being patient...

I cannot believe that once again I am finally posting after a whole month of being off blog-world. We have had so much going on in the last month that it has just flown by which is a good thing but then I have this guilt over my head of not updating my blog.

As far as an update on our adoption, there isn't a whole lot since my last post. We submitted our dossier to our agency in April and thought everything was perfect and it was on its way to Ethiopia but after reviewing it all there were 3 little fixes that needed to be done. 2 reference letters had our agency's name on them which needed to be removed and re-signed, notarized and sent back to us to send back to our agency and then our marriage license which is from Hawaii was notarized on the back and was a stamped signature and not a blue-inked one so that had to be fixed. Dealing with getting a vital record in Hawaii is not easy at all especially with the time change but an awesome lady at Dillon got it taken care of for us so now the marriage license is finally fixed and in our agency's custody and the 2 fixed reference letters are on their way which means as soon as it gets to them, our dossier will officially be on it's way to Ethiopia at which point we will continue to WAIT! Currently we have been told that a child under the age of 3 years old comes with a 10-14 mth wait so we are going to try to be as patient.

It is very hard at times to be so still and patient when I think, see and hear about all the orphans out there just getting older in an orphanage when we have a perfectly good extra bedroom and lots of love just waiting here in the mean-time. There are some countries right now that have a start to finish time that is less than 6 mths and less travel and cost and I can't lie and say that it isn't tempting to want to say "sign us up". I have met many families who have started an adoption in one country (ie: China) and then knowing the wait is 3-4 yrs, started another adoption from a different country while they were waiting and that is something that has been on my mind a lot lately. Of course it's not that easy because this means, whole new paperwork, much much more fundraising, much much more late nights and sounds just plain crazy to almost anyone I mention it to. Going through ONE adoption is a lot, let along attempting TWO? All this to say, these are just thoughts in my head right now, nothing is changing as of now but I feel like I have to do my part to keep my eyes open to how we can best serve the orphans in our world and not just sit back and wait. Of course there are always going to be waits and we know this as much as anyone. With deciding to start the adoption process over a year ago and officially starting it over 9 mths ago we are well aware of the wait but there is a BIG part of me that is thinking a "wait time" can mean more than just sitting back and waiting for one thing to happen.

So please keep us in your prayers that God will speak clearly to us and guide us towards what we are supposed to be doing right now during our WAIT.

So now for a quick month long re-cap in pictures:

Jalen at Peace By Piece event, cleaning up Ada to raise money for the American Cancer Society   

Jason and I at Relay For Life last weekend, I was there from 7pm-2am walking, watching Jalen, hanging out with lots of friends and doing 2 classes of Zumba on the field!  A great evening.  Jason was there until it ended the next morning as he was asked to DJ the event last minute from midnight on.

My wonderful husband threw me a surprise party for my big 3-0!  Complete with a fun slip n slide in our backyard for the kids, a chocolate fountain, good food, great drinks and all of my closest friends who are more like family!

Jalen has had a lot of friends to play with lately and this is one of my favorite pictures of him and Peyton who belongs to one of my friends/co-workers.  We have had wonderful weather lately and playing outside in our sprinklers, slip n slide and baby pools is a day of fun to him and me!

I also got the day before my birthday off at work so on my day off I thought I would get my hair cut and use my gift card to get my nails done, then I thought why do it alone, why not take someone with me who would love doing that and maybe never get a chance to.  I signed up through our local DHS office and after getting my background check complete and given the ok, I got to pick up a little 11 year old girl from our local shelter and spend the day with her.  There are kids in our shelter who are waiting to be placed either with a family member or into foster care and in the mean time they are just waiting and wanting someone to come hang out with them and care for them.  My lil girl and I had breakfast, went shopping, got our nails done, had lunch, got sno-cones and then by dinner time I had to get her back.  She was so grateful and I was so excited to get the chance to do that and can't wait to do it again! 

Exciting NEW page created

My collage of all the gear we are selling right now through 147 Million Orphans!

 We are really blessed to have so many options along this journey to raise money for our adoption and best of all they all really allow us to share our story and draw attention to the fact that there are too many orphans in this world! 147 Million Orphans is one of the ways we have been able to do just that and we are SO thankful.  They are always coming up with new items for us to add to our list and new promos to help us get the most out of it we can so I thought I needed to update how I was advertising all the stuff we get to sell.  I made a new blog that makes it SUPER easy to buy from as opposed to having everything in a long line on the sidebar of this blog.

SO...do you want to see what all we are selling right now????  Just go HERE and let me know what you think and of course if you notice any problems.

Thanks for reading!  I have been away from my blog and internet for the past few weeks so I have had a lot of catching up to do and now I can officially cross this off the list...yippieeeeee!

In the last month....

I am so glad I am finally getting to update on here.  April was a CRAZY busy month for us and on top of it all for the last 2 weeks our internet has been off and on and not on long enough for me to get a chance to post or read anyone else blogs so I have some catching up to do :)  I am actually at McDonald's right now just to get caught up because they have wi-fi and I need to cross some things off my list badly!

  So where to begin....well, in the beginning of the month we got to go to Dallas for the weekend and meet our case worker Anyra as well as attend a Dillon/Buckner Ethiopia family reunion to meet other families who have adopted from Ethiopia through Dillon/Buckner, families who are in the process and meet with the directors of the childrens' home in Ethiopia.  We had a wonderful time and  also got a BIG step in our adoption completed...we submitted our dossier!  Of course going to Dallas also means we get to see my long time dear friend Hilary and her family so that was an added bonus!  Jalen and Jude got to play together and had a lot of fun and per usual, Hil and I were up until the early morning talking while our hubbies were sound asleep.

In the middle of the month we got to drive up to Moore, OK and hang out with some more adoptive families that we met last year and support them at their benefit dinner.  I also got to meet a couple other mamas I had been talking to online and it was so nice to put a face with a name and an email :) 

Then came Eggapalooza.  This was the first year to occur but our church had a big morning planned that consisted of pictures with the Eatser bunny, bounce houses, tours of emergency vehicles (fire trucks, ambulances, etc), drinks, prizes, music and the big event a 10,000 plastic egg drop from a helicopter for all the kids to run after.  It was cold and rainy and still 7,000 people showed up!  Some of those people got to see what a crazy church we are and have came to church now for the first time in a long time....God is good :)

Easter Sunday was AMAZING!  We are out growing our church like crazy and today we went to 3 services but on Easter Sunday the kids had church where we usually do and we had church down the street at the McSwain Theater (google it if you like), it is a cut little old fashion but remodeled theater that when people come to town for small concerts or plays that is where they are held.  The worship band was awesome, the message great as usual and just overall a great start to our day.  We then headed home to have Easter lunch at our house with some new friends Kel and Leanne as well as with a college student we hadn't met that grew up in foster care and aged out of the system never having a family to call her own.  She was such a sweetheart and we loved having her and are trying to make things like this happen more for all the other "kids" in her similar position.  The meal was awesome and even better the company...a great Easter Sunday!

And now last but not least, we ended the month last night with our Lil' Buckaroo BBQ Adoption benefit dinner and silent auction.  This was to raise money for 3 families, us, the Brown's (adopting from Ghana) and the Schlups (adopting from Haiti)...read my post below about their stories and their blog links are listed as well.  We had so many auction items, raffle items, amazing food, dessert, drinks, music and when all was said and done........drum roll please..................we raised $4,500 to be split between us!  All the pictures are on Facebook but here are a few from the night.

 So there you have it, our April all wrapped up and now we are in May.  Our internet should be back up and running early this week so I can be more on top of things...I hope none of you thought I was done with "blog world" because I am not...don't forget to keep checking back and hopefully soon I can start catching up on your lives too, it's funny how you start missing people and wondering what is going on in people's lives that many you have never even met in person!  Have a wonderful May    xoxo

Upcoming Adoption Benefit BBQ Dinner Information

I am so excited to finally get to post about this as we have the tickets ready to sell and are working hard to get everything ready for the event.  So what is this event you ask?  We are one of 3 families that are hosting this benefit dinner to help raise money for our adoptions through tickets sold for a BBQ dinner and with a silent auction. We are still working out all the details but are hoping to make this even not just about raising money to bring our children home, but also raising awareness to the orphan crisis.

The plan for the night is that we will start at 5pm with dinner and silent auction to go on throughout the night.  In addition to the dinner and silent auction, there will be music, door prizes, some guest speakers, videos, and more!  Of course the theme is cowboys/cowgirls so we encourage everyone to dress accordingly although it is not required.  It will be fun for the whole family and kids 3 and under can eat free!

You can buy tickets directly on our blogs through the PayPal link posted off to the side or just email one of us or post on our blogs and we will see that you get your tickets.  $15.00 for adults, $5.00 for children over 3 and 3 and under eat free.


If you have anything you would like to donate to our auction or have any ideas for us we would love to know and will be more than happy to include it in.

So do you want to know a little about each family? (...to the Brown's and Schlups, hope you don't mind I borrowed some pics from FB to add to this post...please let me know if you have a different one you want posted)

The Browns

  Christy & Tyson have 2 boys Winston & Wyatt and have just mailed off their application to adopt a little girl from Ghana.  We met the Browns when mutual friends knew that we were both adopting and thought that we should meet, so glad we did!  We love this family so much and have been blessed to have Tyson hired on as our outreach missions pastor (did I get that right guys?) at our church so we get to see them even more now!

The Schlups

 Amy & Rob are parents to Rylan & Kyndal and are adopting a 13 year-old boy named Jimmy from Haiti.  There story is quite amazing of how they came to meet and decide to adopt Jimmy so I really encourage you to read their story.  We met this family at our first It's A Child's Life meeting and are so excited to watch their journey and be a part of bringing Jimmy home!

The O'Neals
Of course that's us!  Joely & Jason O'Neal parents to Jalen and adopting a boy or girl under the age of 2 from Ethiopia.  We were waiting on a few last documents to get finalized and will have our dossier in the mail this week! 

Hope to see you there!!!!

Sun Stand Still

I love our church for so many reasons but the messages that we listen to each week are always so moving and so applicable to life that I wished everyone could see them.  Well, I shouldn't say "wish" because everyone can see them since they are always posted online for free and can be watched any time.  I am so thankful for Pastor Craig Groeschel and highly recommend tuning in sometime to see for yourself but the past 2 weeks we have been blessed to watch Steven Furtick speak in place of Craig and this week's was just too good not to share! 

http://www.lifechurch.tv/watch

I know we all have "Sun Stand Still" prayers but we need to realize that those are the prayers that God wants us to have and those are the prayers that will glorify Him and allow BIG things to happen.  I was so encouraged to hear the above message as being in the middle of an adoption and part of starting a non-profit organization, there are a lot of intimidating times but I am not discouraged and know that especially after hearing this message, this is what we are here to do, this is part of God's plan for us and we will not let anything get in the way of it.

We had our 3rd meeting for It's A Child's Life last weekend and it did not go at all how we expected...it went so much better, but it definitely did not go according to our plan.  We assumed that since we more than doubled our attendance at our 2nd meeting, for sure we would have even more for our third...or not!  Besides our founding group and a couple of our loyal friends/supporters, we had 2 DHS caseworkers and a caseworker from the Chickasaw Nation youth and family.  We almost canceled the meeting because we found out that our captive audience was at their foster care lesson at the same time as our meeting but instead we sat around and started talking.  This talking lasted the whole 2 hours and resulted in us being so much more equipped to reach out to this area of orphan care and make some amazing changes that will help so many children in so many different circumstances.  I will share more as it all unfolds but we are so excited!  The first thing that will come of our meeting is happening tomorrow.  My husband and 2 other great guy friends of ours will be taking 4 boys who are in the foster system fishing and to grill out for dinner.  These 4 boys are in need of a male mentor and I am so excited for these 3 great men to show these 4 boys a great time...this is just the beginning!

Fundraiser Winners!!!!

After almost 2 months of posting about our Puzzle Piece Fundraiser going on, we were able to raise $1,930!!!!

Thank you so much to everyone who donated items to be used as giveaway prizes and to everyone who bought puzzle pieces.  I will be posting a picture of the puzzle we are going to be putting together soon so start thinking about what you would like to say on the back of the piece(s) you bought.  You are all a part of our puzzle to adopt our child and we want to make sure each of you are included in it which will be hung in the child's room someday!  If you just want your name I will do that or else let me know what you would like written.

 

Now, onto the winners.....we drew 20 names, 19 for smaller prizes and 1 for the Folsom Photography portrait session.  And the winners are.....

Kathleen Ellis:  animal print bag and Africa car window/bumper sticker

Mary Marxer:  Thirty-One "Fun in the Sun" tote

Kathleen Duty:  The Missing Linck T-shirt

Fran Carey:  Bath and Body Works gift card and glass bead necklace

Brenda Abel:  Tree of Hope T-shirt

Ryann Wayne:  2 shirts from 147 Million Orphans and bumper sticker

Lauri Rowe:  Green and blue Thirty-One thermal lunch tote

Lari Hall:  I-Tunes Gift card and Africa car window/bumper sticker

Tiffany Anderson:  Imaginiff Game

Jen Herbst:  t-shirt with Africa cut out sewed on

Kelly Jo Pickard:  3 handmade kids shirts with silhouette of Africa and an adoption teddy bear

Ginger Emrich:  Mary Kay Satin hands gift set

Joe Coomer:  Opened Eyes T-shirt

Ashley Barrett:  Handmade baby blanket and an adoption teddy bear

Heather Osborne:  Tan leather purse

Kami Weems:  handmade pink and white clutch

Erika Prusha:  Starbucks gift card, an adoption teddy bear and cross-stitched pillow

The Densons:  The "Love" t-shirt with the picture of the globe on it

Sarah Habuda:  A hand painted custom canvas from me :)

...and now for the photography winner........

Kel and Leanne Penny!!!!

CONGRATULATIONS everyone.  If I have the prize in my possession, I will bring it to you this week, otherwise it will be mailed to you from the person who is donating it.  If you want to see a picture of what you won, go HERE.  Thanks so much for playing along and ultimately for supporting us.  We would not be where we are at without each and every one of you!

An Amazing Weekend....Update!

From Saturday morning until this afternoon we have been blessed over and over and over again and I am just still in awe of it all!

First I do want to mention my thoughts on the recent news of adoptions in Ethiopia.  This adoption process is such a roller coaster and with everything that may or may not be going on in Ethiopia with the possible closing of 90% of adoptions I somehow have a huge peace with it all.  Yes it is heartbreaking but not for us personally, just to think that there are children that need forever families and they may end up being deprived of that.  I am 100% on board with ending child trafficking and unethical practices as well as doing whatever to help family preservation but the sad truth is there will still be children that won't have families stepping up for them.  There will still be children that won't be able to be adopted by another family within their own country, so we are their last resort, we are their plan C and when that is taken away imagine what will happen?  Growing up on the streets? In over-crowded orphanages?  Die before their 5th birthday or younger?  That is what I am scared of and why I pray that this doesn't take effect.  We will know more this week but for now nothing has been set in stone so on with our Ethiopian adoption! So for now, please PRAY pray PRAY for these children and for God to speak to the officials of this government as well as other countries who have gone through or are going through the same issues to make decisions that will be in the turly best interest for these children.

Okay I've said my peace and now I have some exciting news to share.  Saturday morning I had 2 wonderful women over for breakfast and a planning meeting for our next BIG fundraiser.   Amy is adopting a 13 year old boy named Jimmy from Haiti and Christy is getting ready to submit her application to adopt from Ethiopia.  We all live in Ada and are so excited more than anything to do something to get the word out about what we are doing and what the needs are that are out there in general for children in this world.  Soooo....we are having a western themed benefit night complete with a dinner, door prizes, entertainment, and silent auction.  Because we are here in good ole Oklahoma we thought we do something we know our town loves, BBQ!  So we will be selling tickets and giving more details VERY soon but mark you calendars, Saturday, April 30th 5:00-8:00pm for our Lil' Buckaroo BBQ adoption benefit to Bring Our Lil' Buckaroos Home!
 
I also want to help spread the word for our friends The Linck, The Ellis, and The Habuda families as they are having their adoption fundraiser dinner on April 16th in Moore, OK and tickets can be bought here.

By Saturday afternoon we got this is the mail..... Our much awaited Notice of Favorable Determination letter from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services which means we can submit our dossier as soon as we have the full $5,000 raised!  Yay!!!!!

As of Friday evening we were still just over $2,000 short of the $5,000 needed to submit our dossier and by this afternoon we were blessed so greatly by a couple wonderful friends of ours and now we just have $950 left to come up with!!!!  All I can say is there have been many tears of joy and thanking God for all he is doing in our lives.  I said in my last post all about our history of moving to Oklahoma and how amazing this last year and a half has been, simply life changing! But it is just never ending, we seem to keep having more and more real, loving, caring, down to earth, God loving, servant hearted (is that even a word?)...people put in our lives that it is almost overwhelming!  Our blessings this weekend both came from friends who we love and respect so much and the meaning behind each donation was just heart warming and very humbling!  I don't want to say too much about the details but have to say it will be going down in our journal of this journey.  Thank you SO so SO much, there are not even words to say to express our gratitude!