The Adventures of StephKen

We have a BOY!

2009-08-20T18:00:00.000-07:00

We just submitted our completed Dossier this week and guess what, we received the call at 5:30pm that we are going to be bringing home an extremely handsome little boy!!! We are so excited I don't think I can put it into words! It has been truly amazing to see God working in miraculous ways to help us bring our little boy home! Everything is moving so quickly now. The courts will be closed now until October. It is a long wait but hopefully things will go fast after the courts are open again!

Springtime

2009-06-01T04:24:00.000-07:00

I am back!!!!!!!!!! I know it has been forever since we have posted anything...those of you who know me well are not surprised...I am terrible at keeping in touch! Kenneth and I have had an interesting past 3 months to say the least. At the end of February we had a much needed vacation to Las Vegas. It was so much fun ( I was actually there for a conference:). We had just finished our home study and in the process of finalizing it. Most of our papers were in order, except for reference letters and a few other stragglers. We had been praying for patience and God's control in our situation and of course, I was at least, still trying to control everything!

It became very clear when we returned that God is in control and we just have to let go! Kenneth lost his job the Monday we went back to work....
Needless to say the last 3 months have been a time of growing and complete dependence on God. We know that his timing is everything and for some reason he needed this to happen for us. During the 3 months that Kenneth was out of a job we did put all adoption work on hold. We would have a very difficult time with all of the paperwork changes if we had gone ahead and finalized our dossier, so we waited. It was a long and sometimes a dark time for us but we have come out stronger and more dependant on our Lord than ever! Kenneth got back into school during the search time and also worked with a landscaping company for awhile (thank you Lord for friends). He is now working for a new bank as the Branch Manager actually here in Warsaw! It is a step up and close to home....we are truly blessed.

Now let the adoption journey begin again!!!!!! We will keep you posted. We just need to work on paperwork right now.

God Bless

Patience

2009-02-06T09:02:00.000-08:00

So our home study meetings are now complete! Thank you Lord!!!! It really wasn't too bad:) I did go overboard with the cleaning and organizing but man it feels good right now to have a spotless house! I really need to get this OCD under control:) We now just have to wait until our social worker is done writing her report and we can finish Dossier. Right now we are just collecting our final documents like bank letters, employer letters and tax information etc. Our poor notary is probably getting really sick of signing for us...there is still so much to go.

Now that the home study is complete I am getting inpatient. I just need to trust God's timing for all of this! Please pray that we stay calm and patient through this waiting period. It is so different than being pregnant...there are no signs that we are getting closer, it does give me an excuse for weight gain though doesn't it :) Really I do want to thank all of you who are praying for us right now!

Just a reminder we did set up baby registries at http://www.babiesrus.com/ and http://www.target.com/. We also want you to remember to pass along the Current Fundraiser information.
Hopefully we will have more information soon!

Home Study Update

2009-02-02T07:07:00.000-08:00

So we have completed 2 of our 3 home study visits so far. They have been pretty painless so far. Our first meeting was to discuss our upbringing and family relationships. The second visit was all about our relationship and marriage. As all of you know we have a perfect marriage so this was a breeze...no joke really it was and amazingly we answered the same on all of our homework questions :) (yes, we have a ton of homework for each session). Our final visit is tomorrow, this is the actual "Home" study:) Our social worker will be coming to our home to make sure we have an appropriate home for raising a child. I really am not worried at all, I know we are fine...I still feel the urge to reorganize every room and clean down to each fiber of the carpet:) Those of you who know me well can see that this process is magnifying me OCD tendencies:)
We are getting very excited and want to make this process go as fast as possible. We are close to having all of our paperwork together. Hopefully today we will get our health and local police clearance papers complete! For those of you who have been waiting for this....we did finally put a few things on a baby registry at http://www.babiesrus.com/.

We did get some news that the adoption process in Ethiopia is slowing down. They now have only 1 judge overseeing the international proceedings and they may be putting limits on the number of international adoptions each year. This news was obviously a little disappointing for us. We have been waiting for 3 years already to bring our baby home and now we may have to wait even longer still. Please be in prayer for whatever God's timing is for our adoption process. We know that whenever our papers go through that God is in control!

Money

2009-01-14T06:19:00.000-08:00

So as many of you know adopting is VERY expensive and we are already in debt. This journey is probably more of a lesson in trusting God than anything else. I have always had a hard time letting go of control and the area of Money is no different. God seems to be working on me one trust issue at a time right now. First it was how we were actually going to bring a child into our family and now it is how we are going to pay for it :) Random ideas have come to mind like...we could both get a second job, we could sell our kidneys, how about donating plasma weekly, we could also start checking all houses for loose change in the couches:)
OK, on a more serious note though we have looked into a few fundraising ideas and here they are for anyone who is interested.

1. Current Fundraising- Go to http://www.currentfun.com/. Click on any of the 4 images to start shopping. Once you are done shopping, go to checkout. At that time it should prompt you to select a state...Choose INDIANA. Click next and it will have you choose an organization. Scroll through the list and we are KENNETH AND STEPHANIE VASS ADOPTION FUND. Click next and proceed to check out. It is that easy and we receive 50% of the profits.

2. Garage Sale- We are planning a huge adoption benefit garage sale this spring. If you have any items you are willing to donate that would be greatly appreciated. Just let us know!

It really is an exercise in letting go and trusting that God will provide. Please pray for us to trust him in this struggle!

We have our first Home Study meeting tomorrow afternoon. We are a little nervous but I really think it should go well. Please keep us in your prays...say around 2pm:)

2009-01-01T17:13:00.000-08:00

I am not exactly sure what I wanted to say today...I just thought I should really post because it is a new year :) We have had a wonderful holiday season telling friends and family about our new addition and reflecting on everything God has provided for us this past year. It really is amazing what a wonderful and privileged life we have. I am not very good about making resolutions but here are a few things I want to work on in 2009...some serious, some funny, some a little outrageous, you know me:)

Adopt a Child...This one is the big one!!!!
Lose weight :)...just had to!
Be more disciplined in general (Walk with God, Home life, and Work)
Ride a rollercoaster (that one is just for you Kenny) let's call that outrageous:)
Work on focusing...focus on the task at hand.....not everything else running through my head!
I really do want to achieve a promotion at work
Be more organized...hahaha
Get caught up on scrapbooking before we bring our baby home (another outrageous one)

Oh there are so many other things I would like to accomplish this coming year but my main goal is to listen to God's will for our lives.

God Bless....Happy New Year....it's 2009 who would have thought :)

It's Christmas!!!!

2008-12-25T14:06:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas !!!!!!!! This is a very strange stage in the adoption process. We really have no news to tell, we are just working on paperwork, getting documents, starting our home study and all of that stuff. We did go last minute Christmas shopping last week and stopped by the furniture store and picked out the sleeper sofa we are going to put in the baby's room. We really want to still have a place for people to sleep and this was the perfect solution. I am really excited about it...we aren't going to actually buy it until about March becuase of money and we want to do other things to the room first...like paint and get rid of the furniture we have now.
We also spent forever just dreaming in Babies r Us. I have just decided to let people think I am pregnant...really I am just not :) Anyway, it gives me an excuse for my chubbyness right!?!?!

It has been fun just to think about what next Christmas could be like with our baby!!!
I really don't have much more to say other than we want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and remember to take time and thank God for the life we have in him.

Merry Christmas!!!!

The Journey Begins!?!?!?!

2008-12-08T12:13:00.000-08:00

The journey begins...what a dorky way to start this blog :) I have been wanting to start a blog for ages now and that is the best I can come up with...oh well hang on, here it goes!

Wow, this is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I thought "oh just write what you are thinking, feeling, doing etc" Much easier said than done. I feel like I should start this blog four years ago...but here it is almost 2009 and most of our closest family and friends have no idea what we have been going through. Ok enough with the randomness hahaha :) (Sometimes when I look at the sky I see spots) Right Ladies;)

Kenneth and I have had our fair share of stresses in our 3 1/2 short years of being married. Moving away,family issues, grandparents passing away, more family issues, new jobs, evil bosses, building a house, lossing a job, car accidents, more family issues....amid everything that has been going on we wanted to add children to our family. 2 1/2 years ago we decided that is was time to have children. I always wanted to be the fun cute young mom...have several kids (you know 3) all together and retire early to spend time with our grandkids. We knew that it may take some time but we didn't anticipate time, stress, tears, money etc.

Without getting into alot of details after numerous appointments, needles, treatments, tests and any other tourture you can think of...I am infertile with no explanation as to why. All tests say NORMAL....then why can't we get pregnant you ask???? This is the holy grail of questions in our lives right now. After going through all of the stages of grief you can while going through fertility treatments and so on we know that adoption is what God has in store for us. I really think it is funny how we fight God so hard and for so long when our greatest joy will come if we only do what he is leading us to do. I have to admit that I was the biggest road block on our journey to adoption...I felt like a failure, like God was punishing me for something..not that he had something even more wonderful in store for us. I couldn't get past the fact that I could not concieve. All the time I was praying for what I wanted not what God's will was for us. Kenneth on the other hand, my rock, knew what God was leading us to do long before I would accept it.

In March 2008 we took my mom to a Steven Curtis Chapman concert, it wasn't our first concert of his but it is the most memorable. He has always been a big advocate of International adoption and this night really hit us hard, God was screaming at us :)...it just took ME several more agonizing months to realize it. To make a long story short ( I know you are laughing because this is like the longest post ever!) Everything over the last 8 months has been God screaming "I want you to ADOPT" I am now finally hearing for real :)

We are going to be adopting from Ethiopia through Holt International and this blog will chronicle our journey from here on out. I hope you will enjoy my ramblings and I pray that God blesses you through our lives.

Stay tuned:)
God is Great!