"What country are y'all adopting from...."

Up until now we have not "officially" announced where we were hoping to adopt from. Many people do know and if anyone asked us in person we would tell them where we hoped God was leading us too. We have been waiting until we were officially excepted into the program to announce that.... God is leading us to CHINA to bring home our future little one!! We will be adopting from China's special needs program and are so excited to be moving along with this process. We haven't publically announced it sooner because the China program has many requirements that have to be met and red tape that you have to go through. God faithfully allowed us to meet those requirements.

So, you might now be asking, "why China?" That's a good question! Here goes an answer:
             For several years now, as I have said before, Wes and I have been talking about adoption and how we one day wanted to pursue it. Well, just like when you think about what things will be like when you are pregnant, we thought about what our future adoption might be like.  For years, Wes has always had China on his heart whenever we thought or talked about adoption. That is just how he always pictured it (and let me add that it melts my heart knowing that God placed that desire on Wes' heart first)! We believe that for the past several years God has been tugging on our hearts and slowly preparing us for when He would one day be leading us to China. Now, let me say that when we officially began our adoption a few months ago, we did not automatically know we would be going to China to bring our little one home. We made a couple of detours and struggled with the decision. Why?? I have no idea. It seems so obvious now that China was always the right choice, but it wasn't always always so clear. It was mostly me and my stuggles with, "how do we know for sure where God wants us to go..." kind of a thing. I mean how do you decide where your next child will be coming from and who that child will be?? There are around 147 MILLION orphans in this world, how am I too know from which country will we make it ONE LESS???  How am I too decide who will no longer be labled an orphan?? How am I to decide who will be the one with a chance to hear the gospel??  How am I to decide who will not be a child who "ages out" of the orphange??? How am I to decide who will have the chance to having a loving family to trust, depend on, and embrace??? I did NOT want that responsibility of decison making (I'm the worst decision maker)! But wait a minute, I'm NOT the one making these decisions. Praise the Lord!! Crazy me would sometimes forget that I was NOT the one leading this show. Yep, sometimes I stressed out over how to make these huge decisions. My sinful self would forget that our God is soverign. HE is the One leading this show, not me! He is in control of all things and He already knew who our little one was and which country he or she would be coming from. Comforting indeed. All Wes and I needed to do was to trust Him. After praying a lot, and as we began the adoption process, it slowly became obvious that this is where God wants us to be. There are also some "practical" reasons for why we chose China, that fit into "our" God given desires.

A little about the China special needs program:

In order to control population growth, China implemented a “one-child policy” which has resulted in children being abandoned. China does not allow families to place their children for adoption, so if a family cannot care for a child they may have no choice but to abandon the child in a place where the baby will hopefully be found quickly and placed in an orphanage. (from Lifeline website)

The children available for adoption from China are abandoned with no identifiable blood relatives and no identifying information. (from the Lifeline website)

There are many children with minor/correctable special needs and also more major/serious special needs that are languishing in an orphanage. Because of this "one-child policy" China has, many parents are looking for the "perfect" child. Therefore if a child is born with a "need" they are at times abandoned.

What our adoption might look like:
   We are hoping for a referral of a boy or girl around 18 months when they come home. Our little one will have special needs, likely minor or correctable (cleft lip/pallate, minor heart defects, blood issues, extra digit or missing digit, are some examples of the types of needs we might see). With our financial situation and where we are in life this is what we think we can best handle. We are hoping the entire adoption process will be no more than 18 months from now (that is the timeline they are currently giving us). We will both travel to China for I think 7-14 days and then be able to bring our little one home. China only requires one trip, which is awesome!! (and yes, for those who know me well, know I am dreadfully afraid of getting on an airplane- I'm choosing to ignore the whole 14 hours in the sky fact, until I have to face it. haha In all seriousness, it  really it is a big fear, but I know God is greater than my fears and I'm trusting in Him)!

We are excited beyond words and can't wait to see who God will be bringing into our family!!

Next on our adoption "to-do" list is to schedule our first homestudy!

Please continue to pray for God to fill us with wisdom in all decisions and pray for God to provide for us financially!

Encouragement!!

I just want to give a shout out to my sweet cousin, Kristin Torode. About a month ago she contacted me about participating in the "Shop for a Cause" fundraiser at her church. She explained how there would be a $5 entry fee at the door and all of that money would go to their church's adoption fund! How awesome is that! She then went on to tell me that she wanted to sew her adorable, awesome bibs (my desription, not hers- and they truely are adorable!) and sell them at the event. Each person who has a table can donate their profit to whatever cause they choose. Well, she wanted to give the profits from selling her bibs to our own adoption fund!! :) Not too many people selflessly choose to take time out of their own day, to serve someone else. She did though (and mind you she has 4 of her own little ones at home!). Can you say a godly heart! Her offer alone was such an encouragement to our family!

Wes and I thouroughly enjoyed this event! It was so awesome to walk around the room, looking at each table and see the beautiful crafts and products that were being sold.  Even better than that though, was meeting the people at each booth. It was so much fun to talk to everyone and hear about their "stories." Many families were in the adoption process themselves, and it was such a joy to hear their stories and where they were adopting from, etc. Adoption is not for the "faint at heart." I have already seen a few ups and downs and we have barely begun the process. So, it was just the encouragement we needed to talk with others who have been where we are now- at the very beginning and at a point where the road seems so long and possibly impossible. Just what we needed. God is awesome!

Thanks Kristin for your selfess, loving, godly heart! 
(my only regret is I didn't think to get a picture with her and her adorable table of bibs- *sigh*)  :)

Matthew 19:26

So, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving spent with our families! LOTS of yummy food, the Macy's parade, and awesome family!! Wes and I experienced our first early morning black friday shopping at Target (an experience indeed-ha)!  Ofcourse Sat, we watched the Iron Bowl. It was a tough one to swallow. I'm pretty sure around the 3rd quarter I spied my hubs asleep- you know the game is a loss, when Wes is sleeping and working during then second half-lol! Oh well, maybe next year, right??!!

We talked with Ethan throughout the month about being thankful. Each morning (ok, so only the mornings I remembered) we all said what we were thankful for that day and then we added it to our "thankful tree". We started off doing pretty good, but about two weeks into Nov, I would always forget to write down what we were thankful for and add it to our tree. So, the idea was pretty good, but I was not so good with the follow through. Atleast it got us talking about thankfulness. :)

Mostly we are thankful for God's grace, mercy, love, forgiveness, patience, and the many abundant blessings He has given our family, especially our Lord and Savior! We are thankful for our wonderful and loving family and friends! We are thankful Wes has a career that he enjoys and can support our family, allowing me to stay home and cherish these moments with Ethan (and work at my very part-time job which is super fun!). We are thankful for our first little miracle, Ethan who is almost 4!?! (Where, oh where, does the time go?!)  We are thankful He has led us to grow our family and make one less orphan in this world through adoption! We are thankful His timing is now! 

We are thankful God is soverign in all things. We are thankful that nothing is impossible with God. I needed to remind myself of this truth the other night. :) I kind of lost it. hehe ;) I started worrying about how we were going to finance this adoption without going into major debt that we can't afford. We have strived as a family to be debt free and for the most part (besides our mortgage) God has allowed us to live within our means. When we started praying and thinking about beginning an adoption, the financial side was the part we struggled mostly with. Most people know adoption is expensive. That is the most common comment I get when I talk with others about our adoption. I think I've heard some form of the phrase: "isn't adoption very expensive?!" numerous times. Yes, it is expensive and no, we don't have a stockpile of money or a magic money tree growing in our backyard (wouldn't that be nice! ha). However, we know this is God's plan for our family. He brought us here and Lord willing, we will bring a new little one home one day through adoption. Therefore, we are trusting in His provision. It is a giant leap of faith, but isn't that a great place to be!  So, the other night I was struggling with how we were going to afford this adoption, thinking to myself: "There is NO way, no way possible for us to finance this adoption without major debt. How are we going to do this?"  and without a pause in thought, God reminded me of this simple and great truth, "...with God, all  things are possible." Matthew 19:26

We are thankful for His truth, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."


And because all posts are better with pictures, here are a few pics from when we got our Christmas tree this weekend:

Ethan helping Daddy look at Christmas trees

Ethan wanted to take a picture of Mommy and Daddy :)

Playing in the leaves as Wes put out our Christmas lights

Inch by inch...

Inch by inch, slowly but surely, we are moving along with our adoption. We finally got our fingerprints and background check application in the mail!  On a side note, am I the only one who thought police and sheriffs still made fingerprints the old fashioned way like they do in movies? You know, pressing your finger onto a big ink pad and then stamping it down on paper. Well, I was wrong! lol Who would've thought that they have caught up with the times like the rest of the world! lol! FYI, fingerprints are now done by a computer for those of you wondering.  ;)  Anyways, we would have mailed them last week, but as I was walking out the door to mail them, I realized we needed to make a copy of the background check application and send it to Lifeline as well. So, finally copies were made and then to the post office we headed. This is the first "big" step which comes right along with our first "big" payment. We are trusting in the Lord's provision here people! :) Next on the list is a phone conference with Lifeline, and scheduling our first homestudy. So, yes we are moving along with the process- a little more slowly than we would like, but that is just the way it seems to be falling. It's all good! You know why? Because God is All good, All the time! We are happy to move through our adoption process a little slowly if that is where God wants us to be.  However, if it's still going slowly 6 months or a year from now check back with me. I might then be struggling with contentment and patience! haha ;)



Our fingerprints and some paperwork.



Paperwork on it's way to Lifeline. Yep, that's my little buddy not wanting to have anything to do with looking at the camera. Pretty typical these days :)

A link to a great blog...

I love her blog and thought this was pretty interesting. Although we have just begun our adoption journey we already have heard phrases that make us do a double take sometimes. :)  We welcome questions and conversation about our adoption process. Thankfully, we have not come across anyone with a negative attitude toward our decision to adopt- we are blessed with awesome family and friends who love adoption as well! Click on the link below:

It's Almost Naptime!: How to respectfully ask questions about adoption: Adoption answers we are too polite to say out loud by: addylawson As an adoptee, I have also had people come up to me more times...

Why adoption?? Why now??

            Well, the most simple answer to this question is that God has led us to adoption, and we are simply following Him. :)  The longer answer is that Wes and I have always had a heart for adoption. We have so much love in our family and we have and know the love of Christ. How can we not desire to share that love and grow our family. Yes, we have struggled through infertility, but that is not what led us to adoption. We are adopting because we prayed for God's desires to be our desires. God loves adoption. As believers, He first adopted us. We are adopting because through God alone, we can help there to be one less orphan in this world. We are adopting because we want to simply love another child into our family! After being blessed with our first son Ethan, we new one day that adoption would be a part of our family. We just didn't know when God would lead us there. Through His soverignty, and His perfect timing, that time is now.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." - James 1:27

Galatians 4:4-6 - But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, "Abba, Father."

Psalm 68:5-6 - Father to the fatherless, defender of widows- this is God, whose dwelling is holy.
God places the lonely in families..

Why international adoption?
               Well, why not?? ;)  God calls different people to adoption in many different ways. He also places different desires on each person's heart. So why are we adopting internationally? Easy answer, God gave us the desire to do so, we are simply following Him.

Orphan Care Sunday- Nov 4th, 2012

^{Wes and I were given the opportunity to share our testimony of how God has led us to adoption, during Orphan Care Sunday at our church.  Let me just say I am not a public speaker, not in any way. I usually run very fast from any public speaking. However, when God gives you an opportunity to share His goodness, and faithfulness in your life, how do you say no?!! :)  So, we nervously accepted the opportunity and shared our testimony with our church family.  God is so good and gracious, that He allowed me to get through our testimony with out breaking down in tears, or passing out! haha ;)}
Before reading this please know that God calls people to adoption in many different ways. This is how He called our family. We are not adopting because of infertility or because we haven't yet had a second child biologically. Yes, we have struggled through infertility, but that is not why we are adopting. We are adopting because God loves adoption. We are adopting because we prayed for His desires to be our desires. We are adopting because through God, we can help make one less orphan in our world. We are adopting because we can't wait to love on our new "little one!" It is simple, God led us to GO NOW and adopt! Our hearts have always known adoption would one day be a part of our family, but God chose for us to go now. This is simply how His perfect timing came to be.
We are sharing it because we want God to be glorified.

Our testimony:

^{Psalm 68:5-6}

Father to the fatherless, defender of widows-
this is God, whose dwelling is holy.
God places the lonely in families

^{. Well, we are excited to announce that God has led us to grow our family through adoption! We have just started this adoption journey and are at the very beginning of the process. We are with a wonderful Christian agency Lifeline Children's Services and are so blessed to be working with them. We know we will be pursuing an international adoption, however we are still praying about what country God is leading us to.  Heather and I have always had a heart for adoption and have known since before Ethan was born that adoption was going to be part of our family.  I remember sitting at the dinner table one night with Heather and Ethan and comenting on how God has blessed our family so much. Not only do we an abundant amount of love in our family, but we have and know the perfect love of Christ. We started talking about adoption and how we have been adopted by God and are now His children. We just knew that we wanted to share the love in our family and the the love of Christ with a child who may never experience that.}

<sup>Like I said we have always had a desire for adoption, but we had "our own plan" as to when we would pursue an adoption. After we had Ethan we knew we wanted to evetually grow our family.  "Our plan" was that we would have a second pregnancy and then years down the road, when we had saved more financially we would pursue an adoption. Well, God had a better paln for us and we are so thankful!

What I would like for  you to get from our testimony is not that we struggled through some trials (everyone goes through trials at some point), but that God's grace was and is sufficient for us. It is His grace and His soverignty that has brought us to this awesome blessing of adopiton! Anyways, like Wes said, for a long ttime we knew adoption was going to be part of our family. However God's plan and our plan looked a little different. About a year and a half ago God placed the desire on our hearts to grow our family. About 3 months later we found out we were pregnant and ofcourse we were SO excited. Sadly, howerver shortly after we found out we were pregnant, we lost the oregnancy and had an early misscarriage. 3 months after that in Oct of last year we found out we were again pregnant. We were so excited, and rejoiced. However, once again we had another early miscarriage. That was probably the hardest time Wes and I had ever experienced in our married lives togetrher.  To have the excitement, joy and promise of a new life and then it so quickly taken away is hard. We struggled. A lot. However, it was during those moments of pain and the months that followed, God was so graicous and faithful to us. We prayed and asked God to fill our hearts with joy. Even though we were aching, to please fill our hearts with joy. Joy in the many blessing He has already given us, joy in the goodness of God, and joy in Christ our Savior. He was faithful. He allowed us to be joyful in our sturggles. Not that it wasn't ever hard. Not that it wasn't ever painful. But we were able to see the joy in the satifaction of Christ and His goodness.</sup>

^{A couple of months ago in Sept we knew God was saying to go now! Stop tip toeing around, and just go. Trust Me and start this adoption journey. Well, as excited about this as we were, there was just something holding me back. And that was just heartache for the two miscarriages we had experienced and the aching and longing for a second healthy pregnancy.  Well, I prayed and said God, if you want us to go now. To adopt now, we are ready. I prayed and said God, I can't heal my heart. I can't do it. I need help.  Well, about two weeks later Wes and I "just happened" to experience another trial. Those two weeks that I went throught that trail were very hard. However, it was during those two weeks that all of a sudden what I once saw as important no longer was so very important.  All I wanted was to come out of that trial I was experiencing, and get on the other side, so we could begin our adoption. He is faithful. He graciously answered my prayer. He used that trial I experienced for His good plan and for our good!  God faithfully and graciously answered my prayer.  John 13:7 says, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand."}

^{So that kind of brings us to today. The very beginnign of our adoption journey! We are beyond excited to see the Lord working in our lives. We are beyond excitement to see who the child is that God has already chosen to be a prat of our family! We are thankful that God told us to go and adopt now. We are thankful He chose us for this adoption journey! We are thankful He gave us hearts to obey and  follow Him!}

^.

Our adoption journey begins...

8/26/2012
That's right today's  the first day of our "adoption journey!" We mailed in our initial application to Lifeline Children's Services! This organization is so precious and all though we are barely beginning this process of adoption, I know this is where God wants us to begin. LCS is a Christian agency whose vision is to: "give children a hope and a future through Christian adoption, support, and care." They work with both domestic and international adoptions (which is great b/c we have no idea where God is going to lead us).
We are very excited to begin this journey. We have prayed for God's desires to become our desires. We have prayed that He gives us a heart to follow His will for our lives, so that He can be glorified! This is His timing and His will. He has chosen to give us this desire to follow through with an adoption now, and we are simply following, trusting, and obeying Him! Are we a little nervous? Yes! At this point we don't know what the aoption is going to look like (domestic/ international). *** updated: We now know God is leading us to adopt internationally, however we are still praying over what country He is leading us to adopt from.*** We don't know how long the process could take. Also, most nerve racking is, we don't know how we are going to afford to finance this adoption. However, we know this is God's will and our trust is in Him, not in our own finances.

We can't wait to meet you little one! We don't know where God will lead us to, to bring you home, but we promise to trust Him and we know He will guide us to you! We love you and are praying for you already!

Picture of our application ready to be mailed! A lot of prayer went into to preparing this!

                                                   

                                                               Mailing our application!