Monday, October 15, 2012

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!!!

Well, the end of THIS tunnel anyways. The tunnel of "Adoption Education." It's been a long one that had an unexpected detour. I am not really sure what happened or who's fault it is but somehow the education requirements were not clearly communicated to our home study worker and the last time I blogged in July I thought we were almost done with the home study. Much to our dismay we were informed of our misinformation and we found ourselves still needing to complete 20+ hours of online education and to read a 250 page book (The Connected Child by Dr. Purvis- GOOD STUFF!) and then backtrack a bit in the home study process in order to do things right. This was disappointing and frustrating. So, after beating ourselves up for a while and wondering what we could have done differently we picked ourselves up and moved forward trusting that God's timing for this adoption is best.

Thus, here I am again, 3 months later updating you all with the same information that we are just weeks away from submitting our home study and moving on the the next step in our adoption process. Hallelujah!

Please continue to keep us in your prayers.

Monday, July 16, 2012

What we've been doing

It seems like the adoption process has a lot of waiting.  .  .  .and then all of the sudden you do a bunch of things all at once! The last week or so we have hit the "do a bunch of things all at once" phase. We had our first face to face meeting with our home study director in Omaha on a Tuesday morning. It went really well! We left immediately after the meeting to drive to Kansas where we visited Nate's family and spent A LOT of time on the phone on hold trying to get insurance and other questions answered for the home study. On Sunday we had the privileged of sharing about adoption with Nate's parents home church in Liberal, KS. I began by sharing our adoption story then Nate preached an awesome sermon about adoption and last, Moses and I sang Children of God by Third Day together. (see video) After the service we all shared a meal together and we were so blessed by the support shown to us!!! We left straight from church to travel back to NE on Sunday and Monday. Monday we were only home for one hour before we got back in the car to head to Omaha for our 2nd meeting. We will have 3 more meetings including the in-home evaluation. We really love our home study director and thank God for providing an affordable Christian agency for us to work with. Our home study will be completed in about 2 weeks and then we will be back to waiting.  .   .  .again.

Monday, May 7, 2012

60 cent Lemonade!

We had a really great garage sale this weekend at some friends house who have a great location! Several families from our church donated items to be sold. It was a lot of work that was honestly overwhelming to me. I was thinking about canceling it because I just didn't see how I was going to pull it off. Thankfully, some great close friends gladly jumped in to help me price, organize and run the sale. It was a great success! We raised $1000.00 for the adoption!!! That was double what I had hoped for. I am so glad I didn't cancel and thankful for EVERYONE who donated and helped!
"May he send you help from the sanctuary and grant you support from Zion." Ps. 20:2

The highlight of the weekend was Moses' lemonade stand. He made this sign and set up shop for 3 hours selling lemonade to raise money for a feeding program by Eyes That See. They feed starving orphans in Ethiopia. It only takes .60 to feed 1 child 1 meal. So, he sold his lemonade for .60 a cup and raised $33.01! That's enough to provide 55 meals! We were so proud of him for serving the lemonade so gladly and for sticking with it for so long.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Paperwork and Fingerprints

I haven't updated for a while because I just didn't feel like anything exciting was happening. We have just been filling out paperwork and collecting the documents we need to hand in with the paperwork. We could not locate a birth certificate for Nate so we had to request one from Colorado and wait for it in the mail. Today, the kids and I went to the Nebraska State Patrol office to get my fingerprints done for my background check. Nate will have to do this too but of course the office hours are the same as his work hours so something will have to be worked out there. It was surprisingly quick and painless. Moses was disappointed that he didn't get to see any police officers and also that I didn't get my fingerprints done with ink that would make my fingers turn blue. :) Fingerprints are all digital these days, taken by a computer and scanner. However, he was excited that he and Grace each received a sticker that looks like a State Troopers badge (shown in pics). That was fun! Nate and I had set a deadline for ourselves to turn in all the home study paperwork by the end of March. Obviously we failed but I was just telling Nate last night that I feel "ok" with where we are at. I just have a peace and a knowing that we will get there when we get there and that's ok. Once we hand in the home study paperwork they will contact us and we will go to Omaha for 3 visits with them and then they will come to our house once. Then we will wait to find out if we "passed" the home study. Assuming we pass, it will be back to more paperwork for our adoption agency to send to Ethiopia!

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Good News!

We submitted our application to our adoption agency and on this past Thursday I received a phone call saying we have been accepted into their Ethiopia adoption program! Wahoo!!! This is not our official approval though. That doesn't come until we have passed our home study.


Speaking of home study....that is our next step. There is only one Hague approved home study agency in Nebraska so I will be contacting them this week to begin the process. I must say, I am nervous about this step for 2 reasons :  1. I have heard it is very invasive of your privacy and very time consuming (3-9 months), 2. We have not raised the money to pay for the home study yet (about $2000). Please pray for our peace of mind and continued fund raising.


Speaking of fund raisers...we have raised enough money to pay our application fee and our first payment to the agency! That's about $2500. Isn't that amazing!!! We have been so blessed by our supportive friends and family. We could not be doing this without you! God has continued to surprise us by laying it upon people's hearts to donate to our adoption. I want to share a few of our stories with you. There is a nice older gentleman at church who has given us a dollar or 2 EVERY Sunday since we told him about our "Just $1" fund raiser in December. It's the sweetest thing ever! All-in-all he has donated almost $20 dollars! Also, a college friend of Nate's saw our adoption story on facebook and sent Nate an e-mail saying she had dropped a couple dollars in the mail. When we got the check it was not a couple dollars...it was $500!!! I heard Nate literally yelp with joy from the bedroom when he opened it. :) My last fun donation story is that we have 2 relatives who are selling large items and have promised to donate 1/2 of the proceeds! Isn't it awesome when people respond to God and His children? - even to "the least of these." (Mt. 25:40)


If you are feeling God tugging at the strings of your heart to help us bring our orphan home there are 3 ways you can donate.

  1. Right here on my blog. Just click the DONATE button on the right side of the screen.
  2. Hand it to us. If we have the privilege of seeing you on a regular basis, just put it directly in our hands and you will receive a big hug in return. :) 
  3. Mail it. Contact us at burnettfamily@mail.com and we will send you our mailing address.
Thank you all for reading this, encouraging us, praying for us and donating (even just $1 helps). I will leave you with my new favorite quote by a good friend.

"I thought about $30,000. Of all the money in God's kingdom, can He even count that low? Isn't it less than a speck of dust to God?" - Janice Beard

Friday, January 13, 2012

It's January!

...and it's time to get this thing rollin'! You, our wonderful and supportive friends and family have already donated $900 to our "Just $1" fund raiser! That's amazing!!! Please keep handing out our fliers and collecting those dollars. :)
We are filling out our adoption application and plan to submit it next week! Part of the application is that each of us have to share our personal testimony. Upon finishing mine today I thought it would be good to share it with you all too!

Rachel’s Testimony
                I was raised in a Christian home. I am so blessed and thankful that my parents took me to church to fellowship with other believers and that they taught me the Bible from an early age. I remember always feeling a desire to be close to God and that I wanted to love and serve Him. I knew from church that people said you have to say a prayer and ask God to come into you heart in order to be saved. I wasn’t really sure what that all meant so I tried on several occasions to pray this “prayer” on my own but I didn’t ever feel any different. Around the age of 8 I remember feeling an urgency in my heart to really commit my life to God and mean it. The Holy Spirit was really calling me to come. Strangely enough, one day in my bathroom at home, I answered His call. I quieted myself and prayed that God would forgive me of my sins and save me. I felt different after that prayer. I wasn’t afraid anymore and I felt a peace in my life. I had an assurance that I belonged to God.
                Around the age of 12, I began to understand more about my salvation. I came to realize the severity of my sin and that I desperately needed the work Jesus did on the cross so I would not be separated from God. I also began to understand that God had a plan and purpose for my life. I read my Bible and prayed daily for His direction. This was when I memorized Jer. 29:11. “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” It became important to me that my life brought glory to God. Matt. 5:16, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” That meant I seriously needed to change some things in my life, like bad attitudes, disobedience, lying, laziness and so on. So, when I was 8 I repented from my sin and choose to believe that Jesus was the Son of God, thus I was justified, made right with God. Now, at age 12, the sanctification process, becoming more like Him, had begun.
                I have always continued on this same path ever since. I have and always will seek and follow God’s direction for my life. I want to be a vessel He can use! My anthem in life is this: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” Matt. 22:37-39
LOVE GOD, LOVE OTHERS