More Praises!!!

Today we found out a few pieces of info that are very exciting! First of all my sister and brother-in-law are now also on the wait list!!! (For those of you who didn't know, they are also adopting from Ethiopia, same orphanage, etc.) Their first choice is a sibling group, and they are #11 on that list, and then they are also on the boy(#18) and girl(#28) individual lists!!! We are really hoping God will bless us with the opportunity to travel together to Ethiopia to bring back our children!!! So that was praise #1 for today!
#2 is that our bi-weekly email came today from our agency! There were up to 4 boy referrals made in the last two weeks, so our new number may be as low as 14!!!! Thank you Lord!!! We also found out that as of late, wait list to referral time is taking 5-6 months, rather than 6-8 months! So that means we should be receiving pictures and info of our son by May or June!!! Yahoo!!! We'll have our new official number the first week of February, we'll keep you posted! Thanks so much for all of your prayers and support!

"Commit to the LORD whatever you do,

and your plans will succeed."
Proverbs 16:3

#18 and counting!!!

So today we are number 18 on the waiting list!!! SO very exciting! And our case worker also informed us that they made several referrals last week that are awaiting formal acceptance. Once those are accepted this week, then our number will drop even lower!!! God is so good!
I think we are starting to feel a bit more anxious about it all. It is quite clear that in this year, 2009, we are becoming parents. If feels so very surreal! We continue to pray that God will be preparing us for our future son, and be preparing our son for us. It's so cool and strange to say that, "our son"! I'm sure many of you out there know what I mean, when you have wanted something so badly and yet don't have it to claim, but then you finally can! Wow, such a good feeling! A couple of weeks ago when we were praying for our son, Evan used the name we have chosen for him in the prayer... of course I became teary eyed! You know me! Anyway, it was that same surreal feeling. And now that you're probably curious about the name, here's the plan: We plan to keep his Ethiopian name either as a first or middle name, depending on it's ease of pronunciation. If it is difficult to pronounce then we will keep it as his middle name and give him the first name we have chosen. We will share the name we have chosen with others once we have accepted his referral and know his information and see his picture. Trust me, I'm sure it will be a blog title of something to the effect of "Introducing _________ __________ Campbell" !!!!! We'll have another update later this week, once we know how many referrals were accepted last week, so stay tuned! And thanks so much for all your prayers!

A Very Merry Christmas Gift

PRAISE THE LORD!!! We are on the waiting list for our son from Ethiopia!!! We are number 20 on the boy list!!!! This news is official as of Wednesday, December 17th at approximately 11:30am!!!!!!!!! Obviously we are SO excited and I almost cried when this wonderful news was shared with me. The timeline from now is a maximum of 8 months until a picture, name and information are given (approx. mid August max), and then once we have that info it is a maximum of 5 months until we travel. SO, that means about one year maximum or less until we have our son at home with us!!! Yahoo!!!!! Thank you all so much for your prayers for us and this process, please continue to pray!!! Merry Christmas to you all!!!

Home Study Complete!!!

Alright, our home study is finally done!!! Thank you Lord! We are just waiting for our notarized copy to be sent to us, which should be done next week and then we can send in our packet to Ethiopia and be on the waiting list!!! We are getting SO excited! We're hoping to be able to send it in by the end of next week, and then we should be receiving a referral anytime after mid-May (or before)!!! Keep praying, and praising, because our timeline is working out so far and we're so thankful! That's all for now! Adios!

Praises!!!

Well we have finally completed "our side" of the home study, we'll be mailing in our "With Eyes Wide Open" workbook on Monday (YAHOO!!!) and we finally got an email back from the USAF stating that Evan has no record of anything at all from his time in England. This is both what we expected and needed to hear to pass on to our agency! Now we are waiting for a copy of the completed Home Study review to be forwarded to us (hopefully this coming week), we proof read it, send it back and then they send us an official copy. Once we have that little goody in our hot hands, we send it to CIS (immigration) in Portland and wait for them to tell us when they can fingerprint us and then approve us for the adoption. We have all of the rest of our paperwork ready to send to Ethiopia, once we have the CIS approval we'll send it in and be on the wait list!!! So please keep praying these last few steps will go quickly and efficiently and we'll be on the wait list by the end of the month! All the time God is good, God is good all the time!!! Love you all!
ps- Evan starts his new job at Newberg on Monday, woohoo!!!

Possible Delay of Adoption

Unfortunately, yesterday we received an email from our agency reporting to us that Ethiopia is tightening their policies for international adoptions. Basically, the time frame from paperwork completion to referral is the same, but the time from referral to travel will increase. Previously they have said 2-4 months from referral to travel, now they are vague and simply saying it will be more than this. Please, please be praying with us, that God would intervene and we would still be able to get our son in the shortest time possible. We are SO excited to bring him home! With this extended time line, we are trying to be optimistic, and we're hoping we'll have our baby before Christmas 2009. That would be THE BEST Christmas gift EVER!!! Thanks for all your prayers!
Cori

The Other New News

Okay, so I realized recently that you should probably all be in on the rest of the new Campbell household news, besides just the adoption "stuff." Recently, within the last month or two, Evan has realized, accepted and begun to pursue God's calling for his career future... Dentistry!!! He's been interested in the field since high school, but now truly feels it is what God is calling him to! We are very excited to embark on this adventure together! We both have such a peace and reassurance from the Lord about this decision! Evan will apply to OHSUs dental school next fall to start in 2010, so now he is working on finishing up a few prerequisites and job shadowing our dentist in order to be competative for the application process! He has also been hired to an evening shift M-F 3p-11:30p in the day surgery unit at Newberg Providence. He starts in November and it will be so nice to have him not commuting an hour each way to work! We both love Prov Newberg and it's so great to love where you work!!! This job will work out great for him to take the prerequisite classes he needs to complete in the AM.
Anyway, that's all for now, just wanted you all to know!
Adios,
Cori