Just jump.....

We sang one of my ultimate favorite worship songs at church today! I LOVE this song and it speaks to me in a different way almost every time. What does it really mean? The Bible mentions faith like a child and faith that can move mountains and people that don't have faith. To me faith means we just do what ever God wants and just know that it will work out and be what is best for us. As parents we do what is best for our children and we expect them to trust us and God expects no less from us. When God called us to adopt I didn't take the time to ask him how? I just knew that he would work out the details, he just wanted our obedience and willingness.  When God calls us to do something I believe most of the time he wants us to just jump off the cliff and we aren't supposed to worry about where we will land. I find great comfort knowing that I can just have faith that he is God and  is always looking out for my best interest! What an amazing God we serve!

Moving Forward

Day 2 of the blog, yay for me!!!  Its not even officially public and I already have a 2nd post!

Our application has been sent in and I am happy to announce that we have officially been approved to move forward with an adoption from Ethiopia!!!!!!!! Now the next part is the reality of adoption, the cost and the money part. We need $4000 to get our application moving forward and to complete our home study. The bad part is we only get  6 months to pay the first initial program fee which is $2500 or we will have to re-apply and may not get approved again. After the application gets started then we can start our home study and  after our home study is started we will be able to apply for grants.  We are really praying that the grants will cover a good amount of the estimated $30,000 total for the adoption. I know that God already knows where every penny for this adoption will come from. I can trust him that he will be with us through every fundraiser and every grant we apply for. I am ready to get started and see God work in all the cool ways that he always does. I also know that his timing is not our timing so it can be easy to get discouraged when things aren't happening as quickly as I want them to. This will also be a great lesson in patience and trust for me as I learn to "trust in the Lord with all my heart and lean not on my own understandings" Proverbs :3:5. Please share our donation link on Facebook and Twitter or email. We never know who God will choose too use to help it, and it could be that random person on your Facebook page!

The process to the decision

As 2012 comes to an end I am amazed at everything that God has done in our lives in us and through us. There is just too much to cover so I will start with what led us to adoption. 
Most of my adult years I have always wanted 3 kids, no more no less! So after the birth of our third child in 2010, I was convinced our family was perfect and complete. I never prayed about the number of children I should have I just felt that 3 was what I could handle so that was a good number. 

2010 and 2011 is where the story begins. It begins in my heart as I begin to actively seek God (something I had not done in a long time). They were not easy years financially, emotionally or physically but through Gods grace he got us through. I began to feel God speak to me early in 2012 that I should pray about how many children we should have. I resisted this because I was happy with my 3 and I didn't want any more. I talked to God for days and told him I didn't want to pray about it, but in the end I of course did pray about it and to my disappointment I really felt like he had told me that our family was not complete. I was terrified to tell Matt. I just knew he would think I was crazy. I waited several days and prayed and prayed some more (hoping I was just crazy) . In the end I felt certain of what God was telling me so I finally told Matt. He took it pretty well considering he was beyond happy with only having 3 kids and lets be honest the third did take some convincing  from me. After our conversation we both agreed that we would not have another baby right now but maybe wait a few more years. Well God had other plans and 1 month later I found out I was pregnant! In my mind I thought that now everything made sense and this must have been what God was wanting for us all along. Matt was NOT happy about the pregnancy, but its a little late now. 9 days later I had a miscarriage, I was devastated and confused. I didn't understand what God was doing at all now, and nothing made sense. Why had he given me a desire for another child, I honestly felt like God had played a cruel joke on me. Matt's reaction to the pregnancy made it obvious he was against having any other children even in a few years. And the pregnancy only made it more clear to me that our family wasn't complete.  My mind was blocked and at the time I thought the only way to add to our family was through birth. For several months Matt and I went back and forth, me wanting another "baby" and he saying that he didn't want to go through the baby stage again and he didn't want another baby. I prayed and prayed that God would take the desire for a fourth child away. Everywhere I went I saw people with 4 kids or who were pregnant with their 4th, it was torture. I felt that if  Matt wouldn't change his mind and God wouldn't take the desire away from me, then what on earth were we going to do. I decided I would not talk about it anymore and just keep praying that God would change his heart. A couple more weeks went by and I was at a baby shower discussing how I wanted another child but Matt didn't because he didn't want to go through the baby stage, one of my friends said " you should adopt". That was a HUGE Ah Ha moment for me.   Basically a light bulb got turned on and we haven't turned it off!!! I guess I just needed someone to say the words to me to trigger the switch that God was trying to get through to me. After that I went and talked to Matt again (poor guy with the crazy wife). He was very much open to the idea of adoption ( lots of older kids means no baby)! The way I operate, if you give me an inch I will take a mile. So from that day on I have been going feet first with this adoption. I continued to pray but I didn't wait around to get started. I felt that this was beyond a doubt where God had been leading us the whole time and all of a sudden EVERYTHING from the past few months made sense! 

  God has really opened my eyes to the orphans all around the world and my heart breaks for them. When we first started our adoption process I didn't really grasp what we were doing but after all the research I have done I now know that adoption is so much more and I am honored to bring on these precious children into my family. Not a day goes by that I don't think about all the orphans in the countries surrounding our very blessed country. Our adoption is only the beginning to our fulfillment of God's command to care for the widows and the orphans! 
In a complete twist of God fate we reconnected with our friends from high school who are also just starting their adoption process from the same country and same agency, I believe God used Sarah to direct me to our agency! Thanks Sarah!