Our First Alongside Fundraising Event!!!

I am super excited to finally have most of the details worked out for our first alongside fundraiser event! We will be holding a family skate extravaganza at the end of April and we are soooo excited to have been given the opportunity to not only work towards moving forward in our own adoption, but to help others do the same. 

I have struggled the last week about whether or not I was hearing God right and doing what he was asking of me. I was unsure of whether he wanted us to only help others at these fundraisers that he had shown to me or if we were to be involved as well. However, last night God was faithful to answer my prayers and he spoke clearly to me, reconfirming it through another friend's post this morning. 

For the past months I have been going through a book called Hinds Feet On High Places with my women's bible study group.  God has really used Much Afraid's journey to speak to my heart about our own adoption journey and last night was no exception. Although I finished reading the book weeks ago, a friend encouraged me to revisit some of the things that I had highlighted. When I sat down to do so last night, the book fell open to the following: 

 All you have to do is trust yourself to the chair and be carried in perfect safety to the place which I wish to take you and without any struggling and striving on your part. 

(From the Devotion) Jesus, I choose today to take the risk of doing it Your way! 

I quickly realized that God was showing me that I was questioning the plan he had for my family and the fact that he had put me in this place for a reason. I had been struggling to determine what he wanted us to do, not because HE had changed the plan, but because I was concerned about what others might feel about said plan. I had taken my eyes off Jesus and faltered because of it. 

Here was my second confirmation from this morning: 

"Are you debating whether to take a step in faith in Jesus or to wait until you can see how to do the thing yourself? Obey Him with glad reckless joy. When He says something and you begin to debate, it is because you have a conception of His honour which is not His honour. Are you loyal to Jesus or loyal to your notion of Him? Are you loyal to what He says, or are you trying to compromise with conceptions which never came from Him? "Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.""

I am so grateful that God has new mercies for me every day and that he is faithful to remind me of things he has told me regardless of how much reassurance and repeating that may entail. 

MASSIVE Adoption Fundraiser Sale

Our first fundraiser was a HUGE success and I cannot believe how immensely God blessed us over the past weekend! It truly was God moving here and providing for our needs in ways that we never dreamed possible. We are so grateful to all of the families that donated items to us and came to help run the yard sale. Thanks to everyone's generosity and hard work, we are now able to move forward in our adoption process and have enough to cover the second child application fee along with our next payment! 

I was literally brought to tears from the generosity of everyone and the fact that God continues to move physical things for us in order to provide for the things we need to bring our girls home! I spent days before the garage sale sporadically weeping when I went out into the garage to work and get things ready. I was overwhelmed with how people, many of whom didn't even know us, were willing to donate to us in order for us to bring our daughters home!  

To top all of this off a family that have witnessed to us in the past, continued to do so over the weekend in ways we will be forever grateful. I am truly blessed to have all of you in our lives and thankful that God has sent us on this journey in which we are able to share his goodness and glorify his works. 

Please pray for the safety of our daughters and that we would continue to obey God's calling regardless of where/what that might be and hear his voice leading us.  

 

The Doubling

Although this is something that happened further back in our adoption journey, I thought I would share how/why we are adopting two little girls.

When I was first called to adopt by the Lord, I have to admit, I was terrified. First off, I was unsure I was the right person for the job as I doubted I could even do this and, secondly, I was afraid of what Isaac's reaction would be when I told him.

After a short time, I worked up the nerve to bring up the message I had received from God to Isaac. I was not sure what he was going to say, but he surprised me with his reaction. Thank goodness he did not give me an absolute NO, but rather took things in and said he would pray about it and see if God would give him a sign that this is what we were supposed to be doing.

Months passed and every time I brought it up, Isaac would say, "I haven't heard anything." I began to question if I was actually really told this is what we were supposed to be doing, because I didn't understand why God would tell me, yet not my husband. How could this ever work or come to pass if we weren't on the same page? I fought with this for quite some time and asked for confirmation from the Lord, which he was faithful to give several times. Finally, I came to the realization that it was simply not God's timing and I would have to WAIT on the Lord for Isaac to be brought to the same page. A sweet friend even gave me this little sign to sit on my desk as a daily reminder that this is what God was asking me to do.

So I geared up for a long wait, thinking it might even be years before this mission would come to fruition. I began to pray for our daughter (I still only believed we would be getting one), but I still struggled with how this would all work. Isaac wasn't on board, I could not fathom how on Earth we would be able to come up with the money, and my mind whirled trying to conceive just how our family would function with another child. Finally, I thought I had it all figured out; how I would continue to work, homeschool the girls, and take care of this new little person. That said, I was still worrying a lot about how we were going to get her home.

I continued to pray that God would speak to Isaac's heart, but did not have any expectations that it would happen any time soon. However, God had other plans!

A friend of ours was holding an adoption fundraiser for another family adopting two little girls from China. I wanted to go because it sounded fun and I wanted to meet other families that were adopting and had adopted so that we could see what that looked like and ask questions. After going back and forth as to whether or not to go, we finally piled into the car, with two of the girl's friends in tow, and headed to the benefit dessert.

When we got there, a bunch of little ones were running around, some biological children, and others adopted from China. We started talking with families and Isaac ended up talking with the husband of the family that was gearing up to bring their girls home from China that following week for quite some time. After getting the girls loaded back into the car to head home, Isaac turned to me and said, "God wiped the fear about adopting from my heart tonight!" I was blown away and, although I had hoped seeing these families and the kiddos running around would help, I had no idea that God would use it to speak to Isaac! I, of course, began to cry. ;)

For weeks before that night, I had begun to notice a change in Isaac, although he continued to tell me that he had heard nothing. The most significant change was how he was praying and what he was praying for each night.

As we drove home, he teased that maybe we should just get two girls as well. I was adamant that I thought he was crazy and I could only handle one new baby at a time and that I had it all worked out. Two was too much and ridiculous! I still couldn't fathom how we were going to get enough money together for one, let alone two. Little did I know that God was speaking to Isaac about this before he let me in on the plan!

The next morning, I received a text from Isaac saying, I needed to figure out how to bring our daughters home! I was in shock. It was soooo unexpected that I found myself being the one unready to move. I had readied myself for the long winter of waiting; I had prepared my heart for hibernation on the matter! ;)  God had said to wait and so I was waiting. I felt like a rug had been pulled out from under my feet and I began to panic a little. God, however, was faithful and calmed my heart, at least for a few days before the wind was knocked out of me yet again.

A few days later, during Sunday morning service, God once again spoke to my heart about our adoption. Unfortunately, part of it was a rebuke for me thinking this was about me and that I had any power over planning what this adoption would look like. God began to use a book I was going through at my Women's Bible study to paint a picture for me. He told me that this journey was not about me or my abilities, in fact, it had little to do with me, but rather everything to do with HIM. He told me that if I could not trust that he would provide for this one child that he would double the size of the mountain in front of me (I had been feeling like I was at the base of mountain (our adoption) looking up at a peak that I could not see the top of) and show me just how GREAT HE is and what HE is capable of doing. And thus, I was told we were going to be getting not one daughter, but two, from China!

Confirmation of this came a few days before Christmas at a church service in Longview that we had attended with one of Isaac's close friends. I was a bit bummed to have to miss out on Christmas service at our own church and was leery about attending another church. I figured it could not be as good as our own church and had no expectations of hearing from the Lord that day, but, again, he proved me wrong when both Isaac and I were moved about a lot of things including the fact that we were absolutely the parent's of two other daughters that simply had not come home yet!

Home Study

Progress!!! We are excited to finally be making headway in our adoption process. We had our first Home Study call last Friday and are gearing up for our in home interviews and home tour next week!

So far so good. We are trying to get things in order at the house and working to clean up from the winter wind storms in the backyard. :) Other than that, we are trying to decide upon the design of the built in bunk beds we are going to be building in the girls' room. (I will post pics once we get started.)

It is an exciting time and we continue to pray daily for our daughters, that they would be fed, properly cared for, and that God would be working in their hearts, showing them his love, and letting them know they are not alone! 

We appreciate everyone's support and ask that you continue to pray for our family as we make this journey.

An Opportunity to Serve

A lot of things have been happening lately, so many that sometimes I have a hard time keeping up with all the sharing! :)

As I have continued to seek the Lord in this journey, my heart has begun to be pulled to the adoption ministry. Although I am anxious to see our little one's faces and bring them home, I am also driven to do more for all of the orphans and other families working to bring their own little one's home from far off places.

God has been moving in my heart and urging me to reach out to other families going through the adoption process. At first, I was unsure of what he wanted me to do and then things began to move. This new journey began with my prayer to open doors for me to get involved more in this ministry. Next, I met up with a wonderful new friend involved with the Heart For the Fatherless adoption ministry at our Church. After extensive discussions about a fundraising opportunity that could potentially help other families in the process too, she mentioned the need for a fundraising chair person within Hearth For the Fatherless.

I prayed for weeks about this and asked God to open doors and make it clear to me if this is what he wanted me to do. Finally, after I spoke at the Orphan Prayer night, I knew God was calling me to dive in. I am soooo excited about this new venture as I love to do this kind of thing, but more than anything, I am overjoyed at the idea that God is allowing me to serve others and become a part of this ministry.

I have already begun planning our first fundraiser in April that will help to support two other local families! I am excited to see what God does with this and where he will lead me!

Boxes

God has continued to show me just how faithful he is going to be in totally and utterly providing for our adoption journey. As many of you know, we are gearing up for our first adoption fundraiser, which is a yard sale. As donations have come in, the girls and I have been pricing and organizing things. I have been purchasing some moving boxes to keep things flowing and organized in our garage. One night, as I was in line with more boxes, a man came into Home Depot to return something and saw me in line. He came up to me and asked if I would like 100 more boxes just like the ones in my cart. I was a bit taken aback for a second and then said "YES".

I knew this was not a random meeting and God had, yet again, walked before us and provided for our needs. It blew me away to know that God was not only working in other people's hearts to bring us an abundance of donations beyond our wildest dreams, from people that don't even know us, but he was going to take care of it all, even so far as to provide the boxes he already knew we needed!

A Gift!!!

THE BARN

What, you ask, is the above . . . well, another gift from God!!! This wonderful old barn came into our lives through craigslist. While searching for a wood dresser, a random post about this barn popped up, or rather God put it in my path. After emailing back and forth with the owners about the wood and discussing why we wanted it (for an adoption fundraiser in which I will be making signs) they decided to DONATE all we wanted to take!!! 

I couldn't believe it! Not only had God answered my prayer for finding wood to make up signs to sell at our garage sale, but he had walked before us and worked on this wonderful family's hearts to donate this to our cause! I am amazed and humbled by the generosity of others that don't even know us and their willingness to help us bring our girls home!

And to boot . . . this is the view we had as we worked this afternoon: 

BEAUTIFUL!!!

A Chance to Share

Last night was yet another example of God's work in our adoption journey. I was given the opportunity to share part of our journey with others who I would have never met had God not given us this mission! Our lifeline social worker, who is quickly becoming a dear friend, asked me to come and speak at the Orphan Prayer Night she was holding for families in the area after hearing about some of the recent things God has been doing along our adoption journey. At first I was very nervous, but I said yes right away because I knew it was an answer to a prayer.

Since beginning this journey, the plight of the orphan has become a passion and I feel a pull to this ministry. I have been praying that God would show me how I can minister to others going through the adoption process and/or those who also have a heart for the orphan. Last night was my first step in that direction! Thank you God for your goodness and faithfulness!

I have to admit that for the last week, I have been very nervous about speaking; it is something that I just have never liked. All day yesterday, I prayed that God would give me the courage to speak and share the awesome things he has been doing for us and how he has been giving us confirmation that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing. By the time the girls and I made it to the church and went inside, God had been faithful and spoken to me reminding me that I was not alone and that with Him by my side, I had nothing to fear! In that moment, the fear was wiped from my heart and I got up and spoke with no sweaty hands or even the inkling of a single butterfly in my stomach! It was amazing and I am so encouraged that this is something, too, that is going to be part of my future.