Strength for my Heart

On Friday the 12th I had reached a mini crisis of heart.  I was down.  Our home study was paid for, but HOW were we ever going to have the money to pay our agency fees?  I went into the bathroom and just cried.  After a time of crying, I began to cry out to the Lord and tell Him how I was feeling.  I didn't leave the bathroom that night with any answers, but it felt good to talk to Him about it instead of just being grumpy and sad.

When I woke up the next morning it was to a Facebook post from Alison McLennon. ( Alison and her husband Tim traveled to Rwanda at the same time we did to bring home their little girl, we have been so blessed by them time and again!)  Her post stated they would match donations up to $1,000!  I spent the day in awe as donation after donation came in taking up all the way to$1,000!  Dillon and I went out that night for our anniversary amazed at how our family and friends rallied around to complete the goal!

We have so much more to raise, but it is things like this that keep my heart ready for the next day.  It was strength for the journey and a great reminder that we are not in this alone!

On to the Next Step

We completed our fingerprinting this past Monday.  It was fun to be back in the same room again, going through the same steps we did before, this time with Adeline sitting beside us.  It made it more real, knowing all of this "work" has a purpose.  A beautiful purpose.  I had gone back so many times in the past because my prints did not show up properly that the man taking my prints remembered me! Having this step done feels so good, we are on to the next thing.  Our home studies should start very soon.  We mailed in all of the paperwork and our check to our agency.  I talked to our social worker today and she wants to come next Saturday since Dillon is working in the evenings.  What an amazing lady!  She told us she would come evenings or weekends for us to help things move along more quickly.  We are blessed with a GREAT social worker!

Today Dillon and I had our medical exams with all the necessary paper work to fill out.  The kids were wonderful waiting for us knowing their turn is next Tuesday.  Every step we complete makes me want to jump for joy.  The only piece missing is the money, and I KNOW God sees how that will fall into place.  I believe Lord, but please help my unbelief!  Some nights I lay awake worried and stressed wondering how we will ever raise the money needed.  Oh why is this part so hard?! He led us down this path, I want to rest in that. 

Family and Neighbors

This past week Dillon's sisters and their families came to Colorado!  We had a wonderful time visiting and catching up.  The last time we had seen them was Christmas 2011 so there was lots to talk about. We went to City Park Jazz on Sunday and got poured on! (fun memories!)  Dillon had to work, but yesterday the kids and I met them all down at Garden of the gods and had a nice time looking at the beautiful creation around us.   Both of Dillon's precious sisters and mom bought necklaces and coffee to support this adoption and we felt so blessed by their love and support.  

A few nights ago we had a knock on our door and it was one of our neighbors.  We know the people that live right around us pretty well, but there are some families down the street that we have not gotten to know yet.  It was one of these that was standing at our door when Dillon answered it.   We had talked a few weeks ago at our garage sale and told them about adopting a son from Uganda.  This dear couple had decided they wanted to help us financially and gave us a check in support.  Wow!  I was so blown away!  God is moving hearts and I am so thankful!

We have been filling our home study paper work out and are excited to begin the visits with our social worker soon.  We are planning on getting our child abuse clearance finger prints done this Friday.  A special prayer request regarding this would be for my finger prints to show up clearly.  I had to make many trips when we have done fingerprinting for Adeline's paperwork and would like to get it done the first try this time.

Thank you to my dear friend Allie who posted pictures of our family and cleaned up the blog for me!  In every area of life, I am so thankful for community!  Thank you for following our journey and praying with us as we wait for the finances to move forward.

Blessings and Updates

We are moving forward! Today we received a packet of paperwork from our home study agency and I have been happily copying, filling out and signing away! We struggled a bit wondering what to do and were stalled out for a few days, but we are moving again! There is paperwork to fill out for our placing agency (the people who will eventually send us our little mans picture and info) and there is home study paper work and backround checks to complete (these need to be finished to request grants and loans). We had a few thousand dollars to use to move in one direction or another. Dillon talked to the director of Across the World (our placing agency) and he recommended we start with the home study, so we are following his advice and trusting that when the time comes we will see the Lord's provision for the next step.

Dillon has started his second job and we are very thankful! It has been hard having him gone in the evenings, but we see each opportunity to raise money as another step closer to our son.

There are still many bags of coffee left if anyone wants to buy some! Please shoot me an email with interest(or use paypal up top! Its easy! You will put in your address and your coffee will be shipped right away!), this coffee is delicious and it will help us go a long way to be able to sell it.

There was an African Bazaar at our church last week to raise money for an AMAZING organization, HOW 101. We went to support this beautiful group of people we have grown to love, but we left more blessed than I can explain. The precious ladies there donated some necklaces to us, handmade by women in Uganda! We now have these necklaces to sell to YOU!

We are asking for a suggested donation of 20 dollars for these necklaces. There are different sizes and colors (many more than I have shown here) so email or call me if you are interested! adriennestengel@gmail.com 720-841-5976

Before we left the women circled our family and prayed over us. I didn't know I should have brought a box of tissues to the Bazaar! God is showing us His Hand every turn we take, but even though this is true, it is still hard not to fear when we look at what we will owe. If I may, can I ask you to join us in praying about this aspect? We DO NOT want to give in to fear or worry. We know these things are not of the Lord. The amount of money we need to raise is so great, far beyond our reach, but I am reminded of the community around us and I give thanks!

Our next step is to finish our home study paper work and set our dates to have the social worker here. When we have the finances raised we can send in our first payment to Across the World and they will begin working with the people in Uganda to match our family with a precious boy. Thankfully we received Hailey, Caleb and Adeline's passports Saturday, so when the blessed day comes for travel, all of us Stengels will be ready! Thank you for praying with us and loving us through this process.
Adrienne

Here we go again......this time UGANDA!

Hello! We are so excited to be walking the path of adoption again! Bringing a child into a home in any way is a journey filled with all kinds of emotions and this fourth child for us is no different than the past three. We are so happy, and nervous, and filled with awe that God would bless us this way.

We have been talking about another child for a while, but in February we started considering it more seriously. About a month and a half ago, we took our kids out to eat and told them our plan to bring home a brother. Their response was beautiful and it is a lunch date I do not ever want to forget! Hailey and Caleb have a heartbeat for children without families and they were all in. So, we have begun the paperwork again!

We learned many things the last time we grew our family through adoption, but we will mention this one main truth. WE DID NOT ADOPT ADELINE ALONE. It was a community of family and friends who helped us arrive in the beautiful country of Rwanda and bring home our precious little girl. We know it will take this community again. We want to share this journey with any of you who want to walk it with us. We have been accepted by an agency that our social worker told us about that works in Uganda. We are asking for a little boy younger than Adeline. Uganda requires a stay in country for approximately 6 weeks. This was too long to leave our other children, so we have applied for passports for all! This is very exciting for us as there are people we know who live in Uganda that we can hardly wait to connect with during our stay.

When we were waiting for Adeline to come home there were countless days (and nights) we wet the floor with our tears, crying out to God for His Hand to move and bring her to us. We did not see how we could ever raise the money needed. This is the place we are in again, and this time we are talking about travel for 5 to Uganda and 6 back home! We have already been amazed at God's provision for our application fee. We owed $250 to send in with our application last week, so we had a garage sale. We made $265! Amazing!!! Our next step is $4000 to the placing agency and some dear friends just came together and gave us a little over $3000! WOW! We fully trust the money will come in God's timing, it is just hard because there are many moments when we would rather just see the money in our bank account instead of living by faith. There are things we can do though. Dillon is starting a second job this week and we are cutting back from our already tight (or so it feels) budget... but there is NO way we can do this alone. Will you join in and be part of our community this way? Our goal is $35,000. (Placing agency, home study, travel costs, post placement fees and paper work) Unreachable, unattainable, too much - if we were doing it alone, but we are not! Praise God, we will NOT bring home our next son alone!

With love, Dillon, Adrienne, Hailey, Caleb, Adeline Stengel


Our dear friends are hosting a Coffee Fundraiser for us! This coffee is delicious and even better comes straight from Africa! The bag is 1/2 kilo or 1.1 lbs. For a suggested donation of $18 they will mail you a bag so you can try it yourself (and help bring our little guy home in the process!) You can use the PayPal link below or mail us a check. If you use the Paypal link, when you get to the page that says "review your donation" there is a section with special instructions for the recipient. Please let us know how many bags you are ordering and give us your address so your coffee can be sent off as soon as possible. Thank you for being part of our community!