Unexpected Surprise

Hi everyone. Well, today we received a most unexpected, yet totally amazing surprise. We received a comment on our blog site from Guus and Jeanette who live in Holland. They had seen our blog and wanted to share something wonderful with us.

They too have adopted from Ethiopia, and as it turns out, from the same orphanage that Henok lives in. They have two very beautiful daughters, who i'm sure have brought such a wonderful happiness into their lives! They are adorable...

Now, on to our surprise. During their trips to visit Kechene Orphanage in 2000, 2004, and 2007, they had the opportunity to meet many children that were in the orphanage. Jeanette said that they remembered Henok, and had some pictures of him from their visits, and offered to send us the pictures!!!

Even though Renee and I have been so happy to have been given the opportunity to adopt Henok, who is 11 years old, we were sad that we never got to meet him and know him when he was younger. This surprise was such a wonderful gift from God and an answer to many prayers.

To Jeanette and Guus: Thank you so much for for this special gift you have given us. We look forward to hearing from you again and getting to know your family as our children grow. From the bottom of our hearts, Thank you!

Now, for a quick teaser pic, here is one of Henok from 2004. He was about 7 or 8 at this time! Hope you all enjoy this as much as we have.

Matthew

CIS....DONE

We went to Houston today and had our fingerprints done at the CIS office. There were a ton of people there and it took us several hours before we were called to get our prints. However, it is finally done, and now we wait......

This is a major hurdle, and now we are looking for that I-171 to come in the mail hopefully within the next 6 weeks! This is the US Governments official approval for us to adopt, as well as the document we need to get Henok's official Visa to enter the country.

We are in full swing with our Dossier. We sent the first round of documents to Kate at KBS Dossiers. As expected, there are some changes that were needed, but nothing out of the ordinary. Renee's birth certificate was too old, so we had to order a current one from California. No biggie... We should have that in the next week or so.

It looks like the last major hurdle will be getting the rest of the funds together to pay for the adoption. However, we entered this adoption process knowing that it would be God who makes this adoption happen, and we have full faith that He will provide the funds to make it so. We have applied for several grants, but it looks like we will need to do some sort of 0% interest covenant loan to finish out the cost of the plane tickets and whatever other costs come up on our end. No big deal, but we are still trusting God to bring us the funds!

That's all for now. Take care and God Bless!

Matthew

CIS Fingerprint Appointment!

Hello all! We got our CIS fingerprinting appointment paperwork this weekend!

We have to go to Houston on 9/11/07 to have our fingerprints done. One more thing checked off the list. We also got 5 more notarizations done! Everything is coming along good with the Dossier. We will be sending a bunch of of paperwork to Kate soon to start the authentication process.

We also got our first letter from Henok last week. What a rush! He is such a sweet young man. We were so excited to get mail from him! He says that he is doing fine and misses everyone here.

Well, that's it for now. Will write again when we get more info.

Matthew

FBI Clearances Returned!

Hey... we got our FBI Clearances back today. "No Arrest Record" as we suspected for both Renee and Myself. Good news, to say the least.

Not a whole lot else to report. We are in a bit of a waiting game right now. We are still waiting to hear from CIS about when our Fingerprinting will be scheduled. That's the really big next step, and it can't get done fast enough.. ;)

Well, we have filled out a few grant applications and such...to help cover the Gladney costs for the adoption. However, we still need to come up with a way to fund the rest of the fees that we don't have to pay directly to Gladney (i.e. $5000 or so for plane tickets to Ethiopia, and the whole dossier authentication and such...) We remain humble and watch God provide each step of the way, and he will provide this as well.

Take care, and check back often for more updates!

Love,

Matthew

Officially Gladney Approved!!!

Hi everyone... Great news today. We received our official Gladney approval along with our Homestudy approval today!!!!

This means that they will now send our Homestudy to CIS and we can begin the process of getting our US immigration approval! Hopefully sometime in the next month or so we will get our appointment to go get fingerprinted for CIS. This is the next major hurdle.

God is so good!

Love,

Matthew

Henok's U.S. Adventure

So we took like 900 pictures while Henok was here, and I thought it was time we share some of ours and Henoks favorites. These are the pictures that he took back to Ethiopia with him so he wouldn't forget us. Enjoy!

Link moved to Top of Blog

You can also click the link below to look at the full resolution pictures individually. You will need to sign up for a Walgreen's Photo account to view the pictures, but with that you can also order pictures and have them printed at any Walgreen's near you, or you can download them to your PC and print them for FREE! Enjoy!

Henok's Photo Album

Making some progress...

Well, we have been making some good progress in getting the paperwork done. We both got fingerprinted for our FBI clearances yesterday. That was a lot of fun. No in our our fingers, though; they used the updated computer fingerprint scanner to do ours.

We got the Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) paperwork sent off last week and received confirmation that they received it today. We have a few things left to wrap up so we can get our Home study and formal adoption approval taken care of, and then they will send that to CIS and we will be in good shape. They will process the information and schedule us to get our fingerprints done. The CIS process can take up to 3 months to get the formal I-171H approval.

We got a ton of notarizations done this morning for our Foreign Dossier. We are in really good shape there. We are now waiting on all of the approval documentation from Gladney and CIS and then we can send the dossier off to get authenticated. That could take a month or so. Once the formal dossier authentications done, then we just need to finish up raising the money for this thing.

We wanted to send out a special thanks to Suzanne Faske of Here I Am Orphan Ministries (http://www.angelfire.com/or3/hereiam/) and their entire group for the generous donation they made on our behalf (and many other adoption families) to Gladney. They have such a wonderful heart for Gods children, and have made such a positive impact on our lives and the lives of so many others. From the bottom of our hearts, Thank you!

Well, here's a funny little video we took the afternoon of the last day we had with Henok. I realized that I had never shared some of the Aggie pride with him, and here is what happened when I began to teach him... Enjoy!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Take care and we will keep you updated on this Adventure of ours.

All is quiet in the house...

Hello everyone.

Well, our 2 weeks with Henok has ended and there is such a quiet sadness in our home. I cannot describe to you the amount of joy Henok has brought to our lives in just 2 weeks, but our hearts were overflowing with happiness.

Now... the hard part. Henok and the other children from Ethiopia have returned to their "other" home and now the waiting process begins. At this point, only God really knows when we will be able to go get Henok and bring him Home for good. Our only prayer now is that God will keep him safe during this time and that there will be no barriers in our way (logistical or financial) to hinder the process.

Renee and I wanted to thank everyone that had the opportunity to meet Henok for opening your hearts to him. It means so much to us that you would welcome him into our family with open arms. From the bottom of our hearts, Thank You.

Well, no pictures this time... but I will post some more soon. Until then, please continue to keep us and Henok in your prayers asking for a speedy return to America.

Love,

Matthew & Renee

Settling in at home

Hello everyone. Well, we have enjoyed being back home for the last week. The first few days after Henok arrived were spent on the road, and he was very happy to be able to stay home the last week.

We had a very fun time on Sunday out at the Faske's Ranch (Thank's Suzanne for opening your home and your heart to all of us!). All of the families from this area got together and had BBQ, and a whole lot of fun.

We found that Henok loves to go fishing. He also caught a bunch of minnows and wanted to bring them home so we could raise them in a tank! So now we have about 3 minnows left and we just added some tetras and Henok (and Mom) are enjoying that alot!

One thing that we were worried about was how well Henok would like the food. Well, he has done well, and has been very good about trying all the different foods that we throw at him. Some things he likes, and some things... well... he spits out and says with a determined look on his face... "NO!"

The last week has been a very important time for us as a family. Renee and I have bonded with Henok, and we can tell that he has begun bonding with us. He is very affectionate and loves hugs, which is good for our family because we LOVE to hug! Like any normal child his age, he has begun testing the limits and exhibiting some posessive tendencies with "His" toys. Sometimes he just doesn't want to share, which I think is totally understandable. Having to share for the last 10 years with a hundred other children, and now having his own toys can be overwhelming. However, he understands that he needs to be nice and share with his cousins.... ;)

The last few days have been bitter sweet for Renee and I. We both know that this time of joy must come to an end all too soon. I didn't expect to feel the way I do. I feel happy and excited, and yet there is a sense of despare in what must happen. He has to go back. We know that, but we don't like it. We have really only just begun to scratch the surface on this new relationship, and something just seems wrong about having to give that up now. But this was Gods plan from the beginning, and we accept that. We just don't like it. However, it has given us a much greater sense of urgency to get the paperwork done and get the money together and go get our Son and bring him Home for good!

Well, here are a few more pictures that we wanted to share with you. Enjoy and tune in soon for another update!

Henok in America!

Hi everyone...  wow!  What an exciting and crazy couple of days.  We have been on the road driving from Dallas to College Station and then to Groves, TX and now finally back to Houston for some 4th of July action.  All in the last 4 days!

Well, we picked Henok up at Gladney, and he is as beautiful as we we could have ever hoped.  He is smart and funny, very affectionate, and has a great sense of humor.  I definately think I'm going to enjoy this "Parenthood" gig... ;)

Just a few minutes after meeting Henok, he asked "You have Computer?"   I knew he was my Son... hahaha   I told him Yes, we have 3 computers, and his eyes got even bigger (if that's possible...;)

Well, it seems that Henok also loves to take pictures.  We gave him our old camera to use while he is here to take pictures of things he would like to remember, and he has gone through 7 sets of AA batteries and has well over 300 pics so far.  We are going to print many of them out for him to take back to Ethiopia with him so he can have some of his memories there while he waits for us to go back to get him.  I'm going to have to take out a loan to cover the cost of batteries until then...  hahahah....!

Well, we have taken well over 400 pictures over the last 4 days as well and I have a few that I want to share with everyone.  So, for now, here are a few pics.

Love you all, and hope to see you soon!

Matthew and Renee


        Henok Stylin' in his new threads!


                Eating dinner at the Church


           Cousins...  New best Friends!


          Henok LOVES video games!


         Watching Fireworks on July 4th!

About Henok

Henok Kechene

Est. DOB: Jan 2, 1996
Est. Age: 11

Orphanage: Kechene Children’s Home

Henok Kechene arrived at the orphanage on July 2, 1997. His age at that time was estimated to be 18 months. From that information, Gladney has set his birthday, for documentation purposes, on January 2, 1996. With that date, his current age is 11 years old.

Henok’s birth mother passed away when he was only 18 months old, and nothing is known about his birth father. He has no known siblings.

Henok has a basic knowledge of English.
Henok (pronounced Heh-knock) is a biblical name which translates to Enoch in English.
Henok is friendly, affectionate, and outgoing. He is in 4th grade and his favorite subject is science. He would like to be a scientist when he grows up. He enjoys reading in his free time. He also loves playing with babies and is also very good with his hands. He can often be found repairing or making new creations out of broken toys and electronics.

He gets along well with the other kids at the orphanage. He is a very eager student, but is sometimes so eager to answer questions in class that he forgets to listen to instructions. His desire for the special love of a family is strongly evident.

More to come as we learn more of our boy... ;)

Welcome to the Henok Adoption Blog!

Well, tomorrow is the big day. We go to pick up Henok in Dallas!

We are so excited and scared, but we know that this is what we have waited for. God has blessed us so much with this opportunity, and we have met so many wonderful couples that will be sharing this exciting journey with us.

I wanted to be able to share as much information with everyone that I could so I created this blog site so that we could do just that. I don't know how many of you will be able to meet Henok while he is here for the 2-week Bright Futures Camp, I thought this blog could serve as a place you all could come and get the most up to date information and pictures.

I hope you all enjoy the site, and we will keep you informed as this journey continues.

In Christ,

Matthew & Renee