Super Exciting News!!

We are thrilled to announce that we have just accepted a referral (for those of you who don't know what a referral is, it is the information that our agency gives when they have a child/children ready to be adopted).

SO, we have accepted our referral! As you might know, our original request was for an infant (0-12 months) of either gender. God has BIGGER plans though!!

We have accepted a referral for an infant boy!!! Oh yeah, AND his TWO older sisters!! We have totally and completely fallen head over heals in love!!! Actually, we were in love the moment we saw their picture, and we both just had a feeling that they were supposed to be a part of our family! In God's perfect timing, He had us wait 6 weeks before we were able to find out if we could adopt them. I believe this waiting was so that we could really see God's direction and leading in our lives.

SO, I know that this probably leaves most of you wondering, 'what happens next?' Well, we have A LOT of paperwork that has to be updated, fingerprints to get done, another trip up to Sacramento to visit our state capitol:), etc. But, we are hesitantly optimistic that we MIGHT be able to travel towards the end of December. But, trying not to get our hopes up about that:).

In the meantime, we will be back in full fundraising mode:) as we try to come up with the extra needed expenses (more details to come:)

Fork in the road.

Sometimes life gets crazy. Right now is one of those times. Life is confusing as well. There are times we get all prepared for something and then something different comes our way. Right now is one of those times. We are at a fork in the road. We hear your voice God, but... which path are you calling from? We want to make the right decisions. We want to obediently follow where the Holy Spirit leads. We have been in continuous prayer seeking God's direction. We ask that you pray for us and with us as we choose the path that He has laid out for us.

It has been one year and things are changing!

It has been a little over a year now since we sent in our dossier to Ethiopia. We can't believe that it has been that long already. Initially that wait time was going to be 4-6 months. Well, I guess that one has changed.

However, we are at the top of the list now and we really should be hearing something soon. The last few weeks have been incredibly crazy for us. Since things have taken much longer than anticipated, we have to update a bunch of stuff. Primarily our home study has to be updated which means we needed to get fingerprinted again, get medical appointments again, sign more paperwork and have the social worker come out to our house once again and interview us. In this process of updating things though things are changing! We strongly feel like God has been asking us to open up our request.

Currently our request is for 0-12 months either gender. We are opening that way up to potentially include older kids as well and potentially a sibling set. We know! Isn't it crazy just bringing home another baby? Yes. Only God can give us what we are going to need when we are going to need it. We fully rest in Him and have peace in knowing how He loves us.

The funny thing about us now opening up our request is that we are now finally at the top of the list that we have been on for the last year. We truly don't know what God has planned for us. We do know that we want to be open to what He has in store for us. One thing that we have learned through all the miscarriages, London's adoption, and the timing of our other daughters births is that God wants to build our family the way that suites and glorifies Him. We have never really had much of a say in how we build our family. So why start now by limiting our request?

We don't really know what things are going to look like. We don't know where this road is going to really take us. We just know that we need to walk down it and follow our Father's footprints.

New update...We are still waiting:)

Malachi 3:10

Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.

Wow! God asks us to test Him to see if we can out-give Him. And He will pour down blessings on us. How incredible.

We continue to count our blessings, God is Good. We will continue to wait for God's perfect timing. We will continue to follow His lead wherever and whenever He chooses to take us. He will continue to pour our blessings on us. Over the years, we have come to realize that even in situations where we can't immediately see these blessings, we ALWAYS see them later.

Seven years ago yesterday was when God took our precious Isabella back to be with Him. She was never meant for this world, just to live in Heathers' belly for some time. It was hard at that time to see how that situation could possibly bless us. Now we see our three precious children growing up, and know that a fourth will be here soon, we SEE it. We have been blessed over and over again. We see the relationship that we have with our Heavenly Father and know that He used times like Isabella's death to draw us into complete dependence on Him.

Today we received an email stating that the wait times have once again been extended. We now have wait times of 10-20 months. (initially is was 4-6 months) Well, we just hit the 10 month mark, so maybe we have some ways to go. We are at the top of the list and are officially "On deck." However, we trust that God will use the waiting to continue to bless us.

$35,000!!!!!

As of today, we have hit our target goal of $35,000  for our adoption. The final $15 came in the form of a refund check that was totally unexpected and quite honestly showed a little of God's humor and complete control.  We have been counting down from $35k and listed each and every way that God provided something.  Heather initially said that we needed to come up with 350 ways to raise $100.  Well, that is just about what happened.  Our list of different ways is about 4 pages long.  Praise God!  

We do think that the total costs might prove to be a little higher than $35k but we have hit our initial target, just about 13 months after starting.  To cover the costs of increased airfare and such we are planning on having another veggie/bake sale this summer as well as one more garage sale. We just wanted to let everybody know where we stand.  Also, we think that we are number one or two on the list for an infant boy and 7 for an infant girl.  Maybe we will hear something this week, or next week, or the week after that.....

Thanks for praying. 

What is going on?

We have had a few people ask recently what is going on with our adoption.  We haven't posted anything recently about it because....(insert cricket sound here)....  we still wait.  We haven't really heard anything other than the process is taking longer than expected and things have significantly slowed down in Ethiopia.  Uhhhmmm yeah.  Initially when we started the process the wait time to receive a referral for a boy was 4-6 months and 7-9 months for a girl.  Well, we have been waiting on that referral since 9/3/10.  That makes it about 9 1/2 months.  When we had hit the 6 month mark the wait time changed to 5-7 months.  Then we hit the 7 month mark and the wait time changed to what it is now 7-11 months for both genders.  So we shall see.  It is comical really.  

We trust in God's perfect timing.  He has been giving us a tremendous amount of patience and we really have not been anxious about this.  We know that God already has a child picked out for us and he knows when we will be traveling over there.  We also new that going into international adoption that we must hold our expectations very loosely.  

Financially, God is good.  It has been amazing to see how he has provided for us throughout this last year.  When we started the process we thought that we were going to need to come up with $28K.  Well, due to changes in travel that quickly went up to $35K.  Through literally hundreds of different ways and different people, God has allowed us to come up with almost the entire amount in a years time.  What an amazing God!  We never would have thought it possible when we started.  If you are at all considering adopting I urge you to seek God on it, pray about it and ultimately if this is what God is calling you to do then you just need to jump in and trust that he is Jehovah Jirah.  We think that our costs might go a few thousand dollars  higher than we have been planning due to the increased costs of airfare.   Also, Capri turns two soon and we will have to pay for her now as well.  (We originally thought we might be over there and back before her birthday).  

We just wanted to update everybody on where we are at.  We will definitely let you know when we hear something.  

Do you believe in spiritual warfare??

Do you believe in spiritual warfare? It's not something that we talk about very often in the Christian community, but maybe it's something we should be.

We have a different sort of internet situation going on where we live. We can usually get on the internet, but first we have to turn on a mobile phone that sits plugged into our computer. Once this is turned on, we then have to select that phone as our internet connection. Then we wait a few minutes for the computer to recognize that we can get online. Then, we can usually proceed to surf the internet, although not always. Even though the computer always says we have full service, sometimes we can watch TV or watch a sermon, but other times, the internet is running too slowly to allow us to even log onto our e-mail much less watch anything streamed. {Sometimes I feel like we are in Africa}.

The other night, I came home feeling exhausted and defeated. I was discouraged and wondering if God was really speaking to me. Adam was working, so I went thru my usual routine of getting the girls to bed and then logging onto the computer. The first thing I did was log onto my e-mail account. I quickly looked through our email to make sure there was nothing that I needed to respond to. Then, I tried to log onto facebook. My computer kept searching for facebook for a couple minutes while I was busy putting things away. When I came back to the computer I got our standard message that said I was not connected to the internet (even though I was). Then I tried to click onto our yahoo account. Same thing. So, now I am seeing my evening getting fairly boring, as I am not going to be able to read blogs or watch TV. Then I think to myself, 'I couldn't even listen to a sermon if I wanted to.' And I proceed to think 'watch, that would probably be the one thing that I would be able to do.' So, I decide to give it a try. I clicked on Brook Hills website (a church in Burmingham Alabama that we enjoy listening to sermons through), and of course the website pops right up. So at this point I begin to get curious, I click to go back to yahoo and NOTHING. no internet connection. Facebook, NOTHING. no connection. Brook Hills, and the website pops right up. I found the Acts series and, wouldn't you know it, the sermon was exactly what I was feeling SO discouraged about.

Sometimes it's easy to dismiss these kinds of "coincidences" as just that: a coincidence. But, I believe that this was an act of God! He knew exactly what I needed that night. It's easy to let the world distract us into thinking that we need to live a certain lifestyle. But Christ has commanded us as believers to surrender everything, our whole lives to Him!

Yes! I most certainly believe in spiritual warfare. I believe that Satan sent me home discouraged, but that God won when I wasn't able to log onto anything on the internet except the very sermon that I needed to hear to encourage me!

Something that the pastor said in the sermon really hit home for me. He said, as followers of Christ, our whole purpose on earth is to spread the gospel to every tongue, tribe and nation! That's why we are here! That's why we haven't been taken up to Heaven immediately after proclaiming His name.

So I ask you, what are we going to do to carry this out??