I haven't posted in awhile because I just got the hang of this blog thing.  A lot has happened since I last posted.  We found an agency Dove International Adoptions based out of Banks,OR.  We were accepted in May 09.  After getting the contract to sign, which was probably 15 pages, we had a month to send in $3000 with the contract.  Ok, I don't know about some of you, but who has that sitting in their bank account ready to be given freely, not I.  I believed God had purposed this in our heart and He was gonna supply us with the money. Low and behold a $1000 check came in the mail from a couple who didn't even know we were adopting, the letter said just thought you could use this, you betcha we could.  Several other people stepped out in FAITH and blessed us with money too, which all added up to about $1500. We have $1500 left to come up with so my best friend Kara & I planned a garage sale around the 13th of June (i think).  We had an awesome turnout.  Saturday after it was all said and done we counted the money and had exactly $1503, with $3 left to put toward our next installment.  God is so mindful of our need!  I told my husband, God is never early, never late always right on time!  Our deadline was June 18th and I sent it in on June 15th.  Whoo, one down 3 more to go.  We left later that week for Oklahoma for a month.  The big question we get is why are you adopting from Ethiopia?  Our response is Why Not?  I mean there are a lot of reasons, but God placed Ethiopia on our hearts, so why not?  We have some friends in the ministry from Arizona and Missouri who have adopted from there and I have been drawn to Ethiopia ever since.  While in Missouri this summer I got to sit down with Gwen from Arizona and discuss adoption.  She gave me helpful information regarding adoption.  Our dossier packet was sent to us while we were in Missouri.  Dossier is information about you and your family, medical, financial, housing, debt everything you can think of to be filled out and send over to the Ethiopian courts to look at.  Lots of copies & notarizing.  We have 6 months to fill out all of this plus get fingerprinted at Homeland Security office.  Yippee!  Needless to say I put it on the back burner for a while due to some medical issues I was dealing with.  After going through a rough spot, God reassured me that the baby girl He has picked out for our family is going to be so much more precious than I could ever imagine.  She's gonna be a Houck, of course she will be precious!!  Our next installment of $6500 is due in Decemeber.  This is where my FAITH comes in increments, if you know what I mean.  I will back track a little, in August we had our 3 day ladies retreat.  Our speaker was from a town called Peters Creek, I had just met her in June before I left for Oklahoma and I felt connected to her right away.  After retreat, we were starting to clean up, she came to tell me goodbye and I gave her the love offering.  She immediatly gave it back and said God told her to give it to me for my adoption.  Talk about humbling, I started crying and couldn't stop, God is so thoughtful of me!  You feel so unworthy sometimes.  Billy and I told God right from the beginning, we don't want to borrow the money or put it on a credit card, so far we haven't.  As of October we had $3200, just from certain ones giving to us.  My best friend Kara ( whom i have named CEO of the Houck Adoption) and Donna planned a spaghetti dinner with a silent auction/dessert auction.  Talk about FUN, now that it is over!  We have never done anything like this before, what were we thinkin?  I will post about that later, this is enough info to get ya by for now, my hand hurts.  Good night!