THIS IS WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT!

Ludy Adoption Video from Lifesong on Vimeo.

ALREADY MOVIN ALONG..........

Without even a week going by, our caseworker e-mailed and said that, after they organized the wait list, we are actually number 42!! Hey-Progress is Progress! Each and every day is one step closer to meeting our little Ethiopian Princess and we can hardly wait! Still waiting on some final popcans that are trickling in-then we will post the grand total of Zach's earnings. Until then-

WE ARE OFFICIALLY ADOPTION PREGNANT!!

WE ARE ON THE WAIT-LIST! CAN'T BELIEVE AFTER ALL THE PAPERWORK, HOMESTUDIES, MONEY, ETC, WE ARE FINALLY ON THE OFFICIAL LIST. WE ARE NUMBER 44. THIS MEANS THAT THERE WILL BE 43 BABY REFERRALS BEFORE WE GET A REFERRAL FOR OUR DAUGHTER. WE WILL GET AN UPDATE EACH MONTH AND POST IT ON HERE AS TO WHAT NUMBER WE ARE. SOMETIMES IT ONLY DROPS ONE AND SOMETIMES A LOT. THERE ARE MANY FACTORS TO THIS-LIKE SOME FAMILIES ARE ON BOTH THE SIBLING AND THE GIRL LIST-SO IF THEY GET SIBLINGS, THEY AUTOMATICALLY GET TAKEN OFF THE LIST.
WE FIXED OUR BLOG WEBSITE-SO GO TO IT AND AT THE TOP THERE IS A PLACE TO ENTER YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS AND YOU WILL THEN HAVE TO CONFIRM IT BY AN E-MAIL THAT THEY SEND, BUT THEN YOU WILL GET AUTOMATIC UPDATES WHEN WE POST SOMETHING ON THE BLOG.
HERE IS OUR BLOG ADDRESS FOR THOSE OF YOU THAT I AM SENDING THIS TO VIA E-MAIL.
http://adamandamberstutzman.blogspot.com/
THANKS FOR TAKING THIS JOURNEY WITH US! WE LOVE YOU ALL!

OUR DOSSIER IS OFF TO AGCI!

We are so excited to say that we now have our entire Dossier ready to go. Adam is droping it off tonight (along with a VERY large check) :)in Portland at our agency All God's Children (AGCI). They will add a copy of the noterized home study to it and maybe, just maybe, by this Friday, we will have a number on the wait list for a baby girl!

For those who don't know-as I didn't until we got into this process, here is what a Dossier is:
Dossier: When used in the context of adoption, this term refers to a set of appropriately authenticated and translated legal documents which are used in international adoption cases to process the adoption of a child in its own country by the adoptive parents, or for the adoptive parents to obtain the legal custody or guardianship of the child in the foreign court, so the child can be brought by the adoptive parents to the United States for adoption.

Zach will OFFICIALLY be ending his can drive at the end of this week-and we will then give a grand total for what he earned-if you still want to give him cans during this adoption process, please feel free-he loves it and we can put it toward our expenses! If you have cans for us still-call for me to pick them up, or drop them off on our porch-and thanks so much!

Attached is a picture of our Dossier ready to go-yes LOTS of paperwork!
Also, is a picture of Cassidy's dolls-she keeps them in her room together and says they are her and her new sister-very cute!

Don't forget the pop cans!

The end of september is nearing-only a couple weeks left-so remeber if you have any popcans or waterbottles for zach-just call us or e-mail and we will come get em! thank you all so much who had given us cans-he is loving doing this!Each thing we do helps us reach our goal to bring our baby home!

Special Gift AND HAPPY NEW YEAR

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Why you ask?! Well today is Ethiopian New Year-it is 2002 there today! We are 7 years ahead of their calendar and a couple months different too during the year. We got our first "baby gift" today it was from my mom Karen-and it is so cute-see picture. It was so neat to actually get something for the baby-it makes it so much more real! We reviewed our home study that our social worker wrote up-she was so quick in getting it back to us. We had to re-do a couple financial forms and are finishing these up as I went down to part-time at work, but this next week she should be getting them to ACGI to notarize and then we should be ready to be on the waiting list for a baby girl ages 0-12 months.
Our caseworker said that the wait list for baby girls is around 40 families, where as for baby boys is only around 15! Guess more people want daughters. After we are on the waiting list for our referral of our daughter there is about a 8-10 month waiting period to actually get a referral. This seems like forever and yet is is almost the same time-frame as a regular pregnancy. :) We are hoping to be able to travel by next summer BEFORE the Ethiopian Courts close for a couple months-sometime around aug.-Oct....during this time, nothing can be done and we will all just be sitting here waiting to go get her-pray we get our referral FAST!

Sidewalk Prophets: Words I Would Say music video - MusicRemedy

Sidewalk Prophets: Words I Would Say music video - MusicRemedy

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Home Study Visits are OVER!!

We made it through our homestudies! They were not that bad-and our social worker said she should have it written up for us to review by the end of this next week, then 2 other people have to go over it and notarize it and it will be done.
Can't believe we are at this point. I attached a video that I love for your viewing pleasure. :) It is Steven Curtis Chapman's "When Love takes you In" He wrote it for his adopted daughters.
Adam and I have been awestruck by the fact that with almost certainty, someone, somewhere in Africa is pregnant right now with OUR daughter! We are awe struck by this fact and continue to pray for her and her family daily-he health, her safety and even her nutrition which is such a big concern over there. We can only imagine what this woman may be going through right now as she considers how to provide for her child and how to relinquish it to someone else to care for. This is heartbreaking-while we are excited and happy, she is scared and mourning. I can't believe that our daughter is almost for sure growing under her birth mom's heart-God is so good

One down ...... One to go-

We had our first homestudy tonight-all went well and the kids actually were great-what a relief it is to have one done. Thank you to our dear friends Kris Thomas for helping me decorate my house and finally get it to look like people live here and to Adam's mom Tami for helping us with all the final details, hanging pictures, etc.-and my mom for helping with the kids the last few days and Tyra our babysitter for taking them swimming today-and Kristy for picking up the Pizza for us and having Jacob over to play today-We love you guys!
We had a crazy morning today with us riping out our carpet last night in Cassidy's room. I guess the puppy had wet on it several times, and when I cleaned it this week, it brought out all the odors. It was through the pad in a lot of places and into the wood. It was destroyed-It was more than horrible and smelling up the whole house, so, we took it out, bleached it, painted on Kiltz to seal it and called the people that put in the carpet ONLY 2 years ago, had them bring the cheapest carpet they could and install it all this morning, then we moved her stuff back in her room and no one knew the better! What we do sometimes! Oh, so if anyone wants to visit us, NOW would be the time-our house is so clean and picked up, it will never be so again. :)
So one more home study meeting on Wednesday and we should be done. Then she writes up her report which takes a couple weeks I think, then another lady reviews it, then we review it, and then it is noterized. Whew-then we apply for citizenship for our adopted child with the US and wait a couple more weeks-then we can get on the wait list for a referal of a baby girl. Wow, can't believe we are at this point.

We are going to have our HOMESTUDY!!!

SO, we got the e-mail yesterday morning that ALL of our documents were in for our homestudy paperwork and that they assigned us a social worker who would call us.Well she called us a couple hours later- We have our first homestudy visit (3-4 hours) a week from today! Thurs. the 27th-and then our second and last one the Wed. after that!
We can't believe it and have so much to do to get our house ready!Things are moving a long-after that, we will get on the waiting list to get a referal of a baby girl!

GARAGE SALE DONE, CAN DRIVE STARTING

Well, our 2 weekends of garage sales are over and we made a grand total of $1,200!!!! We are thrilled and thankful to everyone that came by and bought things and everyone that donated items-thank you again so much! This money will help to pay for bringing baby "A" home. (Found out this week we can't post her real name until we pass court in Ethiopia-it is a government rule, same reason we won't be able to post her picture anywhere on-line until we pass court).

So, next thing is we are starting "ZACHARY'S CAN/WATER BOTTLE DRIVE" for all of September.....any of you that I work with, you could just bring them to work and I can get them from the parking lot after work, anyone can leave them on our front porch, or we would be so willing to pick them up, SO SAVE THOSE CANS!!!! Zachary is so excited and we think this will really give him a chance to get involved and feel a part of it.

Many people have asked us, "Why Ethiopia" and so we figured we would just post our answer on here so that it can get answered to a lot of people at once. Here are some facts:

There are 4.6 Million orphans in Ethiopia

One in 10 children will die before their 1st birthday, in the USA, 7 out of 1,000 will die in a their first year!

Ethiopia only has 1 doctor per 24,000 children!

Ethiopia's average life expectancy women: 50 years, Men: 48 years In America an average person will live to be 78!

These are just a few, you can find more on the side of our blog page. We know there are so many kids in need of homes here in the US, but for the most part, they will go on living and at least have a foster home. We had in fact signed up to adopt a bi-racial infant from a company in Alabama when we were unable to get pregnant, but then we got pregnant with the twins, so we had to pull our application. So we do think that the US adoptions are very needed and can be very wonderful too, so don't get us wrong.

That being said, the Ethiopian kids will either starve on the streets, die of malnutrition or disease, there are not lots of foster families like there are here, and they don't just get medical care and food like we have access to here, even their drinking water is bad!

After thinking through this, we know that by choosing to adopt from Ethiopia, we are not just adopting, but actually saving her life, because of all of the poverty. Yes, there is lots of poverty in America, but it is on a different level with different circumstances. Also, after seeing what woman and young girls do to their bodies and their unborn here in America, we actually feel safer going with Ethiopia! This sounds funny, but it is true for us as we consider the risks verses the benefits.

Our US system can be very messed up with how they often keep kids in foster care for way too long while waiting for the mom to get back on track, and then the kids are dealing with so many issues by the time they are finally adopted. On top of this, they can then have to deal with the issues that they may have due to the behaviors of the mom during pregnancy. This isn't to say we don't believe in US adoptions, we do and we are so thankful that their are families that adopt from the US-these are wonderful families too, with many wonderful things to offer children. We just chose to go with Ethiopia after much thought and consideration.

The Ethiopian culture is very different than here in America. The Ethiopian people HIGHLY value children and they don't want to give them up, in fact, one of the things that you have to realize during your time in Ethiopia is that people will come and just take your baby from you just to see and talk to it and show them off to others...they say do not be alarmed by this-this is their culture, kids are one of the most important things there! Also, they are typically not doing the things that we do to our bodies, they are just in poverty. It kills me to think of a mother having to give up her child just so that the child will be fed!

Anyway, these are some of the things that drew us to the country. The poverty, the value for children, the generosity of the people and the wonderful cultrue they have. We hear they are some of the most generous people! They all help each other, and share what they do have-we could all learn a lot of lessons from them and their values. On top of this, we are just drawn to the beauty of the people-we think they are very beautiful and we are really begining to have a love for the country as we learn more and more about it.

Some have also asked if we are worried due to the AIDS crisis in africa (720,000 kids have been orphaned due to AIDS). Yes, of course we thought this through, but after much research and talking to other families that have adopted from our agency, we are at peace with this. The orphanage and US government tests the kids a total of 3 times before they can come into America. The US doesn't allow them to come if they are positive for HIV-unless this is a HIV adoption and then I don't know what the rules are. If a test is positive in a baby, it is nearly almost always a false positive because it has picked up the mother's anti-bodies, and the baby is really negative. So, if they are negative, they are almost always really negative. Our testing system is pretty accurate now. We are leaving this in God's hands and just have to trust in Him and in the system to give us a healty baby girl!

That being said-SAVE THOSE CANS!

Garage Sale and more ideas....

So, a couple of things to say tonight-first THANK YOU to each and everyone of you that donated in one way or another to our garage sale last weekend! We made a whopping $825!! We are excited and the good news is, that even though I work this weekend, Adam is going to hold another sale due to Silverton having their Art Festival at the park across from our house, so lots more people! Thank you too to Mary G. for making the delicious pastries for Cassidy to sell-she had a blast! Jacob was able to give $100 out of his car parking business too! If anyone wants to drop off anything-just bring it by anytime, and if we are not here, leave it on the porch :) I work Friday, so if there is anyone from work, I can get it then.

Secondly, we came up with a new idea this week too. Zach our 7 year old LOVES to take cans in with his grandma to get spending money. We talked with him and he wants to hold a "SEPTEMBER CAN DRIVE" for ALL of September. So, if you can save your cans, and now plastic water bottles too, we will get them to him and he can take them all in at once on Oct. 1st and see how much he can get for the adoption. This will be his way of "helping". :) Bring them to our house, call and we can get them, or get them to me at work-thanks!

Thirdly, some people have asked about donating a cash amount. We set up a link on our blog on the bottom that is called "CHIP IN" and it has a button on there that you can click on to donate to our adoption securely through PayPal. We figure if everyone we knew gave like $10-25 it would all add up quickly! Don't feel obligated, but we have it there for those that would like to help.

DON'T FORGET TO "FOLLOW" OUR BLOG FOR AUTOMATIC UPDATES!

This week should be it-we should have all of our homestudy paperwork in by Tuesday-YA, then we will schedule the 3 homestudy visits. We will let you know....thanks again to everyone for your support and help! We love ya all-

We Keep Rolling Along

Well, we have made lots of progress in the last week or so. We only have 3 kids physicals left which will happen on Friday, then we have my last cardiology apt next week (don't ask)-just another hurdle in this adventure-and on the 17th we hope to mail off our last homestudy documents as all these apts. will be done. We then have to schedule our homestudy which will not take long. I am hoping that our first visit (we have to do about 4 visits -or 6 hours total) will be the last week of Aug. or 1st week in Sept. We have our big garage sale this weekend to fund the adoption-so if anyone still has stuff-give us a call. After our homestudy is complete-we will send a copy of it with the rest of our Dossier (more paperwork-which is already put together).

On another note-I have been told that as of the last week of Aug. I will get to go down to part-time (2-12hr shifts a week) day shift-this will be much better for our family and I am so glad to be able to do this! It will give us much more time and flexibility as a family.

After this weekend's garage sale, our biggest thing will be to somehow get this house in order, finish small projects and clean like crazy before our homestudy-but we will just get through this weekend first-amber

Letter to Friends and Family

Dear Family and Friends-
Many of you may have heard our latest and most exciting news-but if not, let us share it with you now! We are in the process of adopting an infant girl from Ethiopia. We have requested a baby girl between the ages of 0-12 months old at the time of referral. About 3-4 months after we accept a referral for a girl, we will travel to Ethiopia, summer of 2010, and stay between 5-7 days picking her up. We are very excited and it has been a life long dream of ours to be able to adopt. We have talked about it since high school and can hardly believe that we are already well into the process. We are using a Christian agency out of Portland called All God’s Children International (AGCI). Here is their website-check them out!

http://www.allgodschildren.org/adoption/ethiopia/
The paperwork and documents that we have had to provide are beyond description! It is a long process, which in total takes about 10-16 months, but one that will prove to be well worth it when we hold our little girl in our arms!

We have taken a loan out to be able to do this, but still need to raise around $6,000 in order to complete the adoption. In order to do this, we are planning on having a huge garage sale with all proceeds going toward the adoption. It will be the weekend of Silverton’s Homer Davenport Days-August 7–9. We are asking that if you have anything lying around that you don’t want or need anymore, that you would please consider donating it to us so that we could use it in our garage sale-that would be awesome! We would so appreciate it and would love to take it off your hands. Since we live right down by the city park, you can leave it on our front porch anytime, or call and we can come by and get it!

We have also started a blog page so that everyone can keep up to date on how our adoption is proceeding. Here is the link-stop by and check it out to get updates:

http://adamandamberstutzman.blogspot.com/ We are not super great at blogging-the computer part of it-so bear with us as we try and add things.

There are a few other things we are going to do to raise money for the adoption-

1. We are also going to try and get a carwash together to raise funds, sometime this next spring before we go, so we will keep you updated on a day and location for that.

2. We have started a savings account at MAPS Credit Union for just the adoption. If you feel it in your hearts to contribute to our adoption-we would be so appreciative. Anyone can donate by sending a check to: MAPS Credit Union P.O. Box 12398 Salem, OR 97309 ACCT # 471-S1

3. During the festivals each year held at the Silverton City Park, Jacob always parks cars in our yard for extra spending money, so the weekends of Aug.7-9 and Aug.15-16, he will be doing this and wants to give ½ of his proceeds toward getting his little sister home. His heart is so sweet to do this! So if you need a parking spot-swing by and visit “Jacob’s Front Yard Parking”. :)

4. We will be having an “orphanage shower” for AGCI-Hannah’s Hope Orphanage sometime before we go. This is where our daughter will be staying until we pick her up. We can take totes of items over with us to donate to the orphanage when we go. We know that they always have a need for any type of formula, diapers, wipes and croc rubber shoes-(or like those) shoes, but we will send out more specific needs as we find out more-so if you ever want to pick up any of these things to donate, you can drop them off any time too.

5. We ask that more than anything you keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we go through this journey-we will let you know when we accept a referral for our child, and we know that the Lord will hand select her for our family-it is in His hands.

What blows us away is the fact that, chances are, a woman somewhere clear across the world is either pregnant or soon will be pregnant with our future daughter and that thought alone is more than our minds can grasp! It is a true miracle and we are in awe of the whole process.
Thanks to everyone for all your help and support during this time-we are very blessed and excited to be able to do this-we love you all tons!
Anything else we come up with, we will let you know by e-mail or on our blog. ------

MAKE SURE TO JOIN OUR BLOG AND "FOLLOW" IT!!! :)

Adam, Amber, Jacob, Cassidy, Zachary, Noah, Logan and our future daughter-Baby A :)

We are moving along-SLOWLY but Surely

So, we are now in the process of getting each family member physicals for the adoption-this all takes some time with 7 of us, but it is going well so far. The things we are working on accomplishing are these:

For our home study we need:

FBI Criminal Check

State Criminal Check

Local Criminal check

Child abuse Checks

Adam and I Physicals

All 5 kids Physicals

Have 10 of ACGI forms notarized

6 reference forms filled out from friends, neighbors, relatives, etc.

Adam and I each fill out a 50 page questionnaire about our entire life, growing up, family, occupations, and everything ever known by anyone!

Do a 10 hour on-line class about bi-racial adoption

Fill out a 150 page workbook that is part of the on-line class with tons of questions on bi-racial adoption

Do a total and complete financial worksheet about every bill we pay and our income

Get a guardian (God Parent) for our new daughter and get that notarized

Get Employee verifications that are notarized from our employer

Get all our social security cards, birth certificates, and drivers licenses, marriage licenses copied and order original ones too

Copy of last tax return

Vet letter for all our pets stating they are up to date on their shots

A family photo

Get proof of life insurances and auto insurances and proof of health insurance

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We then do a 6 hour (about 3-4 visits total) home study with our social worker from AGCI

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Then for our Dossier-which is a large packet of info. that will actually go to Ethiopian government. A Dossier when defined is: A collection of papers giving detailed information about a particular person or subject



We need for this for the Dossier:

Two power of attorney -giving the orphanage leader-(Almaz is her name)-power of being our representative in court and our daughters temporary guardian-forms need notarized-one we had to get STATE certified-and went down to the building by the capital to do this

an application letter to the Ethiopian government-notarized

2 passport photos

Plus a passport for each of us to travel

photographs of the family, ourselves, inside and outside our home pasted neatly on paper

Another financial statement

A copy of our home study from ACGI when it is done

Another employment verification letter notarized from our jobs

another birth certificate-original copy for Adam and I, a marriage one

A medical form, notarized from our doctors stating we don't have TB and are healthy to have a child

Criminal check for both

two letters of recommendation one friend one family

Two copies of all of the above, and a huge chunk of money! :)



WHEW-well, I am please to say that we only have a few more papers to organize-my physical, 3 of the kids physicals, waiting for our background checks from FBI in Virginia to get back, do our homestudy, get a couple more people to send their reference letters and we are nearly done-it has taken 2 months to get this far-but we are moving along. :)



We are hoping our homestudy can be by the end of August- (anyone want to help clean a house? ) :)



Then the next step is to wait for the governments-both USA and Ethiopia to do their jobs and get a referral of a little baby girl for us-a referral is when they send us photos and all the info on the girl and we have 10 days to get a international pediatrician to review it and we decide if we will accept her or not.

If we were to accept her and then for some reason change our mind or back out, Ethiopian government has a law that that child can NEVER be adopted out again!!! Wow-talk about the pressure to make sure of something!

Will continue later-till next time-

Still learning

Just another night of trying to get our page up and running. All we have been doing is running around trying to understand how to put a blog page together. We did manage to add some "gadgets" to our site. Again, please check back often as we continue to learn the world of blogging and try to keep you updated on our adoption progress.

Introduction to Blogging

Here we are. Finally setting this up even though we opened the account in January. Please be patient, more will be coming. Until then.......