MEET THE GOURLEYS!

Take a minute and read about the Gourleys! I met Niki through Children's Hope International. She adopted Yoseph around the same time we adopted Arthur. Our little boys were in the same transition home and we spent many nights on Facebook Chat keeping each other sane while enduring an excruciating wait to bring our sons home! Now the Gourleys are waiting again to bring a daughter home! 

"Hello, We are the Gourley family. Adoption has long been in our hearts. We talked about adoption even before our first child, but decided to have our first the “old fashioned way”. Elijah Robert was born to us in 2OO8. A little bundle of energy that hasn’t stopped running since his feet hit the floor. We of course knew one child was not where we wanted to stop. The thought of adoption came into our hearts again, with full force when Elijah was about a year old. We researched all kinds of adoption, attended information sessions, and spent a great deal of time in prayer about it. We finally clearly felt God's calling to adopt from Ethiopia. We learned a lot during that adoption process- about faith, endurance, and blessings. We are proud parents of Yoseph James, who came home to us on December 1st 2O11. We love Yoseph very much. He has a very sweet personality, and loves to have fun. His adjustment and attachment in our family has not been without challenges. We have found help in our challenging times and he is now thriving. Six months after Yoseph was home we discovered that Niki was again pregnant. It was a bit of a surprise, but no surprise to God, who is the perfect creator of families. Lydia Grace is a beautiful, healthy baby girl. A perfect addition to our family. We know our family is not yet complete. We are again adopting from Ethiopia. We believe that this will be the last child added to our family. While traveling to adopt Yoseph we visited several orphanages. We were shocked to discover that many children with special needs are overlooked because no one thinks people will adopt them. We are going into our next adoption wide open to many medical needs. We want to give a family to one of those who may have been overlooked. We are currently on the waiting list and excited to meet our baby girl, hopefully in the new year."

DAN & NATALIE SEITZ

This young couple started the process to adopt early in their marriage. They have had a referral for 1.5 year old twin boys for over a year! Oh how they must ache for their boys to be home! The boys are in a foster home in Central Africa. The Seitz have to pay a monthly foster care fee on top of agency fees! Please read their story and consider giving towards their adoption through their adopt together page. Also, 20% of the Love is Waiting shop will go to their family this week 

Hi, we are Natalie + Dan. Things you should know about us:

+ We got married 11 months after our first date. Dan was in his last year of med school, and I was in my last year of social work grad school. Our two-year anniversary is in a couple weeks!

+ Currently, Dan is in his first year of residency. He works in the ER departments of several hospitals in our city. Natalie writes home studies for foster and adoptive parents (and read a lot of blogs).

+ We really like exploring our city, playing Mario Kart, walking our crazy dog, and watching Parks & Recreation. (Have you seen it? So good.) We go to a great, supportive church, and we host kids through Safe Families.

+ Our plan has always been to adopt as the main method of adding little ones (and not-so-little ones?) to our family. We planned to wait three years to do this. It seemed to "make sense" with the busyness of Dan's schedule and our financial situation. And maybe we didn't want to shock our friends and family too much. A little bit of that, too! :)

+ God threw the best kind of wrench into our plans, and we began praying about the possibility of adopting two months into our marriage.

+ After much prayer and consideration, we were overjoyed to begin the adoption process in May 2012 at the ages of 24 and 25 with a low income and a lot of student debt. It is doable!

+ We requested one child, a boy or girl between birth and six months. Again, God had other plans. We are so happy to be adopting twin 1.5-year-old boys from Central Africa!

+ These boys are the cutest. T is taller and heavier. He's always smiling or giving mischievous glances at the camera. E seems to be shy, and he likes to suck on his index and middle fingers. He looks so apprehensive in pictures by himself, but when they push T beside him, he smiles.

+ Unfortunately, we've hit a lot of delays recently as their birth country's adoption process has grown and changed. We have seen the boys get teeth, stand up, and walk in photos. We are far past the date we thought we'd have them in our arms. We tried to not hope and plan for a certain date, but we did.

+ We've had their referral for over a year now. They live in a foster home, and we are so grateful for how clearly loved and happy they are. We are gladly paying a monthly foster care fee which includes wages for the foster parents, diapers, and food. Because they've been in foster care longer than we expected, these expenses are adding up.

+ Additionally, we have one big agency payment, travel expenses, and in-country living expenses. We expect to be there for several weeks. These expenses will be over $10,000. We have never let the money scare us. Instead, we have worked hard to save and raise and sacrifice as much as we can. And we have trusted! We trust God will provide this, as He has everything else.

+ We ache to meet these boys. But we have fought against making adoption an ultimate in our lives. It's cliché but so true: Our identity is in Christ. Not in being waiting adoptive parents. Not in being the young couple that pursued adoption early on. Not in being T + E's parents. 

+ God has done amazing works in our personal lives and marriage in the past year and a half. He has brought us through some really hard situations. He has taught us how to appropriately advocate for ourselves and our children. We're excited to continue to do this until our boys are home and beyond. He is good, He is good, He is good.

+ God is good, and the community of adoptive parents, waiting adoptive parents, and supporters of adoption is remarkable! We are grateful for your support through a purchase from the Love Is Waiting shop!

+ If you wish to continue to follow this adventure we're on, Natalie blogs here: http://littlethingsbigstuff.com/