Merry Christmas!

Raleigh and I are really enjoying the holiday season! We had fun picking out our Christmas tree at Berry Patch Farms! Raleigh and my dad were in charge of the lights! The smell of gingerbread in the oven makes it feel like Christmas is just around the corner!

Twas the morning after Thanksgiving...

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and feel really blessed that we were able to share our home with family. We have so much to be thankful for in 2009.

Here are just a few of our countless blessings...
-Raleigh and I both have jobs.
-Raleigh and I are healthy.
-We love each other very much!
-Both sets of our parents love us so much and have taught us how to love others well.
-In February, we met the 2009 quota for our adoption agency and are in the process of adopting a treasure, our child, from South Korea.
-Our home was filled with laughter today.

Enjoy a few snapshots from the day...

Please join me in prayer for God to move mountains in the Canadian governmnent...

Just a few days ago, the government in Canada stopped issuing visas allowing little treasures to be adopted. Many families are at the end of the adoption process and now they are not allowed to bring their child home.

Please refer this post and this one from A Place Called Simplicity to read more.

As Christians, we have to speak up for the orphans that cannot speak up for themselves. God is much bigger than any government. Please pray today that God will move in the hearts of the Canadian government and that they will reverse their decision.

Quite a good read....hard, but true

http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/2009/11/we-have-had-one-of-those-really-great.html

Thanksgiving

This year Raleigh and I are blessed to be hosting Thanksgiving. My grandmother, Mamaw, loved Thanksgiving so much and always spent the month of November making sure Thanksgiving would be great!

Since my grandmother passed away, my mom and her five siblings have taken turns hosting Thanksgiving each year. It is always such a special time to gather with aunts, uncles, and cousins.

This year Raleigh and I decided we would like to have everyone gather in our home. (maybe by this time next year there will be a little one in our house and it might not be quite as easy to host...:)

My parents are coming a day or two early to help out. Mom and I are planning to do as much as possible Wednesday.

So far this is our menu:

Snacks while people arrive
hot pepper jelly with cream cheese
vegetable tray
spinach dip

Main Course
turkey
ham
dressing
pinto beans in the crock pot
deviled eggs
mashed potatoes
mac and cheese
rice casserole
broccoli casserole
salad
fruit salad
angel biscuits

Dessert
chocolate pies- Mamaw's signature dish...delicious
pumpkin pies
Texas sheet cake
sour cream pound cake

What foods are staples at your family's Thanksgiving meal?

November is National Adoption Month!

In honor of National Adoption Month, I thought I would post a few of my thoughts about our adoption.

Before Raleigh and I got married, we had all of the important conversations you have when you are dating someone seriously...do you want kids, how many years to you want to wait before having kids, how will we handle finances, do you want pets, how will we share household responsibilities, etc.

We always agreed that we wanted children. A little over a year ago, when Raleigh and I started talking about children, we had plans to have our first child biologically.

And then God totally rocked our world. Through a series of events including the stroke of our 26 year old friend Katherine and the death of sweet Maria Sue Chapman, God broke our hearts for the needs of the world and taught us so much about prayer and interceding on behalf of others. I can specifically remember sitting in our tiny little guest house in Atlanta have hours of conversations about what it means to pray without ceasing.

Through that journey of God grabbing our hearts for the needs around us and teaching us how to pray without ceasing in many different ways, God broke our hearts for the orphans around the world. I read the book The Lost Daughters of China by Karin Evans and God began to confirm that it was His plan for us to adopt our first child.

We knew that we wanted children. We knew that we had the love to give a child. We knew that it would not always be easy. We knew we wanted to raise a child to love God deeply.

God's lavish love to us and through us compelled us to adoption.

Adoption is not our 2nd choice. Adoption is our 1st choice.

I am so humbled that God is allowing us to join Him on His mission to love orphans.

Will we adopt again? Who knows! (Well, actually God knows:) Will we have biological children? Not sure.

But, in honor of National Adoption Month, know that adoption is not a last resort or a 2nd choice. Adoption is a beautiful picture of God setting the lonely in families just like He adopted us as His children and brought us into His family!

147 Million Orphans and an Adoption Fundraiser

I have been following the blog of Katie Davis for several months now. Katie Davis (Amazima Ministries.org) is a 20 year old girl who lives in Uganda, has custody of 14 little girls, sends 400 children to school, and now has a feeding program. I originally found her blog because she is from my hometown, Brentwood, TN. Within a year , Amazima (which means THE TRUTH) has grown from 150 to 400 children. If you spend some time reading Katie’s blog I know that you will be both encouraged and challenged.

147 Million Orphans has partnered with Katie and Amazima Ministries. Their goal is to help as many people as possible to see the 147 million orphans worldwide as their brothers and sisters in Christ.
147 Million Orphans has also decided to partner with adoptive families to help them raise money to bring home beautiful treasures!

Raleigh and I are excited to announce that we will be selling 147 Million Orphans shirts. The purchase of each adult shirt feeds a child in Africa for two weeks. Please consider purchasing a shirt for yourself and others on your Christmas list! Simply click on the right side of the blog on "Gresham Adoption Fundraiser" to see the shirts. When I wear my 147 Million Orphans shirt it is a great conversation starter!

Did you know there are 147 million children worldwide who have lost one or both parents?

Every 14 seconds an AIDS death leaves another child orphaned.

Approximately 88 million orphans live in Asia.

Approximately 45 million orphans live in Africa.

Approximately 14 million orphans live in Latin America & the Caribbean.

Approximately 1 million children live in public care in Central and Eastern Europe

More than 800,000 children pass through America’s foster care system each year.

I-600a Fingerprinting

Last Friday Raleigh and I received our notification to be fingerprinted by the USCIS office in Atlanta. This is part of our I-600a application. The I-600a is the Advance Processing of an Orphan Petition. It is one of the important pieces of paperwork that must be completed and approved in order for us to adopt internationally.

Our scheduled time is Monday, November 3rd at 10am. Say your prayers that our fingerprinting will go smoothly and that we will receive approval quickly. Although we know that we will not be matched with a child for many months, a quick approval means that once we do have a referral and we are working with the Atlanta USCIS again, hopefully they will process our paperwork quickly. Each local USCIS office seems to have different time lines for processing various types of paperwork, so hopefully the Atlanta office is fast and efficient!

WooHoo for fingerprints!!!

Orphan Sunday

Did you know that Sunday, November 8 is Orphan Sunday? Orphan Sunday is an opportunity for individuals and churches to speak up on behalf of the millions of orphans around the world. There are over 140 million little treasures without a forever family.

Visit this site if you want to learn more about Orphan Sunday!

God's heart is for adoption.

Just think, we are all born spiritual orphans until we know our one true Father. He so graciously adopts us as His children. While we are yet sinners, God chooses us and pursues us because He wants us to be part of his family. As God's adopted children, we receive the full rights of being a child of God.

God's heart is for adoption. His heart breaks for the millions of children without a family.

But, there is hope. We can all do our part to change the life of an orphan. If you do not know where to start, simply start by praying. Ask God to open your heart to the needs of the orphans and show you how you can be part of His story.

In view of the love God has lavished on us by adopting us as His children, let us go and Show Hope to the world. (www.showhope.org)

2 Posts in one day...Broccoli and Potato Soup

Tonight was my first attempt at Soup Sunday. Starting today I am attempting to make a new soup or crock-pot recipe each Sunday in October. This recipe for broccoli and potato soup was super easy and fun to make. It came out of the November 2009 issue of Everyday with Rachael Ray.

The best part? There were only 5 ingredients:
1 bunch broccoli
1 onion
1 large red potato (or 2 medium)
2 cups milk
shredded cheese for topping

Luckily, it made enough for leftovers tomorrow!

Pumpkin, Meal Planning, and Organization

I have been searching for pumpkin pie mix and pumpkin puree for several months, but apparently there was a pumpkin shortage this year. This weekend I finally found pumpkin puree at Publix and was able to make pumpkin cupcakes. As the cupcakes baked, they filled the kitchen with the delicious smell of fall.





I found a neat food blog that gave me an idea for meal planning for the rest of the month. I have tried meal planning a variety of ways. The most economical way I've tried is to spend the week clipping coupons and finding coupons online. Then plan all meals for the following week based on the coupons and grocery store sales. Even though this way saves the most money, it also takes the most time. For the remainder of October I have decided to try cooking certain "genres" of food on certain nights. Then since I have planned all my meals for the month, I can look for coupons and sales that match my needs.

So...for the remainder of October our menu looks like this:

Sundays (soup/crock-pot meals): broccoli and potato soup, spicy chili con chile, butternut squash soup

Tuesdays (Mexican night): bean and cheese quesadillas, sopes, tacos

Thursdays (Italian night): two tomato pesto pasta, cheese ravioli with pumpkin sage sauce, vegetable lasagna

Saturdays (sandwich day): brie and vegetable panini, inside out English muffin grilled cheese, roasted red pepper sandwich

On nights when I have not planned a meal, we will have leftovers or a meal from pantry staples. I will give this meal planning technique a try for the month of October and then decide if it works well for us.

Finally, I also decided to try something new to help make weekday lunches easier. Raleigh and I are both packing our lunches, but some nights we both get home late and get too lazy to pack our lunches for the next morning. I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner, but today I decided to pack lunch "snacks" such as pretzel sticks, almonds, and grapes into 5 baggies. Then I do not have to pack these items each night because they are ready for the entire week. The only thing we will have to pack daily is the "main course" which is usually a sandwich, a lean cuisine, or leftovers. Hopefully this new system will help with packing lunches!!



What do you do to make meal planning and lunch making easier?

Packed and Ready.....

We are packed and ready to go to Nashville for the weekend for the Together for Adoption conference. The conference is from 7:00pm-9:30pm Friday and 8:00am-5:00pm Saturday. I am glad that Raleigh and I decided to take the day off instead of trying to rush to Nashville after work because I don't think we would have been able to make it on time.

We also received an exciting piece of mail yesterday. We got a receipt for our
I-600a application from the office of Homeland Security. The I-600a is our petition to bring an orphan into the US. In 1-3 more weeks we should get another piece of mail. This time it will be our appointment day and time to be fingerprinted by the USCIS in Atlanta. WooHoo!!

Also, our agency emailed us this week that they are still predicting a 12 month wait from home study approval to referral. If this holds true, we are 2 months into our waiting and have 10 more to go until the first time we see the picture of our sweet, sweet baby.

Football Saturday

When we woke up this morning and turned on the tv it looked like this.



Ordinarily it wouldn't be that big of a deal, but we had already made plans for several friends to come over and watch football. Raleigh was on the phone much of the morning with Comcast, but they could not figure out what was causing the cable and internet to be down. A technician is scheduled to arrive between 2pm and 5pm, but we are not really holding our breath that the cable will be back on by the 3:30 Alabama game.

The house is clean. Snacks are ready. But...no cable = no football.

Well...Raleigh is determined so he has his laptop connected to his phone for internet service and is now trying to connect his laptop to the tv. We may be able to watch the game after all.

Home Study

We received a copy of our home study yesterday.:) Even though it has been complete since the end of July, it makes the process seem a little more real to actually see everything written out. Our home study is basically an 8 page document that talks about our lives from childhood until now. It describes how Raleigh and I were each disciplined as children and how we plan to discipline our child. It talks about everything from our families and our jobs to the types of special needs that we are open to considering.

WooHoo for having a copy of our home study in our possession.:)

Rain, Rain, Rain

It has been raining ALL weekend! The pictures do not really do it justice, but our street looks like a river.

A Big Dream...

Ok...I am going to be vulnerable on the blog today, so please just take it for what it's worth...

I know that God is totally in charge of our adoption, our family plan, and everything else for that matter.:) Once we started the adoption journey, I started having this idea that our child will one day disciple others and lead others to Christ. I know that this sounds crazy, but I even have this feeling that our child will one day lead other Koreans to Christ. Our child, who was once an orphan, could help spread the hope of Christ with others and share the love of our true Father.

How will this look? Exactly who will our child disciple? Will our child form relationships with Koreans living in South Korea or Koreans living in the United States? I have no idea how to answer any of these questions. But I do know that God is the author of this story and He is a BIG God!! Nothing is impossible with him. Things that may seem impossible to me and my small world-view, are totally possible with God.

WooHoo to a God who is bigger than our biggest dreams!!

"Not ONE of God's good promises failed, every one was fulfilled."
Joshua 21:45

We Cooked Our First Korean Meal!

Another adoptive family posted pictures and a recipe for Korean wontons. They looked so delicious and Raleigh and I wanted to give it a try. We went to H-Mart, a local Korean grocery store) and bought the wonton wrappers. Below are a few pictures of our first attempt at Korean cooking!

Thanks Mandy and Wes!

A few days ago when I came home from school, I noticed an Amazon box on our front porch. I knew we had not ordered anything recently so I was curious about the contents of the package. When I opened the box, I found three books from our wish list. Our sweet friends Mandy and Wes had purchased three adoption books for us.

I am so thankful for my sweet friends and family. We are blessed to be supported by so many! Thanks for the books Mandy and Wes!!

This and That....

First, I want to tell you a little story about God's faithfulness. I know that God has planned our adoption journey from beginning to end, but sometimes I still try to "figure it all out" myself.

So...this afternoon I was fretting about adoption expenses. Again, I know in my heart that God will provide (just as he always has in the past) but sometimes I try to make my own plan.

I was driving home wondering exactly how the financial aspect of the adoption will work out. Once I arrived home, I went to the mailbox to get the mail. Much to my surprise, there was a completely unexpected check from the doctor's office. We had previously over paid and they sent us a $25 refund. Isn't God amazing?

Regardless of the amount of the check, it was a such a tangible reminder of God's faithfulness. Should I need a "sign" from God to know that He is faithful? No, but God is so cool that He sends special blessings at just the right moment. According to Ephesians 3:20, God is able to do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine. I know that He will provide for our adoption in every way, in ways that we could not even imagine!!

Psalm 138:8 The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O Lord, endures forever-

On another note, Raleigh's parents are leaving for Taiwan tomorrow morning. They will be there until September 14th. They have an opportunity to work with an English speaking ministry there. Please pray for their safety during this trip. Also, pray for God to give them wisdom and clarity about the future. There is potential that the ministry in Taiwan will ask them to move there for a long-term position. I am praying that God will give them complete peace about their decision.

Interesting article in Time Magazine

If you are interested, here is a link to a Time Magazine article about Seoul.

The title is Seoul: World's Most Wired Megacity Gets More So.

First Sign of Fall!

Raleigh always says that I rush the seasons, but I must say that today felt like the beginning of Fall. I know we will have many more hot Atlanta summer days, but it was at least a sneak peak of the cooler weather that is to come. It was not as cool here as my parents said it was in Nashville, but it still made me think of what I call "football weather."

As I was outside on my patio, I noticed that one of the small maple trees in our back yard had a few leaves that have already turned a beautiful shade of red. To me, that is the first sign of fall!

Please Pray for Our Child's Birthmother

Our agency is currently stating that the wait time is approximately 12 months from your home study's approval date. Our home study was approved July 30 and our baby will probably be around 5 months old at the time of referral. If my math is correct, this means that there is a chance that our child's birthmother is pregnant.

Like I have mentioned before, adoption timelines change frequently and we know that God has already chosen the perfect child for our family. But if we do receive our referral in 12 months, then our baby is growing right now. This is hard to even imagine.

Please pray for the health of our child's birth mother, even if she isn't pregnant yet. Pray that she will make healthy choices for herself and her future baby. Pray that people will be placed in her life to tell her about Jesus. Pray that our child will be loved by caretakers once he or she is born. Pray that our baby will attach to one caretaker before he or she comes home.

Thank you for all your prayers!!

To My Husband

I just want to say a special thanks to Raleigh for being sooo supportive over the last two weeks during the start of a new school year. I mean he is always great, but he was especially fantastic when I needed it most! The week before school this year was the craziest I remember and I spent many hours at school. Although the first week of school was a big success, it was very exhausting as well.

Thanks Raleigh for making dinner, cleaning the kitchen after dinner, doing laundry, packing my lunch, bringing me coffee every morning, buying my classroom rug, setting up my classroom computers, stuffing folders for my students, bringing dinner to me and my teacher friends when we were all at school really late, listening to my endless stories about school, cheering me on, and loving me when I'm at my best and my not so best.

Thank you Raleigh!

We are Officially Waiting!!

We have exciting news in terms of our adoption timeline...we are officially waiting!! We received an email from our social worker and our home study was approved July 30, although we were not actually notified until several days later. I have been meaning to update the blog, but preparations for the beginning of a new school year have been demanding most of my time.

Our agency will not tell us what number we are on the waiting list, because many factors impact your waiting time, regardless of where you are on the list. Some factors that influence the wait time include age of the child, medical needs that families are open to or not open to, gender preference, etc.

We feel very blessed to be at this point!! We plan to fill out the I-600A this weekend.

Thank you to everyone who continues to pray for us and encourage us along the journey!

One Step Closer!

We received an email from our social worker today and our homestudy is complete and has been sent to our agency's corporate office for approval. WooHoo!

She also told us to begin completing the I-600A. This form is the Application for Advance Processing of Orphan petition. Once we complete the form, our agency will mail it to the USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services). Next, we will receive an invitation to be fingerprinted at the Atlanta USCIS office. Once the USCIS receives our paperwork, it usually takes 1-4 weeks to be invited for fingerprinting. These fingerprints will be electronically sent to the FBI for approval.

It may not be a big step...but we are one step closer!

Quick Adoption Update

I just received an email from our social worker and she plans to have our homestudy complete early next week. Woohoo! Once our homestudy is finished, it will be mailed off for approval and we will receive our HSTK (homestudy to Korea) date. At this point we will officially be on the waiting list.

A Week With the Greshams

Raleigh's family makes a cross-country trip each year to visit family. This year they left Colorado and their first stop was Birmingham to celebrate the 4th of July and visit Brandon (Raleigh's brother) and Stacey (our sister-in-law). Next they traveled to Florida to visit Raleigh's dad's side of the family. After Florida they drove to Atlanta to stay with us for a few days. Finally, we drove with them to Michigan to celebrate Raleigh's grandmother's 80th birthday. Here are a few pictures of our time with them.


We ordered dining room chairs that were delievered during their visit. Everyone helped out putting them together!


The chairs are all put together and we enjoyed our first meal at our new table!


Enjoying a funny video at Raleigh's grandmother's house.


Raleigh and his little brother Isaac decided to be dress the same for church to be funny! It did create lots of smiles!


Me and the love of my life!

Pictures from Birmingham

We are so blessed that Brandon and Stacey (Raleigh's brother and our sister-in-law) take such beautiful pictures. If you are in need of wedding photography, hop on over to their website or blog and check them out!!

Here are a few of the pictures they took while we were in Birmingham.

Korean Tol

Yesterday I posted about one Korean tradition, the wedding ducks. Another important tradition is the Korean Tol, or child’s first birthday celebration. The tradition began long ago when there was a high infant mortality rate. When children reached the age of one, the family has a big celebration, or Tol.

The Tol is typically divided into four main sections.
1.) Prayer and Giving Thanks
2.) Wearing the Birthday Clothes
3.) Preparing the Birthday Table and doing the Toljabee
4.) Sharing the Food with Friends

The traditional clothing for the birthday celebration is a hanbok and I have included a couple of pictures. Many foster families give the adoptive family a hanbok for their child as a gift. When we travel to Korea, we will buy our child a hanbok if we do not receive one from our child’s foster family.





The birthday table can have a variety of foods, but most often has fruit and rice cakes. Many tables often have candy towers. Another part of the Tol is performing the Toljabee. The parents put various items on a special table in front of the child. The tradition states that the item that the child picks up first predicts the child’s future. I’ve listed the most commonly used items below.

bow and arrow: the child will become a warrior
thread: the child will live long
book or pencil: the child will become a successful scholar
money: the child will become rich
ruler: the child will be talented with his/her hands
spoon: the child will be a good cook

We pray that our child will be home before his or her first birthday, so that we will be able to celebrate this as a family. Here is a link to a very elaborate Tol. Obviously it does not have to be this fancy, but I do love the fruit towers!

Korean Wedding Ducks

One part of our adoption journey is learning about the Korean culture. Raleigh and I want to learn as much as possible so that we can instill a sense of pride in our child about his or her culture. When we travel to Korea, I hope to purchase special items that can be given to our child on birthdays and other special events. One item I hope to find is a set of wooden wedding ducks. There is a tradition of giving a newly married couple a set of carved ducks. One represents the bride (on the left) and the other the groom. After the wedding, they are placed somewhere in the couple's home and their position (placed by either spouse) tells of the couples marital state. Nose to nose means the relationship is good, tail to tail means they are probably having a disagreement.

We know that as our child gets older, there will be questions about his or her birth parents, Korea, and possibly about his or her identity. Will he or she identify more with Koreans or Americans? I pray that God will prepare us along the way for all of the questions that our child may have. One thing that I do know, is that we will celebrate Korea and its culture.

We will be an American family. Our child will never know what it is like to grow up Korean in Korea, but he or she will know what it is like to be Korean American. Our child will be one of the thousands of boys and girls that become Korean American through adoption. Raleigh and I will never know what it feels like to be Korean American, but we want our child to feel comfortable and proud of his or her culture. We will always support our child and cheer him or her on through all of life's adventures!

Our Trip to Birmingham!

We had a great trip to Birmingham over the weekend. We enjoyed spending time with Raleigh's parents, his brother Isaac, his sister Beth, his brother Brandon and Brandon's wife Stacey. We spent the day Saturday at Brandon and Stacey's house enjoying each other's company. We grilled out Saturday afternoon before going to watch the fireworks in Homewood. We watched the fireworks from Shades Cahaba, the school where I taught for two years. It is such a special place and a treasure within the community.

WooHoo! Keep praying...

The sweet girl I asked you to pray for has a few more days before her file will be returned to China. Yippee...God is good. The deadline has been extended to July 6th because the social worker was out of the office. That means...get on your knees and ask God to soften a family's heart to be open to an older child with special needs. Raleigh and I do not qualify for the China program, because we are not 30 yet. However, there are many families with all of their paperwork complete and they are waiting on the referral of a child. A doctor in the US looked at her file and said there is a lot that could be done to give her a radically different future.