What I just overheard...

It's Sunday, after church. I am in the kitchen and Ella is watching Dora the Explorer in the living room. This is what I just overheard...

Dora-"Do you know where Santa lives?"

Ella-"umm, Africa!!"

Be still my heart...

Merry Christmas Sweet "M"

Merry Christmas precious baby girl. This is the last Christmas that you will not be with us. We can not wait for you to be home with us forever. Please know that we love and miss you more than you can possibly know. We are so blessed to be able to celebrate this Christmas with you in our hearts and knowing who you are. You will be home so soon and the 3 of us anxiously await you!! I know you are wrapped with love from the Holy Spirit this Christmas so we are not sad or worried about you. You are in the best hands and soon He will trust us to take care of you, love you, be your mommy, daddy and sister. We are so blessed. Blessed in a way that I have never known before. We can not wait to get to know you and shower you with love and hugs and kissses. We can't wait to talk to you about Jesus and what he has done for all of us during this past year, how He brought us four together.

Here is a a song and video about international adoption, it hit home with what we are feeling during this time. The song is "Merry Christmas" by Third Day.  You can stop the music on the playlist on the bottom of this page before playing the video.

SHOTS and OUCH!!!

We needed several vaccinations in order to travel to Africa so we went Monday and got almost all of them. We used this AWESOME ministry that does travel vaccinations at cost. It saved us a LOT of money and they were wonderful!! If you are in the Nashville area and need travel immunizations we highly recommend these wonderful people.

The group is The Global Outreach Clinic.

Here's the link:

http://www.globaloutreachclinic.org

new pictures!!

The music night at Ugly Mugs went great!! Thanks to all of you who came out to support us! We had a great night.

We got 5 new pictures of "M" yesterday!! It is so exciting to get new pictures and updates. We are so excited and ready to get her home and live our lives together.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support. It really means so much to us.
The Morgan 4

UGLY MUGS

We are rounding the bend on our fundraising to get to Ethiopia and get our daughter. With Christmas just around the corner, what better time to purchase "Noel", the acoustic Christmas cd we are selling as our adoption fundraiser. It's just $10 and that includes shipping! Great for all your holiday gift needs!! ...stocking stuffer, gift exchange, the perfect item for that person who has it all, etc. It is a beautiful cd! We have been playing it in the house and it's really putting us in the Christmas spirit! I love this time of year for so many reasons (but that's a whole other post;))

And for part 2 of this post...Ugly Mugs is the best coffee you've probably never had. Our dear friends own Ugly Mugs Coffee and Tea. They opened about 4 months ago. Ty is playing a show there on Saturday, November 22 from 6-7 pm. Ugly Mugs is donating a portion of their sales for the ENTIRE DAY on Saturday, November 22!! So come out, enjoy some wonderful coffee, great company and live music. http://uglymugsnashville.typepad.com/ (you can read more here)

Thank you so much for your love and support during this amazing ride we are on!!

We are waiting for medicals and then we will be in line for a court date!!

We got more pictures!!

We got 4 new pictures of "M" today. (we can't tell you her name so for now we'll just call her "M") It is so helpful to see more pictures of her. We've only known about her for 2 weeks but any and every update is so precious to us.

Now that we have a name and pictures, all of the prayers, love, finances, time spent hanging out at our garage sales, etc. mean even more to us because now we know exactly who it has all been about!

Thank you so much!!

ps we really wish we could show you her pictures!! She is amazing!!

IT"S A GIRL

On Wednesday we got one of the most exciting phone calls of our lifetime. We got our referral and have already sent back our acceptance paper work for a beautiful, healthy 20 month old baby girl. She is in Ethiopia, Africa. We can not take our eyes off of her pictures (we have 2 of her). Until she is legally ours we can not share pictures with you. We really wish we could but this is to protect her privacy. When we showed Ella her picture, she said, "look Momma, that girl pretty". She has amazing eyes. We can already tell so much about her just by looking into her eyes. Her little nose looks like Ty's and her ears stick out a tiny bit like Casey's.

The next few weeks will consist of us finding out our court date and then we will travel about a month after that. We are hoping this will be early next year.

Also, we wanted to let you know that we have a new fundraiser to help us with the remainder of our adoption expenses. It's an instrumental Christmas CD because it is that time of year! It would make a great gift!! You can get yours by clicking on the yellow "BUY NOW" button on the top right of this page. A portion of the proceeds will go to help with our adoption finances.

Thank you all so much for your support in every way.

sucessful sale!

Our 2nd garage sale was a hit! We had a lot of people and terrific weather! We are happy to have our garage back after it being packed full for 6 months!!



oh.. and we are on week 17 of waiting for a referral...no news! But don't worry...you'll be the 1st to know!

my heart sinks

Everytime the phone rings during business hours...MY HEART SINKS. I so want to hear some news about a referral!!

Another Big Garage Sale

To all of you locals...we are having another BIG garage sale on Saturday, September 27 starting at 7:00 AM. Feel free to stop by and shop or help us organize. The last sale was great and we couldn't have done it without all of the friends and strangers that helped us oraganize the endless amount of stuff we had to sell. Another way to help would be to donate some baked goods to sale. Please, no pressure! If you are interested in helping pleas e-mail us at caseyrmorgan@hotmail.com

Also, please forward this info to all of your local friends that like to shop at garage sales!!

9-27-08 @ 7:00 AM

Nesting

So we have officially been waiting for 3 months now. I have been nesting lately...starting to get our daughter's room cleaned out.  It has actually been fun because I just can't wait to see her in her room!!  We have been busy with Ella and normal summer stuff but we are really ready to get some news on our African daughter!!  

Happy Fall!!

Our Daughter's Song

I wanted to share the song that Ty wrote for our daughter in Africa. You can hear by going to
www.myspace.com/tyrusmorgan

"My Love Won't Walk Away" it's the 1st song-just click on it

This is an earlier post from Ty about the song...

I (Ty) wrote a song when Casey was pregnant with Ella about the potential/dreams for Ella and where her "Little Shoes" may go some day. I seem to be inspired during that "pregnancy" period whether it's biological or not and was struck by the feelings of abandonment that many orphans have at some point in their lives and how I don't want our children, any of them, to ever worry or wonder about losing mine or Casey's love and wanted to express it through music. I began writing the song and had titled it "MY LOVE WON'T WALK AWAY". I then stumbled upon Isaiah 54 in "The Message" translation of The Bible and the verse that God says, "MY LOVE WON'T WALK AWAY". I have finished this song and look forward to recording it soon to be a message to my kids and a reminder of God's love for us.

---now it's recorded!

Thanks and enjoy!
Casey

education

Please educate yourself on this issue. It is EXTREMELY important

BBC News- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7429594.stm

IMC- http://imcworldwide.org/content/media/detail/1798/?gclid=CJa1_Z7isZQCFRghnAodF3M_iA

Seeing Africa

Casey here--Ok...so it happened once and I wasn't going to tell you about it and now it just happened again so I have to tell you...

The other day I was putting shampoo in my hand to then put it in my hair and I looked down and it was in the shape of Africa!

Well, just now I got a water spot on my dress and guess what...yeah, you're right-it was in the shape of AFRICA!

I guess because a big piece of my heart is there and it is always on my mind!

Keep an eye out, you just might see it, too. Let me know if you do!

We are now on week 3 of waiting for a referral. After running around for 3 months like crazy people... getting fingerprinted, gathering every speck of info (i.e. birth cert., marriage cert, vitals) available on us, having a HUGE yard sale (that we are still recovering from physically), having our home inspected...it is time to sit still and wait! It feels a little strange, I must say. People ask us all the time, "What's going on with the adoption?". Well, not much that we can see. The next thing that will happen on our side is we will get a referral with pictures and info about our child. That should be 3.25 to 5.25 more months! yes the .25 is to ephasize we have already waited our .75 months.

Let me share a few stats about Ethiopia for those of you that haven't heard of the country since "We are the World" came out in the eighties.

*Ethiopia is twice the size of Texas

*it has a population of about 75 million people

*there are approx. FIVE MILLION orphans in Ethiopia

*the average income is $500/YEAR

*One in six children die before their fifth birthday

*One in ten children die before their first birthday

*Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school; 88% will never attend secondary school

*Only 24% of households have access to safe drinking water

*Ethiopia’s doctor to children ratio is 1 to 24,000

Waiting/phone numbers

We realize that at this point, with our Dossier turned in, checks written, and in-between garage sales that we are in wait mode.  So we thought we would continue to update the blog with thoughts, statistics, questions, some random and some more relevant.

To kick this off I wanted to pose a question and allow our loyal blog readers (all 3 of you) to comment.  

Here goes....

So I think I am fairly with the times, I have a Myspace account with a slide show, I send and receive text messages, I do worktapes to the songs I write on Garageband, for goodness sakes I BLOG!  A trend that is rearing it's ugly head that at first I thought was just an anomaly, I have now confirmed nearly a half dozen times.  What is this "new age" craziness that Ty is talking about you may ask.....the 3-4-3 verbalization of a ten digit phone number.  In other words, I am hearing people, mostly younger than me, tell phone number like this:"yeah just give me a call on my cell, the number is 555-5555-555......WHAT!  I don't know where or how these younguns were raised but I have always thought the proper way to tell a phone number was with the 3 digit area code, 3 digit prefix.....followed by a polite pause and then the 4 digits that represent the personal number, I actually have even taken pride in what those 4 numbers were before.

Oh well, I guess American Idol call in numbers have maybe caused this cultural shift in phone number delivery.  I will just have to learn to understand and decipher these numbers without the correct pause placement.  The next thing you know people will stop saying www. before telling a web-site to go check out.  Well, surely not....

Thanks,

Ty (Andy Rooney) Morgan

And it's off!!!

And it's off!!! Ella sealed it with a kiss. Our dossier is totally finished and on it's way to Washington DC. It has two stops there, one in North Carolina and then to ETHIOPIA!! I have had butterflies of excitement all day!! Ella prayed to her sister in the truck driving to the UPS store.. it was so sweet. They are going to be best friends!!
The next step,you ask....? Wait 2-5 months for a referral.

WOW... THAT WAS FAST

Our dossier has been approved by our agency! What we thought would take 10 business days to process took only 2!! They said it looks great!! Yoohooo!! Our dossier is on it's way back to us and will be sent to Washington DC hopefully late this week!!! Can you tell by all of the "!!!" we are a tad bit excited about how quickly things are progressing!!!

DOSSIER DONE

This is our wonderful friend and notary extraordinaire, Katie. Here she is notarizing our letter to Ethiopia requesting a child for adoption.

On Thursday two copies of our dossier (the collection of papers, forms, etc.) were sent to our agency. They will take about one week to process it and then send it back to us. From there it will go to Washington D.C. to the Sec. of States office and then to the Ethiopian embassy. Next it will go back to our agency in N.C. and then it's on it's way to the precious land of ETHIOPIA, AFRICA!! I had no idea how good it would feel to get it out the door!! If you are reading this because you too are adopting, have adopted or are considering it then you understand the excitement of this day.

Let me also share another amazing God story that happened this week. We needed to send a rather large amount of $ this week with our dossier and we were getting pretty close to what we needed. We were given a finacial gift this week that got us to the goal we needed almost to the exact dollar!! And the giver had no idea that amount we needed. What keeps ringing in my heart is "Give us this day, our daily bread". It has been an honor to be inolved in what God is doing all around us!!

Garage Sale

This past Friday and Saturday we had our big garage sale and it was, in a word, amazing! It was hard work, we are just now feeling like we are rested from the 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. two days with moving furniture, arranging clothes and unloading and reloading the garage. We still have about half a garage full of items and offers for more donations for us to sell so we will probably have another one later this summer.

Now, what was so amazing? The people, support and love that we experienced through simple gestures of kindness. We had numerous friends and acquaintances donate items to sell and time and effort working, organizing, and just being around us over the two days. TO YOU ALL WE SAY THANK YOU!

To those of you who donated money to bring this little girl home THANK YOU! We are amazed by those that gave that barely have anything to give and those that gave that don't know us, but know our heart and those that gave because they understand the feeling of being blessed just by the act of giving.

We have to tell you about the woman that walked up to Casey and introduced her son. The son then said that he was from Russia and the mom explained that she and her husband had adopted him a few years earlier and she just wanted to stop by and tell us that she supports what we are doing. She then handed Casey a tightly rolled white piece of paper (in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the busy time of the sale) and then quickly walked off. Casey said thank you and proceeded to help some other people with their purchases and when she had a quick break in the action she went inside. She opened the rolled up paper and read the simple, perfect note, "May God bless your adoption". No name, no number....$200 cash.

THANK YOU, WE WOULD LOVE TO TELL YOU AGAIN IN PERSON, THANK YOU.

The money is much appreciated as is the donated items, but the relational support and time spent talking about the world's problems and nothing at all was the best part.

Please enjoy a few photos from the sale!

Friends helping (I think Arica is trying to shoplift something)
Ty hanging out with the kids
"No, maam, she is not for sale but you can have a doll for only $.25"
Ty and Arica ready to start the morning off

Our friend Renee modeling the merchandise
Our table with coffee for sale and pictures of African children

Ty and Steve moving stuff to the yard

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

Happy Mother's Day!

We have had a wonderful weekend of preparation/hard work/fun while getting ready for our Ethiopian Adoption Garage Sale Fundraiser. Thank you to everyone that has donated items for us to sell next weekend! We did a lot of organizing, pricing, and logistics so that our 5 a.m. start to next Friday and Saturday will go as smoothly as possible. Our garage is full of items which has been tough on me (being the handy man, workshop type of guy I am.......mmmghmm) to get the lawnmower in and out once a week! HA!

Today for Mother's Day we went to church and then came home and had a picnic, complete with basket and french onion dip in our living room as we are having Kansas winds here in Tennessee and we didn't want to blow away. It was a great lunch. Casey got two bouquets of flowers, one from each of her daughters as well as an afternoon watching the movie "Bella" with her adoring husband while Ella Bean took a nap. By the way, go rent "Bella" it is a great movie and fitting for mother's day etc. Check out the pic of Ella with her mom's flowers.

We ask for continued prayer as we are wrapping up paper work and raising funds to get our baby home soon!

BIOMETRICS

Wanted to let everyone know we had our 3rd and final homestudy interview last week and it went great!  Our social worker came to our house and took a tour, asked some questions and visited with Ella.  Ella was quite the charmer coloring pictures and hugging her!  Today we went and got our biometrics (finger prints etc.) done in Nashville.  Both of these are major milestones as they are key pieces of the adoption dossier.  While getting our fingerprints done today Casey got teary eyed. (there wasn't any ink, just a digital finger printing machine so it wasn't like she got it in her eye)  It really set in that this process is moving right along and we are continually pushing so that we can get our little girl home asap.  We are doing our part to give us the best chance of getting her home by the holidays (originally we thought the earliest would be February of next year), that's what we are praying for, feel free to join in!

the 1/2 marathon

The race was great and thank you all so much for your prayers that morning. I would love to know what kind of day our African child had that day. I imagine it was peaceful and fulfilling!

My time was 2 hours 15 minutes. Even though that's not my p.r. I was pleased with the finish because it was better than I expected. Ty and Ella cheered me on along the way as they always do! Ella wore her hot pink running shorts and white shirt just like Mommy! I was so excited to get to the finish line because they always have yummy snacks waiting for you there. I was totally prepared to eat a guilt-free Krispy Kreme! Well-there were none to be found! But don't worry, later I over did it on the chips and salsa! YUMMY!

Thank you again!
Casey

RUNNING FOR HER

From Casey:

If you know me, you know that I am a runner. I have been running for about 10 years. For the last 6 years I have done at least one full(26.2 miles) or half (13.1 miles) marathon each year. I love running!! I think a lot during my runs, it's a very peaceful time for me. This year most of my training runs have been spent thinking about adoption. When I started this training season in January, adoption was something I would dream about. It has now become an exciting reality! I think about Africa and our daughter over there the whole time I'm running!

Tomorrow, April 26th, I will be running the Music City Half Marathon in Nashville. The race starts at 7am. It should take me about 2 hours to run the race . Ty and Ella will be there cheering me on along the way.--- And this is where you come in. We are asking that during that time, you pray for our African daughter and our entire adoption process. And just whatever you feel led to pray about. We have witnessed the power of prayer in our lives and want this entire situation to be powered by prayer.

So... PLEASE PRAY APRIL 26TH 7-9AM


Ella and I made this shirt for me to wear during the race!!

Thank you in advance for your prayers.

The Morgan 4

ADOPTION UPDATE AND THANKS

Things are going great...we are just up to our necks in paperwork. But I am thankful for this because I feel like there is something we can be doing. Ella is excited for her little sister and prays for her everyday. Many have asked which adoption agency we are using and it is Christian World Adoption. As of today, they are our official agency. That's also very exciting!! Other than that there is not too much to report.

We want to sincerely thank you for you love, support, prayers and financial support.

Many of you have ordered coffee or sent money and that is greatly appreciated. We hope you love the coffee!! We will be doing that fundraiser during this entire process so feel free to order more in the future.

OUR ADOPTION FUNDRAISER

One of my favorite things about adopting is that we get to receive the blessing of a new child and I don't have to stop drinking coffee!! As a mother of an almost 2 year old, my coffee is very important to me. Ty says I'm addicted. I tell him, "No, I just love it". Well, truth is, it's a little of both. I know most of you love coffee, too and now I'll get to the point of this blog...

I'm sure most of you know that international adoption is very costly. We are trying to get creative with ways to raise funds to help with the costs.

We are proud to announce we have teamed up with an amazing company, 963 Missions, for our adoption fundraiser. The 963 Coffee Project helps farmers receive fair wage for their crop and helps people raise funds for their mission by doing a coffee fundraiser.

We have tried their product and it is AMAZING. It is very fresh and ORGANIC! The coffee comes from all over the world and is then roasted in California and sent to you within a week of roasting. You really can taste the difference in the freshness!

To order you can click on the link on the right of this page that says 963 Coffee under OUR ADOPTION FUNDRAISER. We will receive a portion of your purchase that will go towards our adoption.

• Just be sure you get there by clicking that link. The last numbers in your address bar should be 10226 when you click on the link. This is our affiliate ID #. This is how they will know that we receive a portion of your purchase. I was told shipping may be a little cheaper if you have it sent to a business. Also, ordering more than one bag at a time helps off-set shipping costs. And while your at it, order some for a friend, too. The packaging has some wonderful pictures and would make a great gift!! Trust me, it's great stuff. If you don't mind send me an email if you do order this way just so we know that it's all connected correctly. caseyrmorgan@hotmail.com

• You can also order directly from us if you live close by and we will deliver it to you. The price for the coffee will be $10 per bag and $2 shipping for your total order. If that is what you want to do then please email me your order at caseyrmorgan@hotmail.com

So why not get yourself some awesome coffee, help a coffee farmer and help us with OUR ADOPTION FUNDRAISER!!!

If you have any questions just post them as a comment or you can email us directly at caseyrmorgan@hotmail.com

Thank you for your support!!

HOME AND ABROAD....

We completed our 1st of 3 home study meetings this past Friday and it went great! We really like our social worker for her candor, knowledge and care for us and our child. Which brings up a profound and simple truth that was brought to our attention by a good friend of ours that has gone through this process before.....OUR CHILD IS OUT THERE, NOW WE JUST NEED TO GO GET HER!

By the way we are requesting a girl, from Ethiopia, Africa! All this while knowing we need to be flexible and sensitive to the path as we walk down it. Why a girl? Why Ethiopia?.......why not?

Ethiopia is one of the few stable countries in Africa with a government that understands the need and the duty to help the 5 million orphans left in the streets and orphanages by disease, hunger and extreme poverty. God has called us specifically to the adoption ministry and we don't want to sit idle while others experience correctable famine, sickness, suffering, loneliness, and tears, all too often the case in Africa. Ethiopia has one of the highest rates of FGM (Female Genitalia Mutilation) mostly due to tribal rituals, in the world. Not to mention the oppression of women and the lack of opportunity for orphaned girls based on cultural views and practices. Again, if this path leads elsewhere we are open but this is where we stand right now.

Ella has made it a practice of saying "sister, sister" lately so we are excited to see her as the loving sister just as she is the loving daughter at 22 months old. Her newest and favorite book for right now couldn't have been more ironic. It was sent to us from the organization "Imagination Library", we just say "Dolly Parton sent us another book!" Random books come once a month for free and this one was called "Big Sister, Little Sister" and it came the day of our home study! Ha!

I (Ty) wrote a song when Casey was pregnant with Ella about the potential/dreams for Ella and where her "Little Shoes" may go some day. I seem to be inspired during that "pregnancy" period whether it's biological or not and was struck by the feelings of abandonment that many orphans have at some point in their lives and how I don't want our children, any of them, to ever worry or wonder about losing mine or Casey's love and wanted to express it through music. I began writing the song and had titled it "MY LOVE WON'T WALK AWAY". I then stumbled upon Isaiah 54 in "The Message" translation of The Bible and the verse that God says, "MY LOVE WON'T WALK AWAY". I have finished this song and look forward to recording it soon to be a message to my kids and a reminder of God's love for us.

We are beginning our journey to go get our baby!

We ask for your prayers at

HOME AND ABROAD!

The Morgan 4

BABY ON THE WAY!!

Friends and family,

We are pleased to announce that "the Morgan 3" consisting of Ty, Casey, and Ella have begun the process of adoption!!  We can describe our emotions and state of mind and spirit as a painter's pallet of colors.  Excited, anxious, dedicated, motherly, fatherly, submissive, led, inspired, thankful, and most of all Sure!  

We have already begun to learn that their is very little that we can control in the adoption process other than our end of the paper work which is a time-consuming/robust process that we are just beginning.  What we do know is we want to help, we can help and our hearts are led to Africa (we'll get into more about this blessed/cursed continent in following blogs).  We have researched a handful of countries in Africa and with the unrest/wars/corruption etc. have narrowed it down to a couple possibilities with Ethiopia being the front-runner.  

We will be recording this process through this blog so please check back periodically.  We welcome your prayers throughout this journey for us and especially for our.....

BABY ON THE WAY!

The Morgan Four