Thank you very much for your prayers.  I will tell you what I now know to the best of my understanding.  In the past, the US ACFI office had only worked through an adoption agency or church groups.  They also had not been doing a large volume of adoptions at a time.  Since Above Rubies started sharing about them, the number of adoptions has greatly increased.  Praise God for that!  Children Concerned was working with ACFI and handling different aspects of the processing of the adoptions from the US side of things, plus travelling frequently to Liberia to help with things there.  In January or February (can't remember now) they pulled out of that arrangement.  Kristi works at the ACFI US office and she tried hard to keep all of the adoptions going on her own.  I believe that she had the best of intentions.  Laws vary by state and it turns out that in the state of South Carolina, where the ACFI office is, you are not allowed to process adoptions unless you are licensed.  Turns out that it wasn't that the ACFI office lost their license, but rather that they never had one.  They had not needed one before.  Kristi checked in to the option of them getting a license, but learned that the process would take about a year.  Her heart is to get the children home to their new families, so she didn't want to put us all on hold for a year while they did that.  Therefore, she chose to transfer all of us to an adoption agency which they have worked with in the past - PLAN.  It is indeed going to be more expensive for us, but about $2500 more rather than $6000 more.  We have NO idea how God is going to provide the additional money, let alone a large chunk of the money we already still needed to come up with.  I am currently looking into adoption grants and low interest adoption loans.  Anyway, back to the situation, all families in process will need to apply to PLAN and then start working through them.  One scary caveat is that PLAN states that they do not guarantee that they will approve a family to adopt the children that they have been previously approved to adopt.  I cannot even imagine how it would rip my heart apart to know that they deemed us the wrong family for Sarah, Samuel, or Stephen.  I already think of those 3 as much mine as though they had been born of my body.  Please continue your prayers for our adoption and all of us in process!

Love, Dawn

I am so delighted to be able to share with you that the Lord has blessed us with another child!  No, he isn't growing in my womb.  His name is Stephen and he is 7.  He is at the same orphanage as our other two precious Liberian children.  We have added him into our adoption and the Lord has added him into our hearts.  It is amazing what an overwhelming love I already feel for these children!  I have never met them, yet God has grafted them into my heart as though they'd been mine from the womb.  We are hopeful that the adoption will be finalized and Aaron can bring home Sarah (Princess), Samuel (Christian), and Stephen in September.  Of course, with international adoptions, time frames are always variable to change.  Thank you to each of you praying for our adoption.

Love, Dawn

The adoption process is going very well.  These are the two precious children that we are adopting.  Sarah Princess is 8 years old and Samuel Christian is 4.  We pray and hope to bring them home to us this summer or fall.  Earlier this month, they learned about us and that we are adopting them and that we love them.  We are so excited to know that they now know!  We had to wait until our dossier was over at the embassy there before we could get to this stage.  Now, we can be in contact with them via letters and phone calls.

I've been thinking some about how homeschooling will go once they arrive.  One big thing in our favor is that they already speak English.  That will be a huge help!  What I think I'll do is take a break from all formal homeschool for about 2 months after they arrive.  During that time we will primarily work on just bonding as a family.  We will continue with lots of nature study, read-alouds, Bible, discussions, character, and chores.  I would love feedback from any of you who have adopted, especially older children.

By the end of this year, we should have the following age children: 10, 9, 9, 7, 5, 5, 3, and 2.  I wonder if the Lord might bless us with a brand new little one, too.  That would be wonderful!

Rachel of Children Concerned is going over to the orphanage on Jan. 8th.  We're going to try really hard to have our dossier to her.  She has said she would be happy to hand deliver it.  If we can do that, she'll also take over a letter from our family to give the children where they will find out about us for the first time and she'll also try to videotape them reading the letter.  If she can't do that, she'll at least photograph them reading it.  I'm walking around smiling and crying today!  It's all coming together so beautifully!  Please pray that our dossier is ready in time.

A few of you have asked about Susanna.  She was just in for her 1 year well baby check yesterday at our regular family doctor's office and is doing great!  She even crossed over 20lb.    Her next appointment with the NeuroFibromatosis clinic is in 2 more months.  Thank you to all who continue to pray for God's mercy for her.

Love, Dawn

We had our second homestudy meeting today and actually finished up all of the questions.  We'd been going to have one more visit next Friday, but that's no longer needed.  She said, "Everything looks great!"  Woo-hoo!  She is going to start writing everything up on Monday and should have it finished by the end of the week.  In the meantime, we need to go in and get physicals plus do FBI background checks, as we haven't lived in Ohio for at least five years.  Once all that is finished up, we'll be able to mail off the dossier to Liberia.  That will be wonderful because once it is received we can get in touch with the children!  They have changed the length of time that it takes once the dossier is received in the country.  We previously were looking at the adoption being finalized around June, but are now looking at somewhere in the range of August-October.

Love, Dawn

We are adopting children from Liberia!  We are sooooooooooooooooo excited!  We have sent in the preliminary application and been approved and have now sent in the next big application.  Our next step is the homestudy.  We are going through Children Concerned, which we learned of through Above Rubies.  If all goes well, the adoption should be finalized around June of next year.  We cannot officially "claim" any children until the homestudy is approved, but our hearts are so very drawn towards a pair of siblings - Christian (5) and Princess (8).  We are lifting them up in prayer each day as a family and praying that they might join us and become our very own children.

On a different note, several people have contacted me wanting to know how we did a high fat diet for our baby.  We have been giving her 3tsps of fat each day.  We give her 1tsp of virgin coconut oil, 1 tsp of red palm oil, and then 1tsp of either one of those again or of heavy cream.  We just mix them right on into her foods.  For example, you can use a fork to mash up fresh banana and the teaspoon of virgin coconut oil into quite the tasty concoction. 

Love, Dawn