The Beginning of the the Journey

This was supposed to be started a long time ago but I have a habit of putting stuff off but after today the realization hit that we better start this now or it might be over before we ever have a chance to start. For those of you who don't know this blog is started to capture our jouney to fulfill God's call on our life to adopt a child from Ethiopia. A little background on ourselves....My name is Adam Horton and I am a CPA employed at Associated Electric Cooperative in Springfield Missouri. I am married to a beautful wife Sarah Horton who is a cosmetologist at The Cutting Edge Hair Salon in Springfield Missouri. God has blessed us with an incredible daughter Leah Elizabeth Ann Horton (her initials are LEAH, this will only matter to those who are accountants who are commonly known by thier initials, think MAP, GVG, etc...) Late in December 2007 Sarah and I both felt a strong call by God to add to our family by way of adoption. We had absolutely no problems having Leah and have no reason to think we couldn't have more children biologically but looking at Leah and knowing the love we have for her I can't think of a child not getting that love. That is what ultimately called us to adoption. God put an incredible burden on our heart for orphans and we knew at that point what we had to do. Ethiopia was a hard call. From the beginning we both felt called to Ethiopia but almost tried to talk ourselves out of it. There are so many issues with Ethiopia only the beginning of them being the race factor. In the end God won out and we are 100% sure we are following his call.

We applied with Holt International Adoption Agency in January 2008 and have just completed our paperwork and hope to have a completed home study by the end of next week. After that point we will wait and wait and wait and wait. Actually the wait times are now 3-6 months for Ethiopia and the wait time for a boy is even shorter. We have requested either sex which ALMOST guarantees we will get a boy. It is wild to think that we could have a referral of a child in 3 months.

Our Homestudy visit was today. This morning we were thinking that we would have a home study completed by middle of May and sent off by June. Since this was our second visit our social worker pretty much as it finished and looks to give us a completed copy next Friday!!! Exciting and Scary!!! We are 99% complete with our Dossier paperwork and should be done when we receive our study on Friday. Then Friday afternoon it's off to our local secretary of state's office to get state certification and then off to Ethiopia. Please keep us in you prayers as we move forward with this journey. I will do my best to keep you guys up to date!