Silent Auction for our Girl, come and shop March 1st!

We are pretty excited about our next fundraiser!  It's an online silent auction that will open on March 1st and will go until March 7th.  There will be a picture of each item and to make a bid you just comment under the picture with the amount you are bidding, highest bidder at the end of the auction (10pm CST) on March 7th, WINS!!!

There is some pretty cool stuff on there already but we are still taking donations and would love to showcase anything you may have made or want to donate.  All I need is a picture of the item sent ot me by Friday, Feb 28th, just leave me a message on here or find me on FB.

We have Thirty-One, Mary Kay, jewelry, gifts from other countries and an iPad mini to name a few things.  All starting bids are about half the price, or more than half, of the value of the item so there will be good deals and best of all, 100% will go to our adoption.

Since we have switched to special needs in China we currently have $3,000 to raise to update our home study and get all the needed documents to China to be available for a child who is waiting.

Here's a sneak peek at a few of the items to bid on.....

I will post the link to join the group here once it is open, so save your shopping for March 1st and shop for a cause :)

His Plans Are Not Our Own.

Well we have some pretty BIG NEWS to share and it is bittersweet for all of us but we are excited for this new journey and have to keep remembering that God creates amazing stories when you listen and open your heart to His direction.

So I'll just spill it and then give you the back story later because it really is quite an emotional and "only God" type of story and I know there will be a lot of questions so I'm hoping to explain them here.

WE'RE ADOPTING FROM CHINA!!!!!

As I type this I have to admit my heart is excited, nervous and broken.   Anyone that knows me knows how close Ethiopia and Africa are to my heart.  This has been this way for a long time but then when you have a child from another country, that country becomes even more part of your heart and your life.  Our son's father lives in Ethiopia, he has family there, he has friends there, his culture is there and we all can't wait to return to his homeland for a visit and to reunite with so many we miss.  We WILL still go back to Ethiopia, that is a promise, it might not be as soon as we expected but we will return but for now we are seeing that God has another place for us in the adoption world. 

First, I know many of you may want to know:  How does Fetinet feel about the change from Ethiopia to China?

This was a big part of our decision, we couldn't even really entertain the idea until we talked to him and to be honest I was nervous to start that conversation but to my surprise after explaining why, he understood and although he is excited to return to Ethiopia he also understands what is going on there and that there are kids all over that need moms and dads and so in his words "Sure, let's go to China!"  Jalen on the other hand was a little more upset, in his words "my sister is supposed to have brown skin like my brother (pouty, sad face)"  I pulled up pictures of children in China so he could see what his future sister may look like and we had a talk about the needs there and of course like anything with Jalen, all was fine in a couple minutes.

So although there are so many details to how we came to this change and I can't wait to share those, I will leave that for another post.  I want to answer the majority of the questions I think most will have, so here it goes.

Did Ethiopia shut down adoptions?  No they didn't.  There was talk about it and they definitely have slowed WAY down due to some changes in government decisions but there are still families waiting and brining kids home.  Every agency is different and has a different amount of "waiting children", families waiting and orphanages they work with.  I assure you, we didn't switch to China because we didn't want to wait.  There is a lot to the story but basically God showed us some doors were closing and others were opening at the same time and we followed.

Are you still adopting a girl and what age?  Yes, our parameters for a girl under 5 years old are still there.  Since Jalen is so excited to be a big brother finally, we are respecting his wishes on this BUT something is changing......we will be adopting a "special needs child" but in the category of a minor correctable special need (ex: cleft lip and/or palate).  In the adoption world you are given a long list of "special needs" checkboxes ranging from vision or hearing problems to cerebral palsy to physical irregularities to well, everything.  It is the HARDEST part of the process for me, having to look down a list and choose what I could accept or handle.  There are a lot of emotions when doing this from thinking as a physical therapist who has worked with all ranges of special needs children, I can handle it all to realizing, as a physical therapist I have a lot of student loans, I have to work full time, Jason has to work full time and how we just may not be the best family for many of those checkboxes.  BUT there are many on there that we have checked and many that we have recently had our eyes opened to and hearts softened for.  China is a special needs only adoption country unless you are adopting older than 8 or 9 years and thus long story short again, God has broken our hearts and opened the right doors and we are following. 

How long will it take?  How many trips?  Who all will go?  There's no guarantee on time as with any country or agency but once our dossier is submitted to China we can expect possibly 8-12 months before referral, although again it could be shorter too.  China is a 1 trip process and although only 1 parent has to go we will be trying our hardest to find a way to get us all there.  The boys are such a HUGE part of this adoption, they are excited about it, they pray about it, they plan out what life will be like once their sister is here and they really want to go.  Side note, if you ask Jalen, he will tell you his sister is 4, named Ellapi and will go to his school and he will be helping her at school :) 

Where are we at and what's the next step?  Because China is part of the Hague Convention we will have to resubmit our USCIS info and this time will be working on an I-800A instead of an I-600A, this little change in form numbers equates to a $720 fee (boo) but our fingerprints are still valid until Feb 2015 so we don't have to make another OKC trip for fingerprints at least (yay).  Also because of the Hague convention, our home study will be updated through our same social worker but through an agency that is Hague accredited.  There will be some fees associated with this as well but we'll figure it all out.  So we will be getting our home study updated, working on  China dossier and once submitted we will be a waiting family again. 

So we are asking for prayers to continue in this new journey as much will be new to us and as we still overcome the "loss" of what we planned.  Do I think we heard God wrong when we started the process to adopt from Ethiopia again?  NOPE not at all...we have seen so many times how God takes people down roads first because he knows that's how to get their attention.  I can promise you if earlier this year I was being told "adopt from China" I wouldn't have listened, maybe because I'm stubborn, likely because I wouldn't understand. In the last few months being in the process to adopt from Ethiopia has led me to so many stories and people and ultimately has opened my heart and mind to be able to say with confidence "this is where we are supposed to be".



Dossier is DONE!

Well after months of gathering the documents (and having to have some re-done), our dossier is complete!  It was mailed out today ad should arrive at our agency by Friday!  This is very exciting although we still have one more small step before it can go any further...what is that one small step you ask?

Oh just come up with about $2,900


This is a lot but when I look at the fact that in October that number was $5,500, it makes me feel a little bit better.  One way we have been able to raise money is through Ordinary Hero by tax-deductible donations made at http://grouprev.com/expectingfromethiopia

and only until FEBRUARY 1st, 2014 we can receive 40% of all sales made under our family name at the awesome Ordinary Hero store http://www.ordinaryherostore.org/ 

(just click on "oneal,joely" under affiliate)

Once we are fully funded for this step then ...

-The state sealed documents of our dossier will be sent to Washington DC to be authenticated by State Dept and Ethiopian Embassy

-Once all documents are returned to our agency they will be put into a final format and sent to the Ethiopian staff with our agency, at this point we can be officially able to be given a referral of a child (or children) in need of a family.

As I type this my heart is excited for that day to come and at the same time sad and broken because it also means there is a child or children out there that don't know the love of a family to call their own and to be honest, as excited as we will be, they will be scared.  I wished we could skip those steps and fast forward till the time where they can know they are safe and loved and in their forever family but the reality is we can't and those grieving steps are important for them, it's just such a mix of emotions when you're dealing with the course of a child's life.

PRAY for Ethiopia!!!!

Dec 26th started the process of my heart breaking for the children of Ethiopia and each day since it is becoming more real that what I thought was a rumor story, may be a reality.  If you haven't heard, this heart breaking news is that there are a lot of important people in Ethiopia wanting to close doors on international adoption.  The final step, from what I have heard, is the prime minister will have to agree in order for this to occur.  Yes, this is a punch in the gut for our family who is in the process of adopting and although I haven't seen her face, I know our daughter is in Ethiopia, I just do and so do our boys!  We haven't seen our daughter's face and if we had this would be a whole new level of heart breaking but there ARE families who have seen their child's face and have even met them but because of where they are in the paperwork process, their children could become stuck without a family and grow up in an orphanage in Ethiopia...Please PLEASE pray for this country, for the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, for these families, and most importantly for the children!!!! 

I am writing letters, sending FB messages, posting pictures and doing anything I can to help show the government how children can thrive, be happy and have success stories when being adopted internationally and I am asking you to do the same if you can.  You can email pasaddis@state.gov your success story, as well as can contact local and state representatives.

Here's the letter I emailed to the Ethiopian embassy tonight:

To Whom It May Concern in Regards to International Adoptions in Ethiopia:

My name is Joely O'Neal and I am married with 2 children, our 5 year old biological son and our 8 year old adopted Ethiopian son.  Our family has a heart for children who are growing up without mothers and fathers and feel that God has called us to take action and be a family to children who are without.  We do not adopt because we can't have kids on our own, we do not adopt to fulfill something we need but we adopt because we have been blessed by growing up in a family and want the same for all the children in this world.  My heart aches for children who don't know the true love of a mother or father, the children who are starving, in pain, sad and are growing up with a life no one would ever want for their own child.  I would hope that if something happened to myself, my husband or our family and we couldn't care for our child, that someone else would step up and take care of them the way we would, so why wouldn't I do the same for someone else?  I didn't know my older son's biological family before I met him but I knew he was given up out of love to be cared for as he was sick and malnourished.  I knew God called us to be the family to him that his biological father wanted.  We were blessed to be able to meet our son's father while in-country for court and were able to (via translator) speak to him, show him pictures and ask him questions so he would know where his son would be and know more about who his son's new family was. 

We have been beyond blessed that God brought a (then) 7 year old boy into our life. A child who had been waiting in the orphanages in southern Ethiopia and then in Addis for 2 years. This boy was shy, malnourished, embarrassed and in pain due to his teeth, had difficulty communicating since he had to learn a new language when moving to Addis, was not doing well in school and didn't show affection towards anyone. Today, almost 18 months later, our now 8 year old son is out-going, has a lot of friends, loves playing on his soccer team, is healthy and has gained 20 pounds and grown 5 inches, has a mouth full of healthy, pain-free teeth, talks non-stop, says please and thank you and knows right from wrong, is a rule-abider, giggles when he gets hugged and now hugs back. He also is very intelligent and has a heart for other orphaned children and is excited to have a sister from Ethiopia someday as well as is excited to go back to Ethiopia with us to visit his biological family and bring gifts to children who are there living without moms and dads.  We attend church regularly and he has grown to know who Jesus is and has accepted him as his savior earlier this year.  We celebrate our son's biological father on father's day, his late mother on mother's day and we talk about his siblings often. We look at pictures from Ethiopia, watch videos we took while there and he shares memories he has from his childhood.  We celebrate Genna and cook Ethiopian foods for him. We meet up with many of his friends from Ethiopia quite often and he knows we love Ethiopia and want him to always know where he came from. Our younger, biological son, loves his big brother and anticipates a younger sister from Ethiopia and cannot wait to travel there to meet her and see where his big brother came from. We are a blessed family and we have more room in our home and more love in our hearts to give and are praying that Ethiopia will allow us to once again give a child or children a forever family, hope, love and a life that embraces their country and it's culture.

We understand that not every adoption story turns out the way ours has and our family is not perfect, like any new situation there was adjustments, ups and downs and mixed emotions but was it worth it all?  Absolutely!  We also know that it is everyone's responsibility to make sure practices are done ethically and in the best interest of the children and we are thankful for any laws to occur to protect these children as much as possible.  With that said we are praying that it is known that completely shutting down the ability to allow international adoptions to occur, decreases the number of chances some of these children will ever have to survive an illness they have, to have a mom and dad and to grow up knowing the love of a family and thrive in this world.  It is my goal to raise my children to grow up  loving Jesus and become loving individuals who live to bless others and be world changers. 

 

In closing, please know we are praying for these decisions, praying for the children who are waiting and have been waiting, praying for the children who need medicine that may not be available there, medical treatment that may not be available there right now, praying for the people who have had to relinquish their children out of love who are praying for a family to come in and care for their child when they couldn't and of course we always are praying for these situations to not even exist, for food and clean water to be abundant, for shelter and clothing to be available and for all children to feel loved.  We (as Americans) know and appreciate that we are plan C...we are here to help and to be a family to children in need but we are thankful for processes to be in place to make sure these children can't be cared for by other family members or other Ethiopians before allowing us to be there. 

 

With Love and Concern,

Joely O'Neal

Ada, Oklahoma, USA

Ready to Submit our Dossier!!!!!

We are moving right along in this next adoption (3-4 mths ahead of our last adoption timeline) and are praying daily that God will guide every step and open all the doors needed. With the holidays it seems like the paperwork and fund-raising has been put on the back burner although it is on my mind daily and honesty, hourly. We don't know who she is yet or if there are 1 or 2 girls that God has in mind for our family but we are just doing the steps we can do to be available for the child or children that need a home and a family and the rest is in His timing. We have our dossier basically finished with 2 small things left to do and it can be sent off but I guess I have been putting it off because until we have the next fee to submit, there really is no rush on getting it turned in. 

 

As it stands right now we need $3,308 more to go before we can submit our dossier and we have 2 great fundraisers going on right now but I have been slacking on getting the word out about them so I guess better late than never :) 

 

Through an amazing organization called Ordinary Hero (OH), people are able to make donations to them on behalf of our family and they are TAX DEDUCTIBLE!!!  This will last beyond the end of this year but with Jan 1st being 6 DAYS AWAY, I wanted to make sure I got it out there in case someone is praying about the perfect place to make their "end of the year" donation.  There is a small percentage taken out of the overall donation to go to OH but they do such wonderful things all over the world and need all the help they can get to keep doing what they do. 

 

To make a tax deductible donation on behalf of our adoption you can go here:  http://grouprev.com/expectingfromethiopia

Also through OH, we are an affiliate adopting family which means we can sell their t-shirts, hats, ornaments, travel mugs, etc and get 40% of the proceeds. This also is AMAZING because most organizations and opportunities to sell items only allow for 20% or less so 40% is HUGE! The money gets sent right to our agency every month in our name. Many have asked if we were selling t-shirts soon and have even requested shirts but right now we really have a lot on our plates and instead of making our own shirts again, we are just going to be selling Ordinary Hero's.  They really are great quality, cute prints and are good for anyone, adopting or not....do you know anyone you would consider to be a hero to you or someone else?  Or anyone making a difference in this world for any reason?  If so they make the perfect gifts, teachers, pastors, babysitters, family, friends, or of course other adopting families.  

 

To check out the OH store go here:  http://www.ordinaryherostore.org/  when you check out click on "o'neal, joely" as the affiliate name to make sure it goes to our adoption.

 

 

Our time-frame at this time is looking like this:

May 2013:  announced our adoption

Sept 2013:   home-study visits completed

Oct  2013:   officially approved to adopt through Adoption Advocates International (AAI)

Nov 2013:   USCIS fingerprints done

Nov 2013:   USCIS approval to adopt a child 0-5 yrs old

 

The Next Steps:  Save/raise $3,308 to send our dossier to our agency, then we wait for "the call" saying they have a daughter or daughters for us.

 

I'm not gonna lie, I am already anxious for that day, the day we see the face of our daughter!  Even just saying those words "our daughter", makes me so anxious in such a wonderful way.  Although only God knows how long this wait will be, because our we are able to adopt older and because our agency doesn't have an extreme number of families waiting, likely the wait will not be as long as some experience, 5 families accepted referrals last month alone and 7 families cleared embassy to bring their children home!

 

In closing Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

 

 

 

 

We are a WAITING family again!

So it has been 5 months since we announced we are adopting again and so much has happened since May! 

 

We are so excited to say that we are OFFICIALLY a waiting family with Adoption Advocates International and we are the 11th family in line working on the "paper chase" aka: dossier, to be available to accept a little girl (or girls) into our family.

Every agency is different in how the timeline works out so for some of you reading this, being 11th in line may seem crazy quick to just be starting out and think that must mean we'll be getting our referral very soon and some of you may think 11th in line equates to a LONG wait and truthfully, both may be right.  We are thankful that the agency we are working with believes in matching the child based on best family match but also considering the "order" of families waiting.  So we may truly be the 11th family to get a referral or there may be a child who matches our criteria and no one else and we may be next in line.  You just never know but we are confident that God knows what our family picture is supposed to look like and in His time we will know as well. 

So since May, we completed applications, had our home study and follow up visit completed and started filling a new large PINK binder with all of the forms and information needed for this adoption.  This summer we also were able to complete Fetinet's adoption by finalizing his adoption and getting his US birth certificate so that large binder has been filled to the max and now we can focus on this next one {deep breath....sigh}. 

Our boys are so excited to become big brothers and Jalen has already given his sister a name "Ellapy", knows what she looks like (brown skin, but with yellow hair and green eyes like me apparently) and has bought her a Barbie and made her a pile of things he wants to give her in "her room" which is our spare room/office right now.  He prays for her and likes to draw pictures for her and my heart already melts just thinking about the day he and the rest of us get to meet her. 

 

So now back on the fundraising train (oh man it felt so good to be off of it for the last 15 months) and our first fundraiser is such an AMAZING opportunity! 

We are running the half marathon in the Chosen Marathon for Adoption in New Braunfels, TX on Oct 26th and have the chance to raise money for our adoption that is tax deductible to those who donate!  Our next financial hurdle is $5,290 and we are praying in the next 3 weeks we will reach this goal.  We know it is a large amount and we are doing everything we can to make some cut-backs and save but we know even still, we can't do it on our own. 


We are asking for help in partnering with us on this journey, making sure there are 1 or 2 less children in this world who will grow up not knowing what the love of a family is.  You can read more about our family and this race here:  O'Neal Family Adoption (part 2).  Also if you would like to come to the race or run on our team please leave me a message or contact me, we'd love to se you!

We are so thankful for the support we have from so many friends, family and even strangers and consider ourselves blessed to be able to be an adopting family!

You Can Call Us Crazy

Oh where to begin…well, this last year has been a whirlwind.  We traveled to Africa 2 times and brought home our son Fetinet, we went from a family of 3 to 4 and all of our lives were turned upside down and we have all been blessed beyond belief.  From our first announcement of our adoption on Mother’s Day 2010 (http://expecting-from-ethiopia.blogspot.com/2010/05/exciting-news.html), 3 years has past and we have met some pretty amazing people along the way.  Most of which are connected to our adoption story in one way or another.  People we had never known who donated to our adoption or be-friended us are now some of our closest friends and some of them we call family.  

We also have a host of new friends that we will forever know because our children all lived together in Ethiopia and have a very special bond.  As parents to these children we have bonded and have been a huge support system for each other.  You can literally almost link each and every one of us by who called who crying when they first brought their child home and realized the reality of what our new life was, and it wasn’t the happiest of tears either  J  And now we can all look back and smile and laugh about what those first days, weeks, months were like and give wisdom to the newer moms entering the crazy world of adoption (specifically older child Ethiopian adoption). 

Our outlook on life and what our priorities are has been forever changed and through that we have surrendered some things we used to have as priority.  We have seen the need that exists and the devastation that lies in a country far from us and have realized how blessed we are here in America.  Even in the times of being paycheck to paycheck and thinking our lives are stressed beyond belief, we will forever have images imprinted in our head of what it is to be truly hungry, lonely, without shoes or proper clothes and how much just a little bit can change a life.  What we spend on a drive thru meal is what someone else makes in a day or even 1 week’s, worth of work!

Something else we have realized is that, 1.) there are just too many boys in our family right now and 2.) that we have an extra bedroom in our house that only gets used when we have guests in from out of town.  A bedroom that could be filled with another set of little feet or maybe a couple little sets of feet.  And although in our culture to have 3-4 kids in 2 rooms may be seen as not ideal, it is pretty darn ideal in most others.  Sooo, what we are saying is we have another announcement, exactly 3 years later with the same news….WE ARE ADOPTING (again)!!!!  Before you hear it from our boys we figured we needed to get the news out.  They are very excited and ask us quite often about their “sister” (and have requested that she be a “little” sister so they can both be big brothers), when will she be here, how old will she be, when will we go back to Ethiopia, etc.  Unfortunately we can’t answer any of these questions just yet and anticipate that it will be another 2 years before we can.   We can tell you that we did have to check some boxes on our application and they were:   girl, ages 0-5 yrs old, single child, twins or siblings.

You may think we’re crazy and yes we probably are.  Didn’t we just finish the long waits, the emotions, the saving/fundraising/applying for grants, etc?  Wasn’t that stressful enough?  Aren’t we still adjusting to a life with a child only home for 10 mths?  Didn’t we complete our act of doing something good and adopting one child?  Yes that latter sounds pretty unreal to think but I’ve heard it before and I know many do think that way, seriously they do!  But yes, adoption is not for the weak at heart or mind, it is a crazy rollercoaster and full of unknowns and so I guess you can only call us crazy for the fact that we are ready to do it again. 

So with this I have a big favor to ask of anyone reading this.  Will you pray for us?  Pray that we are listening and following what God is leading us to do.  Pray that we have peace in the details of it all and can remember that His plan is not our plan and that His plan is always better.