SHOWHOPE GIFT!

Steven Curtis Chapman’s Orphan Care Ministry (Showhope.org) awarded us a very substantial financial gift today for our adoption process which means that our “need to meet” number has been reached. Thank you, God! The call from a delightful woman named Kathy from their offices was an incredible blessing as we weren’t sure what the chances of our receiving a gift from them was. We are truly amazed at God’s amazing way of “making the way straight” for our adoption process...we have so much to be grateful for.

We love you all and are so humbled by your partnership on this journey. We will keep you posted!

COURT!

The email below (from our wonderful Christian World Adoption Case Manager, Sue) says it all:




Thank you so much for your prayer with us. We are blessed and overwhelmed by God’s goodness to us. What a ride! We love you all and will keep you posted.

COURT DATE!

We found out from our Case Manager this week that we received a court date! July 3rd! That’s less than two weeks from now! Just to remind you, the court date is when our kid’s “case” will be in front of the judge for his or her determination of whether or not the circumstances around their arrival at the children’s home causes them to be considered for adoption. We do not attend that court hearing in Ethiopia but the Christian World Adoption Staff does.

Please pray for July 3rd and that we would “pass” court this first time. If there is a paperwork “glitch”, we run the risk of running right up against the court recess deadline (which begins in early August). Our Case Manager reminded us this week that while July 3rd doesn’t leave us much “wiggle room” for paperwork trouble that could happen that God doesn’t actually need any “wiggle room”. That’s a very welcome reminder as these days of waiting feel nearly endless.

Thanks so much for your prayers and your encouragement...they mean the world to us. We’ll keep you posted!

Court Date & The Kids

So our paperwork is awaiting the assignment of a court date in Addis at the moment. We are praying and are optimistic that we could learn that court date this week (please, Lord!). Thanks for joining that prayer with us.

We also just learned that the kids were moved to Addis last week! That’s fantastic news as it’s one step closer to them coming home, as where they are now is where we will get to pick them up from when we finally get to go get them!

We’ll keep you posted...and are so grateful for your prayerful partnership.

Waiting...

So we’re now just in the holding pattern for a court date in Addis. We thought our paperwork was submitted for a court date request a couple of weeks back, but there was a missing document on one of the children that had to be tracked down. As it turns out, that document was indeed tracked down, translated, and then determined to be the incorrect document. We understand that they now have the correct document and will be submitting for a court date very soon.

Thank you for your prayers for us as these “waiting” days are quite difficult...we just want to get our kids home as soon as we possibly can!

We love you and are so grateful for your partnership on this journey.

DOSSIER ARRIVES IN ADDIS!

Thanks so much for your prayers over the past week as we watched our dossier progress around the world! We got a little nervous when it sat in Dubai for the whole weekend, but were relieved to “see” it get an early flight out of Dubai on Monday. It arrived in Addis later Monday afternoon and was delivered late that same day to CWA’s offices.

Please pray that the translation of our dossier into Amharic goes very quickly and that our request for a court date would be processed quickly. We’re praying for a June court date (please Lord!) which means that if we “pass” the first court date (another prayer request!) that we could possibly be picking up our kids in August (and July would be even better!).

We love you all and are so grateful for your prayers and for your financial support which has brought us this far toward the finish line.

DOSSIER!

So our dossier shipped to Ethiopia on Wednesday! So far its track has been seen making the “villes” tour: Hendersonville, NC; Asheville, NC; Greenville, SC; Louisville, KY, and finally Philly, PA where it was last scanned on Thursday AM at 8:35 for departure...to where, we have no idea...stay close for more riveting details of the Hopkins’ Dossier Journey Across the Ocean!

Thanks for praying that thing to Addis safely!

We Pray for the Children

We pray for the children who put chocolate fingers everywhere,
who like to be tickled, who stomp in puddles and ruin their new pants,
who sneak Popsicles before supper, who erase holes in math workbooks,
who can never find their shoes.

And we pray for those who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
who’ve never squeaked across the floor in new sneakers, who never had crayons to count,
who are born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead, who never go to the circus,
who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for children who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
who sleep with the dog and bury goldfish, who give hugs in a hurry and forget their lunch money,
who cover themselves with Band-Aids and sing off-key,
who squeeze toothpaste all over the sink, who slurp their soup.

And we pray for those who never get dessert, who watch their parents watch them die,
who have no safe blanket to drag behind, who can’t find any bread to steal,
who don’t have any rooms to clean up, whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser,
whose monsters are real.

We pray for children who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
who like ghost stories, who shove dirty clothes under the bed, who never rinse out the tub,
who get visits from the tooth fairy, who don't like to be kissed in front of the school,
who squirm in church and scream in the phone, whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for those whose nightmares come in the daytime,
who will eat anything, who aren't spoiled by anybody,
who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for children who want to be carried, and for those who must.
For those we never give up on, and for those who never get a chance.
For those we smother with our love,
and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer.

~ by Ina J. Hughes

DOSSIER!

Danna got a call this morning (Tuesday) from CWA (from one of the Ethiopian women who works on the CWA Team in North Carolina) telling her that our dossier would ship out to Addis on Wednesday AM!

Please “pray” that dossier over there, would you?

Thanks so much for your prayers and partnership on this fantastic journey. We’re so grateful for you.

DOSSIER!

The Assistant Stork (asststork.com), Laura, sent us these photos of our FULLY AUTHENTICATED dossier on Friday! The “United States of America” pages were authenticated with Hillary Rodham Clinton’s signature and then the Ethiopian Embassy Staff authenticated the back of those pages.

Laura promptly FedExed our dossier to Christian World Adoption’s offices in North Carolina where they are scheduled to be delivered on Monday!

Shortly thereafter, our paperwork should ship to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to be translated and then make their way to the court. Please keep praying with us for a June court date and that we would “pass” that court date the very first time.

Thanks so much for walking along with us...we love you all.

Dossier!

On Tuesday we received the final piece needed for our dossier and promptly FedExed it off to Laura (asststork.com) who will be taking it to the State Department and to the Embassy of Ethiopia for us. Go Laura!

FedEx tells us that it was delivered to Laura’s doorstep on Wednesday AM. Please pray that all goes very smoothly in Washington and that we can get it over to Ethiopia ASAP and get a court date before the Court recess in August/September. We’re specifically praying for a June court date and that we would “pass” court the first time.

Thanks so much for being with us on this journey!

I-171H

We were thrilled to receive word from USCIS on Saturday that our I-600A has been processed and approved. That means our fingerprints were cleared and our request for the kids’ visas have been sent on the the National Visa Processing Center!

CWA tells us that our approval is some kind of record—the average time is 90 days—ours took just 5!

Thanks so much for praying!

Documents Approved!

These were some VERY welcome words from Michael, our Case Manager from Christian World Adoption this morning (Friday, April 3rd):

Hello, Brian and Danna,

Things have settled down a bit here, and I got a chance to review and recombine your documents. I will send you the final Obligation document today, and send it by quick UPS so that you can get started ASAP. Thank you for sending the missing documents; I have copied all those and inserted them in your dossier copies, which I will hand off for processing now.

Have you arranged with a courier service for the Washington segment?

That means that (perhaps) by Monday, we could have the final piece of our dossier from CWA so that we could overnight it on Monday to the Assistant Stork in Washington for her to carry to the State Department and to the Embassy of Ethiopia!

Oh yeah, I learned today from Laura (the Assistant Stork) that no matter what class of FedEx service you select, it all makes it to her at 11am. Here’s how she said it:

First Overnight get delivered around 11AM. Priority Overnight gets delivered around 11AM. Standard Overnight gets here around 11AM. So don't waste your money.

Interesting...I think we’ll be selecting “Standard Overnight”, huh?

Photography by Leslie McDaniel

This week has been a blur of finishing our dossier (the official packet of information that actually goes to Ethiopia and becomes the “picture” of the Hopkins family that the Ethiopian government uses as the basis of their decision about letting us adopt these three kids). Monday was spent in Helena dropping off our I600A (Petition for Advance Processing of an Orphan) and being fingerprinted for our FBI background check. We also had our cover letter and power of attorney authenticated by the ever-gracious Della at the Secretary of State’s office.

Now, we wait for our case worker at Christian World Adoption to finish “proofing” our dossier. Once he completes that process, he will send us the final piece of the dossier—which then means we will send it on to a courier in Washington, DC (www.asststork.com) who will hand carry it to the US State Department for authentication and then onto the Embassy of Ethiopia for one final authentication (it ought to be truly authentic with all that authentication going on ;-).

Our courier will then FedEx the freshly authenticated dossier to Christian World Adoption in North Carolina where they will lovingly package it for shipment to Ethiopia.

Would you please pray with us that we can get this dossier wrapped up and sent off very soon? We’re trying to race against the clock to beat the Ethiopian Court’s recess so that we could possibly bring the kids home this summer.

Thanks so much for your prayer and support in these days. We deeply appreciate every one of you.

More thanks to all of you who have been so incredibly generous and have gotten us this far into what we need to bring our kids home! Just $13,000 to go! God is so incredibly good and so many of you have been the instruments of His goodness.

We spent this past weekend in Spokane with our friends Tim and Kerry Davis (adopting two boys from Ethiopia) attending an “Adopting Older Kids From Ethiopia” Conference. The conference was hosted by a fantastic organization called Kingdom Kids (kingdomkidsadoption.org). We heard from adoptive parents, children who have been adopted, attachment specialists, etc. covering the gamut of “stuff” relating to adopting older children from Ethiopia. We would highly recommend this training for anyone who is considering adopting—from Ethiopia or not.

One of the highlights of the weekend was to hang out with the Gardner Family (they lead Kingdom Kids Adoption) after the training was over. They have a very special family and are intensely committed to the cause of orphans and widows around the world. Incredibly inspiring!

UPDATE

Thanks so much to those of you who have so generously contributed to us bringing these kids home. We’re only $15,000 away from having the bill paid in full! Your generosity and partnership is nothing short of amazing—and incredibly humbling.

Many of you are asking about the timing of when the kids could be home with us...and your guess is as good as ours. What we do know is that our home study is almost completed, as is our dossier. Once all that is completed, it will be sent to Ethiopia to begin the “in country” process (court date, etc.). Though we are very hopeful for a summer 2009 trip to get the kids, the more we hear from Christian World Adoption (our adoption agency...cwa.org), the more we have a sense that the summer would be a miracle (though we’re still praying that way...and invite you to join us toward that end).

We’ll keep you posted as we know more. We love you and so appreciate your journeying with us.

A letter from Jon & Michele Oakland to some of our friends and family:

Dear Friends of the Hopkins Family,

This letter serves as a bit of a Hopkins Family update. Brian and Danna are great friends of ours, so we love to give them advice. It makes us feel important and helps greatly with our self worth. In addition, we are able to point out some of their flaws and then our own issues don’t seem so bad. We highly recommend this type of relationship.

Back to the update…Danna has three jobs. She works at The Buckle in the mall, as a Silpada Designs representative selling fine Jewelry, and most importantly she does an amazing job of raising her four children and keeping Brian on the cutting edge of fashion.

Brian also has three jobs. He is the lead Pastor of Journey Church (now a church of about 1,400), he is working towards his Master’s in Leadership at George Fox University in Portland, Oregon, and he also does a fantastic job of being a father and raising his four children…Danna does not require his help with the fashion thing.

After observing our friends’ lifestyle for a bit, Michele and I turned to each other and said, “BORING”! You know what Proverbs says about being lazy. To sum it up it says “to not be”.

Our always eager to learn friends said “You are right! What should we do?” We quickly replied, “You need more kids. You should adopt 3 more from Ethiopia! That way when Danna starts coaching basketball she will not be wasting time on recruitment. She has the entire team under her own roof.” BRILLIANT!

“But what about the cost?” they asked. It will cost about $34,000 to adopt three basketball players, I mean children, from Ethiopia. “No problem!” we snapped back. “Have you not heard of the bailout plan that Congress has cooking? Soon money trees will be sprouting in most of your friends’ back yards and probably yours too.” “Really?” they said. “Yes really!” we replied.

OK, enough with the sarcasm. The reality is that Brian and Danna have made a decision to bless three beautiful, older children that are living in an orphanage in Ethiopia. They will be adopting them into and onto the Hopkins Team. Can you imagine the new life that is ahead of these three kids as they transition into this incredible family? Michele and I know that all of you have many financial commitments and that the current economic outlook leaves all of us scratching our heads. You probably have questions like... “Should I put more in my 401k or less? Should I refinance my house or sell it? Should I get in the stock market or get out?” Let us ask you this… Can you give us a better investment idea than providing three children with a family? An investment in three human beings whose lives have been marked by pain that we can only imagine. Will you consider being on this investment team? Yes, we need financial help, but we need prayer over the adoption process also. We ask that you would consider helping with either or both.

Thank you, in advance, for your prayer and support! We’ll keep you posted as to the Hopkins’ adoption progress as it unfolds in the coming days. Please be in touch if you have any questions.

Ever Gratefully,

Jon & Michele Oakland with and for
Brian, Danna, and kids


Please direct any questions to Jon & Michele Oakland…jon@journeyweb.net or 406.570.5138.

A Note From Brian & Danna:

Last November, I (Brian) was part of a trip to Ethiopia for the purpose of zeroing in on where and how Journey and Harvest are going to pour into Ethiopia to help relieve human suffering. We spent the first several days in and around the capital city of Addis Ababa—at orphanages, at a government-run long-term care facility for the mentally and physically impaired, and at an enormous K-8th grade school. After our stint in Addis, we drove about 5 hours south of Addis to the city of Awassa. After we checked into our hotel, our hosts came to take us to a couple of orphanages in and around Awassa. The first one we went to that afternoon was called CCCE-Awassa. It was a lot like all the other orphanages we had been to—precious kids running around and the warm welcome of an Ethiopian coffee ceremony hosted by the orphanage staff—except this time there were these two kids—a brother and sister who I was just gripped by. Just a few minutes after meeting them, I thought I heard the Lord whispering into my soul, “These kids are going to be a part of your family.” At first, I just sort of blew it off. “Must be that last round of coffee from the Ethiopian coffee ceremony.” (It was the strongest coffee you’ve ever seen or tasted…the best coffee you’ve ever had…just very, very stout). But in the hours we were there at CCCE-Awassa, I couldn’t shake the Lord’s whisper, “These kids are going to be a part of your family.” We left the orphanage and went to dinner with the director of the orphanage. Over dinner I asked him about the kids. He told me about how they had come to be at the orphanage and that they had been referred to a family in the United States, had been accepted by that family, and were just waiting for that family to finish up their paperwork and then they would be going home to the US. “Hah!” I said. “I knew I missed it. I knew it was just the coffee! So much for hearing the voice of God’s Holy Spirit!” “But,” the orphanage director said, “if you even remotely think that the Lord is speaking to you about these children being a part of your family, you should send an email to a woman named Emily in the U.S. who handles all our adoptions and let her know that you’ve met these kids and that you’d gladly be in the “back-up position” just in case anything goes sideways with the family who is working on adopting them.” “Interesting,” I thought. After dinner, we went back to our hotel where I stepped out onto this balcony to dial Danna up on the satellite phone. I said, “Honey, I think I met the kids who we’re supposed to adopt.” Now, Danna and I have both felt God’s call on our lives to adopt kids—specifically from Africa—for some time. We didn’t know how or when that would unfold, we just knew that it was part of what God had in store for us, but when I said the words, “Honey, I think I met the kids who we’re supposed to adopt…” I thought the call got dropped…there was only silence on the other end of the line. “Hello?” “I’m here,” Danna said, “I just don’t quite know what to say.” I went on to tell her that the boy was 13 and that his sister was 9. I told her how they had come to be at the orphanage and how the Lord had whispered into my soul, “These kids are going to be a part of your family.” And Danna wasn’t convinced. Hard to fathom, I know. “I thought we would be adopting younger kids…the boy is a teenager…what do we know about parenting a teenager? You can tell me more about it when you get home…”

When we finished our tour of Awassa, we headed back to the capital city of Addis Ababa. The first thing I did when we got back was to send an email off to the woman named Emily at Christian World Adoption telling her that we’d be glad to occupy the “back-up” position if anything went haywire with the family who was working to bring the kids home. I figured that’s what Danna meant when she said, “You can tell me more about it when you get home…” A very short time later Emily sent me back an email telling me not to hold my breath for these two, but that there are other kids for us to adopt.

Even still, I couldn’t shake off the Holy Spirit’s whisper into my soul, “These kids are going to be a part of your family.”

I got home from Africa and life went on…but the Holy Spirit’s whisper stuck with me. A few times Danna asked me, “What do you think happened with you hearing from the Lord about these kids? Did you hear Him wrong?” “Maybe,” I said. “But let’s just wait and see. You never know what could happen.”

About a month had passed and it was a Monday…December 8th, to be precise. I (Brian) was doing some reading in the living room when I heard Danna scream out from the other end of the house—from the room where the computer is—“Honey! Come here!” Now, Danna’s not usually that effusive, which caused me to jump up, quite alarmed, and run back there to see what all the commotion was about. As it turned out, Danna’s scream was caused by an email from Emily at Christian World Adoption telling us that the family who was working to bring the kids home would not be doing so and would we be interested in bringing them home to be a part of our family? There Danna sat, at the computer, with tears streaming down her face saying, “I guess we’re supposed to do this, aren’t we?” “Yup.” I said, “I think we are. I don’t think it was just the coffee from the Ethiopian coffee ceremony. I think I really did hear from the Lord.”

And so, we’re adopting this boy and his sister. But adopting these two has turned into adopting them and another boy (also 13), because the two boys had been promised that they would be adopted together (they’re best friends and roommates at the orphanage—this boy has been there for about 18 months and the brother and sister for about a year). So, we’re adopting two thirteen year-old boys and a nine year-old girl from Ethiopia (a fact which simply thrills Bailey, Dylon, Preston, and Jazmyn). We hope and pray that these three kids like rambunctious little brothers and sisters!

That’s our story. Thanks so much for reading this far and for considering how you can help us bring this children home to join the Hopkins family. It means the world to us to have your love and support and prayer toward this daunting and exciting adventure.