Prayers answered

So God has been answering some prayers of mine lately that I wanted to share! I've been praying specifically for two separate boys who are available for adoption. I still look at adoptuskids.org daily just to keep our options open. This website has a photo listing of children in foster care who are available for adoption in the US. One boy I found on this site. He is listed in foster care and he is 3 years old--just slightly older than Bubba actually. He sparked my interest as I thought he looked like a little troublemaker--just like B :) But after discussing it, The Husband and I decided that keeping the birth order was really important to us--we don't think Bubba would do well having an older sibling. He has definitely established himself as the oldest child and we think it would really rock his world too violently to introduce an older sibling. It would definitely disrupt that established role for him. So I've been praying specifically for this boy--that if we were not to be his family, that he would find his forever family and that that family would be looking at the same profile I was looking at and have their hearts stirred to inquire about him. And someone did. :) He is visiting with a potential adoptive family right now to see if their family is a good fit for him and vice versa. If you think of it, pray that this boy would fit well into this family and they would be his forever family. And that they would present the gospel to him :)

The second prayer is for the boy that we were interested in from Asia. To recap, we were told that we could not adopt him because he is too close to Bubba's age so they would be "artificial twins." I pray for this boy on a regular basis as well. It makes my blood boil that he is STILL listed as a waiting child!!  Then I got an e-mail from Rainbowkids.org, and who is one of their featured children in the e-mail?? The SAME boy...out of THOUSANDS of listings, this boy finally has a chance to find a family. Everyone who gets their e-mail will see his picture and profile. PLEASE take a look!

If you or someone you know is interested in this sweet boy, go to the website listed or go to rainbowkids.com and sign up to see the photo listing of the waiting children. He's in there....waiting.

We hit our first wall today with the adoption--Sean's doc forgot to fill out an entire form! So back to the doctor's we go tomorrow to get that filled out. Pray that he will fill it out while I wait so I can send all of the required paperwork in to our agency tomorrow. We will be able to start our home study then!!!

Easter was fab--we got to see our niece all last week and then for Easter and the kids were SO excited to be able to hang with their cousin. We didn't see my parents for Easter but they came over beforehand and showered the kids with gifts and sugar--as did Sean's parents ON Easter. I love that Bennett is at an age that I can really start to explain to him what Easter really means. My explanation did not help in convincing him to wear his nice shirt to church on Sunday, though, so I bribed him with a cookie :) Shhh!

Fundraising Update

We recently received an amazing donation toward the adoption from a friend. The Husband is also planning on working extra hours over the summer and between those two things we will now be at our halfway mark!! The wreath orders have slowed down a bit but we are still getting orders in each week. This has been a HUGE blessing as it has brought in about $1500. This pays for our adoption application fee three times over! The clutch purse fundraiser has brought in a couple hundred dollars as well and is still going strong! We have already paid our first two fees and we are now at a point where we have money to pay for our home study fee in full and after all the orders are filled, we should have enough to make our first BIG payment in full when we are officially listed with the agency. This happens as soon as our home study is finished but we can also be called upon before our home study is completed in extenuating circumstances.

Our coffee fundraiser has been a bust! lol! Well you can't win 'em all! We are keeping it open throughout the adoption just in case though :)

I thought I'd kind of write out all of our steps in the adoption for those who have been asking. It can be quite confusing to understand where we are in our process and what each step entails. Also, it's nice to know where your money is going when you're donating to a cause! There are a lot of steps so I'm just going to cover where we are at now...So...here goes:

1) Open House: We went to the agency and talked to them about, well, THEM! This was just to get to know them and solidify if this was the agency we wanted to use.

2) Initial Consultation ($350): This was a three-hour meeting where we laid out the basics of what we are looking for in a child as an adoptive couple (age, ethnicity, birthmother drug use, special needs, domestic or international, etc). We gave the agency information about our family and received information about our home study and the next steps in the adoption. We got lots of our questions answered but came away with lots more!

3) Adoption Application ($375): We filled out the physical application complete with family info and references

4) The Gathering of the Data (as I so lovingly call it): We are in this step now. We have lots of doctors appointments for ourselves and the kids to have them verify certain things about our health. We also need to get fingerprinted, have our references answer questions about us as a couple, family, and our experience with children. We need to fill out lots of applications for DCFS and forms that are completely redundant but necessary. We have all of these appointment set for this week. We need to get copies of our birth certificates, marriage certificate etc. as well to send in. THEN....

5) The Home Study ($2,550): This will consist of three meetings with our social worker. At least one will be in our home. This process includes lots of education we have to complete on our own about adoption, adoptees, inter-racial adoption, open adoption, etc. We also will be meeting with our social worker to make sure that our family and home will be able to meet all of the needs of the child and will have lots of questions asked of us and have all our questions answered. We will become a foster home through DCFS but with the understanding that we just want to adopt at this point. So we will not have any foster children. We also need to write a "Dear Birthmother" letter. This will tell any prospective birthmother about our family, us individually, our beliefs, why we want to adopt, and what we have to offer this child.

That was a lot of info so here are some cute pics of the kids from last week. They are currently sick and we have doctor appointments for them today. Prayers for their healing and mine and The Husband's SANITY amidst the whining and crying are appreciated!!

Caring for the Orphan

Since we have decided to adopt domestically (within the United States), I have sort of gone through a mourning process. I am subscribed to Reece's Rainbow and Rainbow Kids which both have extensive photo listings of mainly international special needs orphans needing homes...NOW. I started, I'd say last April, scouring these photo listings, reading up on special needs that I didn't know about and countries I've never been to and ordinarily would not care to visit. I came across probably a dozen children that I've just felt a connection to. One we tried to pursue but were denied because he is only 6 months younger than Bubba. They would be "artificial twins" and most agencies don't like that and won't allow it. I personally think it is ridiculous to deny a child a permanent home on the basis of there being another child the same age in that home. You can bet their orphanage or foster family has children the same age but are deemed a better place for this child than a permanent, loving family and home. Well, stepping off of my soapbox...

Even though we have decided (not just because of that one incident) to adopt within the US, I look through those photo listings almost daily, praying for the forgotten, pleading with God to bring their families to them. I've been wondering HOW God is going to answer my prayers of healing and protection over these children if a family does NOT come for them...

"You, Lord, hear the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, so that mere earthly mortals will never again strike terror." Psalm 10: 17-18

And it dawned on me today...He DOES hear their cries and the desires of their hearts. He DOES love these children more than we can fathom. But He works through us! There will be beauty in the end but we live in a sinful and imperfect world and these children are not going to magically move from their worldly orphan status to being in a family. Someone, with the help of God, has to MAKE it happen.

"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

I am, by no means, implying that everyone should adopt or is called to adopt. But we are called to action in some way. Support, advocate, PRAY PRAY PRAY! Sign up for the Rainbowkids.com newsletter and forward it to your friends and family! SOMETHING. We cannot continue to turn our eyes away from this just because it's not comfortable to see...

Reece's Rainbow
Rainbow Kids

Change

This weekend I attended the Hearts at Home national conference in Normal. I wasn't able to do the two day conference like I wanted (boo, school!) but I did get to spend the night, hang out with some GREAT friends, and attend the second day of the conference. Honestly, leaving the conference this year I didn't really feel any sort of change. I learned a lot, got some time away from the kids and really liked two of my breakout sessions but other than that...not much.  The only thing that really caught my attention was a verse from Ezekiel that Candace Cameron Bure quoted during our last main session. "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." I haven't been super open about the spiritual struggles I've had lately and I've been convicted of that. As much as I've tried to rectify it, I've felt literally like God has completely taken out the emotional part of our relationship. I don't hear Him, I pray but He doesn't answer, I don't thirst for the Word and I'm frustrated with some social issues and where the Bible stands on them.

Hearing this verse sparked something in me and I was eager to read the context of the verse when I got home. In fact, I couldn't even wait that long. While I waited for Little Caesar's to make our pizza (I stopped on my way home from the conference for The Husband and me!), I pulled out my bible and started to read Ezekiel. After continuing to read when I got home, I skipped to where the verse is (about 30 chapters later from where I was at the time!!). And then I prayed it. And it felt good. And I felt like things won't always be this way and perhaps God is working on something inside me.

Then Sunday our church talked about God blocking things in our path to lead us back to Him. I'm beginning to think this may be what He's doing in me. I'm a very emotional person, more times than I'd like to admit, emotion guides my actions. While I believe God gave us emotions for a reason and they are a beautiful thing, I'm starting to wonder if He's teaching me how to make godly decisions based upon His word and His character rather than my emotions.

I can't tell you how difficult this is for an emotional person like me! How stark and dry a relationship with God seems when you take the emotion and feeling out of it. But I'm already giving praise to God because I cannot imagine how difficult this adoption will be if I'm going off JUST emotion instead of the Bible. And, I'm scared to say, perhaps He is preparing me for some heartbreak. As much as I want to believe we won't experience this, it is a real possibility. 16% of our agency's planned adoptions fall through. Maybe we will just be waiting a REALLY long time. Maybe our child's birthmother won't be who we dreamed her up to be. I'm not really sure WHY God is doing this work in me but it feels great to finally have an answer to my heart's longing question, "what is going on?!!!"

Next up for the adoption: fingerprints, DCFS application, medical forms and references then on to the home study!

Results

Before we began the adoption process, I was having a really hard time believing that God truly answers prayer. I know, I know. It's something I shouldn't struggle with. But I've had a dry spell where I've felt my prayers almost ignored by God. Then I prayed for Him to provide for us for the adoption. And my, has He. There is still work to be done, that's for sure, but a fundraiser that I thought might make us a couple hundred bucks has now pulled in over $500. I've actually lost track (thank God I have Nicole who is keeping track!!) of how many wreaths have been ordered. And He keeps supplying. We have more orders coming in and one potentially large order pending as well.

God has been teaching me a lot through fundraising so far. Not only to rely on Him, to have patience (I'm still worried about the $19,000 we still need!), but that we cannot be lazy! He has put me to WORK to bring this money in. I can't tell you how many times we have burned our fingers on our hot glue guns (not to mention Nicole's second degree burn!!!), how many rolls of twine have passed through our hands or how many hours we have spent crafting wreaths. As I was making a wreath while the kids were napping one day, I was just trying to meditate on God's character and this just dawned on me. "Child, you and your husband prayed and continue to pray for me to supply the funds for you to bring a child into your home through adoption. And I am. And you are capable of working for it to happen!"

1John 3:18: Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

Bubba is enjoying helping mommy by bringing me twine and loading my glue gun to make "weeths." I am so overjoyed that he is learning that the world is bigger than him. And that to say we love one another is not enough...that we must put our love into action and truth. To not just think about what God desires for our life, but to LIVE what God desires for our life.

My dear friend, Gina has started another fundraiser for us making and selling SUPER cute clutch purses. She has already sold a handfull and continues to work hard to help us provide a home for whichever child God chooses for us. Check out that fundraiser to the right!

Humbled

I am blown away at the response we have received so far for the wreath fundraiser. After we fill all of the orders we will have raised something like $300 already. I had a little chat with God in the car the day that Nicole started this fundraiser for us and it started something like this: "So. God. How are we gonna do this?" A little later, I got a text about this fundraiser and half a week later, this is what has happened. The orders just keep coming in every day. I have posted it everywhere and people I don't even KNOW are ordering specifically to give toward our adoption. I am completely humbled by everyone's generosity of spirit and a little embarrassed that I've doubted God's ability to provide the money we need. We are a long way off from having all of our money but I feel like God is just giving us a taste of His capability to fulfill this need. We are so excited to see what God does and how He provides during this journey. He has already carved it out and already knows who we will bring into our family and how we're going to do it. He is good, all the time.

Another blessing we are so thankful for is both sets of our parents. The Husband and I were able to go away for the weekend to celebrate our FIFTH wedding anniversary thanks to our four parents. My mom and dad took the kids Saturday-Sunday morning and The Husband's parents had them all day Sunday till we picked them up in the evening. We were able to get some relaxation and restoration for our spirits and were able to reflect on where we've come the past five years and where we'll be in five more. We have experienced some heartache over five years but, oh the blessings! A little breakdown on our 5 years of blessings:

2008: Got married














2009: Bought and moved into our new home
















2010: Had Bubba
















2011: Had Sissy




















2012: I began working toward my Master's degree
2013: God-willing, we will bring our third child into our family through adoption!

Praise God for His endless blessings and faithfulness.

Update

My fab friend, Nicole has started another fundraiser for us! She is selling handmade spring wreaths just in time for Easter. Currently there are four designs to choose from. Here is the website on Facebook:

Facebook wreath fundraiser

Prices range from $30-$50 and all the proceeds go toward our adoption!