Hello friends and family,

This week Ethan and I took a week's vacation to the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore to celebrate our one-year anniversary. It has been a week of celebrating our love and prayer. We have been blessed to have such a beautiful area to launch our adoption plans but most importantly too spend lots of time in prayer and worship with God over our child and adoption plans.

All ready in the first week we are learning that our plans are not ours but Gods. This week we set aside some special time to put in our preliminary application with Bethany Christian Services and after waiting expediently for several days to hear back about the next steps we got the email that changed our plans.

 Bethany Christian Services is not accepting new families at this time because of the high amount of qualified families they currently have. This was a surprise to us because just a few months ago when we acquired with them they were accepting applications. 

As we processed this news we felt so devastated like God was shutting the door on our dreams. But as Ethan reminded me this is just a detour, a bump in the road. So we got back on google, did some more research and found another adoption agency in Grand Rapids that is accepting new families.

We quickly contacted them and heard back right away and got signed for new parent orientation at the Greater Hope Adoption agency. Both Ethan and I feel a lot more comfortable with this agency. They are a licensed Michigan adoption agency that works with families and adoptive families throughout the whole state. Greater Hope provides a less corporate and more family-oriented environment with events and support groups that we can get involved in. And we also can lower our fundraising goal by $3,000 because Greater Hopes costs are a few thousand dollars cheaper than Bethony. And lastly, there is no application fee as it is rolled into our home study cost of $3,600. And none of that money is due till the end of the home study therefore we can start the process right away before we have a big chunk of the money raised.

We are so excited to have found this new agency and take the closed door at Bethony to be a sign from God. He immediately opened another door that fits our needs better where we feel more comfortable. Our God works in mysterious ways and even though this journey is going to be hard and emotional we are ready to slip into our boots, tighten our saddles and ride along with God for this great adventure.

https://link.edgepilot.com/s/e656a888/wmbrfUz_ZkCoBPKzKv_SMw?u=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVFPjIp6nkk

Note: More financial updates will come next week. We want to be completely honest and upfront with everyone about how we are using your generous donations and exactly what our fundraising money is being used for,

Specific Prayer Request: October 7th is or Infant and Early Childhood adoption orientation via zoom. Please pray for patients as we eagerly wait two weeks for this, and continued wisdom as we make big family decisions.  

Thank you all for your prayers and support, Love you all

Mr, and Mrs. NIemeyer