A Week Blessed by God

This week met with wonder.  We received several very generous donations which will get us through this first phase of the adoption.  And although we continue to "fight" with the IRS (meaning they still don't want to give us our refund, in fact they want to fine us $3000 for our taxes being "falsely filed" thanks to Turbotax - so we write a letter- send "again" the same documents to prove we did adopt and pray they drop the fine and give us our refund before January). Nonetheless we have been blessed by others!  God works His will no matter what stands in the way!

We have yet to hear from our new social worker to get moving on the homestudy (which has to be done in the next 90 days) so am praying that phone call comes today. We were assured it will get completed.  I hate that our little princess is sitting over there just because people want us to redo paperwork we just did last year and hasn't changed..but alas that is the way it works.  Hang on baby, we are working hard to come!

We have all been fighting the virus that is going around causing people headaches, runs and sore muscles..flu like.  We are hoping it passes through us quickly.  I don't like this season:( 

Not much else to share at the moment except that we are grateful our God is good and that He gets the glory for everything!

Thinking

Today while my kids are at school and my youngest is taking a nap I have been thinking.  I know, hard to imagine me sitting still long enough to think.  I have been thinking about how amazing God is.  Through this past week we have been blessed by His work through many people.  We had over $600 donated to our adoption fund, we had many families calling, supporting and encouraging us, and we found a new social worker agency.   We were beyond blessed with the same social worker we had over the last 4 years and will miss him dearly.  He really became a sweet part of our family - all the kids enjoyed his visits.  But God took what was to be a great big change both financially and timewise, and presented us with another agency who is willing to pick up where David left off.  God is so good.
We still need about $1200 to make our first payment to our agency to get moving faster to be able to make our 90 day timeline, but I have no doubt that this will happen.  Please pray for us and/or consider a small donation.  You would not regret helping bring a precious child home to their forever family.

The crazy thing is if the IRS would have just given us our refund this would not be an issue.  We are working with them to come up with an agreement as to what refund we should be getting.  According to the rules put out by themselves, we should be getting back thousands more than what they are telling us they owe us.  So now we draw up another set of papers and send it back one more time for them to see where the error is.  This apparently has happened to many, many people.  We started this refund process in FEB and don't expect it to be resolved for several more months.  But alas, God has a plan!
We would also ask for prayers that our FBI fingerprints get processed in the next few weeks so that won't be standing in our way of meeting our deadline.  We have been told it can take anywhere from 6-12 weeks.

Other than that, life continues to be a blessing, kids enjoying school, fall weather moving in, precious friends getting LID and other friends getting their first foster kids. I look forward to what the next week will bring not only in our lives but yours as well.

 PS the picture has nothing to do with the post, its just one I love of our 4 year old a couple years ago in October

Grab Button

Hi, One of my precious blog friends so graciously made this grab button on the side bar of our blog so that you could take the code and put it on your blog to help us raise money to bring our sweet Elizabeth home.  We would sure appreciate it!  Thanks!

Pre Approval!!

We recieved our pre approval today and want to introduce you to our sweet new little girl, Elizabeth!!!

Adoption, support and understanding

Not too many years ago my eyes were opened up to a world I was aware, but yet unaware of.  That world is the world that exists around us with millions of children living without parents, a home, or the love that God so greatly shares and desires for each person to experience.

I am ashamed that as a Christian I did not understand the need that existed when the Bible so openly talks about it - care for the orphans.  Although we have always sponsored children in need and helped those around us, I don't think I really understood it to the fullest.

After studying the Bible and what God has to say about orphan care, we knew in our hearts that adoption was something He wanted us to do - being part of His plan to care for His precious children.  I remember reading somewhere that you might not be able to save or feed or love everyone, but you can make a difference in one life at a time.

Any adoptive parent can tell you, including me, that the love and joy that our adoptive children bring into our lives is worth more than anything else on this earth.  It is priceless, no different than biological children.  People think how blessed our adopted children are to have a family, that may be true, but I have to say that we feel just as blessed to have them as our children.  Children are a blessing from the Lord!

We have been blessed to adopt 4 children in the last 4 years and we are head over heels in love with them all.  They fit so perfectly in our family there is no doubt it was part of God's plan for our family.

As you might be able to tell from recent posts, we received an unexpected referral for a little girl.  I cannot post any additional information until we are told we can, so for now this little info will have to suffice.  We knew going into our most recent adoption that we would adopt one last time and that it would be a girl.  When we began this journey almost 5 years ago, it was for a little girl.  But Gods plan was that we adopt 4 boys instead:)    Long story short, we decided to reuse our dossier thinking it would be at least a year before we got a referral, when only 2 days after resubmitting our desire to do so, resulted in a referral.  We are totally in love with this child and cannot wait to get her home to our family forever.

The bad part is that only a few days after receiving our referral we were told we CANNOT re use our dossier (misunderstanding on our agencies part) and we have to potentially find another social worker (who is Hague accredited) AND have a homestudy, dossier and Supplement 3 done and turned in before the end of January.  This puts a major kink in everything.  We thought we would have a year to save for the adoption, but now with a 90 day deadline we have to have all our agency fees upfront.  We know that God will provide through our hard work, tightening of our budget, doing yard sales, and praying for donations from family, friends and sometimes complete strangers:)

We ask you to join us by praying, encouraging and if possible financially supporting us.  We are excited to see what God is going to do to help us bring this beautiful little girl home.

PS - only 7 of the kids in the photo are ours...the other two are sweet friends

Not at Liberty to Discuss

Although I am not at liberty to discuss our current brewing, I will call to attention to sidebar and our needs...more to follow.  If you would like to email me off line, feel free at mommatheis@hotmail.com

Something is brewing!

Something is brewing on the Theis front....I wonder what it could be!? Check back in a couple weeks and you will find out! In the meantime enjoy pictures of the boys coming home from their first day of school - so far they are enjoying it!

School is here!

School finally starts this week.  The summer was very busy and fun, but I think the kids are ready for school.  We did so many fun things this summer.  Went on a road trip, went to the beach, horseback riding, camping, swimming in the ocean, lake and river, roller skating, parties galore, youth lock-ins, youth lock-outs, bowling, wow what else I can't even remember.  Needless to say it was fun.

I hope the boys don't expect this fun to continue throughout the school year:)

The boys are ready for school but I don't think the school is ready for the boys.  They have never had someone come in from China with little english and in one case, no education.  We have had many struggles, meetings and discussion to make sure they get what they need and deserve.  Please pray with us as we begin the year that they will get everything they need.  I will fight as long as I have to to advocate for them.

They are amazing young men and have been a blessing as new additions to our family.  We just celebrated our 3 month anniversary together.  Titus's english is amazing and Adam has learned alot even without any past english training.  He has a long way to go but is eager to learn.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers and support -we are blessed to have each of you in our lives whether it be in person or cyberspace:)