The Light at the End of the Tunnel

There is a light shining bright at the end of the tunnel leading us to Ethiopia and Amente and Soresa!!  The U.S. Embassy cleared us on Tuesday and we have an appointment set for Wednesday, July 3rd.  We are so excited to be on our way tomorrow to DC and then on to Ethiopia.  Can’t wait to have those boys back in my arms again!

Trenton and Garrett are seeing the light at the end of their fundraising tunnel, too.  They have raised over $3,500 for their plane tickets to Ethiopia!  Who knew so much money was to be earned in chicken farming and necklace sales.  Seriously, a huge thank you to all our friends and family who gave donations well above what the eggs and necklaces are worth.  It is a priceless gift for Trenton and Garrett to be able to travel to Ethiopia to meet their new brothers.

On another note…we have been thinking about “American” names for Amente and Soresa ever since meeting them 3 months ago.  When we asked them if they wanted American names, Soresa answered “Yes” right away and Amente shrugged his shoulders like he didn’t care.  We were wanting to find strong, unique Biblical names like Titus.  However, it has been a struggle this time around to pinpoint what we wanted to name them.  Believe me, we have been through every genealogy in the Bible!  I think we have finally settled on names that just happen to be the same first initial of their Ethiopian names.  Amente will get to choose between his given name or Asher.  Asher means “happy” and is one of the twelve sons of Israel.   Soresa will be Silas.  He was a friend to Paul as was Titus.  I’m sure he will be our Titus’ friend, too.:)

Thanks for all of your prayers and words of encouragement while we travel this week.  We especially ask for prayers for safe travels and the beginning of a strong bond with Amente and Soresa (Asher and Silas).

Still waiting…

Yes, we are still waiting.  This has been a common theme throughout our adoption process and our blogs!  I really do believe that God puts this time of waiting in our journey in order to build up the desire to bring more children into our family.  I can tell you without a doubt that the desire is there…and it is overwhelming at times!

We have done some small projects on the room and bathroom that the boys will share.  It kept us busy the month of May but now I look at the empty spots where Amente and Soresa will sleep and brush their teeth and I can’t help but pray that this waiting will be over soon!

We were hoping our paperwork would be submitted to the US Embassy for Amente and Soresa 6 weeks from our court date, just as it was for Titus.  When 6 weeks came and went we were praying for 8 weeks.  At 8 weeks, we were told that we were still waiting for a doctor at the medical clinic to sign off on medical papers.  We were pretty confident that the medical report would be in at the 9 week mark but that day came and went without any wonderful e-mails from the Embassy in my Inbox!  So, now we have confirmation that all paperwork will be complete and submitted to embassy on June 12th!  Praise God!  We have been told that things should move along pretty quickly after our paperwork is submitted.  So, we are hopeful we are on target to go back sometime at the end of June.

During this waiting, I have come across one scripture over and over again…

“Cast all your anxiety on Him because he cares for you.”  – I Peter 5:7  

I think that I have seen this verse, read this verse, and heard this verse more over the past month than in my lifetime.  God is trying to tell me something!  I need to keep hearing it because I have such a stubborn spirit.  I can not be anxious about the timing of this adoption, I can not be anxious about how I am going to communicate with my new sons, I can not be anxious about how our family is going to mesh, or even what the house is going to look like with 5 boys!!  All I can do is cast it on Him because He is soooo much bigger than all of those things that keep me up at night.  He cares for me.  He loves me.  Why can’t I let Him do that for me?

As always, Brian and I appreciate all of your prayers and encouragement.  Countless times an e-mail or phone call from one of you has brightened up our day.  It is so reassuring to know that you are on this journey with us!

Here We Go Again!

WE HAVE A REFERRAL!!!

Yes, you read that correctly.  No, there isn’t a blog post that you have missed!  We are adopting again!  Let me start from the beginning….

When we got home from adopting Titus we knew that we wanted to adopt more children but weren’t sure what the timing would look like for our family.  We started praying about it this summer but didn’t feel the time was right to start the process again.  In October, Brian saw a post from our adoption agency, West Sands, about two brothers from Ethiopia that were 5 and 7 years old that were available for adoption.  Brian e-mailed me and asked me what I thought about inquiring about them.  I told him it made my stomach hurt since we had only had Titus home for 6 months…but we decided it wouldn’t hurt to inquire about them.  We found out that our agency was having trouble placing them because of their age (most people want younger children).

We took the weekend to pray about these boys and whether God was prodding us to open our hearts and home to them.  On Saturday afternoon, we really felt a peace about moving forward with them.  We talked it over with our boys and got a resounding “yes” from them to add more boys to our family.  Our balloon was quickly burst, however, when we e-mailed our agency and found out that the brothers were much older than they originally thought, that there was another family interested in them as well, and that the boys wouldn’t be “paperwork ready” for a few months.

We were certainly disappointed but decided that God had a larger plan and had maybe just used this “push” to encourage us to start the adoption process again.  So, we contacted our social worker (who “coincidentally” was already  scheduled to come to our home the following week for a post-placement appointment for Titus) to let her know that we wanted to update our home study in order to be able to start the adoption process again.  Additionally, we contacted our agency and started our dossier work and were told that it would be about a 9 – 12 month wait for a referral after all of our paperwork was turned in.  Realistically, we were looking at the end of 2013 before we would even get a referral.

Fast forward to just a few weeks ago… 1) We found out that our dossier we did for Titus’ adoption is still good in Ethiopia through July 2013; 2) We have completed our new home study (since portions just needed to be updated from our adoption of Titus); and 3) I stopped by Lifeline Children Services’ (our local partnering adoption agency) office here in Louisville to drop off some paperwork and our first payment.  I was talking with our adoption coordinator when she told me that the brothers that we had asked about a few months ago were complete and ready for adoption, the other family was no longer interested in the boys, and their ages were actually only 6 and 8 years old!  I asked if I could see a picture of them and she told me that they were our referral if we were still interested!!  I was speechless.  The boys were with me in the office and couldn’t wait to see the pictures of their new brothers!  Soon we were looking at the sweet faces of two boys who were to be our sons!  We took the pictures to lunch to surprise Brian.  I think he was even more in shock than we were!  Only God could have worked all of this out…so, of course, we accepted the referral for our two new boys!

Now we wait.  Our home study is complete, and we hope to send out our I-600A to the U.S. Homeland Security this week.  As soon we can get our fingerprints done, we will be waiting for our court date in Ethiopia.  We are optimistically anticipating our first court date will be sometime in late Spring of 2013.

This is all happening so incredibly fast; but we are so incredibly excited!  There are times I get overwhelmed thinking about 5 boys in my house making a mess and eating us out of house and home; but there are just as many times that I think about what a blessing they will be to our family.

As we embark on this journey again, we ask for your prayers for our process to bring these two brothers home.  We feel that God keeps reminding us that…

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:  To look after orphans and widows in their distress and keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”  – James 1:27

Thank you for being such an encouragement to our family and coming along (again) on this journey with us!  We wish the best to you and your family during this Christmas season!

Titus Laughing at Trenton & Garrett

Thought we’d share this video. Titus has settled in extremely well! He gets pretty tickled in this video as he’s watching Trenton and Garrett wrestle. We’ve only heard him laugh like this a couple of times…but it’s pretty contagious when he does it!

Spring Fever? Myrtle Beach Condo Fundraiser Email Auction

We continue to be blown away by the generosity of our friends and family during the fundraising portion of our adoption!  We feel so connected to all of you who have helped us through prayer, coaster sales, the Thirty-One party, and general donations.  This has been a humbling experience to say the least.  When we started this journey, we knew we would have financial obligations but didn’t begin to realize how blessed we would be to have friends walk this road with us by contributing to those obligations!  It means more than we can ever express in words to know that we have such a strong support group right now!

With that said, we have some very generous friends, the Omers, that have offered to put their condo in Myrtle Beach up for auction to help us with our fundraising!

The condo is available May 13 – 18, 2012 and is located in the Shore Crest Vacation Villa 1 located on the Atlantic Ocean in Myrtle Beach, SC.  The villa has a partial ocean view.  It can sleep up to 6 people with 2 bedrooms and a living room with a sleeper sofa. The villa also includes 2 baths, kitchen, and laundry.  Additionally, the resort includes a winding lazy river, outdoor heated pool, indoor pool, hot tub, fitness room, game room, and internet access. Anyone have Spring Fever?  To see more information on the resort, please click here.

We will hold an email auction for this property.  See instructions/information below on how it will work…

• Bidding starts Saturday, March 17th
• Bidding ends Saturday, March 24th at 6:00pm (based on email time stamp)
• All bids should be emailed to cassieborgman@att.net
• We will update our blog daily with the leading bid.  On Saturday, should we have several bids throughout the day, we will try to update the blog as often as possible.
• The winner will be contacted, at the latest, on Sunday, March 25th.  At that time, we will share the Omers’ contact information in order for the winner to finish the the final details with them.
• If anyone has any questions/concerns, please contact Cassie at cassieborgman@att.net.

Unified Technologies’ Blog Post About Our Adoption…

One of our founding Unified team members, Brian Borgman, and his family received news just before Christmas that a beautiful 3-month old baby boy from Ethiopia was referred to them for adoption. And all of us at Unified could not be happier for this new addition to their growing family!  Click here to read more…

God’s Plan…Not Ours

As posted on our blog on 3/5/11, the Government of Ethiopia’s Ministry of Women’s Children’s and Youth Affairs (MOWCYA) has decided to reduce the number of adoption cases they process per day from 40 down to 5…a 90% decrease. Obviously, this will create long delays for many Ethiopian adoptions.

Since that announcement here’s what we’ve heard…

– Ethiopia’s Minister of MOWCYA was replaced within days of the above announcement.
– The U.S. State Department has indicated that many Governmental and Non-Governmental Groups have proposed offers to provide MOWCYA with the resources needed to continue operating at their usual pace.
– The Ethiopian MOWCYA has announced a revised plan which includes the processing of 20 adoption cases per day.
– We have had 2 sets of friends return from Ethiopia with the newest additions to their families in the past week.  Their agency’s Ethiopian contact said that he’s seen no slow downs in the process at this point.

Needless to say, with all the conflicting information we were getting, Cassie and I (more me than she) were a bit uncertain how to proceed. We began to look at other adoption options other than Ethiopia…both domestically and internationally. However, we have continued to come back to Ethiopia and really feel like God has laid Ethiopia on our family’s hearts…it doesn’t hurt that we’ve been blessed in celebrating with our friends upon their return with their new children from Ethiopia!!

Cassie and I have come to the conclusion that this journey is going to be all about trusting God and His will for our lives and having faith in Him. There are so many things we cannot control…and that is very difficult for Cassie and me (especially me). However, I am convinced that is (at least) a couple of the things God plans to work on with us through this process. I like to plan the next step; review my options; strategically make my decision; etc. It’s not going to work like that through this adoption. My only option is to have FAITH and TRUST; realizing that, whatever the outcome, God has a plan. It might not be my plan, but it is His…and ultimately, in the long run, it will be much better than any plan I can come up with on my own!

“Trust GOD from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for GOD’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; He’s the one who will keep you on track.”   – Proverbs 3:5-6 (The Message)

Our 1st Ride on the Adoption Roller Coaster

We’ve been on “a high” for the last week…making our adoption announcement to friends and family.  Thank you for all of the well wishes, encouragement, and continued prayers.  Unfortunately, today it seems we are on our 1st ride on the Adoption Roller Coaster.  According to an article we just read on Voice of America,  Ethiopia is Cutting their Foreign Adoptions by 90%.

Per the article,

“Ethiopia’s Ministry of Women’s, Children’s and Youth Affairs has issued a directive saying it will process a maximum of five inter-country adoptions a day, effective March 10. Currently, the ministry is processing up to 50 cases a day, about half of them to the United States…the reduction of up to 90% in cases will allow closer scrutiny of documents used to verify a child’s orphan status.”

Obviously, this is very disappointing news to us.  After Cassie had a discussion with a friend who is in the last stage of their adoption journey (they are leaving next week to pick up their 3 kids from Ethiopia!), she shared a blog post with us from West Sands Adoptions (the adoption agency we will be partnering with), titled Rumors About (Ethiopian) Courts Slowing Down.

The blog post states that the Ethiopian Courts have not posted such a statement; rather Ethiopia’s Ministry of Women’s, Children’s and Youth Affairs (MOWA) is the government department that stated the reduction.  While, MOWA is part of the Ethiopian government, apparently they have made statements like this in the past in an attempt to get more staff for their department.

Our hope and prayer is that this is simply a political move by the MOWA in an attempt to get what they want.  Whatever it is and whatever the outcome, we know that God is in this with us and His ways are better than ours.  Please continue to keep us in your prayers as I’m sure this will be one of many “bumps in the road” we will see along the way.

– Brian

Beginning our Adoption Journey

It’s official.  After nearly a year of prayer, contemplation, debating, and pleading (by our boys); the Borgman’s have decided to adopt.  At this point, our initial plan is to adopt two children from Ethiopia ages birth to 6 or 7 years old.  With that said, we hope to be open to God’s leading on this journey if He has other plans in store for us.

In reality, that is the main reason we are to the point we are today.  Cassie and I have felt God calling us to do this for the last 12+ months.  When I say “calling”, please understand that this has been by varying degrees over the last year.  Since the start, the boys (especially Trenton) have been very vocal about wanting to do this.  Cassie has had a strong desire to start the process, especially over the last few months.  I, on the other hand, have been making excuse after excuse, for why we should not adopt.

Funny how God speaks through others to move you in the direction He wants you to move.  Our minister, Kyle Idleman, preached a few weeks ago about missions.  It was a moving message about our calling as Christians to not lead “ordinary” lives and to reach out to the lost in our world.  At some point during the message, Kyle mentioned how God calls us to different things in our lives. He went on to state that (as Christians) if we don’t follow that call; we are being disobedient to God.  That hit me right between the eyes.  My God and Father laid on my family’s heart to adopt nearly a year ago.  All the while, I have been making excuses as to why we shouldn’t adopt…to that end, I have been disobedient to God and His ultimate plan for my life and for the lives of my family.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  – Jeremiah 29:11

My reasons for not wanting to start this journey were all about ME (though I convinced myself it was about what was best for my family).  They were about my own fears of not being the provider I should be for my family.  The reasons all revolved around things that I wanted to control…

– If we adopt, our family dynamics (that I know and am comfortable with) will change.

– I’m concerned how I can afford to send my current two kids to college…how will I ever afford to send four to college?

– My boys enjoy playing on organized sports teams…how can we afford and juggle more sports schedules?

– How do I justify spending money on adoption when I still owe on a lot we purchased last year?

– Etc., etc., etc.

As you can see, I’m a bit practical and like to be in control.  However, what I have realized is that I depend an awful lot on my self.  Where was my trust in God?  Where was my faith in God and his plan for my life…for my wife’s life…for my boys’ lives?

“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”  – Matthew 6:9-11

I know this is just the 1st chapter in a new journey that God is taking our family down.  The cool thing is that I can already see how He’s worked in our lives over the last several months…and we’re just starting.  I’m anxious to see what else He has in store for my family.  We are really making an effort to open our hearts to His leading and purpose through this process.  I pray that whatever occurs during this journey that He uses it to grow me and my family and to be an example and inspiration to those that are joining us on this journey as well.

“Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails”  – Proverbs 19:21