He Will Provide

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

1 John 5:14

When Brandon and I started this journey we knew we were being asked to take a big step out in faith and believe God for the outcome.

We knew we were supposed to be adopting a child but we did not know how we would pay for the process. One of the most common responses we get when we tell people we are adopting internationally is that they could never afford to do the same.

My response is always...Neither can we.

International adoption is expensive. I plan to further break down what each dollar is going to in another post. There are a couple reasons I plan to do that. One, we are asking others to help us bring our child home and when we are fundraising I feel like it is very important to be transparent. Also, it might just be my Type A personality but I like to see things getting crossed of a list and goals met so it will also help you see what we have already paid for and what costs we still have coming up. Two, it will help to dispel the myth that one person is receiving all that money. It seems to me that people envision that we are giving our agency $40,000 in exchange for a child and that is simply not the case. The money is going to many different agencies, government offices, institutions, and people for their services.

Anyway, back to this blog post. We started this process back in January with the money for our home study and our first set of agency fees needed. We did not however have the second agency fees or travel money on hand. Brandon and I had waited and prayed for God to lead when we started the process. We felt God calling us to adopt back when I was pregnant with Benjamin but because many agencies require your youngest child to be at least a year old we waited for that milestone. We waited because all the money wasn't there. We waited because there was talk of Ethiopia shutting down to international adoptions.

We finally realized God was asking us to step out in spite of all those things. He was asking us to trust Him for the finances. He was asking us to trust that Ethiopia would remain open and that if it didn't that He would still be in control. For two people who like to plan and have safety nets this was a little scary. 

What if we submitted our paperwork and Ethiopia shut down? What if we got to the end of our money and we didn't have the amount needed to finish? What if we were not prepared enough?

You know the great thing? God isn't asking us to do this in our own strength, wisdom, or financial ability.

He is simply asking us to trust Him to be everything we need. Throughout this process we have had Godly friends encourage us when we were at our weakest. Fellow adoptive parents share words of wisdom when needed. So many others share in the financial burden of this process. 

We have had people we don't even talk to on a regular basis tell us "for some reason" they wanted to give to help us bring our child home. We know it is not just some reason. We know when God calls us to do something

HE. WILL. PROVIDE.

With that being said we had a dear and generous friend contact us today with the offer of a matching donation. Here is how it will work...

Any donation you make over the next 3 weeks(by July 24th) will be matched dollar for dollar up to $1,500!!!!!!!

You can private message me or comment below with the amount you would like to donate

or just use our Paypal button on this blog and put ***MATCH***

in the comment section.

Any amount that has been given small or large has been a blessing to us on this journey.

However if you would like your donation to go twice as far now is the time to give!!!!

We are trusting God to provide the remaining money needed through our friends. We are so thankful for friends that are obedient to what the Lord asks them to do.

God is Good!!!

The Dossier is done!!!

Those of you that have asked how the adoption process is going lately have likely received one of three responses from us. 

1) a huge rant on how much easier the adoption process would be if people could fill out a form right the first time. 

2) A big sigh followed up by a generic answer about how we are STILL working on the paperwork part of the process. 

3) Tears... because I cannot put into words that we are not any closer than the last time you asked.

But all of that changed today...

Today, we mailed our dossier to our agency which means that the mounds of paperwork and forms we have been working on are behind us. Of course we will still have some more paperwork to fill out but the months of filling out form after form and being consumed by our dossier checklist are over. 

It was a feeling of relief to be done and a feeling of nervousness to be letting go of something that we have been working on for so long. 

(I may or may not have had a mini panic attack when the lady behind the FedEx counter asked me how much I wanted to insure the package for in case it was lost or damaged in transit.)

The bottom line is we are excited to be entering this next phase of our journey. The next step is to officially accept a referral!!!

We do not know how long this part of our process will take but we know God does. We are looking forward to the day He reveals that part of His plan to us. 

We are asking that you would join us in praying over our dossier. Please pray that all the forms will include everything needed and that we will not need revisions. Pray that it will find favor in the hands of those processing it. Ultimately, pray that it will find its way to Ethiopia in God's timing. We know He has been providing for us this far into the journey and we know He will continue to do so. 

As always please continue to pray for the child that God intends to bring into our family. 

We are thankful to know that God has created this child and is more than able to provide care and protection for him.

God is Good!!!

My First Mother's Day As A Waiting Mom

I have honestly been dreading this day for a couple weeks. Not because I am not a mom already but because I knew one of my kiddos would not be waking me up with kisses and making me crafts in Sunday school. I knew I would not be hugging one of my children today and telling them how glad I was that God chose me to be their mommy.

It is hard...this wait...some days are harder than others.

I don't know why. It makes absolutely no sense. It is just another day.

Still days like today tend to make my heart ache more than others.

A little over a week ago I could already feel it coming on. I went into the room which is nothing new. Some of you will wonder what in the world I am talking about so I will explain. Brandon and I already have a room set up in our house with a bed and some toys for the child that will eventually be a part of our family. I often go stand in the room when I need to dream a little and make this whole journey to our child feel more real...more close to happening.

Well last week I did not go into the room to dream. I went in the room to cry...lay out on my face before my Father and cry my heart out to him. I knew today was coming. I knew one child would be missing from my arms that was already in my heart. Let me be totally honest with you I was ready to have a pity party for myself. You know the great thing about laying yourself out there for the Lord to see..

He already knows. 

He already knows my heart and that I was choosing to focus on what I didn't have instead of what I do have. He knows that sometimes He has to remind me just how much He has already given me. When I had laid there for a bit I got up, wiped my tears and had a mini praise session. God has been so good to me. He has given me the blessing to be a mom four times. He has been gracious enough to set me on this new journey of becoming a mommy through the process of adoption. He alone has brought me to this point and He alone will be my strength through the wait to hold my little one.

Today I woke up to four beautiful little faces kissing me and wishing me a "Happy Mother's Day". I got to go to church with them and worship our Creator. I was able to eat lunch with my mother. I was able to celebrate my sister graduating high school. I will kiss and tuck four babies into their beds under my roof tonight. 

I. AM. BLESSED.

While I will not be tucking in our Ethiopia baby tonight I will be praying as I did last night. I will pray that today somebody showed him the love of a mother...the love of the Father. I will pray somebody kissed his little nose and told him he was special. That somebody told him a mommy would be coming for him as soon as she could. Once again I will turn him over to God...all of my children over to God.

He alone sustains and protects them all.

Just yesterday Emme was singing along to the radio in the car 

"Nothing formed against me shall stand. He holds the whole world in His hands. I'm holding on to Your promises...You are faithful."

Thankful He is holding all my babies tonight even when one is half way around the world.

OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

Yes I know most people already know. If you have been around Brandon and I over the last several months then you already have heard. We are getting blessed with the privilege of becoming mom and dad again. Somehow that news never gets old or less exciting but yes this time is different.

This time we are becoming parents through adoption!!!

All of our other babies have been introduced to our friends and family with an ultrasound picture. This time there is no picture. With all of our other babies we had a due date. This time there is no predictable time frame. However the excitement is the same. 

We wanted to use this post to explain where our heart has been last 2 years. Brandon and I had talked about building our family through adoption when we were newly married. Many people in our family have experienced infertility and/or miscarriages and we were prepared to struggle as well. However God had a different plan and blessed us with four pregnancies and healthy babies in the span of 5 years. 

Adoption was forgotten as time went on.

About 2 years ago Brandon and I got the opportunity to help host Orphan Sunday at our church. As we were preparing for the event and researching to have statistics ready we were shocked by some of the numbers.

We should not have been...

As we prepared for Orphan Sunday we began to pray in the weeks before that if God would even move in one heart through Orphan Sunday that it would be worth it. If one family decided to adopt or foster or sponsor that it would be worth it. We were praying for God to break someone's heart and he did.

It was ours...

Still there was more waiting and prayer involved because I was pregnant with Benjamin at the time. God revealed to us that adoption did not have to be just a solution to infertility. So many times in scripture orphan care is mentioned and as Christ followers it just makes sense for us to build our family this way. We realize not everyone is called to adopt but we do believe that everyone can play a role in the process.

Ways You Can Help Us While We Wait

1.) Prayer- This will be the single most important thing you can do for us. We would ask that you already be praying for our child. While we do not have a face or name yet God knows who the child is. Also pray for all the people who will be working to help us get our child home. We will be dealing with many people working at different agencies and ask that you would begin praying for them as they help us complete this process. Last but not least pray for us as we can already tell this journey is going to be full of ups and downs. Pray that we would stay focused on God and not the circumstances of the process.

2.) Talk to us about it- Understand that we are just as excited as a couple that would be expecting a biological child. We want to talk about it most days and share any progress that is being made. This is already very real to us and we want to include you in our journey. Understand sometimes when you ask we will smile and tell you good news and other times we will cry because we are discouraged. Either is fine and we are glad you care enough to put up with our ever changing emotions.

3.) Finances- I am just going to say it International adoption is expensive. PERIOD. It is totally worth every penny to bring our child home but it is costly. While we have already spent $15,000 for the initial fees we still have plenty of the cost ahead of us including the $12,500 fee when we accept a referral and the cost to go to Ethiopia TWICE ($10k-$15k). We are so thankful for everyone who has already supported us this far. Many of you gave hand stamped jewelry for Christmas and bought cookbooks to help us start the process but we have a ways to go. We have no doubt that God will provide through those around us. We know that when God calls you to something He provides for it and we are trusting that He will lay it on your hearts to give and help us bring our child home. There will be several ways you can do this including buying jewelry, cookbooks, T-shirts, or coming to an event night we plan to have this summer (more details coming).

We are so excited and feel so blessed to be on this journey. We are so thankful that God is encouraging us already through those following us on our journey. Thank you for celebrating with us!!!

Here is a picture of the front of our shirts with 1 John 4:19

The back has a quote by David Platt

" We learned that orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces. It is easier to pretend they're not real before you hold them in your arms. But once you do everything changes."

1 for $20 or 2 for $35

(please add $2 for XL and XXL)

Cookbooks include 300 recipes and are $10