NEW POST!

Hey all!
It's been a LONG time since I posted something on this blog. I was just reading over it, and noticed that the last post was on November 9th. It talked about how we were still waiting for that call that a birthmom had chosen us. Well, the very next day, our Samuel John was born. I don't care to tell the whole story because it's Samuel's story, that he will need to know someday, and I wish to keep that private. However, I will tell you, that Samuel was born on Wednesday, November 10th, and we picked him up from the hospital on Saturday, November 13th. We were notified that Friday that his birth-mom had chosen us as parents, and we could pick him up from the hospital Saturday at 4 pm. Talk about shock! I was fortunate enough to have an awesome sister-in-law, Tracy come and help me set up, as well as my mom :) We worked all morning to get the house "baby ready". Bottles were filled, clothes washed and folded, swing and pack and play set up, changing area filled with diapers and wipes! Samuel has been such a blessing to us! I am hesitant to put any photos up until our "final court date" (this month or next month) but, once that's done, I will post pics and use this as a "scrap book of sorts! For now, I will just tell you that he's so stinkin' adorable, and being a parent is the BEST! God sure is funny sometimes, isn't he? ALL IN HIS TIMING!

LONG TIME!

WOW! It's been all summer, and I haven't posted anything! Life has been pretty routine for us here at the Hellenthal house. We are both still working like crazy, trying to finish off the basement, active leaders in our church Youth Group, puppy rearing, spending time with family and friends. We got a puppy in September, and we just adore him. His name is Winston. He's a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Such a sweetie. A little hyper at times, and somewhat naughty, but what puppy isn't? We are taking "puppy classes" at Petco, and he seems to really be learning a lot! I am just excited for the biting stage to be over with! It really hurts to get nailed with those sharp puppy teeth! Nothing else too exciting with us. No new news on the adoption journey, really. We've had a few birthmothers interested, but they ended up choosing someone else. We get a little discouraged sometimes, but, we know that God's in control of the situation, and the right baby will come to us when we are ready. We just keep praying that the time is sooner, rather than later. No new teaching news for Hefty either. He had a few applications out there, but, there are a lot of teachers out there with out jobs, and so he hasn't had many interviews. We keep praying for that too. We are grateful for our jobs, and that we have benefits etc! Well, that's about it for now.

Have a Blessed Day!

Mothers Day

Well, yesterday was Mothers Day. To celebrate, we had my mom and mother-in-law over for lunch. Of course, the rest of our family came too---about 15 of us. We grilled out and enjoyed each others company. I love my mom so much. She is seriously the best ever! She has always been there for me and my siblings. Sometimes she's a little crazy, but who isn't, right? Anyhow, this day is very bittersweet for me. I love my mom and mother-in-law, but, my heart is longing to be a mother myself! When I found out that I wasn't able to have kids naturally, at first, I was ok with that. But, now, with everyone being pregnant and having kids, it hurts my heart. I keep trusting that God's timing is perfect, and that HE has a plan for me and Dan. He chose us to go on this special journey together. Why? I am not sure, but His way will be revealed soon enough. All I know is that this has strengthened our marriage and our faith immensely! Meanwhile, we keep praying for our baby. We love our little one, even if he/she isn't born yet. We keep praying that God would send us our little angel soon! Well, enough of that. I hope that all of the Mothers out there had a great day!
Megan

discouraged

Hi friends-
This adoption journey, has been, is, and will continue to be, a roller-coaster ride. There are major highs, like getting your profile complete, and your home study done. There are also major lows. I feel like we are in one of those lows right now. We have had many couples looking at our profile, but, we have not been picked yet. I know that it's all in God's timing, but, at the same time, it is a little discouraging. We are so ready to become parents! We will bring some much love to a child's life. I ask for prayers as we continue on this journey. That we would have feet for the path that God has asked us to walk, that we would be confident that His way is best, and that we may get that phone call soon! Thanks for following along with us on this journey!

Update

Well, I thought that I would update everyone on the phone interview that we had a few weeks ago. We got a call the following week, that the couple had decided to keep the baby and parent the child themselves. Our hopes were a little dashed, but, we were very guarded about it to begin with, so we are dealing with it ok. I am just glad that we didn't get any further along in the process, and get even more attached to the baby. So, back to square one we go. Just thought that I would let everyone know that update. Thanks for praying!

Adoption update!

We finally have some news! We have a couple who is interested in us! We had a phone interview with them yesterday, and I think it went well. They are interviewing other couples too, so, we are trying to guard our hearts. She did say that she would like to meet us face to face, so we feel like that is a good thing. Please pray that God's will would be done. And, pray for this couple as they make this tough decision, as well as the baby she is carrying! Thanks!

Update

Well, life has been very busy for us here at the Hellenthal household! We closed on our house on November 4th, and ever since we have busy remodeling that. We also mourned the loss of my Grandma Bredeway shortly after Thanksgiving. We have been busy with work, small group Bible study, friends, family, etc. The thing that has been taking up most of our time is the house though. We are hopefully moving in this week. I can't wait! It is going to be so great to have a house of our own.

We haven't heard anymore about the adoption. All of our paperwork is complete, and turned in. We are now just waiting for a birthmom to say that she wants us to parent her child. We are praying for this to go fast, but, God has His own timing.

I think that's about it for now. I will post some photos of the house in the next couple days.

Slacking

Hey all-
So sorry that we haven't been posting much on this blog. We have been so extremely busy with church, work, friends, Bible Study, house hunting, and the usual daily chores of keeping up with the housework and laundry.

We have been good, though. Busy, but good and happy. We got word a few weeks ago that an offer that we placed on a house was ACCEPTED! We are going to be moving! We are very excited, but kind of nervous at the same time. We have our home inspection today, and then hopefully we can close on the house later this week or really early next week. Then, the real fun begins! Boxes, painting, cleaning, more painting, tons of drywall, more painting and cleaning. It needs some serious work to it, but, we got it at a great price, and when we resell, it will be worth it! I will try to post some photos on here as the progress happens. Please pray for us as we finish this process, and as we begin to fix up our home.

Unfortunately, we don't have any new news to report on the adoption front. The Lord knows that we can only handle one thing at a time, and right now our minds are on our new home. Of course, we are always and forever praying for our baby, and wanting him/her home, but, right now we need to make a good living enviornment for the child. However, all of our paperwork is finished, for right now, and we are on the Bethany "Waiting Families" list that they publish on the website. You can check out our story at www.bethany.org. Click Family Profiles (bottom right hand), and then check MI as the state and we are on the 2nd page. We are praying for patcience as we go through this. We take comfort in knowing that God knows the baby he wants in our lives. It's all in his timing. What an awesome thing to remember. Sometimes, we get a little discuraged, and think, why weren't we picked? What's wrong with us? Why didn't they like us? But then, we remember God's promise to us in Jeremiah where he says, "I know the plans I have for you..."

In the meantime, we have been very involved at church doing Children's Worship, PowerPoint, Youth Group, Small Group, Bible Study with the High School students...it's all awesome! We are so blessed to be a part of HHCRC! We love our church family. We have been also busy trying to fit in time with our friends, time with just each other, time with nieces and nephews, and the list goes on.

Anyways, that's it for now. Thanks for reading! Have a great day!

Megan

SEATTLE!

Well, we survived our week with 16 high schoolers! YAY! No, but, in all seriousness, it was a fantastic trip to Seattle! I won't give a day by day synopsis, because that could get kind of boring. However, we learned alot, grew in our relationship with Christ and our group grew closer together as well! Some of the "highlights" include:

-working at a community garden
-cleaning up some trash under a high-way overpass (where people live in their cars)
-a 11:00 p.m-3:00 a.m. visit to the ER for Hefty to find out that he has gull-stones (and will need surgery eventually)
-a visit to a Center for Spiritual Living (where the students had an opportunity to grow in their faith, while learning about a different world-view)
-a evening with some family who are from Lynden, WA (Thanks Bonnie and Ted!)

It was a great week!! If you want to know more, visit www.hhcrcedge.blogspot.com
Then after that, we were off to Lansing for a wedding of good friends, Matt and Katie.
Congrats guys! Hefty was in the wedding, and it went wonderfully and it was beautiful!

Now, hopefully we will have some time to relax for the rest of the summer. We haven't heard anything on the house or the adoption yet. God is teaching us patience that's for sure!

Hope everyone is having a fantastic day!!!

Megan

A waiting family....

That's what we are....
A WAITING FAMILY!
YAY! Our home-study was approved, and we are now officially a waiting family through Bethany Christian Services. This makes us excited and nervous at the same time! We are excited because we feel that this is where God is calling to be in our lives, and we have seen his re-assurance by the way that we have been blessed with financial support, and things have gone smoothly for us also. I have no doubt that we will be great parents, but it's still a bit crazy to think that in a few months, we could be parents! We covet your prayers for patience as we wait. This could be a long, hard process so we are going to need patience and God's grace to flow over us. So, that's about all there is to update now.

Home Study

Well, I haven't been doing a very good job at keeping this blog up-dated. Hefty and I both had individual meeting this past week for Part 1 of our Home Study. It was a bit nerve-raking, but it went well, and we answered the questions as honestly as we could. Now, this Thursday, June 4, we have our house-visit. Our case-worker will come into our home and make sure that it's safe for a little baby. So, last week we went and bought new Carbon Monoxide detectors and a new fire extinghuiser, because ours were alittle out dated. On Sunday, we spent most of the night cleaning our bedroom and living room and then tonight it's on to the kitchen and bathroom. Fun, fun. Once she has our home-study written up, we will go on the Bethany website for birthmoms to look at and pick us, hopefully. We also have to put together a Shutterfly book with all sorts of pictures of us in it that our case workers will show a birth-mom. Seems like a lot of work, right? Our case-worker said that it will take about a year, on average, for us to get chosen, however, it could go a little faster, or slower.

Enough on the adoption though. On Memorial Day, we bought a new couch! We decided that it was time to get a new one, and Art Van was having a good sale, so we went and bought one. It is so nice and comfortable! It is bigger than our older one, so that's nice. We also planted our flowers that day, and spent time outside. It was such a nice day to spend with the two of us. We also took our god-daughter, Lyvi, to Crazy Bounce last week. I thought that she would love going down the slides and stuff, but she didn't care for it at all. I think that she was alittle scared of all the big inflatables.

We are off to Washington DC in about 2 weeks and then Seattle, WA after that. It's going to be a busy, yet fun, summer! Youth Group is done for the summer, which is sad and relaxing at the same time.

Hope everything is well with everyone :)
Megan

"...Life keeps rolling on..."

Well, let's see--what's been happening in our lives. First of all, a few weeks ago, we went to a march in downtown Grand Rapids for the Invisible Children of Uganda. There is a rebel leader in Uganda who is abducting little kids (8-9 years old) for his rebel army. It's a terrible injustice that is going on, that not many people know about. To learn more, go to www.invisiblechildren.com. Anyways, we went to this march/rally thing in Grand Rapids. It was pouring rain. We were cold. We were wet. We marched on. We went with a few of our youth groupies. Our main purpose was to create awareness for this problem. This whole thing was a really cool experience, however, I felt very in-adequate. I felt very small compared to this large problem! What can I, a 25 year old female in Holland, MI do to help these kids in Uganda? Well, I have learned that I must do something because God calls us to care for the widows and the orphans. So, even though I feel small, what we did was important.

We are almost done with EDGE for this year. It will be nice to have a small break from it. Don't get me wrong, we love Youth Group, but a break will be nice too. Then we have the summer trip to Seattle...YEAH! It will be a great trip! I can't wait to see what God is going to do within the lives of the kids in our group! I think that's all for now...

Megan

Wow! God is awesome!

Wow! That's all we can say is wow! We had our garage sale today, and we made $1,600 in donations and sales for our adoption! God is good--all the time, all the time--God is good! This is such an affirmation to us! This is such a step of faith, but by this, God is telling us that He is behind us too, and that this is what He is calling us to do. We had a gorgeous day, a great neighborhood (thanks Walburgs :) and just an over-all good turn out today. We want to say a special thank you to all the people who donated, either monetarily or with items to sell :) We love you all! Your support means the world to us! We still ask for your prayers as we embrak on this journey!

An up-date on the adoption so far. Megan has had her physical, blood work and drug test (which she passed--suprise suprise j/k :). Daniel has his scheduled for this coming week. We both got finger-printed. Our referal letters have been sent out, and some returned. Once Laurie (our case-worker) gets those, she will call us for our "house-visit." This is making me a bit nervous. I know my house is clean, but is it good enough to pass an inspection??? We shall see. I think we will be ok though. Then, we will create a profile for birth-moms to look at, to decide if they want us to parent their child. This is where the waiting begins. It could go very fast, or it could take a year or so. Pray for patcience for us too, as we wait and also pray for the birthmom, that she may feel confident with her choice. Well, that's enough for now.

Thanks Thanks Thanks!
The Hellenthals

Sunday sermon

Well, I forgot to blog about this, but at church on Sunday, we heard an AWESOME sermon! George talked about the trial of Jesus, particularly the flogging of our Savior. He talked about how, in those days, there were usually two Roman soilders standing on either side of the victim taking turns flogging them. As the prophet Isaiah says, "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." (Isaiah 53) This means that the two "soilders" who were flogging Jesus was really ME and God! To listen to more of the sermon, go to our church website...http://www.hhcrc.org. I hope that you take the time to listen to it, and that it impacts you as much as it did Hefty and I! We love our church family, and our so blessed to be a part of HHCRC.

What's been going on....

Well, I figured that it was about time to blog again :) We recently re-painted our kitchen! It had an awful border, and so we thought it time to up-date it a bit. It's now a redish color and I really like it! We have been really busy getting stuff ready for our garage sale for our adoption! It's been such a blessing to see people donate things to us for us to sell for our adoption :) We really appreciate all the support and prayers for us about the adoption. This is something that we feel so passionate about! We are starting an Orphan Ministry at our church. It's sad to think that there are 6,000 orphans in MI alone! Well, let's see we offically turned in our application this Wednesday. It was kindda crazy to think that we are on our way to becoming parents. We are both so excited about it! We are both going to get finger-printed tomorrow. I have to get my blood-work done yet and Hefty has to have his physical yet, which is at the end of the month. We have a break from Youth Group this and next week since it's Spring Break. We are both busy working and doing stuff with church. We are getting a new website at church that I will be keeping up-dated. It's a little scary for me because I have never done anything w/ websites. I think once I get the hang of it, I'll be fine. I think that's about it for now.
Have a blessed week!

GARAGE SALE!

We are having a garage sale! All the proceeds go towards our adoption :) It's at 639 Sand Hollow Drive. There will be many more garage sales as this is the annual neighborhood sale. Please come out and help us get our baby!! If you have anything that you are willing to donate to the sale, please give us a call or send us an email...thanks!! Also, thanks for all your prayers of support for this!! We continue to ask for them as we endeavour on this journey together :) Thanks!

Adoption Update :)

Well, we met with Bethany Christian Services last week. In my opinion, they were awesome! I was so impressed with them! The lady that we met with (who would be our case-worker) has been working at Bethany for 9 years! She obviously knows what she is doing and has alot of experience doing what she does. She was nice, helpful and answered our questions as best as she could. She told us that given our ages, our openess to different ethnic groups and openess as far as the birth mother goes, it would be 9-12 months until we have a referal. After a birth-mom chooses us, the baby still isn't ours until 3 weeks after the baby is born and we go to court to sign the papers. We have all the beginning paperwork to fill out and we will have to get our medical exams done and our finger-prints complete. So, bathed in prayer, stepping out in faith, we are going to actually start this process. It is very scary, but exciting at the same time. I have no doubt that we will be good parents, but it will be very different with a baby. I am extremely excited to begin this adventure together. I have no doubt that it will bring us closer together as a couple and become more reliant on the Lord. We simply ask that everyone would keep us in your prayers. We want to be doing God's will. We are going to be doing a domestic infant adoption. We feel that there are so many babies in the states who need good moms and dads too! We will keep you posted as the journey continues and progressess!

Meanwhile, we have both been really busy. We have a big fund-raiser coming up for our Youth Group this weekend so that has been keeping us busy. It should be fun! We went to some friends from church for the Super Bowl. It was really fun! I got to babysit my "niece" (friends daughter) yesterday. It was so so fun! Lyvi was so good and it gave me even more baby fever :) Hefty has been doing a lot of subbing lately--which is good--the extra money is nice. I think that's about it.....
Hope you all have a good week :)
Megan

Life goes on....

Hello faithful readers (if there are any out there)-

Life around the Hellenthal household has been busy, yet relaxing at the some time. Megan has been working at both church and Family Fare, but has had a couple much needed days off of Family Fare as of late. I have been working full-time (praise the Lord!) and subbing a few days a week as well. It’s weird but every time I walk into a new class, on any given day, I am a little nervous. However, by 2nd hour (most of the time!) I usually have them whipped into shape and I am feeling better about the material the sub has left for me to teach. Subbing isn’t like what it use to be when I was in school. Subs use to just pop in a video and let the students watch it. That is not the case anymore. They have me teaching ratios, fractions, grammar, and all different stuff. Its fun though. I love it!

Youth Group has been busy for both Megan and I. Even though I haven’t been able to make it on Sunday night the last couple of weeks, I have been still doing stuff behind the scenes. Here is what has been going on: We are currently planning a 5 course meal and entertainment for an annual fundraiser we have each year. Its always a blast and we have amazing food, but we got a little bit of a late start this year. The theme is ‘Road Trip’ and Megan and another wonderful female leader, Amy, has totally taken over the planning of decorations, skits, singing, table decorations, ect. They both have been hard at work and keeping the kids on track. It should be an awesome time! At least we hope so! I have been in the starting phases of planning the auction fundraiser we are doing in late April. We are planning a much more simple dinner for the auction and I am starting to pull information together for the “roll out” of the auction announcements and advertising at church. On top of all the fundraising, we are also planning the mission trip we are going to this summer. We are heading out to the northwest corner of the United States to Seattle, Washington!!. We will be working with missionaries from Holland Heights, who also happen to be the two people that married Megan and I two summers ago. Everyone is super excited and pumped about the trip.

Megan and I are also in the beginning phases of the adoption process. We are planning on meeting with a couple different organizations this week and hope and pray that this will help us clear up some things and give us a better picture of how we can receive and nurture one of God’s amazing gifts. Please keep us in your prayers about this.

Other then that, we have been spending time together when neither one of us is working, spending time with our families and our friends. This past weekend was my brother Freddie’s birthday and we went to Crazy Horse with a bunch of his friends and had dinner. The food was awesome, as always, and the server was pretty awesome herself. Megan and I also went and saw Marley and Me at the movie theater that same day. It was a really good movie and we both really liked it. A lot of people were crying at the end, but I held my own and didn’t. Other then that, life rolls on…

I hope all the readers (the one or two of you out there) are having a great day and a great week. Stay warm!!

Hefty

New baby!

Welcome to the world Lucy! My step-brother and sister-in-law had their baby last night! She was only 5 lbs 14 oz. She was 3 weeks early! We went to see her today, what a cutie :-) She is doing well! Just thought I would share that information!

The weekend----

Wow! The weekend was just crazy for us! On Saturday, the 3rd, we both had to work at Family Fare. It was crazy busy! I am not sure why, but it was really busy! Then we quick ran home after work and changed out of our uniforms and went to Lyvi's (our god-daughter) birthday party/kicking chemo party :-) It was fun! She turned one! It was good to see her again. She has pretty sick w/ her hemangioma and she was done w/ chemo too--so what a reason to celebrate! Then, we went out for dinner at New Holland with our friends from CA. However, Jessica was really sick so only John came. I was alittle bummed b/c I wanted to hang out w/ her too, but, she was really, really sick! It was a late night that night. We then had church on Sunday morning.....(Hefty had to do PowerPoint). Our service was awesome! We had Betsy Turnbull, one of our missionaries. She and her husband Brian were the ones who married us. She gave us a GREAT message and I was really touched to hear some of the stories that she was telling us about their ministry in Seattle. We are taking our Youth Group there this summer to work w/ them so we met w/ her after church in the morning to discuss things about the trip. Then, I came home and had to get ready for Tracy's (my sister-in-law) baby shower. It went well and I am glad that I could do that for her. She got a lot of cute things :-) I can't wait for Lucy to come!!! Sunday night, I sat and relaxed. I watched the new Desperate Housewives and hung out. Hefty was working so I had the night to myself. The rest of the week has been pretty calm, just working really. Hefty has 5 nights this week so we don't get to see much of each other, which stinks. An up-date on our adoption quest: we are still praying and thinking about which agency to go through. I guess we are also praying that God would give us some peace about this. There are so many questions that come along w/ adoption! Anyhow, I think that's it for this week :-)
Have a spectacular weekend!
Megan