Merry Christmas!!!

It's Christmas week! I don't know why I am surprised every year that it comes so fast. But it always seems to! I was ready for it this year. I didn't feel too stressed or overwhelmed. I think I chose that for myself consciously. I don't like feeling like I have to perform or do all the expected things that a lot of people do during this season. It isn't because I don't care, cause I do!! I just decieded to limit the things I chose to stress about. I made a good list of gifts I wanted to get for people in my family. I love buying gifts for them and knowing that they will love (like?) them.  I did not however choose to do gifts for teachers, Sunday school teachers, mailmen, garbage men, and the like. I LOVE all of these people and value what they do for me in my life, and the lives of our children. I just chose not to add that to the stress of the season. It is too overwhelming for me. I feared that I was in jeopardy of doing these things out of the "have" to of the season rather that the "heart" of the season. I plan to show our appreciation to all these "extra" people in my life but maybe not during this specific season. Call me rude, call me unthoughtful (is that a word?). But you can ask anyone that lives in this house, when mom gets stressed it ain't pretty!

So this brings me to my next confession.......I did not do Christmas Cards this year either. There are a couple of reasons for this. One, I didn't get a great picture of the family this year. Second, if I'm being honest, I was a little sad to send them out. Why??? Because our family looks exactly like it did last year, and that makes me sad. I wanted our family to look different this year!! I want our daughter and sister to be with us! I want the picture to change and it didn't. Our prayer is that it will look different next year. Only God knows if that is true. 

There really is not a great update on the waiting front. Lesotho is still referring children to the USA but at a very slow pace. There were three referrals to the USA in 2014. We hope and pray there are more this coming year. There have been some improvements in communication between Lesotho and the US regarding how the US wants adoptions to go. The prayer is that things have been better communicated and kinks have been ironed out and we will see more match meetings and more referrals to the US this year! Please pray for that. There are children waiting for families and families waiting for children. Everyday these kids are not with their families is a day they are missing out! There have been multiple times this year where I would be sitting at a concert of one of the kids or out to dinner with my families or at a soccer game or volleyball game and thought, I wish she was here to be part of this. She is missing being part of HER family! And we are missing her being a part of our family too.

So, we are coming up on a year since our paperwork went to Lesotho. We have been officially waiting for almost a year. In some ways it went really fast but in others it has been long. As we look forward to 2015 we have great anticipation of a year that our family will look different! It is very likely that it won't but I will continue to pray that it does. Not only for us, but for all the other families waiting out there.

I would also like to take this opportunity to once again thank all the family and friends who have supported us in this journey. Be it a prayer, phone call, text, card in the mail, gift card or donation to the adoption fund. You have no idea how much ALL of that means to us. I get very overwhelmed when someone thinks of us in this season. There is so  much going on in the world and with your families that to stop and think of little ole' us is humbling, really, it is. It brings me to tears whenever it happens. The donations to the adoption fund have been incredible. We are a little less than half funded. Our expected total for this adoption is about $30,000. We have received almost half of that from various donations and fundraising. AMAZING!!!! I am excited to see what 2015 brings.

Merry Christmas From the Freriks Family!

"For unto us a Child is born, to us a Son is given" Isaiah 9:6

I know, I know.......

Sorry all. I know it has been a long time since my last post. I guess that has a lot to do with the fact that there is really nothing new on our situation. We are still waiting.

There has been some movement in Lesotho though. They held a match meeting in August and did match one more family from our agency. Baby steps. That is really all I know that is new.

We are just here plugging along. The kids are back in school. Life has been pretty manageable the past couple of months. Noah and Haylie are busy with soccer and volleyball.

It is so fun to watch her play a sport she is learning and learning to love.
Hunter is busy chasing deer. He would love to "one up" his sister from last year. She shot a 6 point last year and he would love to out-do her.

I am enjoying my quieter times at home since the kids have started school. I still keep busy with BSF and Church stuff and carting kids around from here to there.

I would like to thank all of you for your thoughts and prayers that continue to bless us. We still need them in this time of waiting. Waiting on someone else (Africa) is never easy. Our patience are being tested and we question our decision sometimes. But we are resting in the knowledge that this IS Gods plan for our family and we will see it through.

God Bless

The Process: A quick education on the process of adopting from Lesotho

Hi all,
We are still here, waiting.............. I get that you all may not understand why we have to wait. Afterall, there are millions of orphans out there. Can't they just go to the orphanage and pick one out and say "here ya go"! Ha! I wish. There is so much more to it. It is hard for us adoptors to understand, not to mention you all who have not entered into the adoption world.

For us, the process goes something like this:  I will try to make this very long process as short as possbile.
*Apply to the adoption agency on June 21, 2013(Small World Adoption agency in Tennessee) to adopt from Lesotho. They say yes. We hire another agency here in Michigan to do our home study. That process lasted from about August through November.
*Homestudy done so now we can send our home study to the US government to ask them if we can adopt. This is called filing a I800a form with the USCIS. They get our request and ask us to come for fingerprints to make sure we aren't bad people. ;)  When we get that approval we can add that piece of paper (I797 form) to our homestudy and a million other things. This stack of papers is called a dossier.
*We send our dossier to our agency in TN. and they review it. Making sure everything is there that the counrty wants to prove we are worthy of adopting from their counrty and adopting one of their precious children.
*Our agency sends that dossier to Lesotho. Lesotho translates it and logs us into the system.
***This is where details can get fuzzy. We don't know the exact procedures in Lesotho so it is hard to know what happens after our dossier gets there.
*We are then considered "on the list". This is when the TRUE waiting begins. This is when everything is out of our hands and into the hands of the Lesotho government.
*Our official wait began at the end of February when Jimbo, a representative from our agency actually hand delivered our dossier to the Lesotho government because he was there on a trip.
*We have been told by our agency that we are about 14th on the list of families waiting to adopt from Lesotho (out of about 30 or so). We aren't sure if that even means anything. We don't know if Lesotho goes in order or if they are random in the choosing a family to match with a child.

Sidebar: Lesotho is a new country to the Hague Convention ("an international agreement to establish safeguards to ensure that intercountry adoptions take place in the best interests of the child") They just became "Hague" in April 2013, only 2 months before we applied. So, this new way of doing adoptions with the USA is all new to Lesotho. They have to learn the process. As does our agency as they have yet to complete an American adoption from Lesotho. There is one in process, a family from California, and they are supposed to travel soon to go get thier little boy. YAY!!!!



THE WAIT: Here is why we have to wait.

Lesotho has match meetings to match families with children. The first meeting they held was in December 2013, 8 months after becoming Hague. They matched 1 family from the USA, it wasn't us :(. So, we know we have to wait until there is another meeting. That was supposed to be held in March, it never took place. I won't mention the reason here on the blog because I don't know if I'm allowed to. Ask, if you would like to know. So, we wait agian for another match meeting to get scheduled. They finally schedule one for June. They matched three families!!!! YAY. No one from the USA. But what a blessing that three more children will have forever families, in the Netherlands, or Sweden or Canada!
I have connected with a group of families on Facebook that are all adopting from Lesotho, what a blessing that has been. The theory between those families is that Lesotho is waiting for this first adoption from California to go all the way through to completion before they match others from the USA. We are thinking they want to make sure all goes smooth and they know what they are doing. That is just a theory but right now we are hanging on to all we can to make sense of this.
So we wait again for another meeting to be scheduled. We have been told that there will be one sometime around the beginning of september.
That is a HUGE prayer request: Pray that there will be a meeting. Pray that there are children ready to be referred. While there are over 350,000 orphans in Lesotho, that doesn't mean they are all in an orphanage, and it doesn't mean that they are all adoptable. The ones that are at the orphanage need to be researched to make sure that all options are exhausted to declare them adoptable. That is a lofty task for the social worker down there.

Because this is a new program for our agency and Lesotho, we have no frame of reference as to how Lesotho matches families. We don't know if they match only a certian amount of families, if they match all the kids submitted for adoption or just a few. There is soooooo much we don't have answers to as far as the process in Lesotho goes. We just have to wait and see. Go on faith, and trust in Gods PERFECT timing. What we DO know is that this is Gods plan for our family. We DO know that this WILL happen, at some point.

So, there you have it. In a nutshell, some of the reasons as to why we have to wait. 
Again, Please pray with us that there will be a meeting held in September. We most likely will not be matched at that meeting but our hope is that there are families from the USA that are matched so we can move up the list (if that is how they do it down there). I will keep you posted as to what I hear regarding that meeting.

Stay tuned for an update on our fundraising/donations. I want to give you all an update as to how much the Lord has blessed us through our friends and family as far as raising the funds to bring this little peanut home.

God Bless,
The Freriks

Update, or lack thereof.....

I get asked, daily, "How's the adoption going? Have you heard any news out of Lesotho? Do you know who your baby is yet?" I am really getting sick of saying, "It's at a standstill. No, we haven't heard anything. We are in the waiting stage."  I know, I know. Patience! Well, it ain't that easy folks!

I know that in the adoption world we have not been waiting long at ALL!! We have only officially been waiting since the end of February. Most people wait more than a year before hearing of a referral. We are waiting for Lesotho to begin the match meetings down there. They had one scheduled for the end of March. Due to some paperwork issues they were going to postpone that meeting for 2 weeks. Well, that meeting STILL hasn't happened! Not sure why. Our hope is that they are getting all their ducks in a row so that when they do start to have the match meetings they will be smooth and wait time to travel isn't too long. I know that we will not be matched at the first meeting or probably the second and maybe not even the third! We are about 15th or so on the "list" for the USA families that are adopting from Lesotho. So, we need to get some people crossed off the list. But we don't even know if they will follow the "list" when matiching families! We need to have some of these families united with their babies and the babies united with their forever families! Precious time is passing and these families and children are missing out!!!

I have said before that I do not do well when I don't know any information. I start to drum up scenarios in my head. I start to lay awake at night wondering.......My saving grace right now is that God's timing is perfect and there is a reason for all of this! Also, there is an end to this, at some point, we WILL have a precious little girl join our family at just the right time. This I know! What a day that will be! It will be worth every day I sit here waiting for an email that says there is a meeting scheduled!! Worth every pop can I bring back to the store. Worth every t-shirt order placed. Worth every sacrifice made! Someday, I will be sitting here playing with my daughter wondering what all the worry was for!

If I could be so bold as to ask for prayer for my heart and the heart of my family. Pray for patience and peace. I need prayers so I don't get bitter. I tend to get bitter when things aren't going my way. I don't want to be bitter. I want JOY pouring out of me when I talk about the adoption process and not bitterness. How is bitterness going to make anyone else want to go through this agonizing wait time!

I hope to update again soon with some NEWS!!!

T-Shirts!!!

T-shirts are ready!!!! Thanks to Trench apparel for getting the website ready for you to order the shirts you want. All you have to do is go to their website and order the items you want. You can choose to have the items shipped to you, or you can pick them up at Coast 3, in the outlet mall in Holland.

The design for the shirts were done by Lynnett Bell and she graciously let us use it for our fundraiser shirts. It represents the coming together of Michigan and Lesotho.  All the money raised from these shirts will go to our adoption fund to bring home our daughter/sister.  The shirts are navy with a white Michigan and Africa outlined in green. These are the colors of the Lesotho flag. The back of the shirts has

 

Isaiah 43:5 "Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west"

 

 

Thank you in advance for supporting us in this way. Please let us know if you have any questions!!

 



 

Approved!!!

WOW! I can't believe it has been almost a month since my last post. Sorry about that. There have been some exciting things that have happened. I guess they are exciting to us at least. These things mean we are closer to our baby girl being in our lives. Really each day we live we are closer to her coming to join our family!

Our case has been approved by USCIS! This means the government sees us fit to adopt from Lesotho! Great news! It took about 8 weeks for this process. Glad that wait is over.

Our dossier is in Lesotho! Our agency representative took a trip to Africa the last 2 weeks in February and carried along with him our dossier to hand deliver it to the government there! They now know that we want to adopt and it is all up to them now! We have to wait for them to schedule a match day and we have to wait for them to choose our file.  We all know that it is not actually the Lesotho government that is choosing our daughter/sister for us, it is GOD! He is going to pick out just the right one for us.  I love knowing that!!! I love knowing that it has nothing to do with our wants or desires, it has everything to do with His will. When she comes to us, it will be because she is the ONE little girl that fits in our family perfectly! I hesitate to say that she was born to be in our family. I do, because she was not. She was meant first and foremost to be in her birth family. God ordained that for her. He wanted her born right where she is and to whom she was/will be born to. In the life of an orphan, it doesn't stay that way, for a multitude of reasons. Her second best option is to be placed in a home with us so she will know the love of a family.  I thank God for this opportunity and it is not lost on us the sacrifices people had to make to accomplish this.

We had a great update from our agency in the middle of February. Small World has received their first referral from Lesotho. A family in California has received a referral for a little boy!! This is great news because Small World is new to doing adoptions in Lesotho. As I said in my previous post, they had no reference of time lines. Now they have a little bit of an idea of how things MAY go in the future. At least we know that they are matching USA cases and hopefully that will continue in the following match meetings. The next meeting is in March sometime. Our agency told us not to plan on being matched at that meeting as there are at least 15 cases ahead of us from Small World. We also know that this family was matched by Lesotho in December but wasn't notified of the match until February, 2 months later! Again, not sure if that is the norm or not but it is a point of reference.

We are working on a T-shirt fundraiser. Details on that are almost done!! I'll update as soon as I know all the bugs are worked out on the website. You will be able to order them right on a website and pay for them that way too. They can be shipped to your house or you can pick them up in Holland at Coast3, in the outlet mall.  Details to come!!!

Stay warm!!!

Update

There isn't a whole lot to update on but progress was made. We heard from immigration on our application (I800a). They were not satisfied with a couple of things, boooo! So, we had to revise a letter by adding ONE SENTENCE!!!! No big deal, we did that. They also weren't clear on a couple of things in our home study so our case worker from AAI had to call Immigration to explain that what they were  looking for was actually in the home study. So, the revised letter is on its way to immigration and we hope to have our approval in the next couple/few weeks.

The dossier looked good to Small World. They only needed one thing from us, our police clearances, and that was it! It was easy enough. I just went online and paid $10 for a search for each of us and that was that! In case your wondering, nothing came up on a criminal background check for either Jeremy nor I :)  So our agency will email our dossier to Lesotho!! Our caseworker from Small World is taking a trip to Africa in the next couple of weeks and will be taking our dossier with him to hand deliver it to the Lesotho government! Woo Hoo!

There is so much unknown with this because Small World has never done a complete adoption case for Lesotho. They don't have much to go on as far as answering questions for us in reference to time lines. They have no point of reference. It's a little frustrating not to have any sort of idea how long this could take. But then, I just keep remembering that the Lord knows the perfect time for "Ruby" to come to our family and it won't happen until then! He said not to expect to get a referral from the meeting that is taking place shortly because there are 15 families with dossiers in ahead of us. How many families they match depends upon how many kids they have ready to be adopted. And by ready to be adopted, I mean this. In order for a child to be deemed adoptable the country has to make sure that there are no other people in the child's life that want to take care of the him/her. They also have to make sure that the parents sign off their rights, if the parents are still alive and can be found. While there are millions of orphans around the world it's not as easy as it sounds to have them all adopted. All the red tape really is meant for the best interest of the child.

Our family is doing well. Noah is playing indoor soccer with his cousin Parker. They are having a great time! So glad Noah is getting to know so many new kids. They are all from a different school than him. We are finally going to have a full week of school since before Christmas break, i think. We have had snow day after snow day! All this snow is getting a little out of hand. I'm ready for spring!

I am excited for my weekend. I am attending a live web cast of a conference that is taking place in Austin, TX. It will have speakers like Ann Voskamp, Jen Hatmaker, Jennie Allen and a few other women in ministry. It will be a very Spirit filled weekend and I cannot wait for how the Lord is going to speak to me through these women.

Thanks for keeping our family in your prayers! We can feel them. This next step is going to be the hardest, as I have said before. Now all we do is wait.

God Bless

Hurry up and WAIT!

WOW. I feel like so much has happened in the last month. We had some wonderful Holidays! Christmas was wonderful! Very blessed to have time to spend with family and friends.
With Christmas and New Years being in the middle of the week we didn't get to do a few things we had on the list for Christmas break but the kids still managed to have a good time for 2+ weeks.

We received some good news from our agency. We were told that we do not have to wait for our approval from immigration in order to get on the list for a child in Lesotho. We can send our dossier in and they will accept it without that piece of paper. When we get it then we will send it in. That changed the game a little. So, we had to hurry up and get a few last minute things done but it wasn't too bad. We sent all our documents to Small World on January 2, 2014.  They have to review it and make sure everything is in order and then they will scan it and electronically send it in, with the originals following in the mail. Once Lesotho gets it they will do whatever they have to do with it and hopefully put us on the list for our baby girl.

Lesotho does things a little different than most countries, I think. They have "match days" approximately each quarter. So, the next match day should be coming up in the next couple of months. We could get matched then, if our file gets picked. If we don't, then we wait until the next match meeting. So, it will be a lot of waiting from here on out!! So, I will just have to keep busy somehow from now until we hear something.  To be frank, the unknown, I don't do well with that! So pray for that for me. I need to give it up to God and let Him.....It's all up to him at this point. His timing is perfect and "Ruby" will join our family at just the right time.

We are in the process of getting our T-shirt fundraiser finalized. We will be selling t-shirts to raise money for our adoption. It should be ready to go in the very near future. I will keep you posted on the details.

God Bless