We have officially finished our dossier!!! There is nothing else that we can do but wait!! It feels so good to have it out of our hands now. I know the Lord will have many opportunities to teach me patience in the coming months.

I will overnight everything tomorrow am to the appropriate places:) You can pray that we receive our 171-H (really important document) in a timely manner. This is the document from our government stating that we can bring an orphan back to the states. The time that you receive these varies state by state. Some come as quickly as two weeks and others take up to 3 months. Please, please pray that we are on the quicker side. We can't officially go on WH waitlist until we receive this coveted piece of paper.

Issy asked tonight, "so mommy, you put these in the mail tomorrow and then we can go to Africa to get our kids?" Precious and how I wish it were that easy!

Oh the re-entry can be hard! We just had the best week at camp! We loved the time as a family and we loved our time with friends. It is a harsh reality that no longer is there someone here to cook my meals and clean up after them:) We had some great teaching from Shawn Stoever- check out www.winshape.org (someone want to help me with the link thing?) for his ministry.

On the adoption front, our homestudy came and we noticed an error on the age requested. Originally we said 1-5 and then decided to change it to 0-4! Our SW is out of town and this is the Lord allowing me to practice patience:) It should be fine, hopefully we will have our dossier ready to go by the end of the month!!!! Then the real opportunity to practice patience begins.

We go to meet some new friends at camp- what a blessing! We will post on that tomorrow! Just prepare yourself for the cutest baby ever!

We are currently at family camp in Missouri!! We picked the boys up from camp on Tuesday night and started a week of togetherness on Wednesday. We are having a blast. Check out the camp website-

Click here to see camp

Moody and I are in Austin visiting my sister and her family. We took the opportunity to get one of our documents needed for the dossier certified while we were here. It was very easy. We went to the apostille office across the street from the capitol and in about 10 minutes, we were on our way! Feels good to be making progress.........

For those of you who need more details, here is my (Moody's) version of the Alexander's FAQ:

1. Why are you adopting? Isn't four enough?
For the longest time, four was more than enough! As many of you have heard us say, we were very content with our family size and felt fulfilled (and took medical steps to guarantee that!) The kids on the other hand have always asked if we can have more children. Six months or so ago, God began slowly opening up our hearts to the idea of adoption. We have ultimately come to the realization that this is what God wants for our family and we consider it a privilege to be called to it.

2. Why Ethiopia?
Several of our dear friends have adopted internationally (the Hilliards, Hurleys, Kelleys), not to mention my sister Shanna and her husband Luis. So when we thought adoption it was always international. We have been interested in the plight of Africa and our hearts have been touched by the tremendous need and orphan crisis there. One of Em's college buddies (thanks Kristin!) sent us a prayer letter about her upcoming trip to Zambia to work in an orphanage this summer. As a family, we watched the DVD about the mission. Of course, we were touched and made a prayerful commitment to go as a family in summer 2008. Then little Isabelle began asking "why can't we just bring one of those kids home?" That was a prick that opened a floodgate! Turns out, that even though there are 25 million orphans in Africa, Ethiopia is one of only a handful of African countries that allows for international adoption. They have the longest tract record (since 1998) of successful placements in the United States.

3. Why two?
There is a great need for homes for siblings as they will not split them up. We think it will help with transitions if there is a familiar face. Plus, the kids couldn't decide between a little brother or sister! We are requesting a "boy/girl sibling set between the ages of 5 and 1"

4. What is the process?
We have picked an agency, Wide Horizons for Children. www.whfc.org Our homestudy was done last week. We are hoping to have a dossier completed by the end of July and sent in. A dossier is a packet of multiple papers, forms, official documents, financial statements, physicals...Once the dossier is received by the agency and approved by the Ethiopian government, we will receive our referral. That is a big day because that is when they call and say we have your two new children! Photos and health histories are sent. Usually 3 to 6 months go by from when we accept our referral to the call that says "you can go to Ethiopia on this date and get your kids" Typically, you have only a 2 -6 week notice from your assigned travel date. We are planning (and saving!) to take all the kids with us. We are telling folks sometime between January and May.

5. How can we pray?
That God would protect us and the kids in the process, from spiritual attack, from doubt and fear. That God would care for the two precious children He has already picked for our family (even though they could not even be orphaned yet). For patience in the long process

Do you ever get in trouble for just reading other peoples blogs and posting things on your own? At least I acknowledge the thoughts aren't original.

Watch this video-it shows a precious love for a child! It doesn't have to do with adoption but does have to do with giving God glory.

good to watch--got this from my friends at Eyes Toward Ethiopia but they are way more advanced in the blog world than I am!! I can just get a link here but can't figure out how to have the screen appear and all you have to do is hit play! I told you I had much to learn. So if you have the time (about 20 min), click the link and watch Bono at the National Prayer Breakfast. Feel free to contact me with instructions on how to get the actual video to appear here:)

JUNE 4th- FIGURED IT OUT WITH HELP- THANK YOU!!!

One of the things that Moody and I have talked about is the excitement of bringing a new and different culture into our lives. We love how our family will have such a special place for Ethiopia in our hearts and we talk about the various ways to keep it an integral part of the kids lives. We don't know anyone in Arlington that has adopted from Ethiopia, but are meeting new friends everyday that are also headed to Ethiopia.

I found out today from one of my new email/yahoo group friends (thank you Sunday) that there is an organization that is founded by Ethiopian Americans that are committed to keeping the culture and language an important part for their own kids. They have language classes, take field trips and fellowship together--- guess where they are located?? Yes- Arlington, Texas! We are blessed:)