Hurry Up and Wait

Happy DTE (dossier to Ethiopa) for the Kulp Clan!!

What does all this mean? Our dossier has been logged in and is headed to Ethiopia (insert sigh of relief). I can't tell you exactly where we are in line but we believe we are in the 20ish spot in line. There are many families ahead of us but some of them are requesting either girl or boy and sibling groups. That being said, this is an unofficial list and doesn't really mean much given the unpredictable elements that pop up in adoption.

January...February...March...Hurry up and wait.

Is it time to buy hair bows yet?

We Have Lift Off!!!

Hello Friends!

I am staring at a completed dossier sitting on my counter. Truth be told, I have been staring at it for 2 months. But, today is different. Today is the LAST DAY I will stare at this pile of paperwork that was painstakingly gathered and has touched many, many hands. Today is the LAST day I will wonder when we will be ready, when we will be certain, when we will be mailing the silly pile.

Because TODAY we were awarded a $3,000 matching grant from Lifesong for Orphans. This means a potential $6,000 towards our adoption, the money we will need to accept our baby gir's referral when it comes.

Our God is so awesome. When we started waiting for this money I was so frustrated. The "whens" turned into "whys" and "hows" and then "how could you's!"

But God is bigger than my ranting, kinder than our imaginings, and more faithful than our expectations. As if we hadn't received enough grace and blessing through our first two adoptions, our BIG God chose to show us his grace in the one area we struggled to surrender: our finances.

He owns all of the cattle on a thousand hills. He has blessed the work of our hands and has given us abundance.

We ask that you would pray with us that the $3,000 would indeed come in to make this grant complete.

Praise Him from whom all blessings (and GRANTS!) flow!

Blogging is a luxury I don't have...and pictures

So, I have no time to blog lately. Sorry! We are doing well, same-old-same-old really. The boys are growing and as crasher-basher-dasher as ever. They are a perfect fit. Adoption is redemption, my friends, redemption on earth!

I've taken on a job solely to raise money for the baby-girl project and God has truly blessed us thus far! We had an awesome first garage sale where we raised 1300$ and are looking forward to having a second sometime in August/September when our schedule allows.

Right now we are waiting to send our dossier for a few more weeks but we reserve the right to change our minds at any time. This is a luxury we deserve!

And now, what you really want to see, the dynamic "dopted" duo!

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Where We Are

While I'd love to bring you a meaningful, heartfelt post about how much we are longing for our daughter and what God is doing in our lives (and we are, and He is doing much), I am just too busy running around with these critters. And I mean RUNNING! Micah David is super fast and almost 2. I can barely keep up at this point. It's a crazy life that I LOVE living.

This journey will certainly be a LONG one for our family. So was the last. In light of that, I thought I would give everyone an idea of where we are in the process.

We are almost done with our paperwork and have submitted for our I-171H document from immigration. There's a long formal name for this but basically its the piece of paper stating "Yes, you can bring a child you barely know into a country she doesn't know and raise her. Have FUN!"

Once we have this document, we'll be able to complete our dossier and send it to Ethiopia.

THEN, the fun of FUNdraising begins. We have grants we are applying for, a garage sale on the calendar, and a huge bash planned.

Stay Tuned!

Our New Journey-- There and Back Again

It's been a nice, welcomed, needed break from living our life in public, I mean blogging.

But now we're back. Literally. We are back to it, back at it, back IN it.

We were there. We saw. And we cannot forget. The faces are forever seared in our minds, branded on our hearts. It's not a calling any longer. It's obedience.

This life of ours, our missionary hearts, are bound to obey. This is our walk in obedience and our love song to a God who walked the infinately hard, miserable, chaos for us.

So we are going back. This time for a different kind of magic, our daughter.

Amari Alana Kulp (story to follow)

So there.

REFERRALVERSARY!!!

Happy 1 Year Referralversary!!!

It's been 1 year since we saw our Micah David for the first time. I can't believe how time has flown! So much of this year was spent waiting, praying, dreaming, crying for our baby. Now we are so blessed to be chasing after him and trying to keep that precious smile on his face!!!

He's gone through so much since our first meeting. He can walk, talk, laugh, sing, dance, run after his brother, hit, laugh at himself in the mirror, play peek-a-boo and duck duck goose, and make ANYONE who meets him fall madly in love.

He's our JOY!

Enjoy the video!!!


Happy Referralversary!!!

Manic Monday Picture

There's nothing like a box to make hours of fun!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry