In lieu of mailing Christmas letters this year in the spirit of "going green," we decided to try updating everyone with what has been going with us through our blog. For those of you who have been reading this blog, some of this will be duplicate information. Thanks for reading!
Most of you were probably expecting to see that our picture included a new baby this year. Unfortunately, that is not the case. We are still “waiting,” but things have all but come to a halt in China these days. At this point, we are expecting it to be at least 4 more years until we get her. We know that when the time is right, we will meet our little girl, but we would be kidding ourselves if we didn’t tell you that this has been a very frustrating process.
One good thing to come from the wait is that at the beginning of 2008, we decided to pursue a concurrent adoption. This means that we are pursuing two adoptions at once. We received special approval from our adoption agency and have chosen Ethiopia as the other country. We had to re-do most of the paperwork that was done for China, but all of that was complete and sent in September. We have requested siblings (boy and girl) ages 0-4 years old. The wait time for Ethiopia is reported at 6-12 months; however, as with anything in the adoption world, this is just an estimate. They are a little slow on the sibling referrals, but we still hope to travel in 2009 to meet our children. There are approximately 13 families in front of us. There is a slight risk that we won’t be approved by the Ethiopian court system because we are adopting from China as well, but we are optimistic and have reason to believe that this won’t be a problem. Please pray that this process moves along quickly, and we meet our children next year.
Jill is still with Marriott. She facilitated two training classes for them this year in Phoenix and New Orleans, as well as traveled to Kingsport and Atlanta several times on business. She also enjoyed 4th of July week in Destin at the beach with her family! Jill picked up a new hobby this year – running! She did her first 5K race on January 1st, and she and Philip did their first half marathon (13.1 miles) in October. She also enjoyed being in the feed zone at Philip’s bicycle races again this year, dancing, and singing in the church choir.
The UT football season was dreadful this year, but we have enjoyed the Titans games! We have also done quite a few home improvements in 2008. We completely renovated the kitchen and closed in our carport, which created two new rooms – a bike room and a new study. In 2009, we plan to do some work on the exterior – paint and landscaping.
Philip’s 2008 included lots of bike racing, of course! One fun thing that he did this year was to travel to NC to do some wind tunnel testing with his bicycle. He and his Dad spent a few hours testing different bike positions, helmets, and ways to go faster. He once again served as Team Director for Scenic City Velo’s elite racing team, Team Krystal. He is actually “retiring” from that post in 2009 but will still do some bicycle races. He will concentrate more on multi-sport events. In 2008, he entered two duathlon (run-bike-run) events and won both! Philip also had a job change in early 2008 and is now working at Trace Bikes in Nashville.
We would be remiss if we didn’t mention Miss Mocha. She is 9 years old now and never ceases to amaze us! She gets smarter every year and is such a joy!
We are thankful for each and every one of you and are blessed with wonderful friends and family. We pray that your holiday season is a special one this year spent with loved ones. If you are ever in the Nashville area, please give us a call! Here’s to a great 2009 and GO TITANS!
Happy Holidays!
Philip, Jill, and Mocha Martindale
6512 Jocelyn Hollow Road
Nashville, TN 37205
pjmartindale@comcast.net
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Another sibling referral...
Howdy!
I wasn't expecting to update again so soon, but we received word on Friday that another set of Ethiopian siblings have been referred! These little ones were 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 years old. The set earlier this week were 4 year old twins. Yahoo! Let's pray they keep up this pace! Just wanted to let everyone know the great news. We hope all is well with all of you!
Have a great week!
I wasn't expecting to update again so soon, but we received word on Friday that another set of Ethiopian siblings have been referred! These little ones were 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 years old. The set earlier this week were 4 year old twins. Yahoo! Let's pray they keep up this pace! Just wanted to let everyone know the great news. We hope all is well with all of you!
Have a great week!
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Adoption Update
Hello everyone! Happy Holidays!
I realize that it has been awhile since we have posted, but there have been no updates...until today! We just received word that another family received a referral today for a sibling group (twin girls 4 years old)! That moves us closer in line, and we are very excited! Our adoption agency has recently contracted with a new orphanage, and we are hoping that creates new referrals in the near future. We hope all is well with you. We won't be sending Christmas letters this year, but we will put another update online in the next week or so. Have a great weekend!!
I realize that it has been awhile since we have posted, but there have been no updates...until today! We just received word that another family received a referral today for a sibling group (twin girls 4 years old)! That moves us closer in line, and we are very excited! Our adoption agency has recently contracted with a new orphanage, and we are hoping that creates new referrals in the near future. We hope all is well with you. We won't be sending Christmas letters this year, but we will put another update online in the next week or so. Have a great weekend!!
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
More shots...
Happy Fall, Y'all!
We are happy to report that we received our 2nd round of shots a few weeks ago. Two rounds down...two to go!
We are also happy to report that we have a general idea of where we are on the "waiting list." The good news is that there are much fewer people on the list requesting siblings than the list requesting one child. The bad news is that the referrals are coming in very slowly for siblings. In fact, today was the first day we have seen a sibling referral since September 1st, but we are excited about that referral. Please pray for patience for us and for more sibling referrals to come through.
Thanks for reading and for keeping up with our journey!
Have a great week!
We are happy to report that we received our 2nd round of shots a few weeks ago. Two rounds down...two to go!
We are also happy to report that we have a general idea of where we are on the "waiting list." The good news is that there are much fewer people on the list requesting siblings than the list requesting one child. The bad news is that the referrals are coming in very slowly for siblings. In fact, today was the first day we have seen a sibling referral since September 1st, but we are excited about that referral. Please pray for patience for us and for more sibling referrals to come through.
Thanks for reading and for keeping up with our journey!
Have a great week!
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Shots (a good thing)!
Hello friends!
You may be intrigued by the title of our post..."Shots (a good thing)!" Usually, shots have a negative connotation to them, but not this time! I am happy to report that last week we began our series of shots in order to travel to Ethiopia! We will receive a series of shots over the next 4-6 months...Hepatitis A&B plus tetanus, flu, and others to be determined. The CDC recommends some really out of the ordinary things, and our doctors are doing some research to see what they recommend. Since the series of Hepatitis shots take 4-6 months, we decided to go ahead and get started with those. Shots are never any fun, but we know that the end result will be totally worth it! :)
We also received word today that the Ethiopian courts opened a few days early! Ethiopian courts typically close for several weeks in the Fall. We weren't expecting them to re-open until October 9th, so it was a nice surprise to hear that they re-opened early. During the time in which they are closed, families are able to receive referrals, but no court appearances or adoptions can take place during that time. Essentially, adoptions are put "on hold" for a few weeks. Typically when they re-open, there is a slight backlog, but unlike China, Ethiopia can take care of that pretty quickly. It has been 18 days since our dossier was "in cue," not that we are counting! In terms of the wait, we have heard that there are approximately 100 families also waiting. However, we do not know how many of those families are requesting siblings 0-4. We could be #10 on the list for those children, or #80. We just don't know.
We hope all is well with all of you. Thanks for reading. Have a great week!
You may be intrigued by the title of our post..."Shots (a good thing)!" Usually, shots have a negative connotation to them, but not this time! I am happy to report that last week we began our series of shots in order to travel to Ethiopia! We will receive a series of shots over the next 4-6 months...Hepatitis A&B plus tetanus, flu, and others to be determined. The CDC recommends some really out of the ordinary things, and our doctors are doing some research to see what they recommend. Since the series of Hepatitis shots take 4-6 months, we decided to go ahead and get started with those. Shots are never any fun, but we know that the end result will be totally worth it! :)
We also received word today that the Ethiopian courts opened a few days early! Ethiopian courts typically close for several weeks in the Fall. We weren't expecting them to re-open until October 9th, so it was a nice surprise to hear that they re-opened early. During the time in which they are closed, families are able to receive referrals, but no court appearances or adoptions can take place during that time. Essentially, adoptions are put "on hold" for a few weeks. Typically when they re-open, there is a slight backlog, but unlike China, Ethiopia can take care of that pretty quickly. It has been 18 days since our dossier was "in cue," not that we are counting! In terms of the wait, we have heard that there are approximately 100 families also waiting. However, we do not know how many of those families are requesting siblings 0-4. We could be #10 on the list for those children, or #80. We just don't know.
We hope all is well with all of you. Thanks for reading. Have a great week!
Friday, September 12, 2008
Happy Friday!
Hello, friends!
We are happy to let you all know that we are officially "waiting" for our referral for our children in Ethiopia! We received word today that our paperwork is complete and is "in cue" for a referral. The current wait time is 6-12 months. We have requested two, and we aren't sure how many other families there are in front of us that have requested two.
Once children have been identified for us, we will receive "THE CALL" from our adoption agency. We will then receive pictures and paperwork about the children and accept the referral. Once this happens, the dossier will be translated and authenticated, and presented to the Ministry of Womens Affairs (MOWA), which is the first entity in Ethiopia to approve us to adopt the child. (This is where we could be turned down, so please pray that the judge will approve us.) If/when we receive the approval, we will travel approximately 2 months later.
We are rejoicing to be past the "first step" and to be an official "waiting family" (now in two countries). Thanks to all of you for your thoughts and prayers.
On another note, we attended a meeting at the adoption agency on Tuesday night to learn more about the office in Brentwood closing. Due to a decrease in international adoptions (mainly due to the China slow-down, the economy, etc.), Children's Hope International is having to close the Brentwood/Nashville office. The HQ in St. Louis will remain open, and we will be able to complete our Ethiopian adoption through them. We are blessed to have gotten to work with some amazing people at CHI Brentwood and will miss them.
We hope you all have a great weekend and Go Vols!
We are happy to let you all know that we are officially "waiting" for our referral for our children in Ethiopia! We received word today that our paperwork is complete and is "in cue" for a referral. The current wait time is 6-12 months. We have requested two, and we aren't sure how many other families there are in front of us that have requested two.
Once children have been identified for us, we will receive "THE CALL" from our adoption agency. We will then receive pictures and paperwork about the children and accept the referral. Once this happens, the dossier will be translated and authenticated, and presented to the Ministry of Womens Affairs (MOWA), which is the first entity in Ethiopia to approve us to adopt the child. (This is where we could be turned down, so please pray that the judge will approve us.) If/when we receive the approval, we will travel approximately 2 months later.
We are rejoicing to be past the "first step" and to be an official "waiting family" (now in two countries). Thanks to all of you for your thoughts and prayers.
On another note, we attended a meeting at the adoption agency on Tuesday night to learn more about the office in Brentwood closing. Due to a decrease in international adoptions (mainly due to the China slow-down, the economy, etc.), Children's Hope International is having to close the Brentwood/Nashville office. The HQ in St. Louis will remain open, and we will be able to complete our Ethiopian adoption through them. We are blessed to have gotten to work with some amazing people at CHI Brentwood and will miss them.
We hope you all have a great weekend and Go Vols!
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Adoption Update
Hello, everyone!
We hope you all had a great weekend. We had the exciting opportunity to attend a reception on Saturday at our adoption agency office. The agency representative from Ethiopia was in Nashville, and we were invited to come and meet him. There were lots of families there who have recently returned from Ethiopia. We had the chance to speak with them about their experiences and meet the children. The children are adorable and well-adjusted, and the families had great things to say about their trip and adjustment period. We also had the opportunity to speak with the representative about our particular situation. He did not seem to think that it would be a problem with the judge that we are adopting from Ethiopia and China at the same time, so that made us feel better. We will continue to pray that the judge approves us, but we do have more of a sense of peace about it now. We also received word that unfortunately, the adoption agency will be closing the Brentwood office. The HQ in St. Louis will remain open, but we will find out on Tuesday evening how this will affect us.
Have a great week!
We hope you all had a great weekend. We had the exciting opportunity to attend a reception on Saturday at our adoption agency office. The agency representative from Ethiopia was in Nashville, and we were invited to come and meet him. There were lots of families there who have recently returned from Ethiopia. We had the chance to speak with them about their experiences and meet the children. The children are adorable and well-adjusted, and the families had great things to say about their trip and adjustment period. We also had the opportunity to speak with the representative about our particular situation. He did not seem to think that it would be a problem with the judge that we are adopting from Ethiopia and China at the same time, so that made us feel better. We will continue to pray that the judge approves us, but we do have more of a sense of peace about it now. We also received word that unfortunately, the adoption agency will be closing the Brentwood office. The HQ in St. Louis will remain open, but we will find out on Tuesday evening how this will affect us.
Have a great week!
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