...Bulgaria...

So… we have been terrible about updating our blog and keeping everyone informed. We apologize. And since it has been over FOUR months since our last blog post we have A LOT to share. A LOT has happened in the last months and there are A LOT of changes up ahead…

All of our adoption paperwork for Ethiopia (called dossier) was completed and formally approved by the adoption agency in early December. Starting at that point our family was on the adoption agency’s wait list and we were in the “waiting stage”. We had done all that we could do and we were literally just waiting. Our agency had very clear in the early stages of our paperwork that wait times in Ethiopia were averaging 2-3 years or more but they could make no guarantees.

At the end of December and the months that followed, we received some difficult news from our adoption agency. Every e-mail they sent out seemed to be filled with more hard news. “…at the end of December The House of Peoples Representatives and the Ministry of Women, Children and Youth urged sakeholders and the public to undertake integrated work to totally stop adoption of Ethiopian children by foreign families. In a press conference, House Speaker Abadula Gameda and the Minister Zenebu Tadesse told journalist that stakeholders should work closely to end foreign adoption.” Our adoption agency, other families and we were caught off guard. Adoption wait times in Ethiopia had been increasing the last several years, but I don’t think any of us perceived the possibility of a total shut down. So we did the only thing you can do in a situation such as this; pray. And we want to say thank you for everyone who joined us in praying for the orphans in Ethiopia. In February we received an email from our adoption agency that stated international adoption remains open in Ethiopia, although the current climate of adoption in Ethiopia remains unstable. Our agency went on to explain that corruption is rampant throughout the country without control to monitor agency practices, orphanage relationships and funding systems. The corruption within the system has adoptions increasingly rare and challenging to complete in an ethical way. (This has changed forecasted wait times to closer to 4-6 years.) Again we did the only thing you can do in a situation such as this: pray. We continue to pray and urge you to pray for us. Please pray that the Ethiopian government will find new ways to manage their adoption system. It is of the upmost importance that the adoptions are done in an ethical manner. It is difficult to make the large changes need in the adoption system without increasing wait times, but please it will not result in longer wait times for the children. Their best interest need to be the focus of the changes.

In light of all the information, our adoption agency was encouraging each family to consider their options. Again we did the only thing you can do in a situation such as this: pray. Our adoption agency had given all families a deadline of March 31^st to have a formal decision made. There were several weeks where we (especially Jessica) were anxious and filled with unrest not knowing what we should do. Again there was much prayer involved and on March 26^th we filled a contract with our adoption agency to switch programs and start our adoption from BULGARIA!  We are excited and happy, but most importantly we are at peace with our decision. We know that this is what we are supposed to do and feel that we are being obedient in our program switch.

Let’s talk logistics; what does this mean? Because we switched programs before March 31^st our agency fees were switched over the Bulgaria program and we are extremely grateful for it! Our adoption paperwork (the dossier) and our home study were are written following Ethiopia’s guidelines and addressed to Ethiopia… Which means we are going to have to redo ALL of our paperwork. On one hand this is frustrating however, third time is a charm? And we are hoping the paper work process will go faster now that we know what to expect. We have six months to complete all of our paper work and then we will send it off to Bulgaria for translation and to be registered with the authorities in county and then we are back to the waiting stage again. We are expecting around a 2 year wait time… Although we know very well that everything could change tomorrow.

LONG story short: Please pray for the orphans in Ethiopia. Pray that the government will protect the children while pursuing what is best for them. And we are now adopting from Bulgaria!  Pray we will be obedient and patient as we travel down this new road.

Pure Charity

Your normal, everyday online purchase can help us bring our child home. Simply create a Pure Charity account and install the browser plugin. When you're shopping, look for the PC icon in the top left of your screen. If it pops up, click on it and then click the "Click here to earn..." text.

It's that simple. You'll earn rewards in your PC account. Then whenever you want, you can donate them to our fundraiser.

You can also make an out-right donation if you wish.

Go one step further, and invite YOUR friends to Pure Charity and tell them about our fundraiser. When they shop not only do they earn rewards, but you earn rewards from their purchases as well. It's like a multi-level marketing program - but the AWESOME kind!



Here are some more detailed directions that were given on Jen Hatmaker's blog (LOVE her)
It's the easiest, easiest thing ever, and I'm going to walk you through the steps:

1. Sign up for a Pure Charity account. If you're on Facebook, you can sign in through that (which is great for sharing in the future), or you can sign up the old-fashioned way.

2. Install the browser plugin. This causes a cute little icon to pop up when you're shopping online at participating vendors, and with a simple *click*, a percentage of your purchase will be routed into your personal giving account with Pure Charity. And when I say participating vendors, yall, I'm talking about over 1000 stores like:

Target      Gap              Best Buy
Groupon   Priceline      Sam's Club
Apple         Sephora      Petsmart
Walmart      Lowe's      Forever 21


 3. Register your main credit/debit card with Pure Charity. This is so brilliant, because every time you use that card at a participating vendor IN STORE, a percentage is automatically zipped over to your personal giving account. You have to do absolutely nothing at all. (Not every online vendor has an in-store partnership, so when in doubt, online shopping will always build up your personal giving account. Plus, who wants to shop in the store when you can do it online?? asks the shopping-hater.)

4. Now, browse the projects. You can find our adoption fundraiser on there: Ever Growing Nix Family

 5. Support your favorite project. (You can change the amount you support…it starts with $5 increments…by clicking the dollar amount and changing it.) These are time specific projects with a set amount of $. If that project doesn’t fund by the finish date, Pure Charity refunds the money back into your giving account. But again...kindly wait just a few baby days, because I clearly have an ulterior motive here.

6. Share it with friends! There’s a strong social connection to this, where you can share buttons and widgets with your friends and followers, to generate interest in a cause you’re passionate about.

Pure Charity offers a redemptive opportunity to harness consumerism for great good. It's just so brilliant. Good reader, please make a Pure Charity account. Please share this blog with every person you know. Did you know that in the next two months, Americans will dole out roughly 40% of our entire annual spending? If ever there was a time to capitalize on capitalism, it is surely now.

September News

Summer has come and gone… and we have been busy with our adoption. The amount of paperwork required to adopt can be mind boggling, but we are excited, because we have made a lot of progress in the last few months. Here’s a little peak of what we have been up to:

·         We completed seven online education classes and one online work book of parent education.

·         We had physicals and the doctor signed off that we were free of TB and mentally stable (in case you were worried).

·         We have had background checks completed at the local, state and national level.

·         We have had original copies of all our important documents ordered so we can send them to Ethiopia; birth certificates, marriage license, ect.

·         We completed our home study!! This is an exciting one to mark off the list. The home study itself includes copies of birth certificates, financial papers, letters of recommendations and home visits and interviews with our home study assessor.

Where do we go from here? We are now waiting for our adoption agency to officially accept our home study as is or make suggestions for needed changes. Once our home study has been accepted, we can put the finishing touches on our dossier (The dossier is the packet of paper work that goes to Ethiopia.) and begin waiting.

The paper work stage that we are in now is the only part of the adoption that we have any ‘control’ of. Once our dossier is submitted to Ethiopia, everything is out of our hands. We will be waiting for the US government, the Ethiopian government and the adoption ‘system’ in country. But ultimately we will be waiting for the Lord’s timing. Please pray that the rest of our paper work chase will continue to go well, but even now please pray that we would be patient as we wait upon the Lord. Romans 12:12 reminds us we are to “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” Waiting can be the hardest part for adoptive parents. But it is the hardest for the children who are waiting for families. Please pray for the orphans in Ethiopia as they too wait.

Hard Does Not Equal Bad

I am working through a Beth Moore bible study and in it she says, “hard does not equal bad.” Wouldn’t you know that was just what I needed to hear, because our adoption journey is getting hard…

We received an e-mail from our adoption agency on February 8^th… and it said that the agency is filling for bankruptcy. I know it sounds terrible, but we must remember that hard does not equal bad. Our adoption agency explained that over the last couple of years the adoption process has gotten more and more difficult. The more difficult the process becomes the longer it takes. The longer it takes fewer adoptions are able to be processed. After closing some facilities and laying off a third of their workforce, the adoption agency just didn’t have the resources to continue. We know the adoption agency did all they could and that our lost funds went to continue orphan care and to help bring other children home to their families. But for us it means that we are starting over. I just have to remind myself again and again that hard does not equal bad. We started the search for a new adoption agency and found one that we like. We filled out our pre-application with All God’s Children International on the 21^st of February. We hadn’t heard back, so we called them on the 28^th a week later. They had been very busy. We learned two very important things… One, they do not allow adoptions out of birth order (we must adopt a child younger than our son). Two, starting March 1^st (the next day) the agency would only be accepting new families wishing to adopt children from Ethiopia over the age of four. What this meant to us is that we had til midnight to fill out the application. We called just in the nick of time!

The Growing Nix Family

In January, we started our blog called The Growing Nix Family. However, when I went to add a new post I discovered that we no longer have access to it. The blog is still online, but we cannot add to it. So we had to create this new blog; The EVER Growing Nix Family. However, I thought people might be interested what was posted on our first blog, because that is really when our journey began. Below I have included the four entries that were on our old blog. 

Sunday, March 25, 2012  Curve Ball
We have been blessed. Just when we thought we had God’s plan for our life figured out He threw us an amazing curve ball. Jessica is pregnant. We are in the 12th week now and it still seems unreal, at times. Sitting in the Doctor’s office during our first visit, looking at the jellybean sized child with a heart beating out of its chest, the miracle of life became very real. We are excited.
What does this mean for our adoption? We called and spoke with our adoption agency. Obviously, adopting a child and having a biological child are both huge events that deserve their own space in time to be celebrated and adjusted to. For this reason our adoption has been placed on hold. Just on hold, it is temporary. Our excitement about our adoption is every bit as real as our excitement about Jessica’s pregnancy. Having this child does not change the fact that there are 150 million orphans in the world. And it certainly does not change our calling. We still feel that we have been chosen to be adoptive parents. We can place the adoption on hold for up to two years or can start back up again April 2013. At first we thought that April sounded soon after just bringing one baby home. But if we do start back up in April, it may still be 12 to 24 months before we get to bring our child/children home from Ethiopia. We have been blessed and are extremely thankful for all of the support that you have given. We want you to know that all the support we have received will be used for what is has always been intended for. Please continue to pray for those children in need of parents, also for us as we continue in this journey.
1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us.


Wednesday, January 25, 2012 Why Ethiopia
When we decided we were going to adopt we knew immediately that we were being called to adopt internationally…. but where from? We don’t feel that it is a coincidence that Dwight’s parents live in a country where there are 5 million orphans.  5 MILLION orphans…  When you hear a number like that, how can your heart not be stirred?! The further along we go in this process it has become clearer to us; this is all part of HIS plan. We didn’t choose to adopt from Ethiopia, it was already chosen for us. It is a great comfort to know that it is in His hands.
Last Thursday we had our orientation meeting with our case worker with the adoption agency. He laughed and said that the adoption process includes a lot of “hurry up and waiting, hurry up and waiting, hurry up and waiting…” We are definitely in a ‘hurry up stage.’ We completed the first 20 pages the agency sent us and signed our names and initials more times than we can count. We are now looking for a home study provider.
As we continue the adoption process it is amazing to sit and think that we are adopted children in God’s family. Jesus promises us the Holy Spirit in John 14:18, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” Please join us as we pray for the orphans in Ethiopia and all around the world. Pray that they will not be left as orphans, but that people would rise up and go to them.

Ethiopia 2010

Wednesday, January 11, 2012 The Adventure Has Begun
Last night Jessica and I both sat in one chair at the computer as we filled out the application for the adoption agency we chose. We filled out every line, double and tripled checked it to make sure everything was right. At the end we stopped and prayed, for guidance, patience and obedience.  Then with excitement we hit the submit button.

There has been a lot of seeking and listening that has gone on between us and God to get us to where we are today. Initially this process was not something we could easily get excited about. The truth is we started to think about adoption only after our “perfect plan” was not going the way we thought it should.  The more we looked into adoption and prayed about it, the more the burden grew stronger. There were some tough times, sadness and wondering why our plan was not working like we wanted it to. Jeremiah 29:11 says “For I know the plans I have for you” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  We ultimately realized that our plan was not working because God has a bigger, much better plan.  Finally we decided that we would be obedient to His direction in our lives, how awesome it has been. In the last couple of months the excitement we have felt has been overwhelming and this is just the beginning…

Sunday, January 8, 2012 Welcome to Our Blog!
Welcome to all of our friends and family! Jessica and I have decided to make a very 21st century kind of move and make a blog to document our adoption adventure. We hope that this will not only serve to keep everyone informed about the process we are going through but also to reveal the amazing way that God is working in our lives. We cannot wait to share this adventure with everyone we love, so check back regularly as we share the awesome opportunity that God has put on our hearts.