Invasion of privacy

It has been three months since my last post. That's like 10 years in blog world.

The idea of blogging has become more and more odd to me in the last year.
Like I think our lives are so interesting that everyone wants to read about it. Now don't get me wrong, I love to read blogs. I love to read about what God is showing other people and how I can glean from that. (I also like to look at blogs that have nothing to do with anything spiritual at all....sshhh.) But, the Fickeys? Really? Generally NOT interesting.

And when I do think things are possibly interesting enough and actually sit down to spill my guts, are you getting this false sense of who we really are? Is who we sound like we are on this blog really who we are in real life?

Sometimes yes. Sometimes no.

Sometimes we have an unending faith and trust in God's provision and amazing things happen like in this post. But sometimes Mitch and I have knock down drag outs in the middle of our kitchen because the stress of not being able to pay our bills overwhelms us both.

Sometimes I can see the truths God has revealed to us and the path it's led us down and it makes my heart excited that God has entrusted us with these things. But sometimes I wonder how difficult it would be to fit all of us in a hole in the ground and hide for a few years until everyone has forgotten about the declarations of faith and obedience we made. Because that would be way easier than actually following through with these plans.

I could go on with those "sometimes" forever. But, my point is, we are not blog-worthy. We are a normal family who is poor most of the time, occasionally selfish and mean, very silly and immature behind closed doors (and with some choice friends who love us regardless), we get the whole parenting thing wrong a lot, and still have a VERY LONG way to go in our spiritual walks. Very.

Which leads me to the reason for this blog post: What if you couldn't hide your flaws behind awesome blog posts and adorable pictures of your kids looking precious and happy on face book? What if someone planned on walking into your house in three days to take a good look around in every nook and cranny of your home? Looking for metaphorical skeletons and what not. And then what if they proceeded to take each one of your kids aside and ask them questions about your parenting? Like "how do your parents....(gulp)...punish you?". And then after that, sat you down and asked you a million questions about your childhood and your marriage, etc? Sounds like the easiest stress-free Saturday ever, right?

.....Our home study visit has been scheduled for this Saturday, Dec 10 at 1:30. All of those above things will be on the agenda.  We are excited/overwhelmed/nervous/just plain scared.

People keep telling me, with the most precious and sincere hearts, "you guys will do great. ...your family is perfect.... nothing to worry about....you are wonderful parents." But here's the thing. That is not even a little bit true. Yes, we love our kids a lot. Who wouldn't? They are adorable. (most of the time). But our family is not even close to perfect. We yell. A lot. We punish. A lot. My closets are disastrous. My drawers are even worse. And we have this kid, named Sam, who speaks his mind and has zero filter. So the chance that something could go wrong are not as slim as some might think.

But, I have to keep faith that God wants this for us. And that this social worker is not out to dig up dirt on our family and keep us from adopting. And even though I keep telling myself that over and over and over, there may or may not have been at least 2 days dedicated to completely cleaning and purging my house (including said closets and drawers) and there may or may not be some bribing happening of the littlest one to assure he is on his best behavior.

So, please pray for us this Saturday if you get the chance. (and love us at all??). We will need it. And also, please refrain from bringing by donuts and fireworks for my children that morning.

Once the home study is done (and approved). Next step will be filing paperwork with the US government for immigration approval, then fingerprinting, then passports, and then.....the wait list. I have been asked a lot recently how long the wait will be for a referral. And honestly, I have no idea. It could be 6 months, it could be 2. We chose not to specify boy or girl or a specific age (just 0-3 is all we said), so that could mean a shorter wait time. But, like I said, we really don't know any of that yet.

For now, we will just be trying to make it through Saturday.

I will update you next week. Keep praying my friends. :)

Finishing the Race

This year has been a long road. We have saved and sewed and sold and planned and prayed and felt defeated and prayed some more and then were blessed abundantly. I have read several times that the road to adoption feels like a marathon. It is long. And hard. And there are times you want to give up. But, I guess anyone that has ran a marathon knows, it is so worth it when you cross that finish line (or so I hear...) .

So, even though we are so much closer to being fully funded than we were a week ago, we still have a few thousand dollars to go. So, here is our next fundraising effort..........

CHOSEN....Marathon for Adoption

Chosen is a half and full marathon in Gruene on October 29 and is an incredible way for people to fundraise for their own adoptions and also a means of bringing awareness to adoption itself!! It's really cool and this is how it works......

- Mitch and I are both running the Chosen half marathon. We have created a "team" called "Team One Less" (original, I know).  If you are a runner or even a marathon walker, then if you sign up to run under our Team name, your registration fees go to us! If you get your friends to run with you, they can sign up under our Team name as well and their fees go to us too! Now, I know that some of you have signed up or are planning to sign up for the San Antonio Rock n Roll marathon in November. And I know that race is really fun and all. BUT....this race you would be running for a reason!! To help us bring our child home!! (have I played the guilt trip up enough? Or should I keep going?....). Oh, and this race is quite a bit cheaper. AND it is in Gruene which is a super fun town. AND we are really fun people. AND we can wear matching shirts. (oh no...I think I went too far....)

- If you are NOT a runner/walker, then we have a way for you to help too! Click on the link above for the race and then go to the donate tab. There is a way for you to make a donation using paypal to our specific team (TEAM ONE LESS....don't forget to put that part) which is also tax deductible!! How easy is that?!

We are really excited! It will be both of our first half marathons. Mitch will fly through it no problem. They might carry me across the finish line on a stretcher. But, I WILL cross that finish line :)

So far we have a few precious, faithful friends committing to spend the next several weeks training and then running alongside us in October. We are so grateful for their support and love!! It's not too late for you!! You still have time to buckle down and train! 13.1 miles is easier than you think (or at least that's what I am telling myself right now...)

Will you run with us too? Or help support our Team? Or will you pray for us to cross that finish line? :)

Let me know if you plan on signing up!!! The more the merrier! We can CARRY each other across!!

God is a-mazing

Shut. the. front. door.

I pressed "publish post"on my last blog entry and two minutes later walked out the door with the family to meet some friends for dinner.

We came back from that dinner with $10,000 towards our adoption. Yes, I just said that.

Our precious (and unnamed...by their request) friends felt God's leading to help us and were unbelievably obedient. They hadn't read my post. They hadn't asked how much money we still needed. They knew a little bit about where our hearts are right now. But more importantly they knew that God had called them to action. And they obeyed. Big time.

I wish I could shout their names from the rooftops giving them honor for their obedience and love.
But they are choosing to allow us to give God all the glory.

We have some really good friends. And I know God is pleased with them.

And we now have an almost fully funded adoption account. For real. Nothing stopping us now. Get outta our way dumb Satan. We don't have time for the likes of you.

God is amazing. And we are grateful.

One year later.......

I have sat here with this blank screen and blinking cursor many times in the last several months. But it always resulted in me not finding the right words, getting sad, discouraged, confused...and then just closing up the computer. Feeling defeated.

It has been almost exactly ONE year since Mitch and I had that talk driving in our car. The one where he said randomly, "So, you know how we talked about adoption awhile ago? Well, I think I am on board." I vividly remember that day thinking, "This is it! We are doing this! By this time next year, we will have a baby girl from Ethiopia in our family and home with us."

So, here we are. One year later. No waiting list. No referral. No baby. 

This year has been a crazy roller coaster. If you have followed our story at all you have probably noticed that. And possibly have even grown tired of hearing about it. But if you haven't or if you are just really in need of some torturous recapping.......

-We decided on Ethiopia in September. Researched and contacted agencies. Found one we liked but were told our addition on our house had to be completely done before we could move forward. So we waited. But the money to finish our addition wasn't there. Actually money for our life in general was seeming to get more and more sparse. But we were faithful in saving and raising money. I was convinced Ethiopia was the place for us. And that specific agency was the way to go.

- Found out that agency had been wrong. Our social worker ultimately wouldn't care about the finality of our house, but rather about the emotional health of our family (and to clarify, of course wouldn't want rusty old nails laying around or anything...). So, we decided to find another agency and start everything again. We found an agency and a social worker. Then (and I need to clarify here that we really hadn't done any important paperwork stuff up to this point, just general things that hadn't required any fees) our new agency informed us that Ethiopia was slowing their adoptions down from about 50 a day to 1 or 2. So families would now be expected to wait up to 3 years for their child. That was a sad day. I had been completely convinced that Ethiopia was our only option. God knew better.

- We found out that Uganda had opened up just a short time ago and several agencies had started pilot programs there. Our hearts began to grow for Uganda. Meanwhile we were planning our fundraiser race (One Less 5K) and decided we would focus on that and see where we were financially after all of that was over. The race was incredible. We raised a pretty good amount of money. But were still fairly far (about $13,000) away from the amount that we needed. 

Which brings us to this summer (recap over and current story begins)......

We started slowly doing some of the "paper chase" stuff for our social worker and waiting on the actual adoption. Waiting for what? I'm not sure. There were lots of things to blame our waiting on. Money. Work. Illness. I am embarrassed to say, but feel the prompting to tell you, that I felt as if compared to all the other things happening with us and around us, this adoption felt......silly. selfish. and ill-timed.  And this made me....well....just flat out sad. I knew in my heart that this was part of our story. That God had called us to adoption. 

But, we (I believe I am speaking for both Mitch and I) let that idiot Satan get in our heads  and tell us "oh, just wait. you are kind of broke. and this is a really inconvenient time. for everyone. there are bigger things happening and it's really just pretty selfish of you to want to do it now. maybe someday soon. just not now." And let me tell you (in case you were wondering)......I know those words did not come from God.  There was never. not one time. a peace in my heart about it. I wrestled with it constantly. I felt guilty.  Mitch and I argued.  And if there is anything I know about God vs Satan it is this....Satan is full of lies and unrest. You will never feel peaceful about the decisions you make based on his prompting.  Even the thought "well, we will do it soon. You know, whenever (fill in the blank) is over...", never brought true comfort. And I am so glad it didn't. What a waste of a life is someone who allows Satan to talk them into being complacent. 

As our pastor always says (and I like to remind my sweet precious angel children often) "delayed obedience is disobedience". We may have thought we would "do it soon....", but deep in our hearts, we knew we were being disobedient. God called us into action. A year ago. Yes, we do completely believe that God used this last year to grow us. To change our hearts about certain things (which I will share another day) and to bring us to this place of repentance. 

We know this road is difficult. We know that our personal finances are not what we would love them to be. We know that we do not have enough money saved to pay for this adoption full out. But we also know that we cannot continue to live this life of disobedience. Whether well-intentioned or not, it is still a complacent life. And one we are ready to leave. 

So.........last Friday we mailed off our official application to Little Miracles International to adopt whatever God chooses for us (boy or girl, age 0-3) from Uganda and will be signing the contract by the end of this week. Our new home study will begin next week with a different social worker (We had to switch due to an accreditation problem with our previous one. I should also mention here that God saved us again from having to pay any serious high fees to our other social worker.). 

We have jumped off head first (which I guess is really just called "diving". Whatev. You know what I mean.). God has ignited our hearts again. He has redeemed us from the last 6 months of waiting on nothing. And has reassured us that He will provide for whatever He has called us to do. "God funds what He favors"....I have heard a lot these days. We are reminding ourselves of that daily. Especially when we see a pile of bills on our counter. :/

Thank you for reading. Thank you to our friends that have had to listen to the drama that seems to have been this story and for still being excited when we said we finally mailed off a FOR REAL application (you know who you are). Thank you for encouraging us and loving us no matter what. Thank you for sticking with these sinful humans who are just trying to figure out what God wants from them. I feel like we got it right this time. Finally. 

The race is over....time to move on

Hello friends,

If this is the second post that you are seeing from me on the same day but different blogs, I am sorry. I know there is really only so much of Katie Fickey one person can take, and I may be pushing the limit. But, my sweet precious 2 yr old decided to wake me up pretty early this morning (doesn't he know it's summer?) and then go back to sleep. So, I was left with some time on my hands to blog. And so I did.

Just a short one here. The race was a month ago and it was fantastic. Read about it here.

The adoption train is moving along again after being in somewhat of a stalled pattern for a few months. God has ignited my heart again (ie lit a fire under my butt...) and hopefully you will be seeing more frequent posts from me about our progress in the coming months.

Please continue to pray for us and for our child out there waiting for us.  Thank you friends!!

moving mountains

So, I know it's been more than two months since my last post.
I have wanted to blog. Really, I have.
But, the idea of writing a "catch up, sorry it's been so long" blog post was a little daunting. Those kind of posts are not quick. So, it kept getting put off. Again. And again. Until the catch up info was just too much and too overwhelming.

So........that brings me to today. Talking with my precious and very blunt friend Kyle, she basically told me, "shut up and do it. just jump in and get it over with". So, here I am.
With so much to say and not very much time to say it in. So, I'm going to give you the abbreviated version of our lives and our adoption happenings since my last post.....

1.) Found a new agency we loved. Decided Uganda was the place for us. Felt like that's where God has had our child all along.

2.) Found a social worker, got started.

3.) Found out said social worker couldn't be OUR social worker because Uganda is a Hague convention country and she wasn't certified there.

4.) Found another social worker. Loved her. Started paper work again.

5.) Meanwhile we have been planning for our upcoming fundraiser race...One Less. Lots. And lots. of work.

6.) Had an emotional breakdown wondering what God was thinking calling us to this.

7.) Recovered from said breakdown and realized God obviously knew what He was doing and was going to finish the work He started. So, buck up Katie Fickey. He's got it under control.

8.) Kept working on the race. A little over 2 weeks now until race day. We have been busy with banners and tshirts, balloons, refreshments, bounce houses, signs, music, a professional race timer guy, facepainting, volunteers, runners, walkers, promoting registration, inputting registration, etc.....all the things that come with organizing a race. Which is actually pretty fun. But, when you have three kids (oh and one of those kids is TWO), a part time job, a husband with a more-than-full-time job, baseball, super squad, birthdays, adding on to a house, keeping existing house clean and functional, and just life in genera,l it becomes a little overwhelming (hence the emotional breakdown).

9.) We have been praying and hoping for 100 runners (I don't know why that number, that's just the number that stuck) and we are still pretty far from it. But, we are still fervently praying that God will amaze us and prove that only He could have done it. It's gonna be a great day. I know it. Come be a part of it........one less.

10.) We have kind of paused the adoption stuff until after the race because of all the reasons I listed above. Life (ie the devil, I'm sure of it) has us crazy busy right now. As soon as the race is over, it will be show time and we are not going to stop again until this little one comes home.


So, side note.....

Something pretty cool happened tonight. Mitch and I and the crazies kids went to FBC Boerne Wednesday night youth to speak for about 2 minutes and promote One Less and talk about orphans a little. After we were done, we sat down and listened to a man give his testimony and sing a song to the youth. His appearance was only scheduled the day before and, to any other person would seem like just a coincidence that he spoke right after us, but we know it wasn't.  

This man was Wilson Bugembe from ......Uganda!  

He's kind of a big deal there. He's the most popular gospel singer and is also a worship leader and pastor at a church of over 5,000 (!!). He's a young, humble, precious, man, and was a ....guess...........an orphan. His entire family (mother, father, and FOUR siblings) all died of AIDS. His story was heartbreaking yet incredibly inspiring. I know he was there for the high school and middle schoolers, but I'm pretty sure God put him there just for Mitch and I. We spoke with him afterwards and were so encouraged by him and his story. 

God knows the perfect moment to remind us of His love, doesn't He? That He hasn't forgotten us and wants to encourage us to keep on this journey He started. I am going to sleep tonight a little more at peace that this is His plan for us. Thank you God for moving mountains to show us your love.

(Okay, so Kyle....I told you I couldn't do a short post. )

I won't wait so long until the next one, I promise. :)

because orange is my favorite color.

We changed the logo a smidgen....wanted to make it a little simpler! Thank you to my wonderfully patient friend Misty for letting me change my mind a gazillion times. 

AND if you haven't registered yet (which I know you haven't), stop on over HERE and sign up!! 

I promise it will be so much fun! 

Also, still needing volunteers and sponsors if you feel led to do so!! Please pray about how you can help! Thank you friends!!!