One Step Closer

We are happy to announce that we submitted to PAIR last week!  This is a new process in Ethiopia that we have to get through in order to receive a court date.  We are not sure how long this will take, but estimates are around 2 to 4 months (I think)!  Once we receive our PAIR letter, we will receive a court date.  The court date could be anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks from the PAIR letter date, so we will possibly have to travel fairly quickly after receiving this letter.  The first trip will be to meet Jackson and go to court.  We will not be bringing him home on our first trip. 

How can you help?!  Buy a T SHIRT!  We have a few t shirts left.  Send an email to  allyson_barden@hotmail.com if you would like to purchase one.  Short sleeve are $15 and long sleeve are $17.  I will list sizes available below.  Send me your RECIPES! Some very good friends of ours are working on a cook book and we need recipes!  You can email them to me at the email above.  I will post more when I know information about ordering the books.  PRAY!  Here are some specific prayer requests:

1. That Jackson will begin to learn who we are to make the transition easier when we bring him home (he will be receiving his first care package next week which includes an album with all of our pictures in it). 
2.  That we will be able to raise the money needed to make the two trips to bring him home. 
3.  That our paperwork will go through all of the processes without any hiccups!
4.  That God will give us peace in our wait.  This wait is very hard as we long to meet and hold our son! 
5.  That God will work out timing of our travel as it relates to jobs and the kids being taken care of here.

There are so many more, but these are the specific ones that come to mind right now.  Thank you for your continued support.  We are overwhelmed by God's grace carrying us through this process and how He has placed so many people in our path to help us on this journey!

In Him,
Justin and Allyson

T shirts available: Short Sleeve - 4 M, 2 L, 3 XL;  Long Sleeve - 1 M, 2 L

It has been three years since I last posted on our blog!  Those three years have been extremely busy for us!  As we began to see that the wait for Jackson would be long, we felt God telling us to go ahead and have another child biologically.  We had our third child, Deacon, in May of 2013.  Justin began a new job as Assistant Principal at Dickson Middle School in July of 2013.  This meant a move to a new city for us.  We moved into a rental house until our house in Milan sold.  In April of 2014 our house in Milan sold and we were able to begin looking for a new house in Dickson.  We bought a house in Dickson in June of 2014 and were able to move in during the short time Justin has off in the summer.

After many years of waiting for a referral, (and having another baby), we felt that God was leading us to an older child.  When our social worker came in July to do our home study update, we told her that we wanted to increase our age range.  On August 21, Justin and I got "the call"!!  We received a referral for a precious little three-year old boy!  We were in love with him immediately!  We cannot share much about him at this time due to confidentiality concerns, but we can tell you that he has the best smile in the world!
We are so very grateful for the support that we have received throughout this process.  Please pray for us through the remainder of this journey.  We have two trips to make before we get to bring him home to his forever family.  We are so excited to be in the final stages of this journey.  We have seen God's hand over and over again throughout this process and we know this is just the beginning of what He will do.  Thank you for your continued support.  We will hopefully have more updates soon!!