REFERRAL DAY!!!!! We got the call!!!!!!

November 17th... A date that will now forever hold a very special in mine and Pete's hearts. It was on Thursday, November 17th at 2:29 pm that we got THE CALL we had been waiting for since March of 2010, when we began our adoption journey!

We were thrilled to hear our family coordinator tell us over the phone that we had a 20 month old SON waiting for us in Ethiopia! She gave us his birthdate (estimated) of March 28, 2010, which I immediately realized was within days/weeks of when our miscarried child would have been born. Something additional that I just realized this week? The seminar we attended when this process started was on March 27, 2010, and it was on the ride home that afternoon that we decided that YES God was indeed leading us to grow our family via adoption. We were on board. The very next day is our little boys estimated birthday. Just further confirmation of how God is in the details.

After we hung up the phone we had to wait for 30 minutes before the email finally arrived with pics of our little guy. In the meantime we went to pick up Hannah from school. On the way there, we saw a RAINBOW in the sky! It hadn't even rained (and it never did)! Again, another sign that God does fulfill His promises :)...

On the ride back to our house we told Hannah that we now knew how old her brother was and what he looked like. Her repsonse? "But he can't write on the walls with crayons!" LOL A typical toddler she is! Since then she has affectionately come up with multiple things she plans on teaching him and doing with him. But back to that day...

So we got home and gathered around the computer. Hannah sat in Pete's lap as we pulled up the pictures of our little guy. My first response was a huge laugh because his little face looked so serious and he looked like a football player in a toddlers body! :D Hannah just smiled really big and eventually got bored of us ooohing and ahhing over him and went to play :).

The following Monday we met via phone with an international specialist in Houston to discuss his medical profile, etc, and once we confirmed that all was well we officially accepted the referral with excitement!

It has been 2 weeks and I'm still just reeling in the fact that we have a SON halfway across the world. I've already been shopping (yes I'm bad, but I can't help myself!) and we are sending a care package to him this week with a photo album, a couple of shirts and two toys which Hannah picked out for him :).

This is an exciting yet busy time in the Cummings household. You wait so long for that phone call, but as for me I hadn't really thought through what came next. NOW we wait for a court date. We are hoping and praying to go in January to meet him and go to court. Once we go for that first trip, and pass court, we wait to be cleared for an embassy appointment, for which we take the second trip and then travel home with HIM! :) At best (which is what we're hoping for) we would have him home by Easter. I am specifically praying for him to be home for his second birthday...March 28th. You prayer warriors out there can pray with me... For you others, maybe you can still send positive vibes our way ;).

So I think about this little person every day. Its amazing how my heart is already falling in love with someone I've never met.. It proves to me that love for your children can grow in your heart just as much as it grows in a pregnant womans belly...

I'm super awful at updating this blog but I will try my best to do so more often. Even if it means catching up all at once with 2 or 3 posts in one day, like I am trying to do today. ;/

We appreciate prayers and well wishes as we continue on in this amazing adoption adventure! We hope to hear within the next few weeks about when our court date will be. I will be yelling it from the rooftops I'm sure once we hear! Because then I'll know exactly WHEN we will meet our son for the first time! Aaah! So exciting just to think about!

So what song have I chosen for this post? It has been so hard to think of a song that puts my emotions in to words. So I think today I will break my "blog rule" and not put any lyrics but instead a scripture that has been pressing heavy on my heart lately....


"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."          Micah 6:8

Thanks again everyone for your support and love during this process!

<3, Marcy

Motion of Mercy

So I started this post on November 10th, just 7 short (yet long) days before our big referral call (the day we were matched with our child in Ethiopia-saw his precious face for the first time). I didn't get much written but I had already attached the song and lyrics about which I wanted to write.

In the weeks leading up to the referral I had some pretty neat quiet times in which specific scriptures kept coming up regarding adoption, serving, etc. I felt like something was about to happen but couldn't put my finger on it. This song for whatever reason just stirred my heart during that time (and it still does) to the point where I couldn't sing along without getting choked up. I still feel like God is up to something bigger than what we realize, and I'm just hopeful that we will be listening and responding in the way He wants us to.

I have posted the song below. The part that specifically speaks to me is about "living for the lost, giving till it hurts, no matter what the cost 'cause you loved me first. That's the motion of mercy...." Gets me every time. Over the past 6 months I've felt/been impressed upon three themes. First, SIMPLIFY. Second, SERVE. Third, MERCY. Not sure how to tie them all together in some sort of functional way, and perhaps I'm not supposed to. Yet. But nonetheless this song hits me in the gut and I want to share it before I write the big "Referral Day" entry because those weeks leading up to that day were very spirtually significant for me....

Here's the song....



"Motion Of Mercy"


I was poor I was weak
I was the definition of the spiritually
Bankrupt condition
So in need of help

I was unsatisfied
Hungry and thirsty
When You rushed to my side
So unworthy
Still You gave yourself away…

[Chorus]
That’s the motion of mercy
Changing the way and the why we are
That’s the motion of mercy
Moving my heart

Now I’m filled by a love
That calls me to action
I was empty before now I’m drawn to compassion
And to give myself away

[Chorus]
That’s the motion of mercy
Changing the way and the why we are
That’s the motion of mercy
Moving my heart

Living for the lost
Loving ‘til it hurts
No matter what the cost
Like You loved me first
That’s the motion of mercy

God give me strength to give something for nothing
I wanna be a glimpse of the Kingdom that’s coming soon

[Chorus]
That’s the motion of mercy
Changing the way and the why we are
That’s the motion of mercy
Moving my heart