Happy Valentine's Day! 

I just realized that it has been since May of last year since I wrote about our adoption. Lots of stuff has gone on since then. So, while Jeremy and Hunter are cooking me a romantic Valentine's Dinner ;), I wanted to catch everyone up. In May of 2015 we accepted the referral of an infant boy. We had lots of more paperwork to do to make it official. So, we (mainly I (Jeremy has terribly handwriting so I typically do not allow him to help  haha)) went to work. Had everything completed. Only to find out that the paperwork wasn't correct. They called us and told us we had two very short weeks to get an addendum completed on our homestudy and get it submitted to USCIS in Texas or else we would have to pay an additional $2,000 to have it redone. My heart sank. So, back to work I went on our paperwork. Long story short, our paperwork arrived the day it was due. Phew! Talk about cutting it close. After that we went back to waiting for our next approval. We received it several weeks later. In October, we submitted our next set of paperwork which they told us would take 3-4 weeks to receive our approval. To our surprise, we received that approval the very next day. So, now all we lack is one more approval before our case gets presented to the judge. They told us our next approval could take several months. So, I tried to not worry about it and tried to realize that God is in control of this whole situation. After three months of hearing absolutely nothing from our agency, I decided to ask some of the other families how long it took them to received their approval. Several of them told me just a few weeks and that it was a relatively quick process. I became very concerned. I emailed our family coordinator and asked her why she thought it was taking ours so long. She told me she would contact our orphanage and see if she could find out what was causing the delay. She called us a few days later and told us that we had received our approval and that now our case would be sent to the judge. Now, we have no idea how long it will take for them to approve our case. They said we would still be traveling to pick Little Man up this summer but it could be sooner or it could be later. If you would like to help our family by praying that would be awesome! Pray that the judge would see our case and see us as the perfect family for our little guy. Pray that Little Man stays healthy and gets the love and care that he needs until we get there. As silly as it seems, I often pray that he will know that we exist and that we are trying as hard as we can to get to Him and give Him the life he deserves. Every child deserves a loving family. 

So, for now we just wait. 
When we first started the second adoption we were doing a fundraiser to surprise everyone and let them know what country we chose. As of right now, between all the donations we received, two grants that we received, and saving our little hearts out, we have enough to complete our adoption 100% debt free! Jeremy and I are beyond thankful for all the ways in which everyone helped to achieve this. So, in case you haven't figured it out yet (or we haven't spilled the beans) our Little Man was born in

We will be making one trip to India and stay about two week in country with Him. Then we will get to bring him home! Everyday is one day closer to traveling!

We legally can not show any pictures of him or any information about him. So, if you follow us on Facebook you will probably see little teasers like this one:

But please understand that as much as we would like to show you his perfect little face, the Indian government is very strict on this and we would not want to jeopardize our adoption in any way.


Lately, we have been trying to gather a few things that we know we will need in hopes that we will bring him home sooner than later. Today we were excited to purchase the perfect stroller for half the retail price! Hunter had a blast helping to put it together and playing on it. He can not wait to be a big brother! He even picked him out a light up ninga turtles cup that he already has set up in brothers stroller. Hunter will be such a blessing to his little brother. I can already tell. 

  

One question we have received a lot of lately is I thought you were adopting from Ethiopia or what about the Ethiopia adoption? We are still currently on that waiting list. We were officially added to that list July 5th, 2013. They have continued to increase the wait times for families. As of today, they are telling families 48-60 months before referral. Our agency has been offering incentives for families to transfer out of the Ethiopia program. Also, in the last week the Ethiopian government had decided to restructure certain areas of their adoption. The one that affects us overall is they are considering making families stay in country for 6 months with the child they are adopting. With having two other children at home and one in school, working, and going to school ourselves, we would definitely not be able to stay in country for long of a time. This is not set in stone yet but they are having another meeting about it tomorrow and hopefully our agency will have some answers. We will continue to wait and see how things move along before making an decision on whether or not we want to withdraw from the program. Although, we have no desire to until all options are exhausted. 

We will try and keep everyone updated as the time comes to travel. But, for now we are really at the point in the adoption where we won't have many updates until time to travel. Hopefully, this gives everyone an insight as to what has been going on in our life. Feel free to send us any questions that we may have missed!

With Love,

Abby

We have a secret....

So we have a secret.  His original name is "V".  He lives in the city of Delhi. He is 5 months old. Born in December. And he is the newest addition to the Fowler Family. We're finally a family of 4. 

Last Friday I sent an email to our family coordinator. Desperate. It had been 5 weeks since we had heard any news on the second adoption. Every one that knows me know that I am not a very patient person. So 5 weeks with not a single word was killing me. So, I politely wrote an email and asked if they had any word on whether or not we were approved on the countries database (where all the families are placed). And I received an automated response "I am out of my office. I will return on Monday". So there is was. The one response I did not want to receive. Jeremy and I went on with our weekend. Then late Saturday evening we received another email. "Congratulations Fowler Family you have been approved. We also have a child's profile we would like for you to review. He is an infant but can't give you any more information. We will call Monday to talk to you more. Pray over the weekend and talk to you then." O-M-G......Say WHHHHAAAT??? So we did just that. We prayed and talked and prayed and talked. Then on Monday we received (what in the adoption world is) THE CALL!!!!!  After years of waiting we can not explain THE CALL. Its like the best thing EVER. So we talked to our family coordinator and she explained everything and we of course said yes to the most precious little one. Unfortunately there is a lot of confidential information we can not share... Like his real name, date of birth, photos, etc. until we travel and pass court and his is officially a Fowler. So just trust me when I say he is precious. We still have lots of paperwork to finish and lots of steps to complete the process. They told us we would be traveling within the next 8-12 months to complete the adoption and bring him home. 

As excited as we were, reality set in rather quickly. We still have a "ton" of fees due. We have really tried to save as much as we can and I of course have started applying for all the grants again. But, we are still going to probably have to do more fundraising. As bad as I hate to do it, I just don't see any other way. I do not like asking people to anything. I just don't. But reality is God placed this child in our family for a reason. And he will provide a way for us to bring him home. When we first started this process we tried to do the pick a number fundraiser. We learned quickly that sticky notes do not stick a flags very well. So we have made another board and I will update pictures on the blog as the number are donated. This is a rather easy fundraiser for us and one that could potentially be our last. So here is how it works:

We have numbered sticky notes from 1-200. You can pick any number (that isn't already chosen) and donate that amount of money. For instance if you chose number 50 then you would donate 50 dollars. If you chose number 100 then you donate 100 dollars and so on. You can also chose more than one. For example numbers 48 and 3. Then you would donate 51 dollars. After you chose the number you would like to donate then we will remove that from the board and write your name on the number. The name and number will the be placed in a bowl for a chance to win the ultimate prize! Then when all 200 numbers have been donated then we will have the drawing. The more numbers you choose, the more chances you get to win the prize! We will update the picture and numbers daily so you can see what is left. 

1. using the PayPal DONATE button on the sidebar
2. using the “send money” feature on PayPal (use email abby.fowler@yahoo.com)
3. sending a CHECK/Money order to Fowler Family (PLEASE MESSAGE ME FOR ADDRESS)

We have approximately 8 months to raise $20,000. But we know for a fact God has provided for our family this far and He will continue to do so. Here is the first set of numbers. Huge thank you to those of you who donated the first time we posted this fundraiser. We have your names on your numbers!

So call us crazy.

I have been pondering for a week now on what to say in this blog. So, I decided first I would tell you a few adoption words to help you understand the rest of the article. Here we go:

Dossier- a huge stack of paperwork that basically has our entire life history in it that gets translated into the countries language so they understand who we are and where we are from.

Waiting child list- this is a list that has kids on it that are hard to place with families. These could be older kids, special needs kids, or healthy kids with minor problems. Since they are harder to place there is no wait to bring them home J

Concurrent family building- This is a process families can ask to be approved for where they can continue to build their family while they wait for a referral

Referral- When the agency has a child available with our parameters and we are number one on the list. They will call us and say we have a child for you would you like to accept this referral?

The Ethiopia adoption times have continued to increase since we submitted our dossier. When we began the process the wait times were at 18-24 months. We have been on the waiting list since July 2013. The current wait times for a referral from Ethiopia, (with our agency) are at 36-42 months right now. Therefore we still have around 3 more years of waiting before we can bring our child home. Jeremy and I have talked about several different options while we wait for our little Ethiopian bean. We went through lots of classes to do foster care and decided that was not a good fit for our family. We had finally decided that we would just out our time. We both work full time, we are both in school, we are in the process of selling our house and trying to move, we are rasing hunter, Hunter is into every sport he can possibly want to play. But, for some reason God kept pulling on me. One day I logged into our agenicies waiting child list. We can see every countries waiting children. And then there was this child. I immediately went home and told Jeremy. I think they are our child. We have to see what we need to get to bring them home. We had already been approved to do a concurrent family building. We contacted our agency and they told us some of the laws of the new country and tried to explain everything to us in a very detailed email. So, long story short, We have applied to another country to adopt a child from their waiting child list. If everything works out the way we hope it will then we will have this child home in 15 months and still have about 6-8 months before we receive our referral from Ethiopia.

What does that mean? Its time to start fundraising again. Another adoption means another $36,000.00. I’m sure a lot of you are thinking “do you really have enough time to fundraise”, “72,000 for two children?” Let me just say that I will do whatever it takes to get my children home. And I without a doubt I know God will provide.

Now, we have purposely not told you what country we are going to this time. Our first fundraiser is as follows:
We have the countries' flag framed. On Top of this we have sticky papers numbered 1-200. Each number represents an amount that can be donated. If you chose number 25 then you donated $25, choose number 5 and you would donate $5.  After all the numbers have been claimed and donated for then we will reveal the flag. With this one fundraiser we can raise a little over $20,000. &&& YES I DID THE MATH!!  Also as an incentive when all the numbers have been claimed and the donations made then we will have a drawing for an ipad mini and $100.00 itunes giftcard. So would you please consider choosing a number and making a donation either by snail mail or through our paypal donation account? I will keep you update weekly on the number that are still available.

Hello again!

Hello everyone! I feel like we haven't updated in ages. But, on a positive note. We were able to raise all the money we needed for our previous fees that were due. With that being said we still owe $7,540.00 and our flights to and from Ethiopia. If you don't follow us on Facebook then we would like to share the exciting news with you that we received a $6,000.00 grant from ShowHope.  What a blessing. So, between that and some donations we have received, and our Both Hands account we have enough to cover the $7,540.00. That leave FLIGHTS. With Ethiopia you are required to travel twice. The first trip you go and meet your child and go to "court". The second trip we take will be to pick them up and bring them HOME FOREVER!  Since we have paid all of our fees we have currently placed fundraising on hold (you can still donate through the paypal link. Donations are always accepted and greatly appreciated)! We will probably begin fundraising again around June or July. We have truly been blessed.


But, (it seems like there is always a but), within the last couple of week the Ethiopia government and parliament are trying to close down international adoptions through ET. We have continually been asking for prayers. So, far what we have heard is that they are trying to make some changes to the program but not necessarily close it for good. With that being said, We still are not certain what they will decide this week. They are meeting again on the 16th of January to hopefully have the final decision on what changes will be made. So we would like to ask you to continue to pray for guidance. For our family and also for the ET government. 

So, this is a very short and quick update but I felt like I needed to post and let everyone know what is going on in the Fowler Family world!

Please, continue to pray for us!

Both Hands

Wow! What an amazing weekend we had! First I would like to say thank you to everyone who showed up to help work on Mrs. Guyer's home. Second, I would like to thank all of our sponsors: Home Depot, Sherwin Williams, Clarksville Floor Covering, Chick-fil-a & Lowe's.

On Saturday, August 17th the Fowler Team showed up at Mrs. Guyers house at 8am! We started out with a prayer and breakfast. We started working shortly after. First things first. We had to remove EVERYTHING from inside the home. Jeremy and I had been to visit Mrs. Guyer several times but did not realize the extent of her house. Once we began removing items we learned very quickly this house was pretty much in unlivable conditions. After we removed all her belongings from inside the house we began painting. We painted walls, trim, and ceilings. After painting every item in the house had to be cleaned. We threw away around 8 truck beds full of "stuff". We removed carpet. At this point, we still did not have the carpet donated. HOW STRESSFUL WAS THIS?!? All I could think was we are going to get this lady taken care of. Her house has needed this for years. So, after many hours at the carpet store, they FINALLY showed up with carpet for the entire house! What a blessing this was! After getting all the carpet layed, all the walls painted, the kitchen cleaned, almost everything done, MY TEAM, decided that they were going to go get her some new "stuff". This is where they got me. MY TEAM, what wonderful people my friends/family are, decided to get her all new sheets, new blankets,new comforter, new pillows, new curtains, new fan (BTW, her ceiling lights didn't work then we arrived. She was using lamps throughout her house because her electricity hadn't been working for so long).She never had a bathroom door. We installed one. They washed her clothes and even gave Harley (her dog) a bath! They really blessed this lady. The next day we had someone call and donate a new bed, boxsprings, mattress, chairs, end tables, lamps. So, we went back on Sunday to finish up a few things and to also taker her the new furniture! Boy was she happy. She called to let me know how well she slept on her new mattresses. She was beyond grateful. She just kept telling me how she had been praying for this for so long. WE WERE THE ANSWERS TO HER PRAYERS!

Here is some before and after pictures of her home!
 Dining Room Before

                     Dining Room After



 Living Room Before

                                        Kitchen before

                    Kitchen After

Microwave Before and After

 
 Spare bedroom Before (library)
                      Spare bedroom After

Mrs Guyers's New bedroom suite 

 This was such an amazing experience for us! We are so grateful that the Both Hands foundation allowed us to share this experience.

It is not to late to sponsor us! If you would like to donate to our project please visit:
www.Bothhandsfoundation.org/jeremy-and-abby-fowler

And lastly you can see our video at:
https://vimeo.com/m/72740776

Pray

As I sit in my room with tears rolling down my face, my four year old comes in the room and says, "It's okay mommy we are going to get her home.Here I brought you a cuddle toy." It was his little angel that prays. Thank you Lord. That is just what I needed. adopt (əˈdɒpt)
1.	law to bring (a person) into a specific relationship, esp to take  (another's child) as one's own child
2.	to choose and follow (a plan, technique, etc)
3.	to take over (an idea, etc) as if it were one's own
4.	to take on; assume: to adopt a title
5.	to accept (a report, etc) _____________________________________________________ wait /weɪt/ Show Spelled [weyt] Show IPA verb (used without object) 1. to remain inactive or in a state of repose, as until something expected happens (often followed by for, till, or until ): to wait for the bus to arrive. 2. (of things) to be available or in readiness: A letter is waiting for you. 3. to remain neglected for a time: a matter that can wait. 4. to postpone or delay something or to be postponed or delayed: We waited a week and then bought the house. Your vacation will have to wait until next month. 5. to look forward to eagerly: I'm just waiting for the day somebody knocks him down. Neither one of the definitions say it will be easy. I have really been struggling this week with this whole process. When people said that the process would wear on you mentally and physically I didn't fully understand what they meant, apparently. THIS IS NOT EASY!! We have officially been on the waiting list a whole 2 weeks. Two LOOOOOOOONG weeks. Then I look at our "unofficial" waiting list. Some of these people have been on there over 2 1/2 years. There are so many kids in this world that need us. WHY? Why does this process have to take so long? These kids are living in shoes boxes, straving, sick, you name it they probaby have it. My heart is aching. Since being on that list all I can do is think, "What can I do now?" The only logical answer I can come up with is Pray. Pray for the kids. Pray for the Ethiopian Government. Pray for me. Pray for the situation as a whole. I know we will get through this. This is God's plan for us. Jeremiah 29:11-- For I know the plans I have for you, delares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Could you please say a little prayer for us as a family but also for all of the orphaned kids? There are so many families willing and ready to help these kids. Please pray that the governments will find some process to make things easier/faster. We definitely want to make sure the agencies are doing every little step correctly and obeying all the laws of both countries but, there has to be a way to get these kids to their families faster than 2, 3, 5, or sometimes even more years. Just look at China. They are the number one country for abortions and Yet people are waiting over 5 years to receive a referall for a child. PRAY! For now, that's all I can do.

And the winner is....

Steve Seay!!! Congratulations Steve. Thank you to everyone who purchased a raffle ticket. And a huge thank you to my dad (Keith Lane) for donating his gun and making this all possible. We raised $2520.00 to add to the adoption fund! We are one step closer to bringing our child home!