Hi everyone!

 

It seems like it has been quite a while since our last email.

Well we have reached a new stage in our adoption.  Our

dossier (documents, home study and approvals) are now

on their way to Washington.  They will first be authenticated

by the United States Department of State. Then they will

go to the Ethiopian Embassy for approval here.  That process

should take about 1 week.  Then the whole package will

head to North Carolina to our agency.  From there it will

be sent over to the agency office in Addis Abbaba. 

 

So far things have gone fairly smooth.  A few snags but nothing

too serious.  After the document stage we enter the referral stage.

This means that we wait for children to be presented to us

for adoption.  Because our age group is older ( 2 - 4 years) we

will most likely have opportunities sooner for children that are

"waiting children", as compared to people that want an infant

or a child under 1 year.

 

We are also in the process of gaining approval from the USCIS.

United States Citizen and Immigration Services Office.  This

is where we apply for approval to bring an orphan(s) into the

US.  Next week Friday we are schedule for our fingerprints to

be taken in Milwaukee.  They will use our fingerprints to do

background and criminal checks.  This is verify that we are

approved to bring children to the US and to our family!

 

It is funny....today as I was sending our dossier off I was thinking

about how fast things changed for us.  For so many years I didn't

understand how or why I had the desire for more children.  Why

was my heart longing for this and yet my husband wasn't on the

same page as me....I didn't think he was even reading the same book.

But the Lord is good. Even when we don't see what He is doing...

He is always at work.  He has it all planned out.  And we wouldn't

want it any other way.  Just at the right time for Him, my husband

came around.  All because the Lord pulled the release!  He knew

what needed to happen and where our hearts needed to be and

what child(ren) were to become a part of our family...all in His

timing.  There isn't anything that isn't under the timing and sovereignty

of the Lord!  Praise Him!

 

We appreciate your prayers more than you will ever know!  Please continue

to think of us as you pray!

Please pray for:

• The processing of our dossier!  Complete and uncomplicated, no snags unless                      it brings more glory to God!
• The orphans in Ethiopia and all over the world!  God cares for the orphans and the widows! He has a plan for everyone of them!
• The child(ren) that will become a part of our family, their safety, their health and their healing of the possible loss of parents.
• Our family to join together in preparation for this addition.  Sam and Jacob haven't really invested yet...as I have done most of the leg work.  It will become a reality soon for them when they start to see pictures and hear of the lives of waiting children.
• Praise God for the friends and support  that He has provided our family!
• Please pray for peace and complete trust in the Lord to provide all things required for the adoption!

As we wait we take comfort and confidence in God's Word

1 Samuel 12:16 (New International Version)

 ¹⁶ "Now then, stand still and see this great thing the LORD is about
to do before your eyes!

We will keep you posted on future updates!

Dear friends and family,

We are excited to share some news with you! Some of you may already know but for those of you who don't hang on!

Roger and I are going to adopt a child or sibling group from Ethiopia.

Most of you know that I have always wanted more children after we had Sam and Jacob. Roger was convinced that he (we) were done. I think that I have been praying about this for about 10 years. Funny thing happened....when I stopped talking about it and let the Lord do the talking my husband responded in a huge way! Amazing!

Our hearts were both led to children in Ethiopia! Really through different avenues. Once Roger gave me the ok to do some investigating I came to Ethiopia and fell in love with the children there. For Roger it was a bit different. He felt led to adopt from a country where the children might not be able to know Jesus. Ethiopia has several major religions but people/missionaries have been persecuted for sharing their faith in Jesus. So while I continued to give him information on the different countries and the domestic adoption options, he already kind of knew in his heart that Ethiopia was the place.

The process for international adoption can be a long one. There is initially a TON of paperwork and just about everything has to be certified, notarized and perfect! We have to be "approved" for adoption through a process called a Home Study. Our adoption agency is in North Carolina, Christian World Adoption and our home study agency is in Appleton. We pretty much have all of the paper work done and should have our home study completed by the end of next week. Then everything gets sent to the US for approval and then to the Ethiopian Embassy for approval.....after that it goes to Ethiopia to the agency office over there.

Then we wait......and wait......for a referral. That is where they find a child/ren that they think our family will be a good match for. We should get pictures and a description of the children.

We are open to a single child, siblings, and either boys or girls and are looking in the 2-4 yr. age range.

We will keep you all posted as things move along. We ask that you would pray for us in several ways.....

~please pray for our paperwork to be processed without any "glitches"

~please pray for the children that the Lord has planned for our family, their health and protection

~please pray for our family that God would prepare our hearts for these children

~please pray that we would trust God to be the one in control of all of this.....He is in control so we don't have to be!

~please pray for us to have patience in the wait!

We will keep updating as much as possible! If you have questions please feel free to email and ask!

James 1:27
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world

peace,

Every Day is a Gift!
Roger & Laurie Hebbe