Finally a Court Date!

Well, 2 months after receiving our referral for Nestie, we finally have a court date! This Monday, the 10th! Please pray that we will pass court and that the Congolese authorities will declare us her parents. We will probably not hear anything for 2 weeks or so but that's okay - our caseworker said no news is good news :) Starting Dec. 10, if we pass court, we will begin our 30 day wait for our CONA. During this 30 days, her birth family has a chance to appeal the court's decision. At the end of the 30 days, if no one appeals it, we will get our Certificate of Non-Appeal and then a birth certificate with her name and our last name! We are hoping to travel in late February or early March. I'm attaching a picture of a pumpkin that Josh's dad carved in honor of Nestie :) Thanks for your prayers!

One Month Down

Well it has been one month since we received our referral of our precious baby girl! Sometimes it's hard to believe it's already been a month an sometimes it seems like longer. Where are we right now? Last week, there was a birth judgment hearing to determine that she was actually born because her birth wasn't registered in the first 90 days. We should hear in the next two weeks that that is complete and find out our court date which will hopefully be at the beginning of December. Also, our dossier is on its way to DRC as we speak!! We are optimistically praying to travel sometime in February but realize that that may not happen. Will you pray with us that the court process will be quick and that we will travel in February or earlier? Thanks!

Happy 1st Birthday!!

Today is "N's" first birthday. In a way it is bittersweet. We are thankful the Lord has sustained her life for this first year yet sad that we can't celebrate this special day with her. She probably doesn't even know that it is her special day. When I think about Abbey and Hannah's first birthdays and the HUGE celebrations we had with many friends and family, I am saddened that we can't have that party for her too. Hopefully we will be able to adopt her and this will be the last birthday she celebrates without a family.

In other news, we found out yesterday that we will still get our Show Hope grant after all!!! We are so thankful for the Lord's provision for our adoption! Lets bring this little girl home!! Thanks for praying!

One HUGE step forward, one GIANT step back...

So, we heard back from one of our grant applications today that we cannot be approved for a grant because they only work with non-profits and ALBB is a for-profit!!! What???!!! We had no idea that there was such a thing as a for-profit adoption agency.

What does this mean for us? The $5,000 Show Hope grant we were rewarded will most likely not be able to be used because they only award grants to 501c3 agencies. I called them and the lady I needed to speak to will be out of the office until tomorrow.

We are not switching agencies again. This agency has proven to be very ethical and trustworthy. This just means that instead of the $4,000 we thought we needed to accept the referral, we now need about $8,000 ($9,000 minus a generous donation and some money I got today from selling jewelry)...this is needed ASAP. I'm so tired of talking about/trying to raise money...

Will you please pray that I will not get discouraged?? And that I will trust in God's perfect provision for our adoption?? Also, will you please pray that He will provide this money ASAP so we can move forward in this process to bring our daughter home??

Thanks

Referral Time

We have some exciting news!!!! At about 10 Saturday night, I opened my email and saw the words, "Referral Time" in the subject line!!! We were shocked! Two weeks before we had been told it would be 1-2 months until referral and it was only 2 weeks!! I still feel like it's kinda surreal...we've been in this process for so long and now it feels like we might actually get to finish it :)
So, our referral is for a beautiful little girl who will be a year old on October 11!!! I wish I could post her picture but I can't yet.

Would you pray that The Lord will keep her safe and healthy until we can brig her home? Also that the rest of this process might go quickly? Hopefully 4 months? Average is 4-6 months from now.

Yay!!!!

Hand in Hand

We found out yesterday that we were approved by Hand in Hand for a matching grant up to $2500!! Praise The Lord!! That means everything donated up to that amount will be doubled! If you are interested in donating this way, you write the checks to "Hand in Hand Christian Adoption." Do not put our name anywhere on the check because of the non-profit aspect of the agency. Oh, and your checks will be tax-deductible! Then, mail the check to Hand in Hand Christian Adoption, Joshua Koenig Family, 18318 Mimosa Ct, Gardner, KS 66030. If anyone wants to purchase a tshirt or any of our other fundraisers you can write a check to them for that too and it will be doubled :) It has to be postmarked by November 8. Thanks for considering!

Also, we had a yard sale today and made $341!! Thanks to everyone who donated stuff and/or time to help us out! You are greatly appreciated!

According to our social worker, she is hoping to have a referral for us in the next 6 weeks :) BIG SMILE!!

Oh, and some dear friends of ours came home with their girls this past Monday from Congo!!!

Oh, and one more thing - our next fundraiser is a pancake breakfast on Saturday, October 13. If you can come, RSVP by Friday, October 5. Thanks again!!

Little Treasures

Well, after 12 days of the Little Treasures sale, we made $576!! Praise the Lord! I finally figured out how to upload pictures with my phone so here is one of our booth. I'm not sure what order they will put these pics but I'll also include a couple of our trip to Frankfort. Oh, and an update. We mailed our dossier last week so now we are officially on the waiting list again!! One of the pictures shows our massive 3" stack of papers that we sent in! Please pray with us that we will get a referral soon. Thanks!

Happenings

Well, it has been an EXTREMELY BUSY week!! I was accepted as a vendor for a HUGE consignment sale that lasts 12 days..I was very excited about this event but had no idea what to expect...well, the Lord has blown me away! We have made quite a bit of money so far and there are still 5 days left!! All I have done for the past week is make bows. I've made at least 300. Although I did not do this all myself - I had multiple friends come and spend hours helping plus my parents have graciously kept our girls for the past 6 days so they could have some fun while mommy was preoccupied. They come home tomorrow and we sure are ready to see them!

Also, Josh was off today and we drove to Frankfort to get our final documents state certified for our dossier!! Yay!! What's next? Well, tomorrow Josh will make 3 copies of the 1" stack of papers for our dossier, then scan it and send it to our agency. Then on Thursday he will FedEx it to them along with some money!! Then we will officially be "paper ready" again and could really have a referral at any time!! Woohoo!!!

We have applied for a couple of grants and are working on the applications for two more. We also have a pancake breakfast and silent auction planned with some other friends who are adopting. Finally, I have at least 2, potentially 3, more craft shows coming up. Oh, and a yard sale. We also still have several Shirts left. Therefore, we are entering a busy season of fundraising. Hopefully it will be our final push :)

How can you pray? Well, first, we are supposed to send $9000 with our dossier. We don't have $9000 so we aren't sending all of that at this time, just some of it...hopefully that will be okay. Please pray that the Lord will provide the funds exactly when they are needed and that we will trust Him in this. Also, pray that the Lord will prepare the hearts of our children for the changes that will be coming in our family. Pray that the Lord will be glorified in every aspect of this process and that our unbelieving friends/family will come to know Him, even possibly through this process. Thanks for journeying with us!

Oh, I wish I could post pictures from today but I can't from our phone so you will have to just imagine us at the capital building :)

Please Pray

Please, please get on your knees before the Lord and pray for our dear friends. All I will say is that they too are in the adoption process and both of their children are now "missing." These children are legally theirs. Please pray that the Lord will sustain them through this trial. Pray that the people responsible will be held accountable and that they will be saved. Pray that many will come to know the Lord because of their faith shown through this trial. Please pray that justice will be done for these precious children and that they will be found and be able to come home very very soon...Also, because of safety reasons, if you know these people please do not leave a comment with any more details or names of them or their children. Thank you!

Gearing Up

Well the season is beginning...the season of craft shows, that is...last Friday evening some awesome friends came over and helped build my bow stockpile as I am planning for the many shows coming up. First, there is a HUGE consignment sale twice a year here called Little Treasures. This fall it lasts from Aug. 28- Sept. 8. They have accepted me as a vendor! I am planning to sell bows, flower clips, and cookbooks. I am super excited and hopeful that we will sell TONS! The only downfall is that the company keeps 30% of my profits :(

Then I just found out about a free craft show towards the end of September and I have 2 in October. Plus we have a few more events that I'm hoping to set up a booth at too. I'm really excited about these coming months and what it will mean for our adoption.

Where we are - we are finishing up the final documents we need to submit out dossier to our new agency. We still have to get them county and state certified and then we can mail the whole thing in along with LOTS of money. Then we could pretty much get a referral anytime!! Woohoo!! So we are filling out several grant applications and trying to sell the rest of our tshirts an anything else we possibly can to come up with our dossier fees.

How can you pray? Pray that all the money will come in in the Lord's perfect time and that we will trust Him in this. Pray for our future son/daughter that the Lord will already be working in his/her heart to become part of out family. Finally, an urgent prayer request for our dear friends. Their daughter is in the Congo waiting to come home and is hospitalized with chicken pox. Please pray for complete healing for her and that her passport will come in so they can bring her home. Also pray for their son that justice will be done for him. Thanks!!

Adopt Shop

I'm really excited to introduce an easy, quick way to purchase our fundraising items: The Adopt Shop!! It is similar to Etsy but they do not charge a fee and only adopting families can put items on this site. Here is our link: Koenig Family Adopt Shop Here you can find almost all of our fundraising items: cookbooks, tshirts, necklaces, flower clips, headbands, blankets, etc. I'm going to try to update this site weekly. We just opened our shop last night and already had one sale! I'm hoping that this will travel outside of our immediate circle of friends/family (who certainly can order here too) so if you wouldn't mind to share our link, that would be great! If you are local, you can send me an email at Kristen's Email and order that way so you won't be charged the minimal shipping fee that is included on this site. This is a great place to buy all your birthday, Christmas, baby shower, etc gifts! Just think, you can buy your gifts and help orphans come home all at one place! There are some other sellers on there too so be sure to check out their unique items as well. Oh, and I put a link to this site on the left side bar of my page so you can easily find it in the future. Thanks so much!!

Why do I ever doubt??

Why? Why do I ever doubt the goodness of God?? Why do I ever doubt how great His love is for His people and for the orphans? Why do I ever doubt that He will provide for our adoption??

So this week I've been especially discouraged about the funds needed for our adoption. I know, in my head, that the Lord loves us and desires to see orphans placed in Christian homes. And I know that He will provide every single penny we need to bring our child home. But sometimes I doubt. The amount of money needed at times seems insurmountable to me. The reality is that nothing, not even $32,000+ is impossible to God.

Twice now we have come to our prayer room on Sunday morning overwhelmed with discouragement over the money needed for our adoption. The first time was several months ago and the next day the Lord provided. Today we came and our brothers and sisters prayed for us to have peace about this and to trust completely in the Lord. You see, we are not in control of even one little bit of this adoption, but the Lord is.

Then, two extremely unexpected and unrelated things happened this afternoon. First some old friends, whom we haven't seen in 6 years came to buy some adoption shirts. Not only did they buy more than we thought they would, but they wrote a check to Lifesong for double the amount of the shirts simply because Lifesong would double their check. We were blown away by the kindness of this brother and sister!

Then, this evening, some very dear friends gave us a sweet, homemade card. Inside the card was a very generous check, also made out to Lifesong. We love this couple dearly and were brought to tears by the kindness of the Lord shown through them. Thank you to both of these families for helping us bring our child home.

Neither one of these families were in our prayer room today. However, God was. He heard our prayers and He answered them immediately and so much more abundantly than we thought He would. Because these two families were obedient to the Lord with their money, we are closer to bringing our child home and our Lifesong grant has been completely met and then some!! Praise the Lord and thank you for praying and serving us!!

Starting Over...Almost

Well, I'm really feeling like we are completely starting over in this process lately. And we really kinda are. We have a new agency, almost had to start over with fundraising, new grant applications, doctor appointments, background checks, an extremely different dossier (even though we'd already had one translated for our old agency) and so on...

I know that this was the right move, the ethical move, and, most importantly, the move that pleases God but it's hard not to get discouraged and bogged down by the feeling of "starting over." I remember how long we saved for the first set of dossier fees and how excited we were to finally be on the wait list and now we are saving again and praying we have enough money to submit a new dossier to a new agency in about 3 weeks after my doctor appointment.

I just want to see our child's face! No, that's not entirely true - I want to hold our child in my arms and never let them go! I want them to have the assurance of a mommy and daddy's love, plenty of food to eat, and the knowledge of our Savior who died for them.

I know many people have been in this process longer than we have but it's been 16 months and we are practically starting over. Although hopefully, with ALBB the process will truly be finished in the next 9 months. I'm just tired and ready to be done...I know it will be finished in the Lord's timing but I'm ready...

Yay!! Shirts are in!!

I'm so excited!! Our shirts came in today! I can't wait to pass them out!! If you didn't get a chance to order one yet, we ordered lots of extras so just let me know what size and color and we probably still have it.

In other news, since we switched agencies, we are working on a new dossier and this one is much more detailed than the first so it's taking a little longer than we hoped to get it completed. However, that gives us more time to save for our referral fee.

We are also busy applying for a few more grants. Oh, and about those 4 little girls I mentioned, I found out a family is praying about them so I'm hoping they will be led to adopt them!

Thanks for following!!

More Details

Okay, I thought I should give a few more details about what's going on with us. We have switched to a new agency and are very excited about this! We did much research this time around and are confident that we are now working with an ethical agency that truly cares for the children and families they are working with. With this switch, we unfortunately lost a lot of money but we are confident the Lord will provide every penny we need to bring our child home. He has provided already for us in several unexpected ways since making the switch. We also have several fundraising opportunities/events coming up in the next few months. One of those fundraisers is a t-shirt sale. I would upload a picture but am not sure how to do that with a phone. If you are interested in seeing/ordering our shirts you can email me at koenigkristen@yahoo.com and I will send you the picture :) The Lord has really blessed this fundraiser so far!! We recently found out about 4 sibling girls that our agency is trying tomato with a family. Please pray with us that they will be matched soon and not have to be split up. Thanks for all your prayers!!

It's Been A Long Time

Wow, it has been a really long time since I have updated our blog! We have been without a computer for a long time and so I have been unable to update this. However, we are still in the adoption process and actually have had some pretty big changes!! Recently it came to our attention that our agency was participating in some unethical practices. We desire an ethical, upright adoption that reflects Jesus at every step. Therefore, after seeking counsel from some elders at Our church as well as some families that have already adopted, we terminate our contract wih that agency and have switched to A Love Beyond Borders. We are very excited about this new agency! Abbey is up from a nap so I must go for now but I will update more soon! Thanks for your continued prayers!!

Getting Ready...

My first craft show of the spring is the 31st and I've been busy getting ready for it. I've made over 50 flower bows and still have another 50 to go...I've also been working on regular bows, clips, cute bow holders, and fleece baby snuggle blankets...Plus we have our necklaces, cookbooks, and headbands as well...It's a busy week but I'm excited to bring in some more money to bring our child home! Thought you'd like to see a few pics of our merchandise. If there's anything you'd like, let me know :) I will be adding more pics later this week.

 

Exciting News

Well we just found out that we have a new number!!! We are now number

Please ignore the date at the bottom...I just though this was a cute image.) This means we jumped 3 spaces in 5 days!! Woohoo!!! Only 2 families in front of us now!! It's getting so very close! I can't wait to see a picture of our child and find out if it's a boy or girl!

This means that we have got to get on the ball with fundraising - we still need approximately $10,000 (maybe a little more) to finish this race. You can still donate to our matching grant at Lifesong for Orphans (we need another $2,600 to fully fund this grant). Let me know if you want the address to mail the check. We are also selling African necklaces, cookbooks, bows, fleece blankets, and headbands if you are interested. Send me an email at Koenigkristen@yahoo.com if you'd like to somehow contribute financially to our adoption.

Please join us in prayer as we are entering the final stretches for the referral process. Please pray that the Lord will begin to prepare our hearts and our future child's heart to become a family. Please pray for the orphanage and the workers - that they will be kept safe. Please pray that the Lord will be glorified throughout this process. Also, this is a long stretch, but nothing is too great for the Lord - we are in this process with some good friends of ours who are also adopting from the same agency/orphanage. They received their referrals a month ago. It would be AMAZING if we could get our referral quickly and potentially travel with them to pick up our children.

Thanks for reading!!

African Necklaces

I'd like to introduce you all to our newest fundraiser.

No, we aren't selling our children :) Our precious girls are modelling our African necklaces that our dear friends, Keith & Julie, brought back for us when they brought home their daughter from Ethiopia. These necklaces were made by African women to help support their families. Each individual bead takes approximately 24 hours to make. They are made by rolling up any kind of paper they can find, then dyeing the beads and putting them all together. Even though they are made of paper, they are very durable and feel as though they may be shellacked (sp?). You can wear them as one long strand (like Abbey is), double them up (like Hannah), or even wrap them a third time.

We have lots of multicolored necklaces, some even have some larger beads mixed in, some yellow, green, purple, gray/black, and 1 blue necklace as well. I am not the world's greatest photographer, and these pictures don't really do these beautiful necklaces justice :) We are selling them for $10 apiece and if you need them shipped, please add $2. These would make great gifts (even for Mother's Day in May). *IBC people, we know there are some other families also selling these for their adoptions so please do not feel any pressure to buy from us :) We love to support adoptions and totally understand if you choose not to buy one from us and buy one from another family instead!!

We are also still selling our cookbooks, blankets, hairbows, and headbands (check out our fundraiser link) if you are interested.

Thanks again!!

Long Time, No Post

Well,
It's been over a month since I've last blogged and I thought I should update our "followers" on our progress. We are currently #6 on the waiting list for our child. We are slowly moving, maybe about a number a month or so but we are hopeful that will pick up soon as there are many children at our orphanage simply waiting for all their paperwork to be completed.

Although our adoption hasn't moved much, we have seen God work in miraculous ways in the past month in the adoptions of several of our friends. Justin and Bonnie brought their two precious children home on February 15 after she spent almost 3 months in Ethiopia while our entire church family and many more people prayed that the Lord would move mountains so they could come home. AND HE DID!! Then, our other friends, Keith and Julie, are leaving tomorrow to bring their 8 year old daughter home from Ethiopia. Our friends, Jon & Bethany, will hopefully be travelling in March/April to bring their 2 children home from the Congo. Our friends Adam & Ruth, accepted their referrals for 2 yr old and 4 yr old sisters. Also, two families at our church have recently been approved for foster-to-adopt and are simply waiting for "the call"!! So, we are thrilled to see how the Lord is working in the adoptions of our friends!!

It is time for us to get back on the fundraising wagon so I have scheduled 2 craft shows (one in March and one in May). We also still have many bows, blankets, cookbooks, etc. and we have ordered some African necklaces to sell as well. They are beautiful!

Please pray for us that we would not grow weary or discouraged as we wait and wait and wait and wait....Thanks for your support!!

Blog Design by Bethany

Some friends of ours, Jon & Bethany are currently in the process of adopting 2 children from the DRC. Check out their blog at wewillcometoyou.blogspot.com They have their referral for their little boy and are waiting for their little girl. In order to raise the remaining funds needed, Bethany has started her own blog design fundraiser. Her blog for this fundraiser is here www.blogdesignbybethany.blogspot.com 100% of the proceeds go to support adoption! They need to raise $6550 to complete their adoption. Once they have raised all the money needed for their adoption, they will continue this fundraiser to help other adopting families bring their children home.

She created the new header and signature for my blog and don't they look AWESOME??!! She can do headers, signatures, blog buttons, custom fonts, and a complete blog makeover! All of her prices are very reasonable and remember all the proceeds go to fund adoptions. You can check out her services/pricing here. She can match your header to your blog or in my case, I told her I would be changing my background soon (she has a link to free backgrounds) so she simply created a header that would go with just about anything.

This is an awesome, original way to fundraise...after all, how many people out there have blogs that looked like mine did? Just a plain header that came from the Blogger design because I don't have a clue how to make my own headers and things like that...So, if you have a blog and would like to spice it up or know someone whose blog needs a little TLC, pass this info on to them or send Bethany a message. You can help bring 2 children (eventually more than that) home and give your blog a makeover in the process.

Blessings,