One step closer - First Fundraiser!

First and foremost, Merry Christmas to everyone from the Lawsons!

We have had a very blessed week so far!  Our home study paperwork came in the mail, which means we were able to submit our paperwork to US Immigration!  Please pray for expedience in this process, as our next step will be to submit our dossier to Ethiopia.  We are very excited, but are also reserved in the fact that our Little Lion Man may be spending Christmas alone, without his family.  We pray that we are soon connected and one less child is without a family.

We also celebrate the birth of our oldest tomorrow!  She will be 15, and is quickly maturing into a beautiful young lady.  We will soon be sending her off to college, which is a hard pill to swallow.  We have been blessed with her and look forward to many more years to come.

We would also like to announce our first adoption fundraiser.  We are quickly moving through the process and are trying to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to payments.  To help cover some of our upcoming cost we will be selling puzzle pieces and hope to have enough support to finish this 500 piece puzzle.

The cost of each puzzle piece is $10.  We will write the name of each person on the back of each puzzle piece and frame both sides in glass when complete.  We plan to hang this in his room so he can see all of the people who helped bring him home!

Anyone can help support this.  Buy one for yourself, one for each member of your family, one for a friend, one as a memory for someone, or if your broke go halfies with someone else who is broke!

There are a few ways to participate. Cash and check are accepted.  Make checks out to Erick and Laurie Lawson.

1. See Laurie or Erick and sign up in person.
2. Mail us your gift.  Cash or check. (Message us for our address if you need it.)
3. Donate to our church (see the fundraising tab on our blog), but make sure to label the gift as part of the Lawson puzzle fundraiser so we can get your name on the puzzle piece.

We also have extra participation sheets if anyone would like to sell some of our puzzle pieces for us!  All you have to do is have them sign the sheet and collect the money.  Please let us know if you would like a sheet.

We are so appreciative of those who have already given and praise God that he continues to provide.

If you have any questions please send us a message! 

Almost ready to send our paperwork to immigration!

Good Morning!

It has been a couple of weeks since our last post, but we have been very busy finishing up the last part of our home study, in preparation to send off our paperwork to immigration. Lord willing our paperwork will be sent out by the end of December and we should have our approval back in 90 days!

Our family has been preparing our hearts and mind for our upcoming addition, and we have been blessed in sharing our story. There is not a day that goes by, that we do not share our experience with someone. Most of these encounters are positive, but we still have our moments when people just do not understand why we are adopting, much less adopting from another country. Many individuals have expressed their concerns and asked how we are going to handle various situations, struggles, etc. Our simple answer is, we are going to have faith in our Lord! When we began this journey we had no clue what we were doing, or how we were even going to do it, but God has provided us those answers in ways we could never imagine. So we will continue to have faith and understand He is God through all and in all. 


Thanksgiving was a bittersweet day. Through all of the celebration of thanks, the wonderful time spent with family, we would be remiss if we did not take the opportunity to wonder if our little lion man was even being fed or tended to as we gorged ourselves in food and shopping without hesitation.

It is challenging not to wonder about these types of things, because they are real truths and issues, that we simply cannot turn our back on. We know that his day is coming and very soon we will be able to say we "Gotcha!"

We are beginning to feel the emotional roller coaster that comes along with the adoption process, but it is so worth it... Words cannot describe the feelings that each person in our house is experiencing.  Each of us has been doing whatever it takes to ensure our little lion man is brought home.  We are called to be selfish in our giving, and we have been blessed that our children also understand this calling.  Maddy celebrated her 11th birthday at the beginning of Thanksgiving week.  We will not even begin to allude to the thoughts of how old we are getting and how quickly our girls are growing up!  Anyway, Maddy was blessed with multiple presents and some spending cash for her birthday.  Most children would run away with their score, however Maddy
chose a different path and made us proud to be her parents.  As she counted her $11, she gave Laurie a crisp $5 bill.  When Laurie asked what it was for, Maddy simply responded, "put it towards our adoption."  Wow!  What a moment that every parent should experience.  The Lord has definitely infiltrated her heart.

As we begin December, we look forward to celebrating the birth of our other two girls, Ally and Gabby, but most importantly the birth of our Christ!  We have been blessed by both! Please continue to be in prayer for our family, but also be in prayer for other families who are going through this process, families who will be celebrating Christmas for the first time with their child, children who are still waiting on a family, children who have a family, but face difficult situations, and everyone is is experiencing hardships this holiday season. Pray that they recognize Christ as their Lord and Savior and place their burdens at His feet.