SOLD - To the Highest Bidder

We're finally at the point where we can do our VERY LAST FUNDRAISER!! I said earlier last week, when I was telling you about the best phone call ever, that we still have about $3,500 remaining to raise before traveling in about 6-7 weeks to go get Silas and BRING HIM HOME!! (Sorry for all of the "all caps" but, y'all, I'm just so excited to be at this point :) )

Our very last fundraiser is going to be a Facebook Auction....these are so fun and I've participated in several both as a donor and as a bidder - and winner! Here's how it works.... 

Are you someone who...

loves to be crafty?

has their own home or online business like Etsy?

runs a business in town?

would like to purchase an item or gift card and donate it to the auction?

If so, and you would like to participate, we would LOVE a donation from your crafty-self or business or whatever donation you'd like to create for auction!

And we would love it if you know anyone who would like to donate to the auction - please share this information with them :) And, of course, when we start to advertise the auction in another week or so...share, share, SHARE on Facebook.  This could be a great way to get a head start on your Christmas shopping :)

 

I'll create a Facebook Page - be sure to "Like" and "Follow" to get all of the updates, pre-auction previews, and - of course - to participate or share our auction page!

 

We already have some great donations lined up...pillowcase and smock dresses, Woodhouse Gift card, amazing wreaths, giant inflatable rentals....just to name a few! well either arrange for pick-up or mail it item to the winning bidder!

The auction will start Monday, Oct 5 at 8 am and will end on Wednesday, Oct 7 @ 8 pm. A picture of each item up for bid will placed in an album on the event page, with info as to who donated - linking back to any business pages - as well as a starting bid amount. Bids will be placed in the comments section and all bids must increase by a minimum of $1. I'll use the "Facebook time" on each comment to determine when the winning bid was given. The winner will have 24 hours to respond or the next highest bidder will be awarded.

 

If you would like to donate or would like more information on donating, then just shoot me a message on Facebook or email me at jmacoleman@gmail.com.  We have about 20 donations so far...my hope is to have at least 30. All money raised in this auction with go towards the final expenses for our adoption. If we happen to exceed our remaining funding needs, anything extra raised will go towards comprehensive medical testing at the International Adoption Clinic in Birmingham once we return from Colombia...more on that later.

Thanks so much for continuing to read and follow along on our journey - he's almost home, y'all!!!

Can We Really Do This?

There have been numerous times throughout our adoption process tht I've just had to stop and ask myself, "Are we sure this is the right path? Is this my plan, our plan, or God's plan? And can we really do this....can we really survive this ridiculous process and move forward as a family of 6 in the end?"

That's just how my brain works - I have to think and analyze and analyze again. There are times that all of that analyzing leads to anxiety and worry and there are times when it just leads to more concrete thoughts and assurance. I love when God uses my children for assurance during times that all of that analyzing is heading towards anxiety and fear.

When we arrived in Tennessee on Saturday night, after getting the best phone call ever, I was mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted. I sent my kids to church with my parents the next morning and just decided to have some quiet, alone time with Jesus at my parents piano....bc that's where I do my best stress relieving and reenergizing. 

It was about 12:15 and I was in parents kitchen getting lunch ready, waiting for everyone to get back from church. At this point, I hadn't had a chance to talk to my parents bc the kids were around and my brain was just all mushy from overload the day before, but after my quiet, piano music filled morning with Jesus, I had worked out a plan to let my parents in on our news and potential decision. As I stood there over the stove, I thought, "Can we really do this? Can we really expect our children to learn sign language so they can communicate and have a relationship with the brother they've prayed so hard for? What if they just don't want to???"

Within seconds of having those thoughts, which are legitimate concerns when you're adopting a deaf child, my mom walked through the door and said, "Mist, I can't wait for you to hear what the girls got to see at church this morning!"

Right behind her were Anna Beth and Lynnsie - excitedly telling me about the "girls that were singing with their hands and it's so cool and it's called sign language and Gram said you used to do sign language when you were younger so can you please teach us, mommy?!"

You guys....I can't even make this stuff up. I was frozen in place with tear filled eyes and I just smiled....a. big, knowing, and understanding smile....and I said, "I would love to teach you."

By the end of the week they knew most of their ABC's in sign language and soon after, we learned of our favorite ASL resource for children, Signing Time. This resource is amazing and was created by a mom who had a daughter who was born deaf. Over the last 8 months, we've checked out videos from the library and watched the episodes available on Netflix. It's been amazing to watch the kids pick it up so quickly! 

The experience my girls had watching the youth girls "sing with their hands" was an answered prayer in so many ways...

1) It immediately answered the questions of my heart - yes, we could teach our children sign language so they can communicate and have a relationship with their brother

2) It introduced our family to one of the most beautiful songs with lyrics that are full of truth...the song is by Lauren Daigle and it's called How Can It Be?

3) It allowed us to introduce sign language to our children and begin to teach them, without risking their hearts to attaching to a little boy that we had no guarantees from the orphanage that they would allow us to adopt. 

We are so thankful for all of the ways that God has assured us these past few years and especially these last 8 months, but this one - by far - is my very, very most favorite :)

The Best Phone Call Ever!!

First of all....let me just say that God is good. On the hardest and longest and most frustrating days, He is still and always good. Nothing changes that. He does incredible things in His perfect timing - whether we like it, agree with it, or understand it. He is God and He is good.

 

Our adoption in 2015 didn't start out very well when we found out in January that for the past entire year, we'd been on the wrong waiting list in Colombia. There were many unknowns - how long would it take to fix this? will we be put at the end of the correct list or put where we should be after waiting an entire year? what is our real number on the waiting list? At first, I was discouraged and down right ticked.  But slowly, I remembered it's His timing and the waiting list number just doesn't really matter...#1 or #301....my son would be my son when the Lord knew it was the right time to bring us all together. So that was the end of that.  However, we never found out what our new waiting list number was, because...

 

On February 14, 2015 at 8:30 in the morning I got a phone call, and then a text when I missed the call, from our social worker, Beth. She "casually" asked me in the text to give her a call - she just had a quick question for me.  But it was Saturday morning and that meant something big.  I called her and she said she asked me how open we were to a child with hearing loss. I told her we were open to a child who had minor hearing loss all the way up to complete deafness. That's when she told me she had the file of an almost 2 year old little boy, with profound deafness - did I want to see it? I told her sure - send it to me and when Jacob woke up, we'd talk about it.

 

The thing was - I was in the middle of packing me and the kids to go to Anna Beth's Upward game, then hit the road to Tennessee for a week because it was Mardi Gras in New Orleans and this is just what we do. And when we do that, we get trapped....I mean iced in....at my parents house bc the Ice Storm of the century always comes through when we're there for Mardi Gras. You're welcome, teachers and school kids of West Tennessee :) And Jacob was still asleep because, as a police officer, he works pretty much non-stop during Mardi Gras. At this point he'd been asleep about an hour and a half. I decided to wait until 10 - letting him sleep until the very last minute before the kids and I had to leave.

 

I woke up him and when he was just barely conscious, I said "Beth called." He was fully awake at that point! I gave him the quick rundown and showed him little man's picture - and that's when I saw it.  The new daddy look. As scared and unsure as my heart was after what we'd experienced not a year before...I knew that God was leading us to this sweet boy. I sent his info, in Spanish, to my friend who lives in Colombia and speaks Spanish and she called to give me a summary of his history and needs. Everything was clear cut and after a lot of prayer, Jacob and I decided to submit a Letter of Intent to his orphanage.

 

And that's when things got excruciatingly hard on our hearts. But we continued to trust and the Lord continued to show us that this was the boy we were supposed to pursue, to love, and to desire to parent.  For the sake of time, here's a quick timeline of the past 8 months:

 

Feb. 15 - LOI submitted

March 30 - Dossier finally mailed for transfer from ICBF to orphanage

April 14 - Happy birthday, little man!!!

April 23 - Dossier finally arrives at orphanage (because Colombia mail....)

May 7 - Orphanage loves us, but wants us to redo some things in our dossier 

May 21 - Orphanage finally tells us what they want us to fix (because Colombia....)

May 21 - June 4 - we mad dash every filling out forms, notarizing, and mailing off for apostille in Tennessee & DC

June 24 - everything's mailed back to social worker in Alabama, who immediately sends it on to Colombia

July 9 - we leave for a much needed weekend trip to see our very good friends, the Woods, in Georgia

July 10 - social worker calls and tells us orphanage received our updates, but now wants us to update our FBI clearances, physicals, and proof of employment letters (also notarizing and having apostilled)

July 15 - get started on all of these updates

July 21 - everything's in the mail, straight to Colombia

July 29 - everything arrives back to the orphanage after going through translations by our in country rep

July 29 - 30 - they meet every Thursday, at some point, so we could hear any time Thursday or Friday on their decision...we hear nothing

August 6 - 7 - we hear nothing

August 13 - 14 - we hear nothing

August 20 - 21 - we hear nothing

August 22 - Jacob leaves for 3 weeks of national guard training; we had decided that if we weren't matched by the time he left, we would have to withdraw our LOI, but when that week came, neither of us felt a peace about that...we decided to wait until he got back and if there was no news at that point, we would withdraw. We had the support of our social workers on this decision, as well.

August 28 - my phone rings at 6 pm...."Beth @ Lifeline" on the caller ID

 

"Hey, Misti!! This is the best phone call ever because it's official!! They just called us to tell us you're so perfect to be his family and they love you and they officially matched you today!"

 

You guys....I was standing in my friend, Mary's, front yard while she and her husband were inside fixing dinner for the kids and I and another friend and her family.  I couldn't speak. My heart was about to explode. Every time I opened my mouth I just started crying even more. Big, giant, happy tears. All of the frustration...all of the fear of having to walk away...all of the grief and pain we felt every single day - especially Thursday and Friday - for the past 8 months completely vanished. Because he was now our son. Forever.

 

Thankfully, I was able to get through to Jacob immediately and tell him, but we decided to wait and tell the kids together when he got home...so for TWO WEEKS I had to keep this secret! We told a few close friends and our families, of course, because I surely would have exploded if not :)

 

So what happens now? 

 

Our immigration paperwork arrives in DC today and that should take about 3 - 4 weeks, then we will travel about 3 - 4 weeks after that....so hopefully we will travel the end of October/early November. Jacob and I will both go for the initial bonding time of 7 - 10 days and then he will return to work. Our kids are in school and we've decided it's best for them to stay in their normal routine since life is going to be kind of upside down for a little bit. I'll stay another 2 - 4 weeks after Jacob leaves finalizing everything. I'll write more on that process later.

 

Our family continues to learn sign language.  Since our son is profoundly deaf, American Sign Language will be his way of communicating.  We've been learning several signs through the incredible children's video series, Signing Times, but our kids didn't really know why we were doing it - they thought it was just for fun.  And I'll be writing an incredible God-story blog on that in the next few days, too.  But now Jacob and I will be doing a 25 DVD ASL curriculum called Learn and Master ASL...I'm 3 lessons in and it's amazing!

 

We apply for the very last grant that we qualify for and do our very last fundraiser...a Facebook Adoption Auction! I'll be sharing more information on that later, but a quick summary - we're asking for donations from anyone who is crafty, has a business in your town, Etsy store, work from home business, or would like to donate a gift card or item and we will auction them off through Facebook and the highest bidder will win! We still have about $3,500 left to raise or be awarded in grants and we are still trusting God as He has provided everything we need so far.

 

We finish up all training, apply for visas, book our flights and hotels, and wait for the day when I can hold my son, Silas John Coleman, forever!! 

 

If the timeline works out as quickly as it can, Silas and I should be home by Thanksgiving!!

 

Please, please, please join us in prayer for Silas - that his heart would be prepared for all of the change that is coming his way in the next several weeks, that everything now will move quickly and smoothly, for our kids as they prepare to be without us for a few weeks and welcome home their little brother, for Jacob's mom who will be coming to stay with our kids while we're gone, and for Jacob and I - as we prepare for the incredible honor and blessing it is to be called mommy and daddy by this sweet, precious little boy. 

Taco Dinner Fundraiser

We had our incredible Taco Dinner Fundraiser this past weekend and y'all...we are overwhelmed with how amazing it was.  There really aren't words to describe it, so I'll leave it to the pictures.

Love, love, love this family...the Singletary's...who planned and prepared this incredible day.

Only 1 Coleman kiddo missing...

Our friends even cleaned up our kitchen

In the middle of packing her family to move 2 states away in a few days, it was super special to have her stand next to me during this event.  She's been a major rock and source of sunshine in my life.

Photo credits to this gem!! Loved her last minute idea of taking pictures for us - too perfect!! 

Mr. Tim - the Taco Shell Master.  He was a "tiny" bit excited to use his new toy.

Mrs. Kelly, the Taco Whisperer - loved cooking and prepping with her...and appreciated her attempt at teaching me how to properly dice tomatoes (and the gentle way she suggested I bag them instead!)

Prep work started a few days earlier - so blessed to have friends give up their days off!

Especially loved spending "real life" time with this girl!!! 

In summary, this was the Church in action y'all.  All day long.  It was amazing and incredible and we loved every minute of it.  To see so many friends and church family giving so much time to planning and prepping, baking desserts, working that day by setting up, serving, watching kids, taking pictures (photo bombing pictures for a good laugh later on), ordering meals, donating, tearing down, and cleaning up...it just does this family's heart a whole lot of good.  Someday our little man is gonna begin to process the first chapters of his life and while he's doing that, we'll be able to show him how, at the same time that he was alone and without family....we were all here...loving, waiting, and working for him.  I wish I could list every single person by name, but I'm far to afraid I would leave someone off.

And I'm sure you're curious as to how much we raised...well, again...mind blown. Overwhelmed.

I told God selling 200 dinner boxes was gonna be a long shot.  I'm sure He laughed out loud knowing we would sell between 325 - 350.

I thought it would be incredible if we made it anywhere near $2000.

And all the while, He was planning to provide $3,671.

All through our sweet friends and church family.

All for our little boy.

If you want to see all of the pictures from that day, click HERE

Adoption Happenings in 2015

I think I said it in my last post...I've really stunk at updating you guys the past several months.  There just hasn't been a lot happening, so it feels kinda dumb to post an update.  Make sense? Some days it does to me, some days it doesn't. Either way - here we are now, nearing the last week of March 2015.

If you had asked me in January 2013 (when we started the process) where we'd be in March 2015, I would've confidently told you that we would've been home with our son for several months.  But God had other plans that apparently include us waiting for much longer than anticipated.

But our wait is nothing compared to the wait on the other end of adoption.  The wait where it's babies, toddler, children, pre-teens, and teenagers...waiting for someone to come for them.  We wait with friends and family holding us up on our weakest and hardest days.  But them? Many times there's no one.  No one holding, encouraging, telling them to "Just hold on...God's got a family for you." No one.

So we wait...longer than expected...but we still wait with hope and encouragement and assurance that there is a sweet and precious little boy in Colombia who needs us to be his family.  It's not an honor that we take lightly - being allowed to parent a precious child like this.

The extra wait is sad, but there's also some fun and exciting happenings, as well.

Our agency, Lifeline Children's Services, recently hired a new representative on the ground in Colombia.  We have heard incredible things about Soraya and we're so excited to be working with her now, as well! She has a lot of connections with private orphanages (or casas) and now our agency is able to work not only through ICBF for connecting families and children, but also through several private casas, as well.  This is huge, y'all,  Huge!! Our social worker recently visited Colombia and returned with a LOT of files of precious kiddos waiting to be advocated for and adopted. Please keep this transition to our new rep and all of these new partnerships in your prayers and praise God with us for making these things happen!!

Our sweet friends, Tim and Kelly Singletary, make these world-famous (well, at least Slidell famous) tacos.  Y'all...you can eat these things 3 days later and it's still the best taco you've ever allowed your mouth to withhold!! Well, they came to us about a week ago and said they wanted to do a Taco Dinner fundraiser for us. Um...perfection!!! Yummy tacos and just being loved in this way...y'all, it's way too incredible.  And it's even better - our Sunday School class is partnering with them and providing the desserts for the dinner boxes! But that's not all, oh no, that is not all (Cat in the Hat, anyone?)...Tim and Kelly's care group have joined in and said "We'll cover the cost of the food!" So that means that ever single dollar of every single dinner box sold goes straight into our adoption account.  How great is our God?!?!

So here's the deal, Slidellians.  I've created an event on Facebook....Coleman Family Taco Dinner Adoption Fundraiser and tried to scroll through my friend list and invite every Slidell resident...if I missed your name I am so sorry, but you most definitely invited so head on over and let us know how many dinner boxes you want! Here's the details, thanks to my incredibly talented graphic designer sister, Maley, at Made by Maley (hop over, check her out, like her page)

Also, it'd be so awesome if any of you Slidellians could share the event on your Facebook page, as well and invite your friends.

Or gather your friends together for a dinner party, birthday party, "I Miss Football Season" party...whatever...and grab some tacos to go with your fun evening!

All that remains of our fees are our traveling expenses...airline tickets and hotel/food/translation accommodations while we are in Colombia. We know that this fundraiser will knock off some of that $8k...but what we really want - is for the people who are doing this for our little family by cooking, helping out, baking, and attending to know just how much we love you.  I have no idea, honestly, how we're ever going to fully convey to our little guy the amount of love that so many people put forth to bring him home!!

So make your Saturday night, April 11 plans with us and help us bring One More Home!!

Waiting Out the Wait List at #....

Lately I've had several people ask me for an adoption update and I've been surprised that they somehow missed my last "update" I gave in September.  And then I realized, I never gave an update in September.  I asked my Facebook friends to pray for us as we were about to have a phone conference with our Social Worker, Beth, and our in-country representative, Raul.  I had full intentions of writing and sharing an update and then....life, I guess.

You can ask a couple of my friends who I "attempted" to talk to after our phone conference and they'll be quick to tell you that I wasn't really making complete sentences.  Those types of meetings are mentally and emotionally draining to me.  Whether it's a just a tidbit of information or an entire seminar's worth - it takes me a little bit to process everything.

It's also gotten pretty hard for me to update this past year.  When I sit down to write, I want to share all that is on my heart.  I want you to try to be able to feel a little bit of what we're feeling on the inside while we're navigating this process.  In order to do that, I have to have the time to unpack all the emotional junk, sort out what to share and what to keep tucked in my heart, write it out (preferably in coherent sentences) and then pack it back up again...all during nap time.  So, it's a little bit harder now.

Now, for the update.  Our meeting in September went really well.  For months we've been trying to determine if the children available for international adoption, in our age range, had more severe medical/special needs or if they had mild/moderate/correctable special needs.  We know our limits as a family on the types of needs that we can choose to efficiently parent and if the children in our age range were on the more severe end - we knew it was time to research other countries or adoption options.

We finally got our answer...Raul told us that there were children available for international adoption who were on the mild/moderate end of the special needs spectrum.  This was good news for us (side note: it feels really weird saying, that's "good news" because, in reality, it's not.  It sucks.  There's a need for adoption.  There's kiddos who are sick and the very reason they can't stay with their forever family could be because they lack the finances and resources to properly care for their sweet kiddos.)

The second bit of "good news" we got was a bit of a surprise.  We've understood all along, as did our social worker, that Colombia didn't have a waiting list for families like many other countries.  However, in this meeting we were informed otherwise and Raul said he would work in the next several days to determine each families position on the list or their "number."

Here's where I want to give a quick stat we learned that day: Colombia is only processing 1/3 of the number of adoptions this year as opposed to 3 years ago.  Changes have occurred and things have slowed down substantially.

Our best guess at our number (based on some of the numbers that were thrown out in the conference call) was somewhere around #400.  I pictured one of my daughters being walked down the aisle in her wedding dress while I held my newly adopted toddler son in my lap on the front row.  But we were way off!!  I mean, big time, big time way off.  Who wants a math pop quiz?

400 - 386 = 14

We're #14!!!!!!!!!!

That means that there are 13 families waiting for an ICBF referral in front of us.  Only 13 - not 386!

We're still trying to determine exactly how this list will work...are there 13 approved families in front of us or 13 approved families for boys, 0-3, mild/moderate special needs.  This number doesn't tell us how much longer we have to wait, but it is SO MUCH BETTER than #400.

We've also been told that Colombia is still working diligently at updating all of the kiddos files for accuracy and "plan" to release them in the next month and start making referrals at the first of the year.  We're throwing in a couple of "grace" months and not really expecting anything to happen until February or March.  It's just good to know these kiddos are being advocated for and their files are being worked on so they can be presented with the most updated information.

December 9 will mark 1 year of "waiting".  Sometimes patiently and others times....not so much.  I just want my kiddo home.  I want to rock him to sleep, I want to play cars and trucks and build blocks with him, I want to read him a bedtime story and run into his room when he wakes up from a bad dream.  I want to doctor his cuts and bruises with magical kisses that only mommies have.  I want these things so badly - but not just for me...to fill this longing and emptiness in my arms.  I want it more for him...because a family is the least of what he deserves.

We're ready to give him all of us, every single day for the rest of his sweet life.  We are, oh so ready...

Hermanos de la Iglesia Colombia (Brothers in the Colombia Church)

A couple of weeks ago, I had the long awaited and prayed for opportunity to go to Colombia on a mission trip.  Our church has had a partnership with some missionaries there for several years and now, one of my most favorite families lives and serves there full time. So, it was a triple good-thing....a) serving the Lord in this way, b) being in my son's birth country while I desperately wait for him, and c) being with the Sumralls.

I have lots to say about that trip: my emotions and feelings when the plane landed - putting me on the same ground as my kiddo, the beauty of the Colombian people we were with, how my only hope was a 10 year old little girl when we hopped in the car with a ridiculous cabbie, and my short stint in a local Colombian hospital.  The LORD used all of these things for His good, His glory - and I can't wait to tell you about each of them.

I remember in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina (no, I haven't switched gears - hang with me, please).  I honestly didn't know what was going on - all I knew was that my husband was supposed to travel from Tennessee to NOLA on a Sunday for a Monday morning job interview, in anticipation of moving to NOLA a few months earlier than we had planned.  We were informed that there wouldn't be an interview that day because Katrina demanded a city-wide evacuation.

We waited in anticipation and fear and worry for the next several days/weeks...pulling up any and every bit of information from the internet of what was going on in the place we wanted to soon call home.  I remember working with some evacuees who were brought by Greyhound bus to the next country over from mine and feeling the emotional shock as one after one, broken people stepped off of a bus having lost everything - some having lost everyone in their family.  I clung to my computer and television in those days craving any bit of information.  I already had a love for the city I knew little about.

And now I find myself there, again.  I spent the weekend worshiping, teaching, serving, loving, and being loved by these people...

And I wait anxiously as I hear about waist-high flooding, 25,000+ people in this town and church being displaced - having lost everything.  As the rains keep pouring down in the mountains, causing the river to rise continuously.  

I remember after Katrina, that all I wanted to do was get to NOLA, help some how, do something...and now all I want to do is get on the first plane back to Colombia and go serve my friends, my brothers and sisters in Christ.  I want to hold them, love them, and cry with them.

I pray for the church and Pastor Manuel who have opened the doors as a shelter.  I pray for at least one family...a mom, her son, and grandchildren who lost everything.  I pray for a new Christian - "J" - who was to be baptized this weekend. at the church....and has now lost everything in the waist high water in his neighborhood.

I remember what it looked like when my husband and I came to Slidell on a rebuilding mission trip a few months following Katrina...and I have those same pictures in my mind of that same type of devastation and loss and heartbreak now for this beautiful town.

"Brothers of the Louisiana Church."

That picture was on the prayer wall of the church.  

And now, we pray for "Hermanos de la Iglesia Colombia."

Please join us in that prayer.