So, now we wait to go through the courts in DRC...this could take up to 2 months, but we will pray for 2 weeks! Once in court, there could be a 1-2 month wait, but we will pray for less! Once a Judgment is received, we wait 30 days+ for the Certificate of Non Appeal. We then wait 1 week for our paperwork to be prepared for submission to DFA. It takes up to 4 weeks for DFA to give approval. We then wait another 30-45 days for the Embassy to set an appointment for Visa's to be issued. Our Embassy Visa appointment will be set for 2-4 weeks later. This is when we will travel to Congo. Our Visa is issued 3-5 days after our appointment. Our paperwork is submitted to DGM (Immigration), this takes one day. We then wait for DGM to issue a letter. This is the final step and takes up to 2 weeks. Whew! Is that a boatload of information or what??? And the time frames seem ridiculous!!! Ouch! Okay, so this is why we need your prayers! Please pray that we get the minimum or less time with each step...God can push us through, where man cannot! It does seem very overwhelming, but we must trust our Lord to bring Isaiah home in His perfect timing...and pray that is soon... :) Thank you all for your support!!! We are so blessed to have you in our lives!

 We have our first photo of our beautiful baby boy! He is 7.5 months old and about 15 lbs.
Now, the wait will be very hard, but God is so faithful! And He will give us the strength!
Besides, there's so much to do now!!!!
If you see me and I look lost, it's because a million things are going through my head right now!!!
You are all a blessing to us!!!

Well, the day has finally come! We have a referral!!!!!! YAY!!!! He is about 7.5 months old right now. We will travel in about 3-4 months to get him. He will be around 10-11 months old at that time. He is beautiful!!!! We cannot post photos yet, but we will as soon as we are allowed to...We are so excited to be a part of what God is doing!!! Please pray for Isaiah Micah Simmons!!!! And for us, as we wait during these hard months! God is faithful and His love endures forever!!!! Praise God!!!! He is so good!!!!

Hello Everyone,
Well, the good news is that we are now at the top of the waiting list!!!! YAY!!! This is when we really need to be in prayer that God will bring us exactly the right child for our family and that we will be exactly the right family for our new son! The wait could be days to a few weeks. It all depends on the communication between villages and families. We know that God has already chosen the child, to be named Isaiah Micah. We are praying for safety and for good health.
Once the orphanage receives a child, they must go through a medical screening to make sure they are free of AIDS and TB and other diseases. They are unable to process cases of handicap either. So, please pray that when he arrives at the orphanage, he will be free of disease and healthy (as healthy as one can be in a poverty striken nation).
It takes a couple weeks for the medical to come back. Then, when it does, if they are up to standard, they become a referral for the next person on the list for that particular age and gender.
Please pray for Isaiah. He will be anywhere up to a year old. Once we receive the referral for him, we will then travel to the DRC in 3-4 months time frame to pick him up. This will be a hard wait, but I can't imagine that it would be harder than waiting for his referral.
This adoption has been different from Joshua's in so many ways. One of which it only took about 2 weeks to receive a referral, but the wait time for picking him up was a good bit longer. All in all, I'm hoping the time frame will be at least a month or two shorter for Isaiah. August 2nd is the 1 year mark. If he is home by then, we will be under a year. That would be awesome!
Thank you all so much for your support and your prayers!
Our kiddos have been sick over spring break, so it's not been pretty around here. However, they are so glad that I am not giving them school work during this time, so all is well! They are quite pitiful at times though..
Again, thanks for your prayers.
Hopefully, we will have some good news to share very soon!!!!
Blessings to All!

Still no news.
Referrals came in this week, but no baby boys.
There was a 6 month old girl, a 3 yr. old girl, a 5 yr. old girl, and an 11 yr. old boy.
The 11 yr. old was found on the streets crying. Both of his parents had died and he had no one and no where to go...very sad. Please pray that they will be able to find a family for him.
Things are going well for us. We are keeping busy this week with Lizzy's birthday on Sunday (turning 7) and Phillip's birthday on Tuesday (turning 23). This is our first spurt of birthdays. In May, Joshua will turn 4 on the 8th and Hannah will turn 12 on the 10th....crazy busy.
For Lizzy, no big party, we will do family bowling tonight and take her to Golden Corral on Sunday for lunch...she can have all the options she wants...:) Who needs to be spoiled with lots of gifts anyways????
I will update again soon...
Blessings to All!

No new news so far this week...please pray for patience for me...this waiting is torture. Blessings to All!
Tina

Okay, so i just found out that once we receive our referral, we will have about 3-4 months til travel time... but we will only have about one months notice of our travel dates....yikes! Our case worker did say that some people have used flyer miles...and we have had one person offer to use miles to cover one of our flights! Praise God!!!! It takes around 163,000 or so (depending on timing) flyer miles to fly to Africa. There are fees that accompany it, but nothing like the flights without the flyer miles (around $4000 each). We will pray that the timing will allow for flyer miles to be used...Thank you so much for your prayers and for helping us to follow God's plan!