Just one step closer

So this week our home study and paperwork were sent to the orphanage in Taiwan! We are waiting for the approval of our paperwork, and then we will be added to the waiting list. So to all of my adoptive families who I have prayed for during their waiting period, I will now know first hand what that waiting period looks like!
Last night I tried making my first Asian meal. It was basil curry chicken with egg rolls. We have a woman in our church who was selling homemade egg rolls to fund her mission's trip, so those were not mine.  The meal turned out well. I think I could just live off of white rice! Next time I will need to add some naan with it.  I know that technically naan is Indian, but it is just so good with the curry flavor and rice!
Next I need to start learning Chinese! Thank you everyone for your support!

Taiwan... my heart breaks for your babies!

I was just doing some research for one of my adoptive families regarding Taiwan. As I was doing some research I came across some astounding facts and figures.
In 2010, approximately 166,000 babies were born in Taiwan... one of the lowest per-capita birth rates in the world. . In contrast, the Taiwanese director-general of the Bureau of Health Promotion stated that roughly 240,000 legal abortions are performed each year. So that number doesn't even include the number of abortions that are not performed in a clinic or hospital. Statistics state that 90 percent of unmarried women who become pregnant will abort their child. This just breaks my heart!
As most of you know, the Taiwanese adoption laws were recently changed this year. One of the changes that was made was for a larger emphasis on domestic adoptions in Taiwan, and the government of Taiwan is doing their best to change the adoption system in Taiwan to encourage Taiwanese families to adopt. I am so encouraged to know that the government is trying to promote adoption, and advocate for these children.
I am so grateful for the orphanage that we are adopting from, The Home of God's Love, and the amazing work they are doing to encourage adoption and finding homes for children!
As you go about your day today, please take a moment to pray for the country of Taiwan, and as you do please also pray for our child's birthmother, wherever she is, and the difficult decision that she is making on whether or not to abort her child. God bless her for the amazing woman that she is!

Cutest kids ever!!!

So it's one of those days again... where I just like to look at pictures of Taiwanese children and dream about my own child and what they will look like, what sports they will enjoy, what their favorite bedtime story will be, etc. Enjoy!!

What is that smell?...

It's the smell of us being one step closer to bringing home our baby!! And you can help!

Come to the Gocke home for an afternoon of fun, food, and good smells! Emily Wells will be selling Scentsy, and she is donating her proceeds to our adoption process! Get some Christmas or personal shopping done, with the proceeds going to support our adoption of Hokey Pokey Gocke from Taiwan!

The party will be on October 13th from 2:00-4:00 pm. The party is an open house style, so feel free to stop by anytime! There will be some great Italian favors for you to take home with you! 

Men... it might sound girly, but stop by and pick your wife, mom, sister out a nice gift for Christmas... she'll love it

. And I'll have good food for you to eat too!

If you can't make the party (OR IF YOU DON'T LIVE IN THE AREA), you can go to Emily Wells website, and order from her website. Just select the Hokey Pokey Gocke Fundraiser party, and the proceeds will still go to our adoption. Her website is:
http://emilywells.scentsy.us/

If you have any questions, feel free to email me at mariagocke@yahoo.com or call at 217-898-1158.

Thank you everyone for your support and helping us bring home our little baby!  

On Top of Spaghetti...

Do you remember all of the lyrics to that song?  In our home growing up, every Sunday we had spaghetti with homemade sauce and meatballs for dinner after church. That is not an exaggeration... literally every Sunday! I have such fond memories of sitting around the dinner table and singing On Top of Spaghetti with my brothers.
What do you eat on top of your spaghetti? If your answer is Ragu or Prego or Classico, that is the wrong answer! You don't even know how good spaghetti actually is until you've had Rosetta Maria Pisano's recipe for homemade sauce on your spaghetti (Props to you Grandma Rose)! Fortunately, you don't have to travel to Pittsburgh and wait the seven hours that it takes to make the sauce in order to have the true Italian experience. Over the last 16 years, I have perfected the art of both making the sauce and canning the sauce. And in order to help raise funds for our adoption, we are selling Mamaria's homemade sauce! It's only $5 per jar or $30 for an entire batch (seven jars).
So message me, email me (mariagocke@yahoo.com), text me, call me (217-898-1158)... however you want to get ahold of me... and order your sauce. But here's a warning... you won't be able to go back to the sauce sold in stores after you've had it! So beware!!
Thanks everyone!

Skymiles galore!

So now that we have officially switched back to adopting from Taiwan, things are very exciting! Here is what the process is looking like for us.

Our first step was to update our home study. Our social worker had to transfer our home study from a domestic home study to an international home study. The requirements for the two are very different. Our social worker was wonderful and in under two weeks pretty much has that completed! Next our home study will go to the state of Illinois for approval. This makes me nervous because there is only one lady that approves international home studies, so I work with her quite often. Now she will know everything that there is to know about me. Oh well... I have no secrets (except for that one time... J/K). The state typically takes about 2 weeks to approve the home study.

Then I will send the home study to our placement case worker with The Home of God's Love. She will send it, along with our references, on to Ted and Bev, who run The Home of God's Love in Taiwan. Once we are approved by Ted and Bev, then we will officially be placed on the waiting list for a child.

Eventually we will be matched with a child! We are open to either gender, and hoping to receive a child under the age of 12 months. Once we are matched, we wait while legal paperwork is filed for us. Then we are assigned a court date. When we know our court date, we buy our plane tickets to travel to Taiwan for the first time. We will be there for about a week, and get to spend time with our little Hokey Pokey Gocke. Then, and this is the hard part, we will have to leave our little one and come back to the U.S. for 4-8 weeks while all the other paperwork is handled. Then we will finally be able to go to Taiwan and pick up Hokey Pokey and bring him/her home with us!

So that is what we are looking at. Two long trips to Taiwan... that's a lot of skymiles! We'll have to save them up for our next adoption! Hopefully that explains the process somewhat, and gives everyone an idea of what we are looking at during this process. We can't wait to bring our little one home!