And waiting....

On November 1 we were told we should hear about our traveling dates in Dec. to travel in Jan. It is December 2, and we're still waiting! Ok, so I'll give them a few more days and then I'm contacting Mimi again. I know it's all about the Judge in Poland and his schedule but jeesh! There's two children who would benefit from our love as much as we will from theirs. Again, I know God's timing is best, but with all the waiting I'll use up all my patience before the kids get home :) (No comments mom, I have learned patience since my babysitting days in high school).

I hope everyone had a thankful Thanksgiving and has a blessed Christmas season.

Just Passing Time

Well we got word in late October that the judge in Poland said we'd have to go to Poland in January and that he couldn't see us any sooner. As disappointing as this was to hear, it will actually work out timing wise for the best.

We won't have to deal with hectic holiday travelers, we'll be able to take advantage of my employers adoption benefit plan that is going into effect for the first time in 2009, we'll have a better chance of getting coverage for our animals that are being left behind, and what a way to celebrate the New Year!!!

We hope to get specific travel dates sometime in December. We'll post them when we do.

PTL (Praise The Lord) !!!!!

PTL and the Gift of Adoption Fund! We've been awarded our first grant to help complete our adoption. This grant should cover the majority of the last bit we needed to save and have enough cushion should costs go up, such as traveling expenses.

We're very excited and can't wait for our trip(s) to Poland!

Patience is a Virtue

Patience is a virtue, or so I'm told. We've been told for about 3 weeks now that our travel dates are coming. I told my friend Izabela how they've been telling we'll have dates by the end of the week and then the week comes and goes, and she said that "that is so Poland". So I'm not blaming, I'm just an anxious mama-to-be who wants her children home. Who knows, maybe by the end of all this I will have the virtue of patience :)

Blessings to all who read our blog.

There back.....!

As I mentioned, our miracle kids are back in our lives again and we're just waiting for information on travel dates.


Our son's name will be Bartek Martin....





and our daughter Katarzyna (Kasia) Grace.




We can't wait for you all to meet them.

Jeff & Debbie

Miracles Do Happen!

I couldn't believe it. We got a call from our adoption placement agent, Mimi, saying the children we had lost to their aunt are available to us again if we're interested. If we're interested?!?! Are you kidding, OH YES, we're interested!!!! So once the attorney returns from Gdansk next week, we'll get more information.

Praise God and the miracles He's doing in our lives.

Polish 101

For my non-Polish speaking friends and relatives, here is a crash course on some basic Polish phrases:

English - (Polish) - Phonetically sounds like

Good Morning/hello/good afternoon (Dzien Dobry) Jane Do-bray
Thank you (Dzienkuje) Jane koo-yow
Good Night (Dobranoc) Doe-bra-notes
Good Bye (Dowidzenia) Doe-vid-zen-yah
I'm sorry or excuse me (Przepraszam) Shep-pre-sham
I don't understand (Nie rozumiem) Nyeh roe-zoom-yee-em
Please (Prosze) Pro-sha
Yes (Tak) Tock
No (Nie) Nyeh
I love you (Ja Kocham) Ya Ko-hum
Mom (Mama) Ma ma
Dad (Tata) Ta ta
Rzentkowski (Rzentkowski) Jent-kuv-ski

Have fun with these! Maybe I'll add more later.

~ Debbie

Accepted Referral! - Update/heartbreak

We received some terrible news today. The son & daughter we thought we'd be having have been taken away. An aunt of theirs has come forward and wants to adopt them. Even though the children have been in an orphanage for 2-2 1/2 years and the parental rights were terminated, she gets first rights.

We pray a new door will open to us soon.

8/11/2008

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By the Grace of God, it has happened,Jeff & I are going to be parents!

We officially accepted a referal of a brother and sister to adopt. I'm not listing names yet because we may change them. However, our son-to-be is 10 (as of 6/29) and our daughter-to-be will be 5 on September 14.

The joy we are feeling is beyond words. I guess the excitement is really about to begin!

Please visit often, as we learn more about our traveling itinerary we'll update the site and when we're there we'll add pictures.

2nd Fundraising Attempt

I'm very excited about our next fundraiser! I think it will do well for us. We are running a recycling of cell phones campaign. If we can collect enough cell phones from friends, neighbors and good samaritans and we could raise enough money to complete our adoption. For each cell phone we could earn from .25 to $300, depending on year/make/model.

I'm hoping that people who hear about the campaign will share it with their friends, family and co-workers and create a viral campaign to get the cell phones to us.

We can be contacted at debrez64@msn.com to make shipping arrangements.

So if you're reading this, please pass it on!

Thank you.
Jeff & Debbie

A Mother's Love

Have I mentioned before how lucky I am to have such a wonderful mother? I have been blessed with a loving, kind and caring mother who stepped out in faith in the friends she has made over the past 50 years. She wrote a letter to her friends sharing our story of how we're trying to adopt due to the fact that I haven't been able to have children of my own, and asked if they could make a donation to our adoption. I have been amazed and blessed in the responses I've gotten from her letter. Many of her friends are just as kind, caring and loving with their donations, prayers and words of encouragement. Thank you mom's friends, each and every one of you. And thank you mom, I love you.

“The family is the first school of living, and the influence received inside the family is decisive for the future development of the individual,” said John Paul II.

Just liked the sentiment...

Also liked the following:

If orphan children never experience a family's love, how can we expect them to comprehend God's love?

Not all are called to adopt, but anyone can love and minister to orphan children by helping other families adopt.

1st Fundraiser - CANCELLED

We're about to launch our first fundraiser on June 8th. We'll be holding a murder mystery dinner with a luau theme. Besides being able to participate in solving the mystery, we'll also be having a 50/50 drawing and a few other activities.

I can't say enough how grateful Jeff & I are to our friends here in Colorado who are helping us with these events.

Check back after the 8th to see photos...

Campaign

If just 1,499 people donate $20 each, we will achieve our dream of becoming parents.

Dossier

Our dossier has been sent to Poland for translation and approval. Once this is done our last hurtle will be fundraising and waiting. They'll start looking for a match for us and set a date for travel once we accept a referral.

We are meeting with several very special and wonderful ladies on Thursday 2/21 to have a discussion meeting on holding a silent auction. As this will be our biggest fundraising attempt, so we're asking for prayers for success and abundance.

Stay tuned for more info....

Exciting Step

We just sent our "dossier" packet out to PA today, which means in a few weeks it will go to Poland for translation. How Exciting! Pretty soon it will just be a matter of waiting for our match. We can't wait to bring our son & daughter home!

Disappointment

Now that the excitement and panic has waned I can tell you about our disappointment. Last week we got a call from our agency saying they had a brother and sister available for adoption. We panicked because we don't have the money even to make our first trip. So we asked for an extension on our travel date and were going to decide whether to take another leap of faith and rely that God was going to take care of the funds. Our intent was to have a silent auction and a major garage sale between now and April. However, the very next day we got the second call saying the judge in Poland didn't want to hold off so long to get the kids adopted. I can understand that, and it took away us having to decide whether we could accept the referral or not due to money. I don't ever want to be in that position again, where money is the deciding factor.

We are now in the process of proceeding with figuring out where, when and how to hold a silent auction.

All prayers are welcome!

We're Approved

We're approved! We just got our USCIS approval, which we've been told is the most important piece of paper to have because it's immigration's approval for us to bring orphans home to the United States. Yipeee! 2008 is going to be our year!