My hubby just started a blog and I had to share it with ya! it's www.michaelmanuel.org

It's here that Michael's going to share what's going on with our church planting process, so if you're interested, then you should subscribe!  In hopes to keep my roller coaster type emotions out of it for now, here's the bullet point version so far...
-We are incorporated!  'Arise' church is officially official ;)
-We are getting the house in order to sell in order to downsize.  We are also praying about which neighborhood the Lord would guide us to in the Clinton area.
-We are wanting to plant a 'missional community' model of church (anybody besides Michael ever heard of this...no? me either!) There's a great video on his blog that gives you a glimpse.
-We are working on logos :)
-Thinking about part-time jobs
-Attempting to begin fundraising soon...watch out!

first # of 2013

We got our new waitlist number for January 2013, and we are officially #51 for our baby girl!  It's been a month of paperwork renewal as we updated our homestudy and fingerprints.  We amended some things as well, we are now open to minor correctable special needs and are praying about upping our age parameters from newborn-two years old.  We had a good visit with our social worker and learned a lot about the state of adoption in our state right now.  We also had a lengthy phone conversation with our case manager (she is in in Oregon and works for our agency, All God's Children, Intl.) this month regarding the state of adoption in Ethiopia, some recent happenings in the region and some updates to the law there.  It's been more highs and lows emotionally.  But my favorite adoption happening this month was by far the traveling to Ethiopia by my good friends, the Smiths!  I think God is just so sweet to allow me the privaledge of watching first hand my friends walk through this process ahead of us :)  It helps me wait with hope and I have such joy in my heart for them and their new baby boy! (he's such a piece of cutie pie at 6 months old and 21 pounds!!)