April 12th, 2005 Update
This weekend we experienced first-hand that God still performs miracles for His people. We were blessed and truly amazed by how He orchestrated every detail of our garage sale fundraiser, including:
• An incredible location that brought in tons of shoppers. (Thanks to Rick and Niki Denton who arranged for us to use their Grandma’s yard!)
• Stopping rain storm three hours before the garage sale started, and then giving us beautiful weather all weekend long.
• Amazing friends and family who donated so many great items for us to sell. (Thanks to Lou & Betty, Kris & Wendy, Rick & Janet, Hal & Karin, Tom & Lisa and the entire Denton and Harris family.)
• Lots of strangers who came with money and left with new found treasures. Altogether we raised over $1,700. God is so good!
In other adoption news, we have officially gotten one step further toward bringing home our baby! On Friday, April 8th, we got the call from Kate at All God’s Children that our dossier is done being translated and has arrived at the Consulate in Kazakhstan. We were originally told that the translation process could take between six to eight weeks but ours was completed in just five weeks! Now that our documents are in Kazakhstan, they are being reviewed and approved by the Consulate and then will be sent to the Kazakhstan Department of Education (DOE).
The last step in our adoption process is gaining our Letter of Invitation (LOI), which is our approval to travel, from the DOE. Right now this whole process can take up to four months, so we are looking to travel to Kazakhstan some time this summer. Please be in prayer with us as we wait to gain our LOI from Kazakhstan and prepare to travel. We have been told that there are often delays in the processing of paperwork in Kazakhstan, so we are praying that our documents progress smoothly now that they are there. We are also praying that everything is processed quickly since traveling later in the summer will greatly affect both of our jobs, including Kevin’s student teaching.
Thank you for all of your continual prayers and support! We couldn’t do this without you!

April 15th, 2005 Update
We have great news…
We got a referral for a little BABY GIRL!
Her name is Aida and she is a 5 month old native Kazakh girl. Although we don’t have a picture or much medical information, we are told that she comes from one of the best orphanages in Kazakhstan. The case workers tell us that because of her Kazakh ethnicity, she will probably have a Euro-Asian complexion.
The only sad bit of news is that we can not travel at this time since all of our paperwork is not done being processed through the Consulate and the Dept. of Education. Unfortunately, this process could take up to four months. This means we need lots of prayer for the rapid processing of our paperwork so we can travel as soon as possible to bring Aida home!
The call with the good news came Thursday morning at 10:30 AM. All three of our case workers at All God’s Children got on the phone to tell Sarah that they had a child picked out for us. (They were so excited that they fought about who got to call us first; eventually they decided to do it together.) Luckily, Kevin was in-between classes at work and was also able to get the good news right away.
Because of the way the Kazakhstan government works right now, our referral is not 100% guaranteed. We have been told however, that Aida is “reserved” for us and that over 90% of Kazakh children who have been held for adoptive parents are actually adopted by them. Please pray that if it is the Lord’s will, Aida will be the girl we bring home.
Along with the referral, we also found out which orphanage we will be going to. The name of the orphanage is The Specialized Baby House and it is located in Astana; the capitol city of Kazakhstan (to see Astana on a map, just go to www.thelockwoodhome.com/adoption and click on “About the Country”). As we already mentioned, this orphanage is known as being one of the best in Kazakhstan. We have seen many pictures of it from other adoption websites and are confident that Aida is receiving the best care possible at this time.
Make sure to stop by our website as we are continually updating it with pictures of Astana and links to websites with other children who have been adopted from the same orphanage. We will also be sending regular updates as we get more news about Aida and the progress of our paperwork.
May God bless you as richly as He has been blessing us!