Dossier to Ethiopia & a town called Nazareth

Our Dossier (aka. Big Stack of papers that IS our life story) is being flown over the ocean via DHL and should land in Ethiopia early next week. Once it lands in Ethiopia, it will go to translation and then to get in line for a court date. Now that our end of the paper chase is over, we've been able to take a breath, get passports for Todd and Riley. I know God's got all the details worked out but sometimes it is hard not to worry.

Our case worker seems to think we should be able to get our documents translated, get a court date and travel before the courts close in August! Wow, that will be in less time than a pregnancy! The courts close for Ethiopian New Year for approx 10 weeks. Our prayer is to be done by August.

We have new pics of the girls and they look so healthy and happy. They've already changed so much since being admitted to the orphanage in December of 2008. Another Hope family traveled recently and said they met our girls. Said they were both pretty shy but warmed up after some time. We've been told that they were walked along with a big group of kids from a city called Nazareth(huh?) to Addis Ababa, (which is approximately 60 miles) and abandoned there.

We're starting to think about schools, hair, clothes, hair, their room, hair, and all the other FUN stuff! They have so much HAIR! These things are keeping us up at night. The list seems so long and the days seem so few.

God certainly is growing and stretching us through this process. We have learned many lessons that I hope will stay with us for a while.

One, we cannot control this process! SO many things are out of our control. We have got to let go and let God do His thing.

Two, we have learned that NO ONE is going to hold our hand or tell us what the next step is. We have to make our best educated guess in figuring out what to do next and then step out in FAITH! Sometimes it feels like we are free falling instead of stepping but we know that God has got our hands, our feet and our hearts and HE will not let us fall or fail

Three, there are SO many people that love these girls and want them home as much as we do. It is amazing to have the love, prayer and support of SO many people we know and SO many we don't even know! I can't imagine going through this without any of them and we are eternally greatful.

God is So Good!

WHAT A JOURNEY of faith God has led us on!!! We'll have to fill you in on the past year over the next couple of blogs, but to catch you up to speed rather quickly........here goes!


We are on CLOUD 9 because the Murphy family of three has miraculously become a family of five! We received a call on Wed, March 25th, from our adoption agency which told us there was a sibling group of 2 sisters that they had in mind for us. They emailed their informatin over to us right away. We prayed, and danced and prayed some more. The next morning we called them back and gave them our answer.....it was YES, of course! So, in effort to make sure we do not jeopardize their identity or our adoptin of them, we will call them M & M! They are too sweet for words and we are head over heels in LOVE with them. Their ages are 3ish and 6ish! We are not exactly sure as they do not keep good birth records there.



Oh, M & M, here we come!

A New Stirring......

Over the past week I have been in touch, via email, with our friend Amy Rodgers, who now lives with her family in Ethiopia. (For more on their story, check out their blog at http://www.lakelangano.blogspot.com/ ) God called this family to help run the Sports Camp at Lake Langano and I am trying to help coordinate prayer for them while they are there.

At Camp Langano, there is a clinic and a school that serves the community around Camp Langano. Amy will assist the nurse at the clinic in the baby area called the House of Hope, which is located next door to the clinic. The House of Hope will take in nursing babies that have lost their mothers and/or parents and would otherwise not survive. They will stay at the House of Hope until they are old enough to eat solid food and then will be reunited with their families.

I've been thinking and wondering what would happen to these babies if their parents were not able to take them back in.........

I'm not sure what God is up to and I don't know if He has us in mind for a child from this House of Hope but I am tuned in to his desires for us. My prayer is for these children to be ultimately returned to their families.

Here is an update!!! Hope Adoption Agency received our application on Good Friday and we are looking forward to beginning our home study in May!

Thank you to everyone for your love and encouragement. We could not go through this without ANY of you!

A New Start

Well....a lot has happened since I last posted. We hit our first (of many I'm sure) wrinkle in this process that shook us pretty hard. AGCI did not pan out to be the agency we hoped it would be. They gave us reason to believe we would not be good partners in finding our Ethiopian angel. Thanks to all of you who gave such Godly encouragement when we were questioning our faith and ourselves. During our saddest moments we even wondered about God's will for us to carry this through. It seems like such a huge mountain to climb when you are standing at the base thinking "do I even have the energy to do this?" The answer of course is NO! "We" do not have the energy to stand up to this mountain but God does! And, undoubtedly, this will be just the first of many times we'll question and lean on Him for the strength to do this.

2 Corintians 12:10 says That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

God did not set us on this journey just to leave us here! I have leaned on this encouraging verse Deuteronomy 3:18 "The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged."

Meanwhile a sweet family that goes to our church brought home their Ethiopian princess, "Kiki" on Christmas Eve. She is beautiful in every way and a huge inspiration to us. Thank you God for sending her when we needed that encouragement!

We also received a call from another agency we were interested in (coincidentally, the same one that K came home through) and were very excited for us to begin the process through them. So, this week we received all of our documents back from the original agency and we'll be getting off to a new start!

If you think of us, please pray for God to go before us and bind up anything that would keep us from the mission He has called us to. THANKS!

Application Approval! Yippee

We're on our way!

AGCI has agreed to allow us to move forward with their agency! Now we wait for the agency's packet of information on our next steps. We'll keep you posted.

How Did It All Begin??

Where do I start?

My husband's brother is adopted. Adoption has always been an everyday, household word for him. For me? Not so much. I had friends growing up that were adopted. When these friends got into high school and college, they strayed down a self destructive path that I always assumed (in my unprofessional, psychological opinion) was because of the rejection they felt by their birthmother. They were raised in loving Christian homes and I witnessed their parents dismay during their downward spiral.

Fast forward six heartbreaking years of infertility to be incredibly, mercifully blessed to have a son (who is now 9 years old and wonderful!). And then 9 more years of heartbreaking secondary infertility, when finally, we were at peace with God's plan for our childbearing years and we had sufficiently grieved.

And JUST when we were at peace with no more children, I was blessed to be able to travel on a life changing mission trip to Ethiopia with SIM and Sports Friends to help run a boys soccer camp. While I was there we got to visit the Mother Theresa AIDS orphanage. The children there were so beautiful and so happy. I was very sad to say goodbye to these children knowing that the majority of them would live and die in that very orphanage. We were in various cities in Ethiopia and I FELL IN LOVE with the people, the culture and especially the children there. When we had to say "goodbye" to the boys at the camp, I realized that my heart had forever been changed by the boys that I was responsible for during the week and I found that I had PLENTY of room and LOVE in my heart for another child/children. When I got to the airport in Addis Ababa, I had to force myself to not turn around and run back through the doors to stay in the country. I had made so many new friends and experienced so many new and exciting ways of worship, I was definitely on a spiritual high.

Meanwhile, back at home, my husband and son had already decided that our family needed to adopt and they started to put pressure on me to come around to their way of thinking before I left for Ethiopia. They were praying for my heart to be softened towards this thinking as well. You see, we belong to this incredible small group of believers and we had just finished studying the book of James in the Bible. And one of the verses we really chewed on was James 1:27.

And this verse manifested itself in MANY WAYS in the life of our small group. (more about that later, maybe) At the same time, our pastor was delivering messages laced with "adoption" stories and promptings. I was slowing, slowly, slowly, gently, gently, being guided, directed and even commanded by God to this idea of adoption for OUR family. So it is with GREAT fear and trepidation and only by the grace and mercy of God.........we move forward, one faithful step at a time.

"The Application"

I wasn't really sure we'd make it here. We've spent so much time in prayer, energy and anxiousness that I wasn't really sure we'd ever get to send our application off. We had lots of hoops to jump through just in order to get the application process started. Every day, our son asked "Did you send in the application yet?" And each time, we'd ask him to be patient....yeah right.

But, we mailed it off last Tuesday, before Thanksgiving and AGCI received it today! Praise God!
Now, the prayer begins for them to accept our initial application and for the fun to begin!