Murphy's Law - God's provision and a bathroom fan

I started out wanting to do a post to see who else has all the sad stories about how Murphy will show up as soon as you have a plan for your money, all the road blocks that get thrown at you when you begin the adoption processes but then I realized two things, one I am sure there are people out there that have had way more major murphy disasters than we have had and two that we have ALREADY overcome these hurdle's!

When we started this process I was of course totally on board but tend to see the quote unquote "realistic" side of things. $20,000 to adopt a kid What?? Why?? We don't have that laying around why do we think we have the right to start this process....well you see I am married to Amy and she is always there to tell me, not us, God. So we continued on and well that $20k isn't $20k its $35,000 plus incidentals (first home study wont qualify in chosen country, trips to immigration in Yakima for fingerprinting, background checks and rechecks, multiple doctors visits and revisit's ect...).

Hey but its ok, we are moving forward, money is coming in, grants are being applied for....oh wait, you don't need a water softener right?? right lets keep going. We got a Grant! and another! and humm that low mile car you bought to drive your family around it, needs tires after less than a year of owning the car and the tires where new? That's right you find out its been in a major wreck and is beyond alignment with out major repairs and may not be safe (thanks carfax you're a real big help). But that's ok we made our first payments toward getting our girl and God is providing for a new car payment as well.

By now Amy is burnt out, ENOUGH PAPERWORK! time for more fundraising, somehow she finds another gear and  gets us to our next payments and of course we don't need hot water right?? oh and clean floors? Microwave? Thought we could manage, nahh,,, but once again God provided a few generous friends, cheap walmart stuff and a home depot low interest project loan. LETS GO SEE OUR GIRL!

That did it for me (seeing our girl), no stopping us now. As Amy said in the last post, we just made our final Agency and foreign fee payments (little help from the line of credit) thanks to not our efforts but the efforts of our friends. so as I sat in our bathroom tonight and went to flip on the bathroom fan (eh hem) and it didn't turn on (sorry Amy) it inspired me to write this post. We sit now give or take (depending on flight costs) just $5-6k away from getting our girl (and a court date, GET A MOVE ON MOJ :) ) that means God has provided $30,000 in under a year to help bring us our/his daughter home to us! That is amazing.

I am not worried about the rest, it will come in time, on time. Are we stressed? yes! this process is crazy and our whole family has held together great and now we are ready to put all this aside and rest in the excitement of this new life that will be joining our family, new struggles, new concerns, new even harder challenges, absolutely but you know what? I will be able to hug her......


Sean







Sometimes when I express myself I worry about what tone people take things in so I really don't want to offend anyone so here is my disclaimer "I hope you are getting my tone at this point, truly we are blessed and grateful for all of the trials we have encountered, and as I said in he beginning there are people going through much worse and we are truly truly grateful for the provision God has granted throughout this process."

We are making Lemonade.

So, everyone knows about turning lemons into lemonade, right? not literally, but taking the bad and making it good, sweet, not quite so sour. Well, that is what I am doing.
Yesterday, we thought we had about 1k to go before being fully funded. We had a massive yard sale this last week, thanks to our Care group at church. MASSIVE. We ended the weekend with an incredible amount of cash to deposit into Leanna's account. We were Blessed. Overwhelmed. God was so good. That was yesterday. Today, we are still Blessed, and God is still good!...and we have a new kind of "overwhelming" happening. We actually need to raise about 7k....not the 1k we had thought. So, you can see how we might need to find a way to make some yummy lemonade our of this incredibly sour situation.

So, I have been thinking today on all of Gods Goodness, and here is the thing....Leanna isn't MY daughter. She is HIS daughter. He is going to provide for her. I also decided to think on all of the insanely good things that have been happening around here, and all of a sudden, it was a lot easier to see Lemonade in the midst of the lemons falling on us.

Here are a few of our Praises:

1. Our yard sale made it possible to send almost 9k to our agency. All fees paid in full, only leaving us with the travel and in Country expenses.

2. Almost immediately after hearing the news, my dear friend Sarah started helping me plan a car wash. (sidenote::: Sarah was just the host of our yard sale!) Mind. Blown.

3. My Mom and my Sister both called almost instantly to offer encouragement and their ideas on how they could try to help us out. My Mom JUST spent the weekend helping with our sale, she is such a precious lady. I love you tons Mom!

4. My Bestie invited me over for lunch today. She always seems to know when I am low and need time with her. Thanks Jaims.

5. My kids. Always providing me with Praises. Tonight both Joel and Ryan asked me what, in my opinion, were some of their best qualities. They both had projects for school. As I was listing off quality, after quality....I realized, wow! I am one lucky Momma. I have incredible kids, and 5 of them to boot.

6. So many of our family and friends have told us they are praying and have also shared our info, in hopes of helping us raise some money. It really does help knowing there are people praying.

So, as you can see, there is a lot to be thankful for. We may feel like we had the rug pulled out from under us (again).....but, at least we had a soft place to land (or maybe that is just my ginormous bootie from all of this stress eating.....HA!....sorry, couldn't help it)

When my Mom was here visiting, we had a conversation about my Dad. I adore my Dad. When we had our father daughter dance at my wedding, we danced to "Wind beneath my wings".....it was a perfect song as my Dad truly is the wind beneath my wings, he is precious. Mom and I were saying that one word that would describe my Dad is "resilient." My Dad has been knocked down several times. He has been hurt a lot. Sadly, sweet and kind people make easy targets. BUT, he has always picked himself up, and pushed forward and never let people change him. He has only become stronger through these situations. Never gave up. So, here is to hoping that maybe I have a pinch of that same resilience. If I can find that in myself, I know that we will keep pushing forward and soon we will reach the goal. Leanna in our arms forever.

G'night friends.

Reeses Rainbow-Wish us Luck!

We are Super excited that we have a fundraising page on Reeses Rainbow. Our little sweetheart has been being advocated for by Reeses Rainbow for a long time. We found her on there. Now she has a family, and they are trying to help us raise the funds. Amazing, right??

http://reecesrainbow.org/72940/sponsorparker-3

Encouraging news!!

SOOOOO, today my beloved twinsies had eye doctor appts. Turns out they have perfect vision, but that isn't what we are here to chat about.

I already have an appt set up for when we get Leanna home, with this same Dr. that we saw today. Leanna needs to see our eye doctor, to then get a referral to a specialist for her cataracts. While we waited for Ryans eye drops to kick in, I started chatting with our Dr, and told him all about our little Bulgarian Princess. He was so amazing, and is super excited to meet Leanna and help us on this journey. So, here were a couple of the tidbits I took away from our convo::::

1.) Children are able to regain vision/build muscles up until they are 8 years old-ish. Leanna just turned six.....so, this is great news!!! It means that, unless we discover additional problems, there is hope of Leanna regaining some of her vision!!

2.) We found out that we will have to travel to either Spokane or Seattle for her treatment, which isn't a biggie since we have family and support in both locations. BUT, I heard today, for the first time, that Leanna might not be a good candidate for surgery immediately after her arrival home. There are several factors, including her size and development...etc. BUT, that doesn't mean that her little eyes wont be working and improving! If we need to wait on surgery, there is a good chance that Leanna would be fitted with contacts. This way she is seeing better and her little eyes are learning to work a bit harder. Why not glasses? Well, in the good Doctors words, "They would weigh 10 pounds."

Hmmmmm, what else. I think that is most of the news from the Doctor. But, all good and all encouraging. Frankly, I really feel Blessed any time I speak with someone who is excited about Leanna, and anxious to meet her. When this is coming from a Doctor, it just makes me feel confident and at peace.....This guy really WANTS to help. love.

In other news, my amazing Care Group is organizing an epic yard sale to help with some of our final expenses. I really don't even have the words to describe this group of people, but I will try.
Loving
Generous
Supportive
Compassionate
Godly
Family
ok, the list would go on and on....but, you get the idea. So grateful for this amazing group of people!

Lastly, Seans co-workers did a Breakfast Burrito fundraiser at his work, and it was amazing. I really, really appreciate these people. They know Sean, but they don't know the rest of us very well, and they don't know Leanna.....and yet, they gladly gave of their time and energy to do this for us. Wow. So grateful.

Ok my peeps, I need some beauty sleep as I have to go get ANOTHER medical form filled out tomorrow. Apparently my last one is 6 months old and that is a tragedy.....so, im off to be overhauled....again. yay.

Hello From Our Daughters Home Town

Here is an update!!!
We have LOVED our time with Leanna! every minute. I think both Sean and I came into this visit praying that God would prepare our hearts for whatever condition we were going to find her in. Also, we prayed that our first meeting would be love at first sight for us all. God not only answered our prayers, but Blessed us beyond what we had hoped.
Leanna is a funny, giggly, active, beautiful little lady. When we first set eyes on her as we walked through the orphanage, I was struck by 2 things. 1. she is TINY. and 2. SHE WAS WALKING!!!! What??? We were told she didnt walk. The orphanage staff even told us they had given up on her ever walkinng, and that this was a miracle.
Leanna walked right up to us on that first meeting and gave me a huge hug. She has been like that every visit, not only is she comfortable around us but she LOVES all the attention she is getting!!! There is no question that she has some vision, I have been blown away by it actually. It is obvious that her vision isnt great by any means, but she does have some. Praise God! In regards to her delays, yes, she definately has some. There are a few things about her that we are not sure whether it is vision related or delay related. But, Praise God that both Sean and I have absolutely no doubt that Leanna is our perfect gift....and we are going to love her to pieces.
We got to enjoy 1 visit mon, 2 on tuesday, 2 today (wed) and then tomorrow we will see her in the morning and we will be taking her to get her visa photos taken. Then we have to say goodbye for now. ugh, not lookinng forward to that....at all.

In regards to Bulgaria. We have had a great experience. Our translators are so sweet and fun. We have really enjoyed spending mealtime and our visits with our translater, Sveta. We are also traveling with an Italian couple who are visiting their little boy, so they have a translater too named Plameta, and we love her too. Both translaters speak English really well.
I dont think Sean and I have ever eaten so much!!! HUGE meals and very yummy. This country really likes bread, cheese, cream, yogurt....basically, im in heaven. They also love to eat all kinds of different animal organs, but I can spare you all of that info.
a traditional breakfast here is our equivilent to fry bread....enough said. Im fat and happy.

The ladies at the orphanage seem incredibly kind. Bulgarian people seem kind of standofish as it is rude to engage people you dont know. But, if you engage them and let them know that you want to visit with them, they are so sweet and kind...and soft spoken. My favorite staff member is the orphanage psychologist. She was in most of the pictures we recieved in Leannas referral info. It is so obvous that she loves Leanna.

We have also met the orphanage Dr and Director and both of these ladies were kind, helpful and seems thrilled that we were going to be Leannas family.

 Church that we walked through.

 Enjoying a traditional Bulgarian lunch.

Leanna Laurie Deva Parker

Well, nothing like seeing your blog is on a massive list of Bulgaria Adoption Blogs to motivate you to write a post! I needed the kick in the pants, I have stuff to say!!!

 

So, we travel THIS MONTH! This is just to visit, but Ill take it! I am trying to be really guarded. I am going to want to pick Leanna up and just snuggle her....but, I am a stranger to this sweetie. Kind of a sad perspective, but it is true. She will probably be scared of us. My prayer is that by the end of our visit, she is warming up to us enough that when her caretakers talk about "Mommy and Daddy coming back for her" she knows who we are, and isn't afraid!

 

We will be in Bulgaria for 1 week! Just Sean and I. My Lovely mother is going to be here with the other short people. My kids are stoked to have Grandmama come. Frankly, I feel like chopped liver.

 

So, a couple other tidbits. We DID have a conversation with our agency about our plan to change Leannas name once she is home. Her Bulgarian name is "Deva." We will be giving her the name Leanna Laurie Deva Parker. Our agency was fully supportive and gave us kudos that we wanted to keep her Bulgarian name in the mix. So, WHY are we changing her name? Im so glad you asked! A couple reasons. We really want Leanna to  feel like she is, and has always been, a "Parker." Our other childrens names are Joel, Ryan, Luke and Megan. We really wanted Leanna to have a name that fit with the others. ALSO, We try to give our children family names for their middle names. My moms name is "Laurie." so.....Leanna Laurie. One of our sons doesn't have a family name for his middle name and is having a bit of a complex, but that's another story. Silly guy!

 

I also found out that we are allowed to take pictures at our visit! yaaaayyyyy! BUT, we cant post them on media sites. So, friends and family can request them and we will shoot you an email! Just to answer again the question about why we don't have pictures of Leanna on our blog. If this was a private blog, we would share pictures. However, we choose to keep this open to the public so that others can read our story and also so that people who have donated to our fundraisers can follow along.

So, here is a tease. You get her hair and cute little arms. Cant wait til we can share her photos..... Trust me, she is gorgeous!

 

 

Please continue to pray for financial Blessings on our family. God has provided hugely for this adoption. HUGE. But, we aren't quite there.....close, but not quite!!

http://www.gofundme.com/1xkacg

Trip 1---Coming sooooon!

So, most of you know that we will have to make 2 trips to Bulgaria. Our first trip is basically us accepting an invitation from the Bulgarian Government to come and "visit" Leanna. Then, we sign a paper saying we "accept" our match.....which just sounds crazy. details, I guess.

 

After we leave, Both the US Government and the Bulgarian Government have to start doing their work, making the adoption legal in both Countries. I don't know what all they need to do, but I know its a lot and that when I have read that info, my brain feels like it might explode.

 

When we can go pick up Leanna fully depends on how quickly both governments work. Worse case scenario, 3 months. Best case....it goes quick. But, we aren't holding out breath for that. We find that going with the longest timeline is best, as then we are pleasantly surprised when things move quicker.

 

So....all this to say.....

OUR FIRST TRIP IS IN JANUARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*****insert happy dance here*****

 

We get to spend 3 days with Leanna at her orphanage....we will stay in the town where she is. We will also have to do a few logistical things....and then there is time to take in the culture and do some touristy things.

 

Cant. Wait.

 

We have been doing some shopping for our Roma Darlin to pass the time. We have gotten a couple outfits for her, a few toys for her orphanage....and of course some snuggly blankets and lovies to leave with her. We have also gotten a couple recordable books so she can learn our voices in our absence.