paperwork sent to immigrations!

PRAISE THE LORD!!!!! our homestudy, copies of birth certificates & marriage certificate, our I-600a application & application fee have been sent to US immigrations! we put it in the mail yesterday! we are quite excited! we will probably be waiting a few weeks to hear from them. in the meantime we'll start working on our dossier. God is so good! we feel more excited everyday!

Russell Moore (author of Adopted for Life) is speaking in Jackson, Tn this Thursday at Fellowship Church. the church's adoption & orphan ministry has offered for families that are adopting to setup a booth to raise money. so cool! we will be selling our hymn cd, car decals, comedy dinner tickets & cupcakes! :) please pray the Lord blesses our efforts.

fundraising:
*we are now selling fair trade organic coffee through justlovecoffee.com - we get $5 for every bag sold
*Uganda car decals $6
*hymn cd (<<click the link to donate & download our cd)
*millie's bake shop is open for business! a dozen cupcakes for $25. like it on facebook!!

love u all,
al

home study complete!

hello!

our home study is complete! we went to read it over this past friday. there are a few corrections that our casework needs to make & then she'll be sending it to our adoption agency for approval. (our agency has to approve it because they know how Uganda likes the study to be written.) we will then send our home study & the I-600 form to US immigration for approval for international adoption!!! after we are approved by them we will have to go get fingerprinted again. then shortly after all that we will send our information to the babies home in Uganda & wait for a baby referral!!!!!! 

it is so crazy to think that our baby could be in Uganda right now in the babies home, on it's way there or still in it's mother's womb. the Lord could be knitting our sweet baby together EVEN NOW! our God is so so great! His purposes are good! this baby is His! 

our hearts are growing more & more everyday for this sweet life & for orphans all over the world. there are currently 147 million orphans worldwide! Father, thank You that You know everyone of them by name! You see their hurt & fears, You hold them! lead our family in how we are to be more involved in helping orphans. all for Your glory alone. amen.

love you all! thank you for your continued prayers & support!

al

one step closer

hello all,
our home study is complete! we are meeting with our social worker this week to read it over & make sure it's all correct before we send it to the adoption agency. we're one step closer. :)

we have made close to $600 from our hymns album! thank you for all your support! please continue to spread the word. (see the link to download our album to the right of the page.)

we are about 2/3 of our way on the funds needed to bring our baby home. God is so gracious! all glory to Him!

more exciting news... we (the barkers, the olingers & the brentons. 3 families in our church that are adopting from Uganda.) are putting on a Comedy Dinner Extravaganza!!!!! April 15, 6-8pm at Centerpoint Church. it will be an evening of food, fellowship & laughs with 100% of proceeds going to adoption from Uganda. tickets are $15 a person, $40 for a family & $5 for children that will be in the nursery. you can email me at bstillnno@gmail.com to buy tickets. this event is open to ANYONE! please come & support these families' adoptions.

al

our hymns album!

we finally finished our Hymns album to raise money for our adoption! Mike & I recorded it at home & it's just out voices & guitar. Jude made it on there too! ;) please check it out: www.centerpointchurch.net/barkerbaby. (suggested donation of $10) feel free to pass the link on to friends & family that would be interested in donating.

update on our process:
our social worker has started writing our home study. we are still waiting on one form from the state of Alabama. once the home study is complete we'll read it over & then send it to our agency to approve it. THEN we'll send off to the US to be approved for international adoption. so exciting!
Mike & I have completed 2 of the 5 online adoption courses that are required. it's been really interesting to think through & talk about all this. we're so blessed & so excited! our God is good & our child that's in Uganda is HIS!
the barkers

home study visit!

yay! we had our home study visit today! we've been working so hard to complete projects around the house & clean. I'd say it's time for some quality family time. :) going to do something fun with the boys tonite, then dinner out, then sorbet at sweet cece's. blessed & waiting on the Lord's timing for our home study to be completed.

Home Study

We are about 2/3 of the way done with our home study! We have completed pretty much all the paperwork. We are just waiting on things to come in the mail & make sure our social worker has everything she needs to write it. Mike & I need to complete 10 hrs of adoption training online. We're very excited to start that! Our actual home study visit will happen on Feb 21st. It's all getting done pretty quickly. Yay! The Lord is good. He is ordering our steps. We'll keep you updated!
Al

Our first fundraising letter

Dear friends and family,                 

We are writing to you with the exciting news that the Lord has led our family to adopt from Uganda! The Lord put this on our hearts over the last month. We’ve always wanted to adopt, but we didn’t know what the Lord’s timing would be.

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” James 1:27 As the body of Christ we all have a responsibility to care for orphans and we believe our family’s current role is to bring a child into our home and make them our own. Adoption is a picture of the Gospel. Christ adopts us as sons and daughters and makes us His own. “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” John 14:18

Mike has always wanted to adopt anytime, but the Lord had to soften my heart. Really He had to bring me out of my selfishness of wanting to “have all of ‘our’ kids first” then adopt. We know that His timing is best. The Lord first brought adoption up through a story my friend told me about a baby that wasn’t cared for, my heart felt so much compassion for a child I didn’t even know. I wanted to rescue that baby. Over the following weeks I kept thinking about adoption, my heart longed to bring a baby into our home that would otherwise be orphaned. Some friends of ours told us that there was a great opportunity to adopt from Uganda and they were beginning the process. Immediately Mike and I

felt we were supposed to do the same.

There are currently 2.5 million orphans in Uganda, a country that has the population of California and is the size of Oregon. One million of these orphans are orphaned by aids. We have decided to adopt from Uganda: one, because the Lord led us to, two, because children in Uganda are less likely to hear about the Lord than orphans in the states and three, orphans in foreign countries have harder living conditions than those in the states.

We are beginning the application process and it is likely to take about 12 months till we have a baby in our home. There is much to go through… paperwork, interviews, home-studies, waiting for approval, fundraising. It will be hard, but so worth it for a precious life, a life that might not even be born yet. We ask that you and your family would prayerfully consider giving financially for our adoption. We ask that you would be in prayer for us and for our baby.

We have setup an adoption fund through our church so donors will receive a tax write-off. Please send funds to our address, but make checks out to Centerpoint Church (in the note: the Barker family adoption).

         We love all of you!

         The Barkers