NEWS, Introduction, An Ask and a BIG Thanks!

It's time you knew...we have exciting news!

We are so excited to tell you that the time has FINALLY come to prepare to bring home our SON - all we are waiting for is our official travel date!  Earlier this week we received news that we passed the final approval stage in Ethiopia and we should be given our travel date within the NEXT TWO WEEKS! Many of you know that this journey began in our hearts so long ago when I went to China as a college student.  Soon after Chann and I were married, we knew that the Lord had called us to adopt so we began researching how to start the process only to learn that we were too young, and I was pregnant!  Six years ago (and 4 children later), we knew that it was definitely time to start the process.  The Lord clearly led us to the country of Ethiopia where we thought we would adopt older siblings.  As His plans are always the best, and usually different from ours, we were eventually led to our son, Kidus.  We have SO MANY AMAZING stories we love to tell about the ways that God has confirmed this call and led us to this precious boy, but it would take pages to tell it all here- so instead I'll just tell some sweet things about our SON!!!

The youngest Carroll is our son, Kidus!  

I wish I could show you his precious face but we are unable to show him on our blog until our official court date once we are in Ethiopia... trust me though- he's a heart-breaker for sure! Kidus is 4 years old and he loves Duplo blocks.  He also loves to play with baby dolls. He is also a big soccer fan, just like his big brothers Asher and Jude!  Kidus is meeting all of his developmental milestones except for speech- but even in that area he is improving!  He is beginning to learn English and can already say the words: “Mommy,” “beep, beep”  (for car), “bread,” “ball,” “out,” and “TV.”  We can't wait to get our arms around this precious boy!

The FINAL piece...

As we await our travel date, we are kicking off our FINAL fundraiser!  Every single step of the way, God has provided exactly what we needed through generous grants and donations.  We fully expect His provision for this FINAL step as well- even though the amount seems staggering.  We still need between $15,925 - $21,915 to complete this adoption.  (The amount is so varied because it depends on the number of trips we have to make and the amount of time we have to stay in Ethiopia.)

So, fully trusting that our Lord will provide, in honor of our boy's love of Duplo blocks, we are asking our friends and family (and anyone else willing!) to help us PIECE together the final funds we need.  

We humbly ask that you would consider supporting us in this final step.  To donate, please click on the donate button on the right of our blog to give your secure donation via PayPal. Or, if you have a few extra minutes, you can log into https://www.paypal.com/ directly, and choose to send money to friend/family and type in our email address channfm@gmail.com.  (This way helps avoid fees.)  Either way you choose to give we say THANK YOU!

And Speaking of Thanks...

Finally, we want to say Thank You to all of you reading this blog for your love and support over the last 6 years.  Our journey has been long, much longer than we ever anticipated.  And yet, we know the Lord has used this time for His glory and for our good.  Our desire during these years of waiting has been to bring God honor in the good days and the bad by trusting in His Sovereignty and Providence.  We pray that He alone would receive all the glory for the great things He has done in our family.  And we want to thank you, friends and family, for faithfully walking this journey with us.    We cannot wait to hold our SON and to one day tell him about the community that rallied around our family to bring him home.  

We love you all!

We MIGHT be almost there!

It's been quite a long time since I updated here!  We had a long period of NOTHING happening, so there was nothing to post!  One year ago today we received a referral for a little boy we saw on the waiting child list a year before that.  We inquired about him then, but his referral had been picked up by someone else....  We prayed for him, thankful that he had found a family and continued waiting.  However, he stayed in my heart....  Fast forward to last year, March 15th.  We had a conference call to learn more about the ongoing delays and revisions to the process.  We had been asked to pray about changing countries a few months before, but we did not hear the Lord tell us to go.  We continued to believe that our children were somewhere in Ethiopia even though things were continuing to be slow and continuing to change in ways that did not seem like adoption from Ethiopia could be a possibility for our family.  That day, as I was listening to the conference call, I clicked on to the waiting child list to pray for kids while I listened... the little boy's photo listing was back and had just been added that day!  I quickly sent Chann a text, and we asked about him...  The next day we received his information...  Here we are one year later, and it looks like we MIGHT be almost there!  We have learned that our case file is in the very last stage before we receive a court date and travel plans!  Please join us in praying that our case is given a positive recommendation and that we receive our court date soon!  We long for this little guy to join our family, and we can't wait to tell you all about him!  As we wait on our travel date, we are preparing our support letter.  We still need to raise $15, 000-$20,000 depending on the number of trips we have to make and the amount of time we spend in country.  We should know those details soon.  If you would like to support our family with a donation, please click the donate link on this page.  Whether you can support us financially or not, we covet your prayers for the rest of the process to go smoothly, for the Lord to prepare this little guy to be in our family, and for continued preparations for us and our children.  Hopefully I will be able to update again soon!