivalent in Ethiopia's system) is moving along with their end of the paper work and signing letters which release children in Ethiopia to be matched with adoptive families!! Yip. yip! This is tremendous news and such an answer to many prayers.  You can read about the hold up in letters here . Since late September the amount of referrals being made have only trickled through leaving many adoptive families in the holding tank waiting.  As adoptive families' wait times carries on and on, children are spending more time of their precious growing years in institutions/orphanages when they could be in their forever family's arms. So the news that referrals are coming and letters are being processed is a huge OPEN DOOR!   You can read about our prayer requests for open doors here. "What is a referral again?" you ask.  A referral is the match of the orphaned child/

Week 30 (January 12th) This week is a special week around the Vogtman home as we celebrate the birth of our third child, Buggy!  Her first name, we just don't blog about to keep some kind of privacy, but I'll tell you that her middle name is Faith.  Her first name means "precious" and that she is - an example of Precious Faith.  Long story short, Buggy started out her little life in womb with major complications of her heart.  Over the course of our pregnancy her heart rate never reached above 90 beats per minute.  Just  to compare, the average heart rate is between 120 and 160.  About ever other week we went for ultra sounds to even see if she was growing and alive.  At one point it was considered to give her a pacemaker during pregnancy or directly after birth.  It was a difficult time of waiting, hoping, and trusting in the Lord that no matter what happened, He was in control.  Many times during the pregnancy I was afraid to be excited about this child being

January 7, 2014 Last week's stories of Ethiopia closing to international adoptions are now settling, rumors hushed, and more accurate reports are making their way through adoption agencies then to anxious adoptive families. (You can read about it here and here ). We are told that although Ethiopia has several officials lobbying for international adoption being kept open as an option, there are several against it as well.  These battles will continue but for now international adoptions will remain open and that change, if any, won't happen overnight. Considering what we have seen with the pace of how paperwork moves there, this change won't be happening anytime over the next year either.  So a sigh of relief for sure is due!  "Aaaahhhhhh"....There. Do we feel better now?  Yes? Well, then what is taking so long? (read here, Child in a Paper Pile ) Process, process, and more papers moved, and more process... all in all this is our time to find the joy in th