WOW!!!! God is so good!

Oh my goodness everyone, it's been a week, but I am still completely in shock! 

WE GOT MATCHED WITH OUR DAUGHTER!!!!! 

What? What? What? What? 

I know, I asked the same thing for about 3 days!!  

We were not expecting it at all!  When we found out that things seemed to be steadily picking up and that we would most likely be matched with a child within the year, that was a huge batch of information to process!  We were still coming to terms with that as we were expecting at least another 1 1/2-2 year wait! 

So when our case manager called me last week, I just figured she was calling to introduce herself (as she is new to us, and I had yet to talk to her in person).  But when she asked if Ryan was there or if we could conference call him... I knew this was no ordinary check up call!!  Sadly Ryan didn't answer his phone, so our case manager just told me the information and then sent us her paperwork.  Ryan had to work late and we wanted to review everything together so we waited until almost 10:30 that night to look everything over!  I was literally shaky for 2 days after that and just wanted to tell EVERYONE I saw!!  I managed to have some self control though and we told our families and a few friends first. 

But oh my goodness!  We are so in love with her!  Even the boys.  They just want to look at her pictures all the time (which we kind of do :)) and want to go next week to pick her up.  She is the most adorable little girl who is nearly a year younger than Eli.  I can't share specifics here because I don't have a private blog, and I want to leave it open for fundraising purposes, but just know we are over the moon. 

And to reiterate the fundraising part of my previous blog post, we are starting to fund raise in full force.  We owe a "referral fee" that covers all of the end of adoption legal stuff, orphan care and the work our agency needs to do between now and when we bring her home , and it is the biggest fee we encounter in this process.  We have saved/raised all but about $3000 of it.  Please be praying that the funds will come in! 

We also are looking at our first trip to Ethiopia happening in about 6 months!  (I get to meet my daughter in about 6 months!  Oh my goodness, doing a happy dance!!)  But last minute airfare to Ethiopia is a daunting thought, so please be praying for the funding there as well!   And then we travel 4-6 weeks later to go get her!  Another daunting, but oh so exciting, thought! 

See our last blog post for fundraising opportunities. We have been blessed with a generous community around us that has prayerfully and financially supported this crazy journey. We appreciate every single one of you! 

We can't wait to show you some pictures, but sadly it will have to wait until after we pass court in 6 months or so. In the meantime we would appreciate your prayers that everything would go smoothly, quickly, all of our paperwork would get to the right person and the remaining finances come in.