better late than never...

Well, in case you missed me shouting from the off ramp of our airplane or from the open window of our car as we drove home from the airport nearly 7 weeks ago, WE ARE HOME WITH RUBY!!!

There are so many things I could share and would love to tell you, like...

How it was nothing short of an actual miracle that the embassy granted us an appointment when they did--it was.

How when ruby was finally placed in our arms, she screamed and kicked and wanted nothing to do with us, but then 24 hours later she was calling us 'mommy' and 'daddy'--it's true.

How when I finally had her as my own I looked at her and for the first time in my life I finally understood the way the God sees me and was so grateful for my redemption--I was. I am.

How I grieved in a way I could have never imagined as I sat in a restaurant in Ethiopia and realized that ruby would never grow up to be an 'ethiopian' woman and later how I cried as we drove to the airport to take her away from the land where she was born-- oh, how I did.

How she pooped at least 25 times on the 17 hour plane ride from addis to Washington and I was panicked because we ran out of diapers--it was awful.

How joyful the moment was when we drove up a red-balloon lined driveway to our little house where our three older children waited with open arms for their new sister--it was amazing.

How jet lag and the reality of life almost got the best of me, but the saving grace of a freezer full of home cooked meals from our loved ones literally got me through--they SO did.

How one day the decision to love a little girl gave way to the pell- mell, rumble-tumble feeling of actually falling in love with her--so thankful.

How full and crazy and wonderful our home is as a family of six--I have a little stash of wine;)

How one day shortly after we arrived home I learned that ruby's Ethiopian name, which I thought had no significance whatsoever actually means "from death to life"--seriously.

These are the things would tell you in detail if we had hours alone in a room together. I would also tell you how I look back at the last year and see the fingerprints of an amazing God who brought our family together so strategically and accomplished far more as He did it than I could have ever imagined. We are a different family than we were before we began working to bring ruby home. Some of it has been painful and some of it has been thrilling. I can now say that I am thankful for all of it.

My next Goal on here is to actually post pictures and update our timeline... I would like to close out this year by putting this blog to rest... Thanks so much for checking in with us!

Full circle

Exactly one year ago this weekend Chad and I were at the mid-Atlantic Orphan Summit. It was there that we made the firm decision to adopt a little girl from Ethiopia. Well, we have come full circle. I am pounding out this little post from my cell phone because we are on our way to the airport to pick up our daughter, Ruby, in Ethiopia...and bring her HOME!!!!! We got the email saying that our case had been cleared by the embassy just a little less than 48 hours ago, and it has been chaos ever since:) thank you all for your prayers and support these last months as we have been waiting. Our God has truly brought our family full circle from a year ago...here's to the best orphan Sunday ever!!!

no place like home...

today i was able to sit in on the USCIS stakeholder conference call. the call was an hour and a half long and it was USCIS and the state department's way of trying to make a bunch of desperate, crazy mothers & fathers-who-continue-to-be-kept-apart-from-their-children-without-good-cause understand american immigration law. now, on one hand, i left the call with a greater understanding of the separate responsibilities and duties of  the state department and USCIS. on the other hand, i also feel strongly that the individuals running these departments fail to look at these cases and see the faces behind them...the children who have already been abandoned once for a myriad of reasons and have likely faced neglect, malnourishment and disease, the mothers and fathers who have emptied their life savings and gone into debt without blinking an eye because they LOVE the one whose ransom it pays, the cribs and beds that remain empty night after night just waiting for the warm body that will one day occupy them, the clothes that have been lovingly bought, washed, and now sit untouched while the intended wearer slowly grows too big for them thousands of miles away. we are the parents of these little ones. i am mommy to ruby. i want her home. just this week two very awesome gifts were given to us for our little girl...the first was a ruby red bird, now hanging in the middle of our kitchen, it came with a note that says "fly home ruby!", the other was a pair of ruby red slippers...and i just bet you can guess what their note said...

i'm going to click them together a few times and see if they work...

what i hope, what i know...

well, this has been a disappointing day at the kyllonen home...disappointing is a very mild word. i am writing this this tear stained cheeks and a headache from all the ugly crying i've packed into this morning. we woke up to an email from the U.S. embassy in ethiopia, but it was not the email we had been hoping for. this email said that without an interview with ruby's birth mother it would be very difficult for them to "verify the facts of the case and mark it as clearly approvable". The problem is, that they will not approve the case unless it is clearly 'approvable' and our agency has searched to dead-ends without finding ruby's birth mother, and WE cannot make her materialize out of thin air. for the first time today my mind has gone to that really dark place, the place where we do not get to bring our daughter home. there is, however, some logistical hope to this, a team from the state department (CIS) is heading to addis in a few weeks to investigate what exactly is going on at the embassy, and there is a possibility that they will help to process cases with less rigidity than the embassy will, we have a sentator going to bat for us, not to mention several advocates and legal aid who are petitioning on our behalf, and i believe somebody is trying to contact the former head of homeland security on our behalf to see if anything can be done. though i am exhausted of this up and down, i am confident that these people, many of whom do not even know us personally, will be used in amazing ways. this is what i hope.

this is what i know: "a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land." Ps. 68. MY heavenly father, RUBY'S heavenly father has said it in scripture, that HE is the one who sets the lonely in families. so, i say with complete confidence, that ruby not coming home is NOT an option...i do not say this to our creator, but i say it to our enemy, the one who "comes only to steal and kill and destroy" John 10. I do not know what all of this is going to look like in the end...we may be in for a long haul, or we may be recipients of crazy grace, and have ruby with us in only a few weeks. but i do know the one whom we serve and i know that HE is good. i know that HE is sad for the frustration and sadness that our family is experiencing today. i was talking to alanna on the phone earlier and we were talking about the story of lazarus in John 11. there we find the shortest verse in the bible..."Jesus wept". He knew that very shortly HE, HIMSELF, would raise lazarus from the dead, and yet, he was grieved and "deeply moved in [his] spirit" when he saw the grief of his friends. when he first heard that lazarus was dying his response was "this sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory that God's Son may be glorified through it. Jesus loved martha and her sister and lazarus. yet when he heard that lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days." this kind of wows me. it initially seems so cruel that Jesus would know of his dear friend's impending death, yet chose to not act and spare them their grief right away. we then see that not only were they grieved, but so was Jesus(!!!)... he was grieved for them, his loved ones. only HE knew that to wait would mean that their joy would be restored and God would be glorified in a way that he would not have been had lazarus not died. i have to remind myself of this, becase sometimes i forget that our God is a GOOD God. he is the giver of life, strength, health, all good things, and HE is to be glorified. if we must sit in a dark spot for now so that HIS light can shine brightly, then so be it.

i have been so incredibly touched today with the way that people have been praying our girl home and with the encouraging words that have been sent our way...not to mention the picture of the most enormous ruby i have ever seen posted all over facebook, in support and prayer for our daughter!

i have had the most amazing reminders sent to me today in the form of scripture. the first one that was sent my way was this: Joshua 1:9-11 "have i not commanded you? be strong and courageous. do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go. 'and joshua commanded the officers of the people, "pass through the midst of the camp and command the people, 'prepare your provisions, for within three days you are to pass over this jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess." --no, ruby is not land that we have been promised, but she is the daughter we have been lead to by the One who loves us both. today is friday, the embassy is closed for the weekend, but in three days we are preparing to fight to bring our daughter home.

Deuteronomy 31:6 "be strong and courageous. do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you."

Habakkuk 3:17 "though the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vies, though the yield of the olive should fail, and the fileds produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls...the LORD God is my strength.

Nahum 1:7 "the LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and HE knows those who trust in Him."

John 16:33 "I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. in the world you will have tribulation. but take heart; I have overcome the world."

Psalm 130:5 & 6 "i wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word i put my hope. my soul waits for the LORD more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.

Mommy's Heart Went POP

an update...

it's been a while since i posted any kind of an update on how close we are to bringing ruby home. this is mostly because we have been living week-to-week, thinking that at any moment things were going to shift in our direction and the embassy would grant us an appointment, and we would be able to bring our daughter home. well, this has not been the case. when we left addis we were told that because ruby has some special medical needs, we would likely be back in 2-3 weeks, but clearly, here we are, 12 weeks later, with no concrete end in sight.

ethiopian adoption has been under scrutiny for several years now. there have been all too many cases of corruption. corrupt agencies and orphanages have been found taking children and placing them for international adoption under false pretense, using coersion to separate them from their parents. ethiopia has already stripped corrupt agencies of their license and has (and continues to) closed many 'dirty' orphanages. both ethiopia and the U.S are commited to ethical adoptions, and are taking every possible precaution to ensure that children leaving their homeland to join american families are, in fact, truly orphans. in march of this year all eyes were on MOWA, the ethiopian agency that issues approval letters that ultimately determine whether a family passes court. MOWA had issued a statement that they would be cutting down the number of letters they would write each day. They stated that they would only write 5 letters each day, this was an estimated 90% decrease from the previous trend. while all eyes were on MOWA, the U.S. embassy in addis was quietly re-organizing. in july there was a complete turnover of staff at the embassy and, seeminly overnight, new procedures for orphan investigation were being put into place. this left agencies confused becuase there had been no communication between the agencies and the embassy, and as a result, many cases were taken to the embassy and not accepted for submission because the files were not meeting new embassy standards. last week the embassy (finally) met with agencies and laid out new guidelines, they also posted a notice on the state department website. in this notice they disclosed that 80% of files are not meeting new embassy guidelines...this is resulting in a 'traffic jam' of sorts at the embassy...files are coming in at a still steady pace, be nearly all files are requiring an 'orphan investigation' and so they are not leaving the embassy as quickly as they are coming in. becasue of this overflow, hundreds of files are being sent to nairobi for processing.

so, you ask, why on earth am i telling you alllll of this?? for one, anybody who is newly in the process of ethiopian adoption, or is considering ethiopian adoption, will find this very interesting...it's the climate of adoption in ethiopia right now. secondly, it is why we have. not. moved. there was a miscommunication between the embassy and our agency, regarding a tuburculosis test that ruby needed,  and it held us up for 6 weeks. once our case was finally submitted and processed we were told that we could not pass embassy until ruby's birth mother was interviewed. agian. this is where the most recent problem came in. she could not be located. anywhere. our agency followed several leads on her whereabouts, but they all resulted in a dead-end. we do know that the last time she was seen she was very sick, and there is a distinct possibility that she may no longer be living, but we don't know, we may never know...and that is a whole different post. but as there has been nothing concrete, the embassy is still investigating. yesterday a notice was placed in the addis paper, notifying her that she was needed at the embassy. if there is no response to the notice in several weeks, we have every reason to hope that we will pass embassy and be free to travel. in the meantime, our agency has told us to pray that our file is not sent to nairobi, as that would add another month to our already long wait.

we are hopeful that we will have ruby home by thanksgiving, and we are confident that our God is in control of this situation. we have been completely caught off guard by the complications that have arose with this portion of the process, and yet we know that HE has not been surprised by any of it. the other day i was looking for a verse in the bible...i wanted a promise. i went straight to 1 samuel. i wanted the verse that said this: "i prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what i asked of him." i was craving this promise, the answer to hannah's prayer. the answer to the prayer that chad and i have been praying since the moment we started this adoption.  i was so engrosed in the reading of this verse that i almost missed the next one, the so-important next verse: "so now i give him to the Lord. for his whole life he will be given over to the Lord." i wanted the verse that felt so reassuring, that God would give me this child that we have asked and begged for, that i almost missed that part where i am to give her back to Him. where i was looking for a promise, i found a challenge that i will carry with me as i wait, and a challenge that will continue even when i have her here in my arms.

well, thats it. i've got nothing more...do with it what you will:-)

i've told you mine, now you tell me yours...

hello bloggy friends!! thank you all for following our family as we work to bring our ruby home. it's amazing to me that actual support can be offered via the blog world, a gift i had not anticipated. now, as you have been patient and listened to our story unfold, it's my turn to hear your adoption stories:-) please take a look at this and consider sharing your story with the Mommy's Heart Went POP! team. The adoptive community is vast, and while there are many opportunities for adoptive families to come together to learn and ask questions, we are working to simply provide a platform where stories can be told....each one different from the next, every one precious. We would also love to share your blog address, if you have one, and enter you into a drawing for one of the first copies of "Mommy's Heart Went POP". Come, take a look, share your story, and pass this opportunity along to your friends!!

POP...an adoption story...

i have spent the last week trying to figure out an eloquent way to introduce this book on my blog. i would love to take you back in time to explain every little thing that lead up to the writing of this story about a mama, waiting and waiting to bring her little one home. the thing is, it would take forever to tell you the story of this story so i'm going to leave it at this...after myles and before ruby was this story. the story of a dear friend waiting to bring home her little boy from rwanda that eventually became the story of our family waiting to bring our little girl home from ethiopia...and somewhere along the way we realized that it is the story of any family who has ever anticipated, longed for, dreamt of, worked towards, or loved a heart-born child.

to pre-order your copy or to become a backer of Mommy's Heart Went POP! click HERE where you can find more information, view the teaser video, and learn more about the Ruby Myles fund. our hope is that this story will help adopted children realize the love that their adopted parents feel for them and that the proceeds from the purchase of this book will help to bring more children home to their forever families!

submitted!!!

after weeks of prayers...hundreds of prayers...for our adoption to start moving again, it has finally happened!!! on wednesday, september 21st, our paperwork was finally accepted by the american embassy in addis!!! we are on to the final stages of bringing our little girl home!! i cannot tell you the relief i feel at knowing that we will have her home (hopefully) in the next few weeks!! i am allowing myself to miss her with full force again...to look through her things and anticipate her here...in our arms...with our family.

a place called wait...

i just wanted to give a brief update on our process. two weeks ago i asked anybody who reads this blog to please pray for a miracle that our paperwork would be submitted to the american embassy last week. i just wanted to give my bloggy friends (an incredibly riveting) update, which is this: we have no idea what happened that day. we may or may not have been submitted, and as of now we may or may not have been submitted at all. communication between our agency's people in ethiopia and their people here in the states seems to be completely blocked. we don't know exactly the reason, but it is looking like we are about to go into another weekend of not knowing. i don't love this. i am craving an update like i craved chocolate shakes and saurkraut when i was pregnant. the only problem is that i can't send chad out to pick me up an update from the local grocer, so i am learning to wait. learning. to. wait. i am in this waiting place, where if find i am not alone and so i pray for my baby girl and for my friends who are here with me in this most frusterating place. praying for their children and their hearts as we remind each other that we serve a faithful God and wait in expectation for Him to make paths clear.

"In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation." Psalm 4

i hope to have more news next week!

oh, perspective...

hello bloggy friends. it has been a crummy week for adoption news around here. for one thing, we are not...i repeat NOT in ethiopia. not only are we not in ethiopia at this very moment, preparing to bring our daughter home, we have not yet been submitted to the american embassy (the final step in this process) even though attempts have been made several weeks in a row by our agency. this means we have NO idea when we will be in ethiopia to bring ruby home. today i received another call saying that for the third week in a row, we will not be submitted to the embassy AND, Ruby has been admitted to the hospital for the next three days for an invasive TB test. if it comes back clean, we will be submitted next week...a whole month later than it should have been. i literally want to throw things...things that would shatter into a thousand pieces and i am fighting the urge to go stand on my porch and yell and scream at the top of my lungs so that the whole neighborhood can hear...yep, i am at this very moment supressing a full-on temper tantrum, toddler style.

however, deep in the recesses of my mind i am very aware of my need for some perspective. i was fortunate to have lunch (immediately following the crappy phone call) with a dear friend who gently reminded me that we are serving a God who is giving us (his children) all good things, even when it doesn't feel like He is working or even listening to our cries. just as i give good things to my children, so He gives to His children. perspective.

as our adoption process has taken a turn for the frusterating these past few weeks i have received a constant stream of scripture from friends and family who are too loving to just rub my back and feel sorry for me as i cry into my coffee (or on some days, my enormous glass of wine), and so they remind me who's child i am and who's child Ruby is. perspective.

there was also the awesome blog post, written by a friend who i would love to know better, reminding us that if we are looking for God to work the exact way that we want him to, we stand to miss 'walking on the water' miracles, that give us HIS best, and remind us who He is and what He is capable of. perspective.

thank you to all of you who have been offering me healthy doses of perspective all along...i have apparantly been storing it up for this exact moment. thank you for all of your prayers and messages and words of encouragement that let us know that you care about our family...i have honestly been carrying them with me all week, and going back over them today...such gifts!!!

can i ask you to do one more thing for us. with us? we are asking, very publicly, for a miracle (go ahead, think we live in crazyville, i'm cool with it!). please pray with us that our file will be submitted to the american embassy this coming wednesday, sept. 7th. we have been told that it will not happen, and if it doesn't, so. be. it. however, wednesday is not here yet, and our file has not been submitted every week that it was supposed to be, so maybe it will be submitted the one week it's not supposed to be;-)

"i am still confident of this: i will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." Psalm 27

our village...

they say that it takes a village to raise a child...well, in our case it takes a village to bring our child home. this adoption process has taught me so much about how little i am capable of accomplishing on my own. every step of the way we have had family, friends, neighbors, fellow adoptive parents...those people who have elected to walk with us (even from a distance)...they have been cheering us on, praying for us, learning with us, teaching us, giving of their own time and resources to make sure that  that ruby could come home as quickly as possible...

and then yesterday, the village threw a beautiful party...

 and so many amazing women were there...they were there to celebrate that ruby will be home SOON!!!

one of my favorite things about these women is that this...

and this...

can happen within five minutes of each other!!

alanna, emily, heather, kerri, laurel: THANK YOU for everything that you did to bring such a wonderful surprise to a week with no phone calls. i love you girls and count it such an extraordinary privilege to have you in my life!!!

my wish...

the day that we left for ethiopia to meet ruby for the first time one of my dear friends slipped me a letter for us to read on our way. i know this friend. well. i know what magic she weaves with words and i knew that if i opened that envelope i would probably not stop crying for weeks (i might have been feeling the tiniest bit emotional). well, eventually my curiosity got the best of me and i opened the envelope. i read half the letter. had a good cry. put it away. a few hours later i read the second half of the letter. cried some more and went to put it away for good when i realized that there was a second page and a photo of our front door(?). knowing better, but being too curious to resist i peaked through my tears at the second page and read through the first stanza of a poem to our ruby. well, needless to say that in my state the tears were a'flowin' and i finished just the first stanza knowing better than to continue. somewhere over the Mediterranean i got my nerve up to read the second stanza and so, this reading small bits at a time continued for...well, quite a long time...in fact, i think we were halfway through the trip before i had read the entire thing. however, once we were back home and i had a few good nights sleep i was able to read through ruby's poem without shedding a single tear and with such great anticipation of her homecoming! i had been planning on sharing it as my final post on this blog once she was home with us...however, i just can't do it. i can't wait. i love this poem and right now it is the words to my wish. so in the spirit of impatience i'm sharing it right here and right now. maybe somebody else can write me a poem to close out with;-)

anyway, here it is...

Ruby Of Our Hearts

"Welcome"

Says the door

The room is pink with polka dots

This home, it's yours.

Laughter is the language here

You'll learn it soon and fluently

You're home, for good, for better.

Forever.

It's good you're here,

We've been waiting for you.

Knock Knock, says the door.

There's a line to meet you.

Ruby of our hearts,

So lovely, so happy!! to meet you.

Welcome home, welcome in.

What's your favorite color?

We watch you tiptoe first,

Then run, then dance.

And wherever you go,

You trip over love.

It's hard sometimes

When things toss and turn

And a place looks different

Than before.

But there's time, you see

Forever, actually

For it to feel like home

There's no place like it.

Ruby of our hearts...

A wish no longer,

In its place - a daughter, a sister

Dear Ruby, Welcome home.

thank you for this gift, heather, we love you!!

a little homesick...

today it is exactly two weeks since we said goodbye to our sweet girl. i had hoped...have been hoping...am still hoping that we would be already prepping to head back to bring her home with us. i have to stress that our case is incredibly abnormal in the sense that our adoption has moved at a very rapid pace. as many of you know, ruby is in need of some medical attention that she will only be able to receive once she is home with us. we are so grateful that we have had so many individuals advocating for a speedy process for our family and we absolutely feel that our God has orchestrated every step of our way. we are confident that she will be home at the exact perfect time. while i realize all of these things as truth it doesn't change this one thing: i miss my baby girl. saying goodbye to her was difficult, and honestly, i thought that would be the hardest part. not so. the last couple of days have felt so long. i've found myself pacing our house, willing the phone to ring or a magic email to appear in my inbox telling me that we have been processed at the embassy.

even as i am feeling sorry for myself and saying all of this i am so aware of other families who are in this same boat with us. other families who are still waiting for approvel letters, referral letters, MOWA letters, travel letters, and pivitol phone calls. i know that we are not the only family longing to have all of our children safe and sound under one roof. one of these waiting mamas, a very dear friend, has a verse from isaiah that has been a mantra of sorts to her while she and her husband wait on their adoption. i've always loved it and the significance that it bears to their story.  for some reason it has been with me the last few days as i have been thinking so much about the aches and pains and redemption of adoption. loving the renewed realization that we are the children of a God who can make all things new, who brings fresh beauty from a broken world.

"See, I am doing a new thing! Now it it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland." Isaiah 43

Ruby gal, mommy and daddy miss you!!

an update...

on our girl, ruby...

we left for ethiopia a week ago (july 21st), eager to meet our new little girl. we arrived late friday night and slept fitfully knowing that our ruby was just steps away from us. on saturday morning we got up early, got dressed, and went down to the main room of the guest house for breakfast. we were just helping ourselves to some eggs when we heard somebody coming in and we turned around to see our agency director standing in the doorway with none other than our ruby!! we had not been expecting her yet and so we were completely surprised!! i jumped up and grabbed her from him, we were laughing and just so happy to finally have her in our arms!! we were unprepared for the moment, had left our camera and video recorder upstairs, but we did think to grab my phone to take a picture of our first meeting...

on court...

on wednesday, july 27th, we appeared in ethiopian court to give our consent to the adoption. the judge went through a list of questions and when we had finished answering them, she looked at us and said, "ok then, she is yours" (!!!). our MOWA letter was in and the courts ruling was final...ruby is officially and legally our daughter...oh happy, happy day!!!

on when we get to bring her home...

on wednesday night we dressed ruby in a pair of fuzzy pink pj's that we had brought from home, gave her her bottle and tucked her into her bed in her room at the transition home. we kissed her goodnight wishing that we could bring her home with us, but knowing that we would be back in a few weeks to bring her home with us forever. though she finally belongs to us, we must wait till all of her paperwork is translated and submitted to the american embassy. we hope to recieve a call in the next few weeks that the embassy is ready for us, and we will hop on a plane, back to ethiopia, and will finally bring her home. 

a wednesday miracle...

now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. --Ephesians 3

we have our miracle! our caseworker, lesley, called first thing this morning to tell us that our court date has been scheduled for july 27th...only three weeks from today(!!!!)... i know she said some other things too, but i was too busy screaming and laughing to pay a whole lot of attention. we have been praying every day for weeks that our case would make it in before the courts close for two months, and though we were told it was very unlikely, our God apparantly isn't too thrown by 'unlikely':-) there is the one small hurdle of a july 15th preliminary hearing where they affirm our court date, so we'll just be praying that that day comes and goes without a glitch.

a big THANK YOU to all those who have helped to get our puzzle fundraiser off to an amazing start! if you would like to participate in our final fundraiser, click HERE! All funds raised from here on out will go towards the logistics of getting her HOME!!!

one puzzle, many pieces...

The International Adoption process has many hurdles that, when we first began, seemed to be insurmountable.  There are the piles of paperwork, the whim of a foreign countries adoption program, and the financial cost, totaling around $30,000. We had absolutely no idea how we would ever be able to cover all of the fees required to bring a little one home and we soon realized something important…WE could not do it alone. Thanks to the help of so many in our community who have given of their time and resources to help us fundraise, and thanks to a God who had been preparing us for this journey before we even knew we would be taking it, over $20,000 has been paid to date! We are on to our final fundraiser and we would love for you to be a part of it!  We have a 500 piece puzzle that is just waiting to be put together, but we need some help to do it. Puzzle pieces can be sponsored for $10 each. Sponsor as many pieces as you like, and for every piece sponsored, we will write the name of the sponsor on the back. When the puzzle is completed we will frame it in two-sided glass and hang it in our home as a constant reminder of all those who worked together to bring our girl home.

If you would like to sponsor a puzzle piece (or two, or three, or four), you are able to do so by clicking the donate button to your right. If you would like to send a check in the mail, please email us at christina.kyllonen@gmail.com and we'll be so happy to give you our mailing address!

We look forward to someday telling Ruby about all of the people who eagerly anticipated her homecoming!

photo magic

since our referral we discovered that we're in need of a family photo for some last minute adoption things. we had been planning on setting up a tripod in our backyard and just hoping for something that would get all five of us in the frame (a good family picture has never really happened, the one that heads our blog is the best that's ever happened, but note that we're in our pjs), but at the last minute decided to call upon our wonderful nephew-in-law, andy who happens to have some skills with the camera. he agreed to take a crack at us, so we went over to andy and emily's cutie new house to have ourselves a family picture. he took what seemed like 300 shots of us in about 5 minutes (he has one of those nifty cameras that shoots a bazillion frames per second) and an amazing thing happened...we actually got a photo of all five of us looking at the camera, smiling and looking like fairly well-adjusted members of society!! anyhow, here is our family photo that is just waiting for a little brown girl, named ruby, see that place for her...the empty spot in her daddy's arms...?

referral!!!!!

at some point i'm going to sit down and write a cute little post about our crazy day yesterday, but right now all i can think about is the way that it ended...with our referral!!! our dossier has been in Ethiopia for only two weeks, so imagine my shock when our case worker called me in the middle of the afternoon yesterday to tell me that they have a referral for us if we would like it (like it????)!!! she told me that the referral was for a little girl, slightly older than we had requested and she just wanted us to take the day to think about it and pray about it before we saw the photo and learned the details. so we did just that. we thought about it and prayed about it and both decided that we wanted to move forward. late last night we were curled up on our couch when her picture and information was sent over and we knew right away...this is ruby.

how i wish that i had the freedom to post her picture for all to see...she is more beautiful than i could have possibly imagined or hoped. she is about to turn 2 in the middle of august and so we will be bringing home a toddler, rather than a baby. major prayers have been answered when we saw that she has only been in the orphanage for about a month...we had so hoped that she would have begun her life in the care of a mother who loves her before she was placed in the institution that would be her holding place until we could bring her home.

we are praying for a miracle that would allow us to travel in july, before the courts close. we've been told that this is very unlikely, but not out of the realm of possibility, and so we will continue to ask our God to bring home our little one quicker than anybody would ever expect. so many prayers answered already, so amazing to see HIM making Himself known here.

"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." John 14:18

another milestone...

our dossier has shipped!! every detail of our life has been compressed into a paper pile about one inch deep and sent to our agency. once the dossier arrives at the arise office it will be authenticated in utah and washington dc and then off to ethiopia...

cutie cake pops!!!!

i haven't mentioned on here before that as chad and i pursue our adoption, my sister and her family are also pursuing an adoption of their own. i have not written about this, mostly because their journey is their story and i want them to have a chance to tell it however they wish. i will say this though, their process differs from ours in many ways, one of the most notable differences being that they already know who their little one is. they have a pile photos picturing the little girl to whom they are hoping to give the name jennifer. she is the cutest little brown-eyed darling and we are eagerly awaiting her homecoming and looking forward to the day that looking out our back window will reveal the image of three little girls-- jenny, ruby & aubrie--all different in appearance, with different stories, brought together and bound by the love of a family.

with easter approching we thought that it would be a good time to join forces and launch a little fundraiser to help with the cost of both of our adoptions. we have spent the last week having fun playing with cake and chocolate, sprinkles and candy, messing up my sister's kitchen trying to see what we could come up with! the result is a little something we call 'cutie cake pops', and we're so excited to be offering them for the easter holiday! if you are interested in purchasing some for your family click HERE. each and every pop will bring both ruby and jenny $1 closer to coming home.

the break-up...

So here we are...about to submit our dossier. This is the ultra exciting packet of paperwork that is given to the foreign government of the country we are adopting from. The forms included prove such things as the following: we are not murderers, rapists, robbers, etc., we have a house, money, medical insurance. Once the dossier is completely compiled it's sent to our agency where it's shipped all over the place for extensive authentication and then on to the intended country of adoption. Here is what I've suddenly found myself panicking about...not breathing into a paper bag sort of panicking, but deep in the back of my mind I have been asking myself and God...'is this whole Ethiopia thing reallllly going to work out?" All the news coming out of our originally intended country has sounded very gloomy lately and it seemed as though we might be waiting a loooong time for a baby if things didn't change. We have been very interested in adoptions from Uganda, but they require about a month of travel, which has seemed so impossible. So last night, after a whole day of stressing and pulling Chad down into the dumps with me, after spending so much time in front of the computer researching Ugandan adoption that my eyes were completely glazed over, I gathered myself together and wrote my dear social worker a beautiful and heartfelt break-up letter. I told her how lovely the agency has been to us. I told her that if only things were different in Ethiopia we would not have to be looking elsewhere. However, we had devised a plan, and unfortunately, unless she could give us some hope, it looked like we were over. I went to bed thinking of her reaction as she read the email upon arriving at work in the morning, sure that we're her favorite clients, so naturally she would be devestated and try to talk us into staying, right?


Well...kind of. First thing this morning my phone rang, and sure enough it was our case worker, Lesley. I listened for the sound of tears in her voice, but she definately sounded as though she was holding it together (good for her!). I asked if she had gotten my message and she assured me that she had. Then she said this, or something like this, "Christina, let me say one thing; here at Arise we are advocates of adoption, not one specific country, so if you feel that God is leading your family elsewhere we will support you in that and help transfer you to another agency. However, if you're scared because of all the things that have been in the media about Ethiopia slowing down, I will just tell you to settle down." As it turns out, things in Ethiopia are running just fine. The slowdown of processing 40 cases each day down to 5 only lasted two days, and things are already picking up and running smoothly again. Well, I'll admit I felt a little silly. We talked for nearly an hour as she gave me all the details that she's aware of and I sheepishly admitted to her that I may have overreacted a tiny bit.


Now, 24 hours after devising a rather elaborate plan to move our entire family to Uganda for 4-6 weeks (which a dear friend assured me was an utterly crazy thing to do), we are back on track and almost ready to submit our dossier to ETHIOPIA!! As I write this I feel very confident that Ruby is in Ethiopia as we speak and that our Heavenly Father has been guiding us there this whole time...unfortunately, I'm not as good at following patiently as I had originally thought.

Hoping to have more updates soon!

hello, bump in the road...

rumors are swirling and petitions are circulating and the state of ethiopian adoptions is uncertain. this is all true. a statement was released earlier this week stating that as of march 10th, the ethiopian ministry of women's affairs (MOWA) would be cutting the number of adoptions processed each day from 50 down to no more than 5...that's a decrease of up to 90%. naturally, as waiting adoptive parents, we have been unsettled by this news. however, there are two issues here that need to be addressed, one not important than the other: 1. ethical adoptions are a MUST. 2. children who have truly been orphaned and who have adoptive parents waiting, NEED to be sent home so that they can be loved and nurtured. we are choosing to believe that the ethiopian government truly wants the best for it's children and is working to find a good balance for these two issues. for now, chad and i are just sitting tight. i've said it before and i'll say it agian, we serve a God who is seriously in control of our adoption process. HE has made it clear to us over and over agian that he is in this, and we do not believe that he has opened so many doors just to have them slam shut. we have discussed the possibility of switching our paperwork to another country, but for now we're just keeping our knickers on and watching the dust settle, hoping that this is no more than a little bump in the road. please pray with us for ruby, wherever she is, and for the many, many other families who are uncertain about this outcome and are waiting to bring little ones home. 

dark days

over the course of this past weekend chad and i have been on our knees for the family of one of my dearest lifelong friends who's nephew was hospitalized after a freakish household accident. three year old julius hetrick went to be with his heavenly father this past sunday morning. though an entire community had begged God for a miracle, HE decided to take julius home to be with Him. in the midst of their pain julius' parents, kenneth and lindsey, made the decision to donate julius' internal organs, making sure that other parents who were pleading on behalf of their children's lives were granted a miracle. words cannot express the depth of our family's grief for the entire hetrick family. we are covering them in prayer and want them to know that they are loved. over the last several months chad and i have been working to raise money to bring our new daughter home...our needs have been met as they have arose and we have been blessed. for now, we would like to ask anybody who is looking to donate funds towards a family to do so to the  julius hetrick memorial fund created to alleviate financial burden for kenneth and lindsey as they look to relocate their family from the home where they experienced such loss. please continue to pray with us for 'peace that passes understanding', that only our God can give.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
- John 14:27

details...

i generally think it's a bad idea to talk about money, i think it almost always makes people feel akward, that being said, here i go...


one of the things about adoption is this: it is expensive. it doesn't matter where you're adopting from or your reasons for doing so, embarking down the road to make a child a part of your family will cost financially. when chad and i decided that we were moving ahead with this adoption, we took one look at our bank account and realized that we would never-ever be able to afford to pay for the whole thing out of pocket. when we had our very first conversation with lifeline (the agency we began the process with) their director said this to us, "those who God has called, He will also equip." i knew when he said those words that they would be important for us, and sure enough, we have needed so much 'equipping' already. we've needed direction in decision making, courage to speak openly about special needs, and finally this week, we needed money. our adoption nest egg had been put to good use to get the adoption off of the ground, and suddenly it was time to file our i600a, a round of paperwork and fingerprinting that costs $890. we also found out today that we cannot waste any more time in applying for our new passports as they're needed for our dossier...another $270 to boot, which brings us to a grand total of (drumroll please) $1160. needed. now. let me tell you, i was not entirely sure where that money was going to come from. we have applied for several grants and a loan from abba fund but we are in the waiting period for those results. imagine my surprise when a series of checks from all different families started making their way to us just this week and they total $1110(!!!) that left us just $50 short: no biggie, right? ironically, i also happened to check the status of our just love coffee account earlier today and i'll bet you can guess how much is in there, yep, $50(!!!)! i just had to share this because it was yet another reminder of how little chad or i are able to do on our own. i'm am so grateful...really more than i can express, that there are so many people who are bringing ruby home...people who are giving and praying and just thinking about her and talking about her, so that even though we don't yet know who she is, she is not forgotten. i'm so humbled to be serving a God who is clearly paying attention to all of our little details, and certainly caring for our ruby, wherever she is.

just love...

i just want to shout out a big THANK YOU to those who have already placed orders for coffee in our just love store!! to be honest, i wasn't sure that anybody would be interested in ordering because, although the coffee is super good, it's also super expensive...needless to say, i was really excited when i checked our account and saw that a bunch of orders had already been placed! So, in the spirit of monday morning coffee sipping, here is my plug for our just love coffee fundraiser... if you love high-end, fair-trade coffee, click here to visit our store. $5 from each bag sold goes directly towards bringing ruby home, yay!

first post...

ok, i'm going to throw this right on out there, i am not, i repeat: NOT a blogger. thus, i have no idea what to write as my very first blog post. i definately feel that it should be a momentous writing, one to stir the hearts and dampen the eyes of anybody who stumbles upon it, however, it's not looking like that's the direction we're heading. instead, how about i just treat this first post as an introduction...an ice-breaker of sorts. my name is christina. my husband, chad, and i are tumbling down the crazy road of international adoption. in november 2010 after the mid-atlantic orphan summit, we filed our very first piece of paperwork and have been filing and chasing papers ever since. we've just completed the totally humbling, not to mention thoroughly invasive, process of the homestudy and are ready to move onto greater things, although we're not really sure what those things are yet. i hear they involve exciting milestones like more fingerprinting, immigration paperwork, and a letter explaining ourselves to the ethiopian government...only slightly intimidating. truthfully, this blog is probably a very good idea, considering that i am (far) beyond excited about this adoption. it is what occupies all of my thoughts and conversation these days and now that i'm blogging my dear friends and family will have the choice to read or to spare themselves. for instance, if you and i were having a conversation about how you had a wonderful night out last night i would be nodding and smiling politely, but inside i would be thinking about the first time i get to lay my eyes on our new baby girl...wondering what she looks like, where she is right now, what kind of baby lotion i plan to use, and what outfit she should wear home on the 13 hour plane ride from addis(?)...you get the idea. anyhow, we don't yet know who our baby girl is going to be, that bit of excitement is still a while away. we do know that she will have been born in ethiopia and that we have given her the name ruby...it's our first gift to her. so for now, i will blog to ask those who love us and those who don't know us to pray for ruby, till the fundraising and the paperwork come to an end and we can have her home with us, her forever family.