We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and are enjoying the excitement that comes with starting a new year.  For us, we are beyond excitement that even though we don’t know all the details ahead of us, this will be the year that we will bring home Jeantet baby #2!

We had the joy of finishing out 2010 with both of our families in Pennsylvania for Christmas.  It was such a joy to celebrate with family and friends and we even got to build a snowman!  The most encouraging part of our time up north was getting to experience the support of family and friends as we pursue this adoption.  As we navigate federal laws and policies of 2 different countries it can be easy to lose sight of the end goal, but this Christmas we were reminded by friends and family alike that this child will be loved not only by us, but by all of those around us, and having just moved 1,200 miles away from everything and everyone we knew, that means a lot.

Perhaps the most unexpected and overwhelming gift we received was by way of an anonymous card waiting on Steve’s desk when he returned from the trip.  Inside the card was a money order for $500 toward the adoption.  We are so blessed by our new church family and grateful for all of you who are walking this journey with us.  Thank you!

Please continue to pray for us as we await word back from U.S. Immigration Services and begin a completely unchartered process of making contacts in Zambia to prepare to travel.

It has been, admittedly, way too long since our last update. For a while, that was simply because there wasn’t much to say. We were going through the adoption process: filling out paperwork, completing the required online training and waiting for our homestudy to be completed. Eventually, we reached the point where there was about nothing more we could do until we received our homestudy. From there, we would receive our formal approval from our adoption agency, submit our paperwork to US Customs & Immigration Services (USCIS) and then send our paperwork off to Zambia.

Then, and I’ll tell this story from my (Steve’s) perspective, came the email. Suddenly, there was a lot of news, but we weren’t even sure how to process it or what we were going to do next to think about sharing that news. We had been waiting for what seemed like forever for our homestudy and we had just received word of its completion and that it was in the mail to us when everything changed. On November 18, I was in Tennessee speaking at the Communicating Church conference. I was scheduled to speak during the main session at 11:00 and then in a breakout at 1:30. Between the two sessions, while eating lunch, I checked my email from my phone.

The message of that email? Our agency was closing their Zambia program effective immediately.

Now, to be clear, we both understand the reasons behind the decision from the agency (though we would rather not get into them here). That does not, however, make it any easier. We had expected hurdles, challenges and obstacles in the adoption process. What we had not anticipated, to be sure, was our agency closing their program! To Kim’s credit, she probably handled it better than I did. Pulling from everything that God has been teaching her this fall, she experienced a peace and faith that was a great encouragement to me. I was just in shock, and hurting (And yes, I had to get back up in front of people and speak on the use of social media in the church. Here’s guessing that, given how distracted I was, my breakout session was less than stellar).

So, there it is. It took us 8 months of searching, talking and praying to land on Zambia and with one email, it felt like the house of cards crashed around us. In short, we were left with two options.

1. Pick a different country and backtrack a little bit.
2. Proceed with Zambia without the aid and assistance of an adoption agency.

At first glance, option 2 sounded crazy. And yet, we couldn’t get past a single question. Up till now, we were convinced that our child was in Zambia. Had that suddenly changed? Our answer? No. It hadn’t. We committed in this process not to try and bust through closed doors. But this didn’t seem to us like a closed door. Instead, as we prayed and deliberated, it actually seems more like a test. How much do we love this child and what hurdles are we willing to jump to reach her?

So, here we are, less than 2 weeks from Christmas, with only one gift for which we both long: to hold our child in our arms. We have received all paperwork back from the agency and are, this week, filing with USCIS. If all goes according to plan, we’ll be traveling to Zambia this coming spring. But given this unexpected hurdle, all going according to plan may be out of the question. This I know: we will leap hurdles, dodge obstacles and push through the challenges to find our child. More on that to come.

With MomMom and PopPop in town, we celebrated Big J’s 2nd birthday a little early.

August 201041 pictures

Yes, we are proceeding with the adoption, but that does not mean that everything stops on the home front…not with a kid who will be two in a couple of weeks! Enjoy the latest pictures.

July/August 201056 picturesAug 1, 2010

What a pleasure to welcome a new sister-in-law into the Jeantet family! Adam & Ruth were married in the DC area on Sunday, August 1st and are now on their way to a honeymoon in Europe. It was such a joy to be a part of their celebration. Check out the new pics from the last few weeks…starring J as ring bearer!

Summer 201071 picturesJun 11, 2010

So, hopefully this will be the beginning of some more regular updates…that’s the goal! Thanks to lots of help from both of our moms, we are now just about completely unpacked in our new home and enjoying life here in Sarasota. We love our new church…Covenant Life Church…and Steve is really enjoying serving the congregation here. I’m loving the summer women’s Bible study (60 women!) and getting connected to the moms here. J is a big fan of living near the beach and has woken up on several occasions immediately asking for the beach!

In other news, J (by the way, this is just how we are referring to him on the internet…it is not a nickname!) sat on the potty for the first time today! It was very exciting since he has shown absolutely no interest in it until now. We’re in no hurry to potty train, but it was encouraging that he has finally taken notice of it! We have a cool kid and it is fun to walk through these stages with him:)