Guest post by sweet Momma K

Hello all! I first want to thank Katie for allowing me to submit this guest post. I really love her artwork, and being an adoptive mom of a beautiful girl from Ethiopia, it definitely strikes a chord with me. We have a number of prints up throughout our house.

I am writing to ask for a HUGE favor, but more on that in a bit..

First – let me introduce myself. As mentioned above, I am K, a single mom of a fantastic 3 year old Ethiopian princess.

I felt so blessed by my first adoption experience, I wanted to embark on bringing home another beautiful child.

As many of you may know, the international adoption road is a long and winding one. There have been some changes throughout this process that have caused me to look for financial support through fundraising. I have been working on multiple things to raise money, but have also taken advantage of an adoption fundraising website called Just Love Coffee. The idea of this website is to allow people to buy items (coffee, apparel, mugs, etc.) with a portion of the proceeds sent to our family to assist in our adoption.

The website for dedicated to our family is: https://justlovecoffee.com/about/beneficiary/ourblendedfamily/

Now for the favor part: I would greatly appreciate any support that you (or your friends / families) might be in a position to provide through purchases from this site. Every purchase will make a huge difference in my goal of growing to be a family of three. Hopefully you can also take care of some holiday shopping while you are at it.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading this post and any assistance you are in a position to provide.

~K

15 months since DTE!

Our dossier arrived in Ethiopia 15 months ago!

Things have been pretty quiet in our agency, concerning referrals. Some sweet little birdies tell us that there are many little ones in the transition home that have not been referred... but right now it is taking a long time for kids to receive the necessary clearances. Our agency does not issue a referral until the clearances have been obtained - which means a longer wait up front. However, this also means that once a referral is given, things move pretty quickly with court dates and Embassy appointments. We are thankful for the thoroughness of our wonderful agency, AWAA.

~Please join us in praying for clearances to come through - these must be obtained in sequence, first at the local level, then the regional level, then at the federal level. The Ethiopian officials processing such clearances often don't feel any sense of urgency, so it can take months to complete.