Another Glimpse

About a week and a half ago, Mary and I were getting ready for bed and I got an email on my phone. I opened it up and it was from our social worker at our agency. She is in Uganda and she had spent the day at the orphanage. She sent us about 10 more pictures of our little Gideon. It was good to see a picture of someone holding him because it helps us picture ourselves holding that little guy. There was a picture of him smiling and looking cute! We picture the day (hopefully very soon) when he is in our home with his family. Pray that day comes quickly!
Here I am getting Abram's "big boy" bed ready to move into his and Gideon's room. It's time for him to move on up--now it's time to fill that empty CRIB!!

Referral Received. Referral Accepted.

Monday was a great day! That's the day we received our referral for Gideon and found out much more information about him. We have already accepted the referral and are continuing to move through the process. Also, we finally got to see what he looks like!

One big surprise is that he is currently only 3 months old! We were expecting him to be closer to 18 months and no younger than 6 months. We are thrilled! He's a cutie with big, bright eyes and little sprigs of curly hair on top. It was a lot of fun showing the boys their new brother--can't wait to throw one more boy in the mix.

The next step is to finish pulling together the final few documents for our dossier, send them to Uganda, and wait for a court date. It's possible that we could travel as early as March--though could be as late as early summer. It can't happen soon enough.

I'm sorry we won't be able to post or distribute a picture of him at this time--we want to protect him and our process. We were able to send a picture of our family to the orphanage so they could put it near him. We can also expect to get regular updates on him. I'm sure these updates will be highlights each month and we will be sure to share any new info with you.

As always, thanks for the support--prayer and financial--that so many of you have offered. This continues to be a humbling journey. We still have about 20 shirts if anyone would still like one. Also, we are waiting to hear back regarding a couple of grant applications. God continues to provide!

Stay tuned.

Blog Access

Friends, thanks for keeping up with us. We continue to be busy with all the activities of life, all the while eagerly awaiting our little Gideon. Our referral date is only a couple of weeks away. We can't wait to "meet" our little guy. We pray that God would bring him to us quickly.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: In order to safeguard our adoption process, we feel the need to restrict access to our blog. We simply want to insure that we do not inadvertantly share any sensitive information about our orphanage, our agency, our child, etc. If you would like to continue to access our blog, send an e-mail to Mary--marydroddy(at)hotmail(dot)com or me--jdroddy(at)hotmail(dot)com. We will be able to put you on the approved-to-view list.

We will make this change on November 1. We look forward to hearing from you.

God Provides!

We have focused (admittedly, not a laser-like focus) our efforts in September upon getting the last of our T-shirts sold. We had GREAT response from our circle of friends and family. We began the month of September with about 80 shirts remaining and we finished the month with 36 left--not too bad!

This is still 36 more shirts than we need to have. If you would still like one, respond ASAP. Here are the sizes we have left:

Adult Small--12
Adult Med--11
Adult XL--12
Youth M--1

Here's a neat way that God provided for us through our t-shirt sales. In September, we received an invoice for our third installment to be paid to our agency. The amount we received from t-shirts and donations was almost EXACTLY what we needed to make the payment. This is just one of the encouragements on the journey.

We are anxiously awaiting Nov 13, the date we are supposed to receive our referral. This will be the first time we lay eyes on Gideon's face and get information about who he is. We can't wait! We have been busy with the beginning of the school year and with "normal" life, but the waiting can get old. Pray that we would be patient and that we will learn from waiting!

Let's finish this!

We are still in a holding pattern...no new news to report.

However, we have decided to devote the month of September to getting the last of our Empty Chair t-shirts SOLD. So many people have supported us by making a donation for a T-shirt--some for $20, some for more. We could not be more thankful. We have currently sold about 175 shirts BUT we still have about 80 left.

SO, if you've been thinking of getting a shirt but haven't, NOW IS THE TIME. We have every size still available. Just contact us by e-mail (jdroddy[at]hotmail.com OR marydroddy[at]hotmail.com) to let us know your size and mailing address (if you are out-of-town) and we will respond with how you can send us your donation.

FYI: To date, we have collected $12,742 toward our goal. We are praying that Gideon will be in our home QUICKLY--pray with us!