Making a list, and checking it twice

Well we made it through the funeral for my grandpa. It was much harder than I ever thought. He was 83 and lived a good life, but man, it is still so hard to say goodbye. When we arrived home, we went through our mail, and we received the best Christmas present! We received our 171-H from immigration, which is also known as the "golden ticket!" We are now totally ready to go get Tanner, therefore our Embassy date is January 27th. We will be leaving on January 22nd and returning January 30th. We are so excited and so blessed. God is good, all the time! One of the things we are still trying to prepare is finances, so if you want, we are still selling coffee through our website http://justlovecoffee.com/TheTrumans where you can order some yummy coffee. This makes great gifts no matter what time of year! Perfect for anniversary's and birthday's also. We are also trying to raise enough money to purchase playground equipment for the care center while we are there. If you would like to donate you can send a check to:
International Adoption Net
2305 E. Arapahoe Rd. #248
Centennial, CO 80112
Please put in your memo "Truman" and remember your donation is totally tax deductible. Great for the end of the year!

Thank you all again for your continued support, love and blessings.
We cannot wait for Tanner Endale to become part of Team Truman (physically)
Merry Christmas!
Mat and Stacey

A much needed update!

Well Team Truman has officially grown by two more feet! (after a long, long road) We did not pass court on Nov. 18th as there was some missing paperwork, so we were rescheduled for Nov. 30th. Well, Nov. 30th came and AGAIN we did not pass! Ugh...MOWA forgot to bring the paper. Our in country coordinators worked hard to figure out why and where the paper was and lo and behold, Praise Jesus, we passed FINALLY on Dec. 2nd! So now we are a family of 8. It is so exciting and overwhelming at the same time.
During these past 3 weeks we have been being attacked by the enemy BIG TIME; not only with all the issues with court for Endale (Tanner) but our oldest son Zachary, had a mass on his brain that he had removed last Wednesday and the biopsy came back negative! Yahoooo-God is good. Really, really good. Again some other news was that I am in need of a hysterectomy. I was suppose to have surgery today, but postponed it until spring since our son needed surgery sooner than soon. I also have had 2 mammograms come back suspicious, so am having them biopsied on Dec. 23rd. Please keep praying...We are also leaving this Thursday to say "good-bye" to my grandpa who passed away last Tuesday. He was one of the greatest men to have walked this earth and he is missed, dearly! To put it mildly things have been stressful around our house. We have vowed not to let the enemy get to us: "When God is for us, Who can be against us?"

Thank you all for your love and continued support. We are remembering the true reason for this season. We hope you enjoy Christmas and find your joy in His love. We hope to travel the end of January to bring Tanner home. Keep praying for him to "see" our faces and know that we are going to bring him home soon.

Big time love and peace,
Mat and Stacey (and the rest of the Truman crew)

Tomorrow is the day!

It is almost time in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for the courts to open and our case to be heard! This will mean that "legally" our little boy could be ours in about 4 hours. This momma probably will not be getting much sleep tonight. Please pray with us that all goes as planned and our little guy will be part of Team Truman! I am really tired of looking at our empty kitchen chair! Thank you to all of you who have continued to pray for us and support us. It means more to us than you could ever imagine. We also are doing a continuous fundraiser for our children's orphanage. We have a great website where you can go and purchase coffee from Africa. To place an order and have it shipped directly to you go to http://justlovecoffee.com/TheTrumans.

Be blessed and look for good news tomorrow!
Stacey

Are our eyes wide open?

Frustrating to say the least, we need to do MORE! What does that mean? We are called by God to take care of widows and orphans...NOW is the time! Orphan Sunday is coming (November 8, 2009) Get on board, do something, anything, even the smallest prayer will help. I am sharing with you the small video from Christian Alliance for Orphans (thank you Chantelle!) Tell me what you think? Where do we go from here? Our eyes have been opened, now we need to step out on FAITH through Him and move forward. Not sure what else this looks like (besides bringing home our new son)but we are trusting the Lord to show us his plan. How about you?

Orphan Sunday from Christian Alliance for Orphans on Vimeo.

It's Official...Our girl turns ONE! And other happenings.

We honestly cannot believe that yesterday Gracie turned one! She is almost ready to walk, stands on her own, claps like crazy while standing and is the cutest girl ever! We are truly blessed beyond words...Her party was fun and her favorite part was the cake! (Just like her mommy) Let the pictures speak more than my loss for words:
This is the birthday Princess at breakfast!


The yummy birthday cakes...and Yes, her mommy did make them!

And she was enjoying the cake!

Her birthday was so fun, but went too quickly. She was overwhelmed by gifts so we finished opening them this morning and she had a much better time!

This journey has been incredible and directed by God, but this journey is not ending here. When we were in Ethiopia picking up Gracie we spent the majority of our time at the orphanage. On the first day we met a little boy who never left our sides for the entire week. At this time, he was not one of the children who was available for adoption. When we came back to Colorado, our hearts ached for him, and we prayed as a family for him. We also prayed that if it was God's will, we would be able to adopt him one day. Well, about 3 weeks ago our agency coordinator called and asked if we were still interested in adopting him. We flipped and jumped up and down! We were so excited. We knew, once again, this boy was hand picked for our family. We just received his background and it looks like he is about 3 1/2 years old. His birthday is sometime in February. If things go smoothly we will hopefully and prayerfully get to bring him home sometime in January. 2010 here we come! Mat and I knew somewhere deep down, there was "room for one more!"

Time is FLYING by!

Oh man, it is just crazy busy around here. Gracie is amazing and growing way too fast! 2 teeth and crawling! She is the light of this family. I still wake up and cannot believe she is here. Our summer has flown by. Baseball is all over. Justin's team decided not to play in the state tournament, but Cameron's team did and we spent a weekend in Greeley. His team WON, so they are state champs for 9A! It was awesome and Cameron even got some pitching time. He did great, struck out some too. We had a huge storm here the other day, and our city has been devastated. We have trees in our yard with NO leaves, and we have very large trees. It wiped out all the flowers and gardens, was horrible. Tons of hail damage to our cars...I guess it was time for "fall" cleaning. My sister from TX is here with her 2 kids, so we spent 2 days cleaning up the yard! We had over 65 bags of trash. Not a very fun summer vacation for Lori and her kids, but they were a great help since Mat was at work for 2 days. We are having our church here on Sunday for a pool baptism. It will be so much fun and what a way to start my immersion for a new life!
We also had our pictures taken by a wonderful lady at Contemporary Expressions. She is part of the celebrating adoption photographers and she is AMAZING! Our pictures came out great and can't wait to share them. Here is a sneak peek:



To check out more of Tanja's work you can visit her at www.contemporaryexpressions.net. She will be more than happy to help you out. She LOVES what she does and to her it is truly art!

Next week we are leaving for Wyoming to visit some of my family. We are going to do some white water rafting, visit Yellowstone and see lots of wildlife we hope. It should be a nice break before football is in full swing!
Tyler, Gracie and I are also going on a 4 day trip to visit our dear friends, The Beckings and The Outmans. The Outmans just came home with their twin boys and The Beckings were our travel partners. We cannot wait to be all together again!

Hope you enjoyed the pictures and the update. I will post more when I can.

Finally an Update!

Ok, so I never thought adding one more would cause total chaos! Good chaos I mean, but yes, we are busier than ever! Summer is here, camps, swimming, baseball, get together's, etc....whoo. So exhausting, but we are loving every minute. To say the least we love introducing Gracie to everyone. She lights up the room! It is truly amazing. I still wake up in the middle of the night to go peek in on her, and pinch myself! Is that really her? Thank you God for your goodness. Thank you for giving Mat and I the opportunity to be her parents. She has cut her first tooth, she loves to eat. She is a "go with the flow" little girl. We had her ears pierced. She cried briefly, but other than being hungry, she does not cry. She smiles ALL the time. The boys adore her. Tyler is her best friend and will do anything for her. Sometimes he does not like it very much if Gracie wants to love on us! I guess that is just him being 2! Tyler loves to read to her and take baths. We have had her swimming and she loves the water. In Ethiopia she did not like the bath, so this is a real treat considering we have a pool. Ok, now for the best part: PICTURES!