Guess who was on the nice list...

We had a wonderful Christmas here in the Tweten household. A lovely Christmas Eve service followed by a delicious dinner at Chili's and then the morning we all look forward to. 

Christmas morning I woke up early and tried to let Tim sleep. It didn't work and so we were up by 7. 

Our tree looked  like this. Lovely and piled high with presents. 

But the one who really made out this Christmas is our little S. 

A new bed

A whole bunch of fancy clothes courtesy of some Gap gift cards. 

Our three favorites: a little pea coat, a batman shirt that says "I do my own stunts", and a shirt with a steam roller on it that says " this is how I roll" (that's Tim's favorite)

Where the Wild Things Are from Mom and Chuck the Talking Dump Truck from Dad

We had a lot of fun getting stuff for him and can't wait until next year when he's actually here.

I have the rest of the week off, tomorrow I am visiting the Bethany Office, the County Clerk's office and the Secretary of State's office and hopefully will get all of the paperwork signed, sealed and delivered and off to Russia ASAP. 

I'm also working on S's quilt and curtains for his room. I'll post pictures when it's finished. 

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!

A Christmas Letter

So there is absolutely no way that Christmas cards are going out from this branch of the Twetens. I had every intention of sending them, I promise. I was even going to write out one of those Christmas letters that everyone seems to like so much. And then it occurred to me that there is still a stack of thank you cards waiting to be sent from our fundraiser and if we have to buy any more stamps this year we may as well be subsidizing the post office.

So here it is. The Tweten Family Christmas letter in all it's glory, just minus the postage.

Dear friends and family -

It has been a crazy year in this Tweten Household.

Most of you already know all this so I'll just hit the high points.

Carrie decided in March that having a corporate job was not all it was cracked up to be and even though she swore she would never do it, decided to go back to school and get her masters. She just hit the mid point and is now on the down hill slide of the program. She is enjoying all of her classes and is only mildly dreading the Science class she's starting in January. She could also use some prayer on January 9th when she will be sitting in cold classrooms all morning long taking two praxis exams. She's sure she'll pass but a little prayer never hurt. She is looking forward to going into the classroom and the age she wants to teach changes weekly. Currently she's thinking kindergarten, mostly because the 3 and 4 year olds in her Sunday school class are so sweet. She's crazy, we know.

Tim is working away at his job and is excited to be joining the social committee next year so that he can be overlord of the party planning committee. It's just a short step from there to CEO. He's also enjoying his work with the junior highers at our church, and I've seen him grow as he teaches them. He even won the "Mr. Dependable" award at their latest Christmas party.

In April we adopted another cat (we are one cat away from crazy cat people), his name is Henri, and due to an accident involving a fence when we got him he only had three legs. Tim was convinced no one was going to adopt him, so we had to. He fits right in with Charley and spends a good portion of the day terrorizing Sophie.

Tim likes to call Henri our distraction from the real thing. In May we met with Bethany Christian Services about our calling to adopt. It seems strange that it was that long ago but I still remember how nervous we were sitting on that couch, basically deciding to have a baby.

It has been a long eight months. Since May we have filled out more paperwork than seems humanly possible, fallen in love with our little man S, had every aspect of our lives analyzed, and felt the frustration of having something this important be so completely out of our control. We never thought in October when we finished our homestudy process that we would still be waiting for it to be completed and approved at the end of the year. We never thought when we saw S's little face on Bethany's website that we would shortly be praying for a sister too. We know that God's timing is perfect, even when it's just paperwork.

In October we were involved in nothing short of a miracle. All of you know about our Both Hands Project, if you don't, click on the Both Hands Tag on the left. One crisp fall Saturday we watched our friends, our family, and a whole bunch of teenagers give their lives away to help people they had never met. It was great. The video says it better than I could, so if you haven't already, watch that.

Christmas this year is going to be pretty mellow as we try and reconcile various Christmas traditions. Do we eat Mexican food on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? Do we open presents in the morning or in the evening? Do we eat Turkey or prime rib? Mostly we are spending this Christmas praying for S and E and wishing they were here instead of thousands of miles away. Both of us said we weren't going to buy anything for them for Christmas and both of us were lying. Mostly we spend this Christmas looking forward to the next when hopefully our tree will have a few homemade ornaments, and a lot more gifts under the tree.

This year was a good year for us. God has taught both of us wonderful things about joy and patience and loving someone you've never met. This year was a good year, but we know that next year will be better.

We hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas filled with the love of our Savior, the peace of the Holy Spirit, and the wonder of the Heavenly Father.

And next year we promise to send actual Christmas cards with (hopefully) an awesome family photo.

Merry Christmas and Happy 2010,

Tim and Carrie

Our Christmas List

I guess our Christmas list is more of a prayer list then a gift list. If you think about us or S and E this Christmas season pray for us. Specially for:

• S to get healed quickly from his TB
• E that she will test negative
• E that God will provide our the correct family for her whether that is us or another family
• For us that our financing will come through
• For us that we remain faithful to God's will through this journey
• For the Russian judge that God will continue to work on his/her heart
• That this process remains about God and S and E
• That S and E will be able to bond quickly to us

Merry Christmas everyone! Thank you for all of your support!

P.S. That is my grown up Christmas list. I always wanted to say that.

The biggest $3.00 in the whole world

Ok, so money is a huge part of adoption. And learning to trust God to provide said money is an even bigger part of adoption, one I struggle with all the time. Where is it going to come from, why isn't it coming faster, etc. I was moaning and complaining about it all weekend. Until I was given a much needed wake up call.

I teach a Sunday school class full of the sweetest, cutest three year olds on the planet. I love everyone of them dearly. There are a few that I love especially. Haddon is one of them. Funny and curious and sweet, he is everything a little boy should be. This week he walked into class with a plastic bag full of coins and a few bills and handed it to me. Assuming it was for our compassion child I started to put it into the box when is mom told him to tell me what it was for. He looked up at me and said, "It's for your baby."

His mom told me he had emptied his piggy bank for our Sam. And I was floored. After church I took the bag out to the car and handed it to Tim and told him that it was from Haddon for our baby. He was pretty much as speechless as I was.

God speaks to us in different ways. We are learning through this adoption. I would be lying if I said this was the first lesson those three year olds have taught me, but this may have been the sweetest. God provides just what we need, just when we need it.

I've said more than once that if I could choose I would have S be like Haddon. Now I think I wish I could be like Haddon, I wish everyone could be like Haddon. The world would be a better place if we were.

Homestudy APPROVED!!!!!!!!!!!

Or Homestudy Approve!!!!!(1st tweet) D!!(2nd tweet) as I posted on my twitter account yesterday. For all you fimilar with the Target lady on SNL that is the video we wanted to post, but just her saying, "Approved!!!" Also, I would like to point our that our homestudy got approved yesterday on MY birthday. I really cannot take any credit for that, because it was all the God. So now the real paperchase begins. We received a 58 page dossier from Bethany yesterday and we (more Carrie) began frevantly filling it out. And there is a bunch of money due with the dossier when we send it in. We are ready to get little S out of the sanatorium and bring him home. He is still sick with TB and we are praying for him non-stop. So that is where we are at as far as the adoption goes. Lifesong featured our Both Hands project and Carrie's writeup about that day in our their monthly publication "Mission Moments." Thank you to everyone who participated whether you were there or you gave. It can be found here. http://www.lifesongfororphans.org/MissionMoments/09Nov.html Lifesong recently changed their policy regarding monies raised by Both Hands projects. We will received all the money with no debt. That means that we will not have to pay back any of the money raised. If you were thinking about giving Lifesong there is still time. Lifesong has made it really easy too. You can give online now directly to our account. We are the one at the top. http://www.lifesongfororphans.org/bhProj.html

Joy

So it has been over a month since we completed our homestudy. We have been waiting on the approval of the homestudy since that time. What we thought would just be a day or two wait has been a draw out process that is both frustrating and time consuming. Russia is 9 hours ahead of us and so really the only time communication can happen is early in the morning here which is late in the afternoon in Russia. I would say that is a difficult month, but not terrible. But in the small group of 8th graders that I lead, we have been learning about joy. Yeah that is really hard to teach about joy when I have to deal with day after day of frustrating news. I have been angry, annoyed and exhausted trying to deal with this wait. But yet I teach about joy and contemptment. Oh yeah and then there was the week on being in joyful in trials. Good times (at least I got to study about the outcome of trials). I really don't think it was a coincidence. It is hard to be too upset when I have to read Phillipians. Paul wrote that from jail. He used the words joyful words throughout that book, 16 times to be exact. So that has been my struggle throughout our wait. I think that it really hits home with a couple of songs that I have recently heard. One is by Bebo Norman "The Only Hope." You can listen to it below. But he basically talks about how we have decided what we want and that is not always what God wants. I think it really is about joy. One line is "I want a star, but You are a galaxy." I want to cling onto that star, but God is so much more and that is where I need to be joyful.

The Only Hope - Bebo Norman

the other is by Steven Curtis Chapman (you have probably heard this one...I know I have). It is talking about the recent lose of his adopted daughter and that heaven for him right now would be to see her. Later in the song (you can also listen below), he talks about heaven being so much more. And my take away from both of these songs is that what I sometimes think as joy is just a glimpse when I do not allow God to be my source of joy.

Heaven Is The Face - Steven Cu...