And the countdown begins!!!....

We submitted our formal application today. We are so excited! Our agency had to go over a few things on our pre-application before we could submit this. Well, I got the email today that we were cleared to go ahead and submit our formal application. We would like to share, that we would like a boy between the ages of 2-5. We will let God do the rest. I can’t wait to see who God has chosen for us. This is one long process but worth the wait. I’m just excited we have officially started the process. I would like to thank all of you following along in this journey. All of your kind words and thoughts keep me going. Tonight I will go to bed praying for this precious child, who God has chosen for us. I pray he is warm and safe. I pray that God will give him peace knowing that we are coming for him. I pray for his birth parents, that God’s hands will lay on them. I pray for the caregivers in the orphanage, which are taking care of our child and other children. I pray for my children, that they will have open hearts to embrace their new brother. I know it’s hard for a child to share their mother and father. I have great children who have compassion for their brother. Nick and I are truly blessed. I pray for Nick and I, to have wisdom, guidance, and compassion through this journey to our new son. I will leave you with one of my most favorite quotes, John 14:18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”

From the beginning...

Welcome to my blog, my name is Val Steyer. My husband, Nick, and I have three children: sixteen, ten and six. I have wanted to adopt for about 3 years, and just needed a sign from God to get started and pursue the adoption. Well that sign came last week Jan. 4, 2013.  I own a salon in a small town and a client of mine came in for a service.  She started to tell me about this little boy from Ukraine that a relative of hers was hosting for 5 weeks. His name is Vitaly. He is here to learn about God and receive love from a loving family that will offer him hope. Vitaly has a 1% chance of being adopted; he has a medical condition, and is 11yrs old. I went home that night and he was all I could think of. I had a talk with my husband and then I called his host mom Erica. She gave me some information and also a blog so I could learn more about little Vitaly. I fell in love with this child. The next day I had a meeting with my family and explained everything to them. They were all in. I went to church the next day and I was getting signs that this is what we are supposed to do. I then called Erica to tell her we were all in. She then informed me that she had just received an email that there is a family that was working on adopting Vitaly and his 10 yr. old best friend. I was so happy for him. He was going to have his own family, and with his best friend. God is so good. On the other hand I was sad and confused. I thought to myself, wow, maybe those were not signs at all? I was so sure I was supposed to be his mommy and my husband his daddy.  As I prayed about all of this, I realized, little Vitaly and Erica were planted in our lives to open this door to adoption. I will be forever grateful for them. I do believe every child should have a mommy and daddy to love on them and guide them the best way they know how. I can’t imagine my beautiful children growing up without a mom or dad, or a family to call their own. It breaks my heart to even think it. I want to give a child a loving family who believes God is our savior and through him anything is possible.

 

On Saturday Jan. 19, 2013, I tried to summit my assessment form to Loving Shepard ministry. This form includes detailed information about you and your family. The form also asks for detailed story on why we chose to adopt. I began to type and type, I’m not very good on the computer but I have decided I need to do this. It took me forever; I also had to stop in the middle of it to braid a girl’s hair that had a basketball game that night. After about 2 hours I finally was done and submitted it. The form did not go through, time had expired. I was ready to cry! Then that night I submitted it again. Well same thing happened, it took me too long to type it and time ran out once again. By then, I was very upset and went to bed. The next day Sunday Jan. 20^th, I told my husband about what had happened, he then told me to save it in word and he would transplant it in the form to save time.  Great idea! We had a very busy day that day. We had church and right after Gabe had a wrestling tournament, and these tournaments last all day. We returned home and did our home duties, and by the way Gabe took first woot woot! Great job Gabe! We were now ready for bed. I grabbed the laptop and started typing. By now it’s late. I typed and transplanted it, and was sure it will work this time, but nope! Didn’t work! It took me too long once again. At this time it is now about 1am and I’m tired and upset. I could just give up and go to bed but I thought of something my new friend Erica (who is guiding us through this process) told me, “Don’t give up. The devil wants you to give up. Please don’t let him win!” With that thought I woke my husband up and ask him to type it. Nick’s skills with computers are a lot better than mine. Nick woke up typed it with no time and submitted it. The page came back blank, but did not say that time had run out. I’m going to take that as a good sign. That same night I emailed a lady named Jen from Loving Shepard and told her our problems with submitting this form. I asked Jen if she could find out if the form was submitted.                               

Monday Jan.21, 2013 we received an email from Jen stating she received our form. Thank you Jesus!! What exciting news, I’m so glad I didn’t give up. Tuesday Jan.22^nd we received an email from Jen telling us what countries would accept us. Nick and I talked it over and decided to go with Ethiopia. There is such a need there, and that is where God had been leading us all along. Wednesday Jan.23^rd we sent an email back to Jen saying we have chosen to adopt from Ethiopia. We also asked her to help us with our next step in this amazing journey of adoption! 

Thursday January 24, 2013, Jen sent an email with what agencies would work best for us. What a big decision we have to make! We prayed and took a couple of days to research. Our brains were on overload at this time.

Saturday January 26, 2013 was a stressful day. This day started out with Nick trying to figure out our taxes, it’s not done yet but very stressful. We are trying to figure out how to come up with some money for our adoption. We then decided to sell our timeshare that we really enjoy, but adoption is way more important now. We paid $26,000 for this timeshare. Nick researched on the internet and found out that our timeshare is worth nothing at all, just the memories we have made using it. We still owe $18,000 and have maintenance fees every year on it. Our goal was to sell it and use the money we would be paying on maintenance fees for our adoption. Well it didn’t work out that way. In fact we found out that a company would take the maintenance fees off our hands but we will have to pay them $5,000, and still will owe the $18,000 and now $5,000 more. Can it get any worse? We can’t do that. It would be nice to not have the maintenance fees but we cannot do that. We are going to use it this year and try to give it away next year. Wow, what a day. It just seems like there are so many road blocks already. Nick and I decided to try to get our mind off of the timeshare and asked our  17 year old daughter (Kaitlynn) if she would watch the little ones while Nick and I went out to eat and of course Wal-Mart.

Nick and I had a wonderful meal at the Mexican restaurant .We tried to get our mind off the timeshare and for the most part we did, but really it was in the back of my mind. After dinner we went to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. We are checking out and Nick’s pager goes off. Someone has called 911 and the FD needs Nick to come in and help out. Nick, at this point is hurrying; we grabbed our bags and were rushing out the door. My husband looks at me and says, there they are!  I said who? At this point I’m looking around for the person who called 911 (someone holding their chest or something). I then see this beautiful boy walk by me. Right away I knew it was Erica’s son. There they were Erica’s family right in front of me. We were still rushing out the door; I grabbed my husband and said I have to say something to them. I’m thinking to myself here is the family who has inspired me through this amazing journey, whom I have never meet.  We recognized them thru Erica’s blog. Nick says to me, go meet them I’ll get the van and meet you at the door. He then reminded me to please hurry, after all someone did call 911 and the FD needed him. So I went up to Erica’s husband and said are you Erica’s husband I’m Val. He then looked at me with a huge smile and said yes I am and we were wondering if we may run into you today.  He then pointed me to Erica; I walked over to her and introduced myself. My heart was pounding I couldn’t believe it what are the odds! We hugged and talked for a brief minute. You see Erica is not from Van Wert and the only reason she was in Wal-Mart that day and time was because her dad was in the Van Wert hospital. (He is doing well now thank goodness) Erica had told her husband when they were in Van Wert that it would be neat if we ran into Val! Wow it really happened. She has never seen a picture of me, but I have of them through her blog. Thank goodness my husband recognized them.  God is really good. Just when I’m down, and feeling like hope is gone, He sends me Erica to remind me who has helped me start this amazing life changing journey. With God all things are possible. Thank you God and thank you Erica!  

 

Wednesday January 30, 2013……We have great news. We have decided to go with All God’s Children International. We are so excited!!!  I can’t wait to get our journey started to receive our son! We sent out a few emails to see what all we needed and how much money we need to get started.  Lots of paperwork and need $9000 to get the process going. We decided to refinance our home and borrow extra for the $9000. We applied for the loan. We still have a couple of weeks until it’s all done. We are waiting on an appraisal on our house.

February 16, 2013 Nick received a phone call with info on the appraisal. Someone is coming out to appraise our house this Tuesday. One step closer to our adoption! Once we receive the check of $9000 we can summit our application. Our adoption may take up to 2 years from the time of the summited application. Nothing really starts until we pay the first payment and fill out in full detail the application. This day can’t come any sooner. I pray every day for this child that God intends for our family.   I also pray that Nick and I will have strength and patience to wait on God’s timing.