Four Seasons Costa Rica Auction to Bring Sera Home

Lord willing we will soon be traveling to Ghana to bring our beautiful daughter Sera home. She has been declared our child by a Ghanian court, now we are just waiting for our approval from the US government to bring her home. We are in the the final stretch of our adoption and after using our savings, selling items and applying for grants we still find ourselves needing funds to finish paying our agency fees and for the final trip to pick her up. Would you consider coming along side our family and helping us to finish this journey.
We have been given a very generous donation of a 5 night/6 day stay at the Four Seasons Costa Rica  in a private 3 bedroom villa (a $15,000 dollar value that sleeps up to 8 adults).  You will be able to select dates between 9/29 and 10/24.  We will be auctioning it off on the evening of August 30th. This is open to anyone no matter your location in the country.  Here is a link to the resort and some pictures. Also, if you would like to make a donation to our fund to bring our daughter home you can do so at this link.  http://www.gofundme.com/3od1yc
http://www.fourseasons.com/costarica/accommodations/private_residences/three_bedroom_residence_villa_with_plunge_pool/

If you would like to bid on this amazing getaway you can leave a comment here on the blog from now until 7pm the evening of August 10th.  The beginning bid will be $500.  Please include your bid and your email address in your comment.  The winner will be responsible for airfare, spending money and a cleaning fee.  Thanks in advance for helping us bring Sera home!

The Push

It has been a long time since our last child was born, but I remember the moment when the doctor finally said, “Okay, Push!” After months of expectation and preparing, our daughter was about to be born and we could not have been happier.

Well, adoption is kind of a crazy pregnancy. It is longer, more expensive, and Monica tells me it is more painful. We have come to the last days in this adoption "pregnancy" and it is time to push.

On December 20^th we received our I-600 approval from the American embassy in Ghana and we are in the process of securing our childrens visas. Once this happens, hopefully some time in the next four weeks, we will be able to fly over and finally bring them home!

That is where we need your help. We have approximately $8,600 left to raise for the visas, and the trip to get the kids and bring them home. We have 2 round trip tickets to purchase and three one way tickets which is the bulk of the remaining cost. In order to raise this money we are asking you to consider helping by either purchasing a T-shirt, or making a donation. The shirts are $20 plus $2 shipping. You can select either a white shirt or black.

We have been thrilled to watch God provide the needed funds throughout this adoption and trust He will this time also. We are so thankful for all of your prayers and encouragement along the way. It has been an amazing journey and we know that it is just beginning!

If you are able to help we would be grateful and so would our children.

Thanks and God bless,

Robert, Monica, Hope, Elizabeth, Grace, Katy-Jane, & Luke Whitney

Adoption Update

I can't believe it has been months since I sat down and wrote a post. I am the worlds worst blogger! So much has transpired since the beginning of the summer. I would love to take a few minutes and share what has gone on and where our family is in the adoption process now.

The summer was a whirlwind around the Livingston household filled with lots of swimming, hanging out with friends and fun. Our girls here love the summer time and all that comes with it. I love the laid back schedule and extra time as a family. I was also able to take a road trip for my birthday in August and go to Knoxville TN to visit a dear friend and her family who I had only known through email, phone calls and facebook. She has brought home two beautiful children from Ghana and is now in the process of bringing home two more. I took Hope and Gracie and went to spend a week with her and her family and we had so much fun. It was such a joy and blessing to meet her face to face and to get to share life with her and her family for that week. I feel so blessed to have found a kindred spirit! I also got to meet several of the other Ghana adoptive moms. I hope that it will become a yearly tradition. Although between her family and mine next August we will have 12 children, over half of them Ghanian! Can you imagine how loud and crazy that gathering will be?

Little did I know as I headed back to Chicago that just four short days later I would be on a plane headed to Ghana to meet my children for the first time. We got a call from our lawyer when I arrived home saying if I wanted to be in country for court I would need to head over. We are planning on bringing our kids home on an IR-3 visa so I needed to meet them before our court date. So I ran around like a crazy woman for a few days and got all packed to go on what I thought would be a two and a half week trip to go meet our kids, go to court and hopefully file our i-600. My wonderful mother in law traveled up to Chicago to help Robert with the girls and I headed out to finally meet Elizabeth, Nestine and Luke.

I ended up spending a month with my children and there is so much I could say about my time there. It was amazing to have the privilege of spending a month getting to know them. I was able to get a much clearer picture of where they are coming from, their culture and each of their unique personalities. It was also incredible to get to spend time at their orphanage getting to know the other precious children that they live with. The home where our children now live is a wonderful home with about 50 children who are very well cared for. They are loved, taught about the Lord, they eat three full meals a day and are taken to the doctors when they are sick. We honestly couldn't ask for our kids to be in a better place until they are able to be home with us. I truly loved being there. I spent many of my days in their courtyard getting my hair braided, playing soccer, reading books and loving on the kids. No hurrying around, no huge list of to do's. The pace of life was slow and allowed for real time to build relationships. It was clear to me after my time there that each of those precious children has such a desire to be known and loved. It didn't matter if they were 3 or 13, they longed for someone to pay attention to them, to make them feel special, to love them. I pray that they will all get the opportunity to know the love of a family.

You might be wondering how a two and half week trip turned into over a month. One of the things I learned a whole lot of during my trip was patience. You see in Ghana nothing happens in a hurry. That includes paperwork. After getting there it was discovered some of our paperwork was not in order for us to be able to go to court, so long story short, we had to retrieve documents and redo interviews with living relatives that had been lost. Which when it was all said and done lead us to court 4 weeks after we had hoped to go. It was a trying time and I learned a whole lot about how much I do not have control over any of this process. But it did give me extra time to get to know my children. Because of the lost interviews I was able to meet my childrens living relatives. Which was such a blessing. I was able to spend several weeks with another incredible family that are adopting from the same home, who I am sure will be life long friends. And at the end of the long hard month Elizabeth, Nestine, and Luke were declared Livingstons and we were given a full decree from the court. So it was definitely all worth it!!!!

Let me introduce you to the new Livingstons.

This is Elizabeth Tor-Nye Livingston. Tor-Nye is ewe for "my own" and it is what we want our beautiful girl to hear every time we say her name. She is 9 years old and is Nestine and Lukes cousin. Elizabeth has a smile that could light up a room. Over my time in Ghana with her I learned she has a real love for learning, she is very driven and truly has a desire to be loved, yet a fear of being hurt, she loves little ones and is a huge helper at the home. She is also very much a girly girl who loves dressing up. It became very clear to me during my time with her that our precious girl has been through a lot in her short life. God has truly moved mountains to allow her to come home to our family and we can't wait to see how she blooms with the love of a family.

This is Ernestine Kathryn Jane Livingston, "Katy Jane" for short. She is 6 years old. She is named after Katie Davis and the daughter she had to give up Jane. It was through reading Katie Davis' blog and specifically her entries about having to give up her daughter Jane that God moved my heart and called us to adopt after my husband had been praying for many years. I found in my time there that Nestine has a love for life that I have only seen matched by our Gracie. Oh the fun and mischief these two will get into. She has a kind heart, is extremely affectionate and is very generous. She will share anything she has, which I came to find out is not the norm in an orphanage. She is also a neat knick, she likes everything in its place. I am so blessed that God has allowed this beautiful little girl to be my daughter. She will bring so much joy and laughter to our home.

This is Luke Whitney Livingston. Luke is 3 years old and Nestines younger brother. His name is after Roberts mentor and dear friend Whitney Anderson. Luke has a smile that will melt your heart. He gives the best hugs and was happiest being held or sitting on my lap. He is also extremely funny. He loves to dance and play, and can eat like no little one I have ever seen. I am afraid of our grocery bill when he is a teenager! He is very easy going unless someone else was trying to get my attention, then I found out he also has quite a set of lungs on him! He is like a little sponge when it comes to english. I was amazed at how much more he was talking in the month I was there with him. And I am sure with 4 big sisters he will be very spoiled with love and attention! We can't wait to get him home!

After passing court on Sept. 16th I had to return home without filing our i-600. Leaving the kids was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. It is not easy having children on two different continents. And every day I pray that God will allow all of my children to be under one roof soon. The question we get a lot now is how long until they are able to come home. The short answer is we are not sure. Robert returned to Ghana at the end of October to file our i-600, which is our final approval from USCIS to bring the kids into the US. We have been told it can take up to 60 days to secure that approval. We are currently on day 16. So we are hoping to have our approval by the end of the year. We will then need to get their visas issued which from what we have heard can take another 60 days, if all goes well. Once their visas have been issued Hope and I will travel to Ghana to bring the kids home! We are hoping to have them home by late February/early March. Please join us in praying that our processing is quick and that God continues to prepare both their hearts and ours.

This is a blog that Robert wrote that I wanted to share with all of you to give you an update on his trip over to Ghana to meet our kids and where we are at in the process.

It has been a little too long since writing an update to our adoption blog. Sorry! I have been home from Ghana for a couple weeks now and I am trying to process all that the Spirit of God showed me while I was there with my kids. There were several moments that still stand out in my mind as key moments:

• Worship with 40 orphans who sang and danced without inhibition - they were so grateful to God for sending His Son you would have thought someone scored a touch-down at Soldier Field!
• The four year old girl who fell asleep on my lap in the middle of the day simply because I made her feel safe, loved, and noticed - more to come on this later.
• The first daddy date-night with my daughter, my son and good friend & his daughter at the only "American Food" restaurant in Ghana - our kids knocked back more Cokes in one setting than Forest Gump at the White House.
• And then there was the evening I met Elizabeth - the daughter I did not expect.

"TIME OUT! WHAT? I thought you guys were adopting a little girl named Nestine and her brother Luke?" We are... and a 9 year old little girl named Elizabeth. Let me fill you in a little more...

When Monica and I started the process of asking God about adoption we held our hands open toward heaven in submission to God's will for us. We wanted to be lead by the Holy Spirit into adopting the child He was leading us to. Of course I had in mind one little girl under the age of 7 since that would fit nicely into our current family situation. As we began praying with friends and looking at names, faces, and ages of the adoptable kids it was evident to all of us that instead of one little girl God was leading us to a sibling set - Nestine and Luke. It seemed a little crazy at first but we were willing to be lead and God made it clear.

When I arrived in Ghana I was pleased with how quickly the kids felt comfortable with me. Nestine and Luke tackled me with a hug the minute I got out of the car. Literally, I fell over backward with them in my arms - it was clumsy and awesome all at the same time. All the kids knew that me and my buddy Michael (who is adopting Nestine's best friend) were coming and they immediately wanted to take us by the hand to show us the playground and room we would be staying in.

There were a few of the kids who took some time to warm up to us though. One of them was Elizabeth. She is probably 9 or 10 but she thinks she is 7. Statistically turning 10 in an orphanage is a bad thing - after all who will adopt a 10 year old when you know that they come with more emotional baggage and they aren't as cute and cuddly as the little ones. Elizabeth is a very shy and quiet little girl who does not elbow her way to the front of her peers to be noticed. One night after the other kids had gone to bed she was standing in the dining room making little snowballs of rice with her hand and eating them from bowl. She asked me to pray about something for her... "Daddy (they call every adult man daddy and every adult woman mommy) will you ask God to give me something? Will you ask Him to give me a mom and dad?" My heart nearly burst open right then and there. She did not ask for clothes, or money, she asked me to pray that God would give her a mom and dad.

This shy, quiet, 9 year old has seen so many 3, 4, and 5 year old children come into the orphanage - get bags with picture books and gifts from American parents saying "We are your new family!" - and then go home with them. She wanted a mom and dad to love her and claim her as their own. I have to tell you that in that moment I fought saying, "Oh sweetheart, God just did give you a mom and dad! And guess what - I am your dad!" I held back tears and told her I would pray for that, but I knew already in my heart that she too was a Livingston. I did not tell Monica anything, I just prayed and asked God to affirm this conviction as coming from Him. High emotions are not good times to make life long decisions and it is all too easy to go to an orphanage and want to adopt them all - so I waited and prayed.

Later that evening I was able to catch Monica on Facebook and we chatted about her crazy week and my time with the kids. As we were chatting she said that our oldest daughter Hope had been looking through some pictures of the kids at the orphanage and found a little girl who God told her was going to be her sister also. I said a prayer silently "God please let her say that it is Elizabeth!" Sure enough when I asked which one she said Elizabeth. I held back everything inside of me once again and asked Monica how she felt about that. Her response was something to effect of "I think that is right!" Once I told her about what Elizabeth asked me to pray about earlier that evening we were both done in our hearts, she is ours just like the other four.

I can imagine that someone reading this has thought, "Well that is great and I admire your heart, but have you thought of how you are going to pay for college, or how this is going to affect your two biological children?" I get that. I know that this is not going to be an easy road and it is going to be hard for all of us to adjust to this. But I also know that God loves the fatherless and He has convinced Monica, Hope, Grace, and me that Elizabeth is part of our family just like Nestine and Luke. There is room in our hearts and in our home for her and I am so grateful God is opening the doors for her to come home too. I don't know how we will afford college yet, but God will provide for that just like He has provided for Elizabeth a mom and dad.

We have met with our home study agency and walked through the process of amending the documents for three instead of two children to come home. The state of Illinois is very particular about paperwork and we have our amended home study ready to be sent off to Springfield to be approved by DCFS. So we still have some red-tape to cut through and some funds to raise to bring them home. Here are some ways you can help:

· Pray that all the documents that need signatures from the state of Illinois will get signed in a timely manner.

· We will be doing a garage sale on June 2^nd, 3^rd, & possibly 4^th to raise funds for the adoption – if you have anything we can sell we would be pleased to sell it. Or if you want to come by to see us that would be great!

· If you would like to donate directly to our adoption there is a “Chip-in” button here on the blog to make donations.

Where the rubber hits the road

There have been so many times in this past month that this phrase has gone through my head. I think that as we step out in faith, as we seek to follow God, as we are stretched outside of our comfort zone there are many times that the truths we know in our head haven't quite made their way to our hearts and our actions. You see, if I am being vulnerable and completely honest a lot of this past month has been marked by fear and unbelief. It has been me in my own strength trying to make things happen instead of trusting in a God who made all things and is the Author of not only this adoption but all life!!! If any of you have stepped out in faith you know exactly what I am talking about. It is Jesus calling Peter out of the boat to walk on the waves and as long as Peter has his eyes on Jesus he can walk. It is when Peter takes his eyes off of Jesus that his fear takes over and he begins to sink. Then it is only Jesus who can rescue him. I want to be bold like Peter, you see there were eleven other disciples that night that stayed in the boat. I want to be called out of my comfort and safety to walk on the water for Jesus. I have found myself so many times over the past couple of years in over my head and completely out of my comfort zone. Yet once I step out of the boat, just like Peter I begin to look around me instead of at Him and I find myself so easily consumed by fear and anxiety. I forget who I am in Christ and I start to feel the waves overtake me. I daily find myself completely in need of my Savior to rescue me.

Let me give you one example from this past month. We have been trying to get our home study complete for well over two months now. We finally finished all of our visits about a week and a half ago and thought we would be sending our approved study off to Springfield for DCFS endorsement (yes the state of Illinois requires not only your agency to sign off on the home study but also DCFS). We knew that the process of DCFS endorsing it can take about a month. So we hoped to get it to Springfield as soon as possible. We were informed by our social worker last week that somehow several clearances had been overlooked from previous states my dad and Robert and I had lived in and needed to be secured before we could send it for approval. We also found out that my dads name search had not come back from the FBI yet. So instead of seeing this as something the Lord had allowed in this journey to bring our children home, in my typical get it done mode I set out to check off all of the things standing between me and that homestudy getting to Springfield. I allowed this to consume a week of my life. I allowed it to rob me of my joy. I relentlessly made phone calls and tracked down background searches and at the end of the week still found myself without one of the missing items. I was at the end of myself, I was empty and frustrated. I felt like I was sinking. I had at first justified my scrambling around by telling myself I was doing this for my kids. But the truth is if I was being completely honest what was driving me was fear. Fear that something would go wrong if my dossier didn't get to Ghana quick enough. Fear that somehow if I didn't work hard enough to get it done it just wouldn't happen. My eyes had completely gone off of Jesus and onto myself and my circumstances. Can I just tell you this isn't a first for me. This is a pattern! A pattern that I believe my loving Father wants to break! It was through a dear friend that the Lord finally got through to me. She reminded me that this was my opportunity to rely on God not myself. To trust that He began this work and will see it through and that He loves these two precious children and our family more than I could even imagine. So instead of running around for several more days like a chicken with my head cut off, I stopped, got down on my knees and confessed my fear and unbelief and asked God to fill me and help me to trust His sovereign plan. And by His grace He did just that.

So you are probably wondering what happened with the lone missing piece of paper. Well, it came in that same day that I got down on my knees. But can I caution you not to rejoice in that fact! Don't get me wrong, I am so thankful that it finally showed up but the tears of joy that were cried that day were not for that piece of paper. What did bring me to tears was the fact that I have a Father who in His kindness showed me that my joy could not and should not be found in my circumstances but instead should be found in Him. He is the only One who can sustain me and rescue me when the waves are crashing. He longs for us as His children to not seek out all the "goodies" He can provide but instead seek Him! He is the real gift and He is worthy of our trust. So I pray that as He continues to call me out of the boat and onto the waves I will not cling to my security and comfort and somehow think if I just work hard enough I will stay afloat. I pray that I will keep my eyes on Jesus and boldly follow Him through whatever storms or calm waters He brings my way. I pray the same for you too!

Break Their hearts for what breaks Yours

As many of you know we have two beautiful girls at home. We have really prayed that God would use this whole adoption journey to not only break our hearts for the things that break His but also theirs. We have been so encouraged to watch as God is doing just that. It was a week ago as we were on our way to church on Sunday morning that my eldest daughter sat in the back of our van weeping. As I began to ask her what it was that had her so upset she told me that she had been thinking about all of the older kids in Ghana who had no mom and dad and no place to call home. She asked if God would send someone for them like He had for our two kids. She said she had been praying that God would help them and that He would bring them moms and dads to love them. I saw her heart breaking as she imagined what it must be like to not have the things that she enjoys everyday. A mom and dad who love her, three full meals a day, a doctor and medicine readily available whenever she is sick, a roof over her head and a warm comfortable bed to sleep in with no fear for her safety. I saw her crying out to God pleading with Him on their behalf. And silently I said thank you God! Thank you for opening her eyes to a world outside of our comfortable suburban existence. Thank you for showing her how blessed she truly is. Thank you for the work you are doing in our family. May we never go back to sleep! I am so grateful for all that God is doing in our home through this adoption. This weekend I watched as my eldest daughter gathered two of her sweet friends along with her little sister and went out into the cold with a clipboard full of flyers and knocked on the doors of all of our neighbors telling them the story of how God has blessed her with a new brother and sister. Then she asked if they might be willing to buy homemade pies or cookies to help bring them home. She was hoping to raise maybe two hundred dollars. Well, by the end of the weekend she had collected over 500 dollars in orders. I loved watching God bless her efforts and I loved that two of her sweet friends also got to watch God work thru them. So needless to say there will be a whole lot of baking going on in the Livingston household over the next week or two. To all of you out there who contributed I just want to say thank you for the encouragement it was to our girls. And if any of you still want to order pies or cookies just let me know!

A Different kind of Pregnancy

It's been seven years since I was last pregnant and I must admit it is a completely different experience to find yourself paper pregnant. I think back to the early days of knowing we were expecting Gracie. I remember the excitement I felt that was quickly followed by weeks and weeks of nausea and vomiting. The thrill of finding out that God was blessing us with our second little girl was followed by bed rest and uncertainty. The anticipation of her arrival, was coupled with her flipping nightly so we were kept guessing as to whether or not I would require a c-section. I remember thinking in the middle of all of it that I was thankful for the days of feeling crummy, for the inconvenience of bed rest, and for the uncertainty of how she would arrive. You see, I knew on the other side of all of the highs and lows of pregnancy was going to be a beautiful baby girl, a blessing from God, a gift to our family!

This time around it is not nausea or bed rest I find myself dealing with. Instead it is a massive stack of papers to fill out, finger printing appointments, background checks, and medical visits, coupled with working to raise the funds needed to bring our kids home. It is laying in bed at night as I pray for our kids and wonder what they are doing half a world away as their new day begins. It is my heart aching for all of the pain they have already had to face in their young lives. I can't imagine losing both of your parents before the age of six. All of these things can overwhelm me at times. I am constantly having to remind myself that it is God who called us to adopt and it is God who in His own way and His own time is going to see it thru to completion. It is through all of these tedious tasks, through our aching hearts that we get one step closer to our family being together . One step closer to a sweet six year old girl who has a beautiful smile and an obvious zeal for life that shines through in her pictures. One step closer to a precious three year old boy whose big brown eyes and shy smile have already stolen this mama's heart. One step closer to the blessing and gift that awaits in getting to meet our children face to face. One step closer to them knowing that they are no longer orphans, that God has given them a mother and a father and two sisters to love them. One step closer!

So, I will gladly tackle all of the paperwork, appointments and fundraising. Because in the end after all of the paperwork is submitted, appointments are done and money is raised it will be God, who in His perfect timing brings together the family He saw from eternity past. I can't wait for that day!!!