Laughner's Journey to Ethiopia

This last Tuesday night, our home study agency once again asked us to do temporary foster care for them. We now have a 1 year old boy with us! He is a very big boy and I can certainly say that I am not used to carrying a 26 pound baby around! Boy are my arms and back sore... He is in the process of being placed up for domestic adoption. Please pray for him and his future, there are a lot of things up in the air right now. Please pray for his birth mom and his prospective adoptive parents!

How's your coffee stock doing? We're in the final stages of our adoption, expecting to travel to Ethiopia in October and again a month or two later. If you need coffee or have family or friends who appreciate good coffee, check out the link below. A portion of any coffee we sell goes to support our expenses. Neither Lori nor I are coffee drinkers, but we hear that the coffee is really good. Go to: http://www.justlovecoffee.com/laughners Thanks for your support. Tom

A gift from God (Our precious daughter holding her first doll from us) On July 19th, we received a referral for the sweetest almost 5 year old little girl! We are not allowed to post pictures until we pass court... You will just have to take our word that she is just precious! Please pray for her and her time that she will spend in the Transition Home (that our agency runs) until we can bring her home. We are praying that this week our agency will be able to secure us a court date for early Oct. The Ethiopian Courts close Aug. 6th until Sept. 28th. If they are not able to, we will have to wait until Oct. to get a court date. If we can get one scheduled this week, it will allow us to see our daughter earlier, cheaper flights, and make it a lot easier for planning purposes. The Ethiopian Courts close for the rainy season. As some of you remember we got caught in court closure last time with Daniel. We received our referral 2 years and 1 day after Daniel's referral! We have been very...

Earlier this week Tom received an e-mail from a local author/photographer. She is co-writing an adoption book. She met with us last night and photographed our family. She took family pictures, a picture of Daniel and Tom looking at a picture of Ethiopia, and a brothers picture (with Michael, Benjamin, and Daniel). She is hoping to use a couple of these pictures in the book. The deadline is August and the book should come out 6 months later. The book will be geared for children ages 4 to 7 years old! You can check the author out at http://www.shelleyrotner.com/ She has also written a book called SHADES OF PEOPLE! Showing that people come in all shades. It is like wrapping paper, it doesn't matter the shade is on the outside it is what is in the inside that counts! We will keep you updated as to when the adoption book is ready for purchase!

Our Dear Nieces Sammy and Josalyn set up a snack stand to help raise money to bring their new cousin home from Ethiopia. They raised $52.00. Thank you so much girls!

A while back AWAA America World, our adoption agency contacted our family asking to use a picture of our family to promote domestic adoptions in Ethiopia. We gave our permission and that was it, we did not hear anything more. Last week a friend of ours was in Ethiopia on a mission trip and took a picture of this poster hanging in Ethiopia and sent it to us... What a surprise to see our family photo on posters in Ethiopia. Thank you Caleb!!!

Last week on Monday afternoon we received a phone call asking us to be foster parents for about 2 weeks. We would need to pick up a preemie 4 lb. 9oz. 3 week old baby girl from the hospital the following morning. After talking it over, we decided that if this is where we were needed at this time we would do it! We picked up Baby Alana Tuesday morning. She had a visiting nurse on Friday, she weighed in at 4 lb. 10 1/2 oz. She had her first check up Monday (at 4 weeks old) she weighed in at 4 lb. 13 1/2 oz. She we will have another weigh in this Thursday. Please pray for her, her birth mother, prospective adoptive family, and our family as we give her the care she needs! Foster care, No this is not something that we signed up for or knew that we were cleared to do. With a completed home study with Wide Horizons For Children, they consider us able to foster care. When a need arises they turn to families with completed home studies and ask them to foster. So this call came as a big surpris...