Good News

With a little encouragement from Wendi who adopted three of the most beautiful children ever I am going to try and share a few of the amazing things God has done for us as it relates to our adoption. Hope it serves as encouragement. To her amazing boys thank you for singing the alphabet to me!

I love Hope and her venting blogs. She is amazing. She is helping me work on my Spanish. It is not going well. I don't know why I can't seem to remember anything.

We recieved a picture and information on the children Julie told us about. After a wonderful week of thinking things over we are faxing an official request tomorrow. Of course I will not post much until it is official. I am very excited and can't wait to have them home. The first night we had the picture Barry was so weepy. Hope said "these are my kids no matter what two governments say" and Beau was so smiley. Barry definitely had the "those are my kids" moment. I did not. I wish I had but I opened the email and closed it and thought, "AM I CRAZY?". Then I went ouside and was so ansy. I kept going back to look again and again. Now I am in love! I will share more later when things are official.....

Also our contractor is going ahead with the addition on our home anyway. He is just going to absorb the cost. I hope you can all be blessed with how big and amazing this is. He is literally donating thousands of dollars of skill and labor. We are paying for materials. He is a Godly man who knows why we where adopting and why we wanted to add some space to our home. When our financing options looked undesireable due to the housing market we decided to wait a year and bring the kids home ASAP anyway. But God knows the desires of my heart as I am a very organized person and would function better with a little room. Anyway.....the contractor told us "some things are bigger than financial profit and I know God is in this and I want to help". We have been BLOWN away by his determination. Our pastor has offered wonderful counsel to all of us on how to go about things. It is so neat to see the body of Christ come together and say let us together do what we can for these kids. We can be the parents and our church body is helping to provide us with the resources we need to care for our family. We had totally set our minds to make our house work so this is just like icing on the cake! I know some of you can understand..... WE WANT these children. WE LOVE them but we also feel we are just walking out what God has called US to be.

I am following the blogs of the wonderful families in Colombia. Yeah for the Boyachecks and the Hollis family and those beautiful little babies! It is so fun to follow along and I am gathering so many tips from these families.

Pictures next time. And I just promised Hope that she could post the on the big announcement day.
Jan

nothing

nothing is really going on but again i am bored in my computer class. i'm trying to study because i have my chemistry final on Thursday! AHHH!! anyway i am so frustrated because we were already supposed to have played 6 soccer games but we've only been able to play 1 because the weather has been bad. stupid snow!! and we were supposed to have a game today but it got postponed to Monday so now we have 8 games in 10 days. we have one this thursday. then monday, then wednesday , then one thursday, friday, and saturday. then tuesday and i don't know past that. well anyway that's about all. sorry this has abosolutely nothing to with the adoption just me venting about soccer. oh well sorry for those who read this!!

hope

ps. i'll let you know if anything new happens

We're Still Waiting!!

We're still waiting but things are looking bright. Today is my 16th birthday and that is always exciting but unfortunately it is SNOWING!!!! in April. i love the snow but think this might be a little ridiculous. I'm actually in my computer class at school with nothing to do. there is not much else to say i just thought that i would just update you all that things are going great and we're still waiting but we are getting soooooooo close!!!!! So hopefully it won't be much longer. well i have to go before the teacher chatches me. hehehe!!
hope

In the Same Timezone

I just had a chance to read Hope's last blog. This blog has been her project but now I must add something. Barry and I are in the Beautiful Country of Aruba on a trip he earned through work. For those of you who may not know it is 15 miles off the coast of South America. Last night we were sitting on the beach. I commented that we have 6 children (three not yet home from Colombia). Four are in the same time zone with us-our son in college in Florida and the three we are to adopt. And two are 4 time zones behind us-our daughters Hope and Beau. We have had a wonderful time here and it has given us time to talk about what is ahead. We have had a LOT going on and it has been a winding road as all of you adopting understand. We had a set back with a home addition we had planned just hours before getting on the plane for this trip. We had to undo plans we had made in our mind and rethink a few things. At first we were disappointed, then relieved that God is watching out for us. And in the end we stuck with our favorite motto: ATTITUDE is EVERYTHING. Our kids have heard this a million times. We now feel we have a plan to make our home stretch a little until we can revisit the addition idea next spring. We are even quite excited about it.

Now we are waiting for our psych eval. to be finished and our I171 to arrive (hopefully with no snags or hold ups). Julie emailed us three weeks ago about a group of three. The oldest is a girl who is 8, the next is a girl who is 6 1/2 and the youngest is a boy who is 4 1/2. She only knows they are from the Florencia area. CHI has not heard anything else in three weeks, only that more information is coming. I can't help but wonder if that is because we are still finishing our last bit of paperwork. God is in control of the timing of our adoption. I feel so confident in that. So things are moving well and we can't wait to meet our new babies. I have been praying daily for these children. If they are meant to be ours the we say YES and if not then I ask God to please bring them their forever family quickly. I feel so honored to partner with Barry and parent more children. I love them so much already. As a couple WE feel honored that the Lord would allow us to bring more children into our home. God knows their names and He has more invested in these young lives than we do. He is watching over them.

It has been so nice to see all the Colombian referrals and to follow along with the families that are traveling. I am also standing in faith for those families that are on the Vietnam waiting list. I have a dear friend I met through CHI who has been waiting for over 600 days. She has amazing grace and maturity. Meeting her is a highlight of my adoption process. Please pray for this CHI program and these families as these are unsure times for all of them.

One more thing. Aruba is the nicest tropical place I have ever been. The people are amazing and it is so lovely everywhere you look. Many tropical places are nice in the tourist areas but just beyond the native people are suffering. I have a very hard time tuning this out when I travel. (Maybe that is a good thing.) It is not the case here. The economy seems to be good for everyone. It helps a compassionate person like me to "check out" and relax.
Jan

Soon!!

We are still waiting but things are going great! we recieved news that there a few kids in Florencia, Columbia. There are two girls and one boy. We don't know the details, or if they are even our kids but it's still exciting to realize how close we are! That's about all that's going on but i thought i'd update you on it. I also just had high school qualifying exams at school but that's really not that exciting and it really has nothing to do with the adoption. But i still thought it was ridiculous that they expected me to explain the digestive system of a fish!! Ridiculous!! well that's all
Hope

More Waiting

More Waiting
I don't have to tell anyone who has also walked the way of adoption paperwork about waiting. It is long and out of our control sometimes. But it is OK. We have much to do to prepare so the waiting isn't so bad. Our homestudy is due any day. Barry's birth certificate is out there somewhere--we hope. Our psych eval is in the works and then we need to put our photo pages together. It is really warm here. Well 30ish feels really warm! Our yard looks like slushy has been spilled everywhere. Last Saturday we went to the Iditorad. It was so much fun and now we are tracking how the mushers and dogs are doing. I will post a picture or two soon. Hope has had trouble with a migraine all week. Doing better but behind with her work. Positng a picture of my best pal Gunthar. He is waiting too-can't you tell.
Jan

Colombian Friends

Hello! On Wednesday we had a great opportunity!! We got to meet Mom's friend Genace (they met through the Colombia prayer group) who recently adopted 3 kids from Columbia ( i mean like in December, that's how recent she adopted them). Anyway we met at Dairyqueen and had so much fun. First was Genace's biological daughter Marissa, she's 10 and then there's Fabien, 10, Karen,7, and Luis, 1. They were so cute and we had so much fun. We played in the play house(which i'm way to big for but that's ok :) ) It was fun to talk in Spanish to them ( not very much, i'm only in Spanish 2) but anyway we had a great time. I can't wait!! I want a little brother so bad.

hope

More Paperwork

Today we got a rough draft of our updated homestudy! And I ordered new "pen in hand" birth certificates for Barry and I since the ones we submited a month ago got eaten by some monster at a very official office in Georgia. Just need to get our psych report done, and request a change in our I171 H and then we are about done. The turn around at the Alaska USCIS office is quite fast and as soon as we submit everything it should come back in about a week. Yes! I just really don't like that dossier list. Hate is a strong word so I won't use that one.

We got a BIG dump of snow today. I welcomed it as we have not had a lot of snow and it has been too cold to enjoy what we had. It is warmer now and fun to play in. Beau and I and 4 of her friends went swimming. And Barry took them all out in the snow to play on the 4 wheeler. Hope went to Fairbanks. Ended up getting to fly first class. Told us she prefers coach as it is just a bunch of old people drinking too much alcohol. Amazing insight. And Zac and Mandy are plugging along with the semester. They are working hard on shcool, planning a wedding, working parttime jobs. I pray God gives them strength for the journey. I have enjoyed reading blogs of a few families I like to follow today. Nice to see things move along.
Jan

Paper Chase

Each day that I am not working and after I get everyone out the door I look over the dossier list and see what I might get done. Today I tried to track down the birth certificates that I sent to Georgia a month ago. I needed to get them exchanged for a "pen in hand" copy as the first ones where returned to me by the apostille office and rejected. The office that issued them had instructed me to send them back and they would send me new ones. Thinking I would save time I included an envelope and all necessary items to the office that would handle the apostille. After a very long phone call they finally decided that they are lost. So I will start all over. Now I know I am not the first one to go through this type of paper chase. I didn't even bother getting worked up about it. I do envy those of you that can drive over to the capital and get all your paper work handled. Even if it was all going to Alaska I would still be dependent on mail. Juneau is like 1000 miles away (really) and only accessible by plane! We are almost done though. I also went to Beau's school and took pictures for the kids photo pages as this will be their school when we bring them home. Of course everthing is snowy--but beautiful. The stafff there is very supportive. Tomorrow I will order new birth certificates and try again.
Jan

God is Amazing

This is Hope's mom, Jan. And she is correct that she has tried to get us to consider adopting for years. Amazing how God works. We never really thought about it much until a little over a year ago. We admit now we can look back and see that God has been preparing us for this for many years. Now I can hardly wait to wrap my arms around my new children. My husband has turned into a sap as he tears up nearly everytime we talk about them.
The most amazing thing is the neat people I have met. The staff at CHI have been so warm and helpful. I have found a great friend in Melanie from Tennessee who is waitng, waiting, waiting for a referral from Vietnam. We are from Tennessee and her neck of the woods. Small world! I really needed a southern girl hook up. Our family originally was on the list for Vietnam but realized rather quickly that one child would never due ,so after seeking God and good counsel, we switched to the Columbia program. Now we are reaching the end of our dossier work. Just a few more things to go and it will be off to Julie and the staff at the Oregon office.
And recenlty I started peeking in the Monday night prayer group for Columbia only to find a family that just came home in December with three children that live very near us here in Alaska. It was so encouraging. I am blessed as all God has already done.
I am so proud of my family so this blog will include a lot if pictures of them.

Waiting...

Hello again! We're still waiting! like most people but it's okay. My parents are slowly but surely working on the checklist, it has gotten a lot smaller since we first started and they both got their passports which is good. And one of our friends from church is a notary so every Sunday we get more done. The people who did my parents finger prints were very excited, they even pulled up the website. Everyone is so excited for us. I've told all my friends and they couldn't be happier. Zac and Mandy are back at school but we're still here. i'm not sure what i'm supposed to talk about on here. We have one dog, a golden retriever named Gunthar and two cats, Mr. Darci ( I was 13 and loved Pride and Prejudice) and Lily. My sister has a bird, Cocoa and i have a fish, Avagadro (yes, named after the Italian Chemist, Avagadro's Number). So our house is always busy and full but we love it. Well I have chemistry test tomorrow. :) Goodnight!
Hope

Hello

Hello, we are the Hagertys. We are adopting three siblings from Columbia! We are very excited! I'm Hope, and I've been trying to convince my parents to adopt since forever and now they finally are!! We live in Alaska. My brother, Zac is going to college in Floridia and he is engaged to a lovely girl named Mandy. I live with my parents and my little sister, Beau. We cannot wait to bring home the kids to love them!! Well thank you for reading this blog.
Hope