The next chapter begins

Our journey is almost done after 2 1/2 years. Our final step will be to adopt Silas here in America. A few more dollars and a little more time. Some of you have followed from the beginning, some part way, and some towards the end. We wanted to take the time to say thank you for your committment to staying update on our adoption and for praying for us. Honestly, I don’t know how we would have gotten through it without you.

Not only have we gained a son, but many friendships along the way. Thank you to those who reached out to encourage us through notes, a phone call and those who gave finanically. You are apart of Silas’s story now. I’m looking forward to sharing all you have done on his behalf. He will surely know he is loved. 

While I have your attention one more time I wanted to tell you again that without God this would not have been possible. We give Him all honor and glory for this story. Looking back over our journey I am amazed at God’s grace over this one child and his forever family. I saw God do things I had never experienced before. I saw Him move in a way only He could. He was our refuge, strength, and comforter. I learned a lot about myself through this journey. The things I learned I am forever grateful. I would do this journey all over again because I walked away changed. 

Over the past 11 days it has been like a honeymoon for our family. He has adjusted so well. I believe in our time apart God grew my love for him. I was ready for him and he was ready for us. I do believe that he remembered us only because of God. He remembered this silly game I did with him before. He adjusted so quickly to us that it affirms in my heart that he did remember. When I will look at him and don’t believe he is with us. When I am driving and I hear him sucking his fingers I look back just to make sure I am not day dreaming. We love the way he whines and cries. We love his smile. We love that when he is walking next to us he has to hold our hand. We all can’t get enough of him. I love him like my own and that is only because of God. 

We are now onto the next chapter of our lives. We will be heading to the doctor soon to get our referral for a specialist for his head. We don’t know any details so until we do I don’t need to share. I want the facts. I don’t know what the future holds for him, but we are trusting in God’s plan. 

Thank you for coming on this journey with us. We have been changed and pray that you have to. 

Thank you God for choosing Silas to be in our family. Thank you for making the impossible possible. Thank you for holding our tears on the hard days and throwing a party when we brought Silas home. Thanks for helping us finanically just when we needed it. Your faithfulness has changed my heart. Thanks for teaching us every step of the way even when it was painful. Thank you for being the Rock we needed to stand on. You are my Abba Father. I will praise you until my last breathe. 

Approved

Some of you already know the whole story, but some of you will be finding out the details here. So here it is. 

Tim and I were thinking about going over Thursday the 26th regardless of whether we heard or not. For many reasons that were logical and some that weren’t. I decided to email our attorney to get her professional opinion. At this point Tim and I were feeling at peace about going. The lawyer emailed later in the evening after Tim was at his board meeting. She said that we probably wouldn’t hear this week for several reasons and that we should give it at least 2 weeks to hear. So she said if you want to go without hearing then plan on staying 3-4 weeks. You know my first thought, “NO WAY!” Been there done that and not doing it again! 

I was able to tell Tim the bad news when he got home from his meeting. From there it just got worse. Our 1600a paperwork is going to expire in a couple weeks which then would take several additional weeks to get that done. Then our home study would need to be redone which would take at least 4 weeks. As I lay there thinking I thought it would be months before Silas would be home. My heart was hurting. I was asking WHY.

At 5:45 a.m. Tim came into the room and told me we got the email. I quickly sat up. I made him repeat himself.  Well to make it more intense Tim had spent the last 45 minutes trying to open it. I had told him before we got the email that if it was a yes then we would get 2 emails and one of those emails would have the password. He couldn’t even get the first one downloaded, but we did have two emails. We were pretty confident it was a yes, but we wanted to read it with our own eyes. I forwarded the emails onto our lawyer and within an hour she was able to open it and tell us YES!!!!!!!! Honestly, there are no words to describe that moment. Speechless and humbled. My soul was overflowing. 

So what’s next. We got our flights booked. We are leaving this Thursday! I still can’t believe it. =) Once we get into country we will get some much needed rest and then take the 2 hour trip to be with our son. We spend time at the orphanage and seeing some old friends. That week we will be busy getting another medical exam done because his other one expired after 6 months. We will also going to the Embassy to make sure they know we are in country and to give them his passport so they can put his visa in there. 

Here is our prayer requests.

1) That our approval paperwork makes it to Kampala quickly

2) That God is preparing our hearts and Silas’ for our reunion 

3) That we can get his medical done quickly and get his visa quickly

We have been reflecting in our hearts all the ways God has made this possible. My friend Gail said it best, “This boy must be one special boy for God to go to battle for him just to be with your family.” God did all this for one little boy. It just proves that God does care about the little details in our lives. 

God has heard our prayer and answered.

Thank you for continuing to cover us in prayer. 

31

I had a friend, Amanda, who had approached me about doing a fundraiser through Thirty-One. This company is popular, but if you haven’t heard of them you can check them out at http://www.mythirtyone.com/warden/. They sell lunch bags, purses, beach bags and many more items. They are quality items and so far I have only heard good things about their products.

Here is where you come in. Would you consider hosting a catalog or online party in Silas’ name?  The cool thing is people all over the states can help us with this. You don’t have live close to us to host a party. Amanda said she would take care of all the details for us. All you have to do is contact her. Here are the two options.

1) Invite friends to your house where they can look at the thirty one catalog. If you want to get creative I could send you pictures of Silas, you could decorate your home in an African theme or serve African food. 

2) Through Amanda's website you will be able to send Evites to your friends. You could set a specific time and date for this online party. So there is no party in your home, but just friends ordering online. That's it!

We are thinking that these parties would take place sometime in April. Amanda said there are some great rewards in the month of April. In addition to helping a great cause the host person will also get FREE GIFTS from ThirtyOne.

Another way to help us is if you have some extra flyer miles you would like to donate to us to help bring home Silas. The price of tickets are going up quickly because of the Olympics coming up soon. Within a two week time period tickets have gone up 400 dollars. 

We should be sending out our second round of evidence to Nairobi hopefully this week and then we wait again. Please pray that we take the right steps according to God’s timing. 

Please continue to pray for our hearts as well as Silas in preparing us for our reunion. We desperately want to pick up where we left off. 

Please also continue to pray for our finances. We still have to pay for his ticket, cost of going to Uganda for a week, his visa is going to cost 404 dollars, updated home study, and the cost of sending our evidence again. 

Again, if you host a party in your home or online you will get a cool FREE GIFT. If you are interested or have questions you can contact me on facebook or at 

writeme_tb@hotmail.com. Or you can contact Amanda at http://www.mythirtyone.com/warden/

New Home for Boyd's Adoption

Hey this is the new home of our blog.  Sorry that we moved it.  The other site was just costing too much money and this one is free.  (Kind of a no-brainer).

I (Tim) will try and re-post all of our old blogs up here very soon.  The new blogs should be coming fast and furious.  Hopefully we will be posting a bunch when we find out we are going back to get him and when we get him home!