One Year

I had a startling realization the other day. It's September. It has been one whole year. One year ago we started this adoption journey. In that year we have accomplished so much and yet so little.

 We have accomplished much- countless trips to the bank getting papers notarized, going back to the bank to get it done the right way, hours convincing our social worker we are capable of adopting, lots and lots of paperwork, more paperwork and more trips to the bank. And now we are almost done! At least with the paperwork. 

We have accomplished so much, and yet so little. As we are compiling the last two pieces of our dossier, I think about the next step. Waiting. We are so close, yet so far away. Once we send our dossier, we sit. And wait. Until we get our referral. And I thought the paperwork was hard! 

Some days I am so excited, I feel up to this challenge. Other days my heart hurts for our baby, our baby who is not yet with us. We don't doubt this is our path. God has made it very clear that this is where He wants us. Some days will be hard. Some will be filled with joy and hope. But in the end we will have our baby. I never imagined how hard this path would be. And I am sure there will be harder days, but I know that the best place to be is in the center of His will. Even on the hard days. 

One year. A whole year has past. But it has been a good year. And maybe, just maybe, next September we will have our baby. God's will is perfect and we will wait for His perfect timing whether it be one year, two, three, or more. 

Dear Friends and Family,             

                We have been blessed and encouraged with all the love and support we have received from everyone about our adoption. We have just completed our home study and are currently putting the final touches on our dossier. Our next step is to apply to United States Customs and Immigration Services; once we are approved to bring a child into the US we will send our dossier to Ethiopia! From there, we wait for the referral of our child!

 Right now our only obstacle is raising the financing for this adoption. We have had several fundraisers and Drew has been trying to get extra hours at work. Thankfully we raised enough money to pay for our home study and our USCIS application. We are now onto a new fundraiser to submit our dossier. We need roughly $7700 in order to submit our dossier before it expires.  We are now eligible to apply for grants, however due to the processing time of grants we will not be able to use that money until later stages in the adoption.  We do not yet know how God will provide this money, but we do know that He called us to adopt and He will be faithful to provide for us.  We would like you to consider continuing to support and encourage our ministry. We are selling t-shirts for $30 each. We have specifically designed shirts for you that will be a visual reminder of our adoption to bring encouragement and support, not only to our family but also to raise general awareness of adoption.  We need to collect orders by Wednesday, August 1^st. Shirts are available in standard men’s sizes S-3XL.  You can email your order to brittanyhashley@gmail.com and mail a check to Brittany Hashley 11350 High Timber Drive, Indianapolis, IN 46235. We need orders by August 1^st please.

We are beyond excited to have gotten this far in our adoption and we are trusting God to bring us through to the end. God has a plan for our family and for the child He will bring to us. We know that His timing is perfect and we wait for it with excitement.  For more information on our adoption please visit our blog hashleyfamily.blogspot.com. Thank you for your encouragement.

Drew, Brittany, and Juliette Hashley

 Design will be on a grey shirt

YAY! Time for a small celebration! We just met with our homestudy social worker and we are "finished" with our homestudy. She is going to be sending off all her paperwork for it today to get approved by her supervisor and then it will get sent to AWAA who fill finalize it and it will get signed and be ready to send to the United States Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) yahooO!!! We are almost done with our Dossier as well, with only a few small things waiting to be finished we are almost to our DTE! Praise God! Brittany and I want to thank everyone for their support and prayers.

the long journey

Hey friends and family. we are almost to our next meeting with our homestudy social worker. we are at a point where if she signs off on our study, we are about 85% of the way to having our whole dossier completed and ready to send off to our state department, then USCIS (united States Customs and Imigration Services) and then to Ethiopia. Also in this time if paperwork, socialworker meetings, mailing, emailing and phone calls we are also trying to sell our house and move away from our current neighborhood. We have a neighbor or two who dont appreciate a police officer living on their street and it has been made known that they dont respect the police. We are trying to follow God and work in his will with his timing yet that is very hard. Being a police officer i am very controlling and i want to provide my own safety for my family, usually by having plans and guns, but im am learning to let go of it and rely on God. We recently had someone who said they wanted to buy our house. They said they would pay the asking price and they wanted all our apliances including washer and dryer, and all our window shades as well as our curtains. We told them that would be ok, and then after 3 days of not being able to get a hold of them our realtor said they seem like they are backing out. God is in control. i have to keep reminding myself of that, and sometims it is very frustrating to think that things are out of my control. God is in control. With all this going on we are almost to the stage of the adoption where we pay a large sum of money to AWAA (our adoption agency) and a large sum to St. Elizabeth (our homestudy Agency). We are getting ready to start filling out grant applications so we can get some money to send our dossier. We are very excited to be in the next step of our adoption and we are so close to our DTE (date to ethiopia). Once we have sent our dossier on our DTE, we sit and pray and wait for our child or children and just get our home ready for this gift from God. Pleas keep us in your prayers. I (Drew) need lots of patience in all the house buying and selling especially. Brittany would like prayer for timing on the house, finances for the adoption and for smooth sailing with the last of the paperwork. God is in Control.

Another Success!

Another Fundraiser Accomplished.

Another step closer to bringing our child home!

We had our garage sale last weekend. We were amazed at how many people donated and how much we received! We had a ton of furniture, kids items, clothes, electronics, housewares, books, and so much more! We had a great turnout and sold almost everything. Our "leftovers" won't go to waste though! Another family in our church is having an adoption garage sale in a few weeks, so we are able to donate to them! We raised so much money and we are so encouraged by God's provision.

We have our first meeting with our social worker in two weeks. We are moving forward one step at a time. We need to have 4 meetings with our social worker and finish a ton of paperwork.  We are still compiling our dossier (more paperwork) and hoping to finish by the end of summer.

Thank you for your support everyone!

Garage Sale

It's fundraising time again! 


We are so blessed to have such a supportive family! Drew's parents have offered to start the next fundraiser for us by having a garage sale! 


They are accepting donations toward the sale between now and May 25th. Here are a few things they could use:

used furniture

household items

dishes

small appliances

bikes

exercise equipment

sports equipment

baby items

toys

anything gently used and garage sale-able!!

Please contact us for a drop off location.  Every little thing helps!

Thank You!

Thank you to all our friends and family in California who contributed to our fundraiser! We had a great time of fellowship. My mom took family photos for the various families who came, my grandmother make cake pops to sell, and we also sold Premier Designs Jewelry! It was a wonderful day. God has blessed us with great family who supports our adoption with enthusiasm!

We raised over $500! Thank you God for providing!

We are meeting with St. Elizabeth/Coleman tomorrow morning to for our orientation into the home study. Supposedly we be given quite a bit of homework to complete before we begin meeting with our social worker.  Also, we are just getting started on the required paperwork for our dossier. It is quite the list to accomplish, so we are still just taking it one step at a time.

Thank you for your prayers and support!

            It's official! (finally)  We have been accepted into America World Adoption Agency (AWAA).  We have committed a significant amount financially and are excited than we have actually officially started. Our next step is to apply to St. Elizabeth/Coleman for our home study. Our plan is to have our home study completed, along with our dossier and necessary paperwork by the end of summer. We need about $10,000 to complete those steps.  Once the home study is complete, we will submit all the paperwork and hopefully be approved!  After approval we will be put on the waiting list. The wait time from there can be anywhere from 12-24 months for a child referral.

         We are so excited to share this experience with you, our friends and family, in hopes of your prayers.  We, first, are praying for our child, who may or may not be born yet, but is living in a country where war is constant and will be living in an orphanage. We know that God wants this for our family and we are stepping out in faith to meet God where He wants us.  Please pray for our child, for health and for safety, but above all that our child will get to come home to us as soon as we can.

         Please pray that God would provide the finances for this adoption. We are both looking to find some extra part time and we are hoping to get some fundraisers started soon. There are various grants and loans available, however we must have our home study complete to qualify for most of them.
     
        Thank you for your prayers and support. We are excited to see how God will work!