Well, we finally got a new picture of our little Isaiah!!!! He is quite adorable if I do say so myself! Makes me want to have him in my arms all the more!

He actually is sporting a  beautiful flowered shirt. This is just more evidence that he needs to come home to mommy so I can dress him with some boy clothes! Haha! Of course you know, they must use whatever they have to dress him at the orphanage, and at 8 months old, he could care less what clothes he wears, only that he has them!
Thank you for your prayers...it is increasingly difficult each day that passes to wait and wait and wait...and now it is looking like it could take even longer because they are very shorthanded and are becoming overloaded with cases in Congo. Many people have responded to the great need there, which is great! However, it slows things way down for those who are already in the process...
Please keep us in your prayers....
We love and are so grateful for all of you!!!

Hello Everyone! Well, it looks like we are being submitted to court at this time. We will not know exactly when we are in court or any updates while in court. We will only know when we are out of court (4-8 weeks). We will receive a judgement at that time. Then the 30 day certificate of non appeal period begins. We will then be submitted to DFA (Dept of Foreign Affairs) for approval. This could take 4-6 weeks. After that, Embassy Appt is requested and US approval is requested (could take 1-2 months)...then, hopefully, we go get him! Please pray for God's Will most of all! Blessings, Tina

Hello everyone! We do not have news yet, but are hoping we will at least get a new photo soon. Isaiah will be 8 months old on the 13th, so I'm sure he is growing a lot right now. We just want to take the time right now to tell you all how blessed we are for your relationship to our family. Whether you are family by blood or by spirit, we are so thankful to know each of you! Hopefully, our case is going through court right now and we pray we will be out soon. We will only find out when we exit court, not when we enter it. So, we wait. On the homefront, we have finally gotten over being sick. I think it went: Joshua sick first, then Tina, then Lizzy, then Hannah, then Joshua, then Tina...yuck! That was not fun... Last week Lizzy had about 7-8 nosebleeds in a 30 hour period. We took her to the Dr. and he recommended a Doctor to do a cauterization. We didn't want to do that unless there were no other options, so Greg did some research and talked to Sadha at the Mount of Olives Health Food store. Put her on some vitamins, and she hasn't had a nosebleed ever since. Hopefully, she will be free of nosebleeds for a while, she certainly had her share! If all goes well, we will finish homeschool for this school year by April 29th. On the 28th, the girls get to go to work with daddy for "Take your sons/daughters to work day". They will have so much fun checking out all the cool stuff at the Navy Base! Maybe Greg will have a little fun too! Thank you all once again for your support! We are praying that we will have news soon.

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!