Adoption-Coffee-Forever Family

Where to start? I don’t know, so I’ll just dive in and back up from there.

We first heard about Just Love Coffee Roasters at the recent Together for Adoption in Nashville. They provided us with gallons and gallons of coffee over the course of the weekend. African Skies was my favorite but more on that later. Just Love Coffee Roasters was born of one father’s journey to Ethiopia to adopt his children. You can read more about that from the site.

Now- about us & why we are partnering with Just Love. Deep breath. Ouradoptionagencycalledandtheyhaveaspecialmothermakinganadoption planandwouldweprayaboutthisbaby! Did you catch that? So what does Les say to that? “I’ll be praying. You be drawing up the paperwork.” This is a domestic adoption and our profile will be shown to the mother who will hopefully have more than one choice. More on how that works later.

Backing up. When we were applying to adopt the first time we filled out the what-will-you-accept form. I don’t like doing that. It is tough to mark no. We checked all the boxes except two. Skipping ahead to leave out the oh so personal aspects of our life. The Lord has really worked on us the last few years and we know that when He brings a child, He will provide all we need spiritually and otherwise. We just need to say- here I am, use me.

After encountering many closed doors to an Ethiopian adoption we decided to take a break from adoption and focus on Personhood. It is hard for me. It has been a time of being still and waiting. Definitely for my eternal good. I am NOT good at being still and waiting. I need to learn to rest and look to the future with eyes of faith. The last several weeks before the call came I was starting to get a little antsy. The is a getting real part- I was struggling to understand why. We have a heart for special children. The ones whose boxes don’t often get checked. God knows this and He knows the need. He is the God that sets the solitary in families. I had my ideas about what could happen here. We could find some amazing way to pay off debt, Les would land some huge sales. We would be financially set and know exactly how it was all going to work out from beginning to end. God has never worked in our family that way. He calls us to trust Him- to take huge steps of faith to follow where He leads us. A trusted Brother counseled us about Josiah’s adoption “As God opens doors, you walk through them”. By His grace, that is what we hope to do.

How can you help? Pray for us. We have alot going on as most of you know. We have a long list of things that need to fall into place. Stand back and watch. You will be amazed daily at what the Lord will do.

We will be applying for grants and fund raising for this adoption. We need you to pray about joining with us to give another precious child a forever family. We can’t all adopt a child but we can all do something to help hold up the arms of an adopting family.

Sooo. BUY COFFEE!!! Check out our store at Just Love Coffee Roasters and buy awesomely good coffee. JLCR will give $5.00 to our adoption fund for every bag of coffee you buy! Can you imagine how fast that could add up? Organic Fair Trade Coffee would make great Christmas gifts for family, friends or clients. You will be helping us bring a new baby home and a portion of the proceeds go to Kids Care Orphanage in Ethiopia to help build a new school.

Please look consider buying your coffee from JLCR. Thanks!

Visit our store at www.justlovecoffee.com/Rileyfamily

I will also be putting an ad in my sidebar.

I’m praying about blogging this adoption process more in depth. Maybe giving you a little more intimate peek into our life. What do you think? Can y’all handle it?

 

I’ll Love You Forever…

I’ll like you for always.

 

As long as I’m living,

my baby you’ll be.

It’s final. He’s ours forever & ever! We finalized the Baby Best Beloved’s adoption on Friday, March 6th.

 

* This awesome photo is courtesy of Priceless Photography. If you’d like to see more of the pics he took check  his site here and here

 

$ 2008 in review

We got some surprising news this week. We lived near the federal poverty level last year. Apparently this is figured by how much you make per member of your household. It is actually quite ridiculous by world poverty standards & it made me pretty angry but that should be another post for another day.

How did we find this lovely info out? It’s an immigration thing. To adopt internationally you will be, in effect, sponsoring an immigrant (your new child) to come into the country so it’s not really an adoption thing. It’s an immigration thing. Don’t worry, it makes no sense to me either. In order to sponsor an immigrant you have to make 125% of the federal poverty level. No problem, right? I mean- what’s the poverty level? 20,000? 30,000? Nope. Keep guessing. I was shocked at how much it was for my family. We live in a large home with running water, electricity, more stuff than we have closets for, a pantry that is so stocked you can hardly walk in there & we live almost at the poverty level? It’s crazy. I can flip a switch & it is a constant 70 degrees year round in my house. This is NOT reality by world standards & it makes me even more ashamed of my gross consumerism in the face of how my brothers and sisters around the world live. I said this should be another post, didn’t I? Sorry.

Anyway back to last year. If you know us “in real life” you know that last year held some trials for us. We adopted our amazingly wonderful Baby Best Beloved & if you look immediately to your right you’ll notice that (shhh) he’s brown. We expected that this would cause some problems for some people but we never guessed the extent of heartache that would accompany such a blessing. There were lost and damaged relationships. Les lost his job. It was not an easy time. But Christ. God was faithful to supply our every need spiritually, emotionally & financially.  So- God provided a job for Les the very next day (agriculture based!) and our adoption went forward uninterrupted. Praise God! But, Les is a commissioned salesman & it takes awhile to start over,  build up a client base & learn a new product so our income was significantly reduced last year. Great news is that the Lord has prospered him greatly in his new line of work & he’s really enjoying it.

This morning Les called to give me the exact figure for 2008 & it was almost 10k below what I thought it would be. We did some dumb things a few years ago. Not wrong things but things that caused us to stray from the path the Lord has laid before US. We find ourselves needing to pay off debt (not credit cards) & committed to becoming debt free & remaining that way. It was a real matter of prayer deciding if we should pursue adoption before paying the debt off but we clearly felt that the Lord was calling us to adoption & would make a way for us to do both.

After I heard from Les this morning I did some figuring from last Jan. to this Jan.

Look what our God did! The U.S. gov. standards are nothing to the God that owns the cattle on a thousand hills.

Debt Reduced- $23,892.93*

Adoption-          $13,000.00  approx. & still counting

ALL PAID! Awesome! That comes to $36,892.93*. That’s $5,075.13 more than we hope to pay off this year & all near the poverty level. WOW!

To God be ALL the glory cause we never could do it on our own. *It is my prayer that by sharing so much of our personal business someone will be encouraged to trust God & step out in faith to whatever calling He is putting on your life. Does this mean that it’s easy or that everything will go your way? Or that it won’t cost you dearly. No, not at all. We know that sometimes we put our Issac on the alter & there is no physical ram. By that I mean a ram that we see & are physically aware of. If you have ever lost a child you know what it means to pray fervently for the life of that child and God says no and takes them back to Himself. We don’t know why or what the greater purpose is but we do know that He does everything for our good and His glory. That was rambling. I hope you get what I mean. When we step out of our comfort zone and do things we could never do in our own strength then a lost and dying world will see God’s glory in our life.

Current Adoption - Please join us in praying for direction on this one. We want to do this in His time and not our own. There may be a way to move ahead but we want to bath every step in prayer. If you don’t already know we are hoping to adopt an older waiting child or siblings from Ethiopia. One thing we know-If it is His will He will provide the way.

Last adoption- We have one more matter to provide for to finalize The BBB’s adoption. Please pray with us for that or maybe you know an attorney willing to work for food ;o).

Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.                           1 Thessalonians 5:17-18

* Edited ’cause I forgot to add in something we paid. WOO-HOO!!! & I added an explanation as to why I’m telling ya’ll all our b’ness.

 

Six months!!!

Guess who’s been a Riley for six months? Josiah has been home six months today! That means we can legally finalize his adoption. We have an appointment next Wendsday to get that moving. If all goes as expected we’ll probably go before the judge on Feb. 6th.

Speaking of Josiah- He pulled up on Annies toy basket today. Nothing will be safe now.

And that very sweet girl with him will be 17 tomorrow! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELLIE-BELLIE!

 

wants, needs & critical needs

“As a family we keep a running list of our wants, needs & critical needs. Over the past couple of months so many of our “needs” have been moved to the “wants” list as we attempt to look to what the Lord wants for us as opposed to what we want.”

Or think we want. Wow, so much has happened since I wrote this on March 12th. Who could imagine the unspeakable joy God would bring the happy Riley family through our beautiful brown boy?

I don’t know if I finished a post on this but I thought it was cool that, according to WordPress, I originally wrote it Jan. 1, 1970. I wasn’t even born til 10 months later.

 

Organized Chaos

Have you ever wondered how someone else would describe you. Someone who knew all your secrets. Someone who, in a sense, gets to be a fly on your wall? Well, the Riley family can be summarized in two words- Organized Chaos.
We got a post placement report in the mail today & that’s how Superwoman(our pet name for our social worker) described us. The girls and I got a little laugh out of that. I don’t call this blog Blessed Chaos for nothing. She went on to say that it works & it does.

Last night Josiah was sitting in my lap enjoying some pureed sweet potatoes with apples when he turned and wiped his mouth on my shirt. I looked down to inspect the damage and realized I was slimy, goopy, crusty & sour smelling. I had a small amount of sour milk on my shoulder, crusty mess on my pants where I had absent mindedly wiped my wet, flour covered hands on my sweat pants(from my workout that never actually happened), a faint dusting of flour on my shirt from where I left a part off the wheat grinder and it blew flour all over me and the counter and a slimy trail of sweet potato applesauce on my shirt. Oh yeah, I forgot the black marker on my hand from wrestling away a sharpy marker Mercy was using to do her “school work”. And I was a very happy woman.
As Jerry Clowers wife said when the womens libbers came to the door “nobody’s messin with the deal momma got!”

BTW It’s not usually THAT chaotic & I did manage a shower before Les got home.

 

fly by

Josiah is doing great. His cradle care mom, Fran, is amazing & is keeping me well informed. I can’t wait to get my hands on him! He had a slight fever and had to go to the Dr. but everything was fine. We have lots of pics but won’t post them until after the court date. You’ll just have to trust me, he’s a doll!

We’re making our home ready and the time is really flying by.

No time for a long post, we’re off to Aunt Melanie’s.

 

Waiting (original title, huh?)

I spoke with J. this morning and they haven’t heard from the birthmom this week. They don’t want to pressure her in any way so they are just waiting with us. She originally said she would let them know her decision Thursday so if she doesn’t call tommorrow they’ll call her. Another baby was born around the same time as this baby & they are waiting to show profiles to that mom after this one decides.

We are doing well and feeling surprisingly peaceful.  Thanks so much for your continued prayers and support.

BTW babys name is Marcus (for now) The mom didn’t want to be involved at all so her counselor named the baby. If he becomes a Riley his name will be Josiah Jackson. Maybe Josiah, maybe Jack but NEVER J.J.

 

Finally! more news

I think J. is officially irritated with us (Les) calling so much, although she was very gracious about it. I really think it’s a madhouse around there.

Birthmom will be seeing two profiles at 9 am Thursday. We have no way of knowing how long she’ll take to decide so it will probably be next Monday before we hear anymore. We are thankful to have more direction for our prayers.

We can also stop taking the phone in the bathroom with us for a few days ;o)

 

 

A babe was born April 29

That is all we know. J was supposed to call me yesterday with more details and she never did. I must admit, I’m beginning to feel that no news must mean bad news.