Africa Necklace

My sister bought me this cute necklace for my birthday. Check it and others out here:
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5208670

Ryan Family Reunion 2008

Here are some pictures from the family reunion held at the YMCA Trout Lodge. As you can tell we all had fun. There was a moonlight zip, jousting, karaoke, henna tattoos, swimming and archery, just to name a few.

No news on the adoption front. My wonderful reference writers are diligently working and we had a notary mix-up at the doctor's office so we're working on that. Hopefully, I'll be sending some things to Kate this week.

Read This Blog Post

I found this blog post on desiringgod.org. It really speaks to our heart for adoption as well as the purpose of this blog. We long to raise awareness about God's call on all our lives to minister to orphans. I realize this doesn't necessarily look like adoption for everyone. But, we do pray that He will burden hearts to step out in faith and obedience; to bring a fatherless child into their family and teach her about her Heavenly Father who longs to adopt her into His kingdom.

On another note, our home study went well. Amy, our caseworker, was awesome. The majority of the time was spent talking about our marriage, ourselves and parenting plans. It was very relaxed and natural. We were fingerprinted on Thursday and our prints are on their way to the FBI. Today we have our physicals/bloodwork. Our last piece of paperwork for Gladney and one of our last pieces of paperwork that we can control for our dossier. Once USCIS receives our homestudy we'll be scheduled for more fingerprints then their final approval will be the very last thing we need before our dossier is complete! God has been so faithful during this paperwork process.