Emotions

Wow - I must say that the past 48 hours have been a whirlwind of emotion! Not only did we decide to begin the adoption process but also, my grandmother has been in the hospital and things looked pretty grim yesterday. I have always been close to my grandparents and currently live 15 hours away so this news was quite devastating. Thankfully, she is doing much better today! I'm mentioning this on my adoption blog simply to say that I have been completely overwhelmed by emotion the past couple of days! However, after finding out late last night, that her condition was not as serious as we initially thought, my emotions have mainly been excitement over our pending adoption...As the day went on today, I got more and more excited - you see, God has been showing me how much He wants us to begin this process. I shared a little bit about this in my post "He's Already Providing" but let me tell you what he has done today. I mentioned previously that we started our first fundraiser today collecting old printer cartridges and cell phones (see previous post). Well, the first 3 people I called to tell them about this were so eager to help!! I heard, "I'm going to send a mass email to everyone I work with and ask them" from 2 of them. I also heard, "I'm going to sit down tonight and make a list of everyone who might have an old cell phone or who works in a business that might have lots of cartridges and give them a call." Then I heard, "I'm going to call my boss, who works in another building and see what she can do." WOW!!! Then, I saw that another old friend had shared our blog on her homepage with her friends. Finally, I got permission from the owner of the pictures of the orphanage to share them with you. So, here they are. But, be forewarned, they are disturbing. They are unbelievable. They are devastating! Well, I will leave you with those tonight. Thank you for your prayers and support!!

First Fundraising Activity

Well, I've been busy searching for fundraising ideas during naptime today and have just signed up for our first one. The GREAT news is that it won't cost anyone, anything! It will actually help you get rid of your trash :) We are collecting old inkjet and laser printer cartridges as well as old cell phones. There is a company that recycles them and will pay us for all the ones we collect. Please, please, please don't throw these items away. If you can save them for us, we would really appreciate it! You would be helping us bring our child home quicker :) Thanks for all your help!! Please continue to pray for us as we start this process!! Oh, and if you are looking to raise money for your own adoption, school, or organization and you sign up at http://www.rrewards.com/ to collect cartridges and phones and you click on "Referred by Participant" and then enter our User ID # 267586, we will automatically get an extra $50! You just have to send in one box of these items (within 6 months) for us to get the credit. Oh, and you don't have to pay for shipping - the company pays for it! Thanks again!

He's Already Providing!

Just had to share this news - it has been only a few hours since we started telling people our news about adopting and we already have a large donation!! We weren't asking for money - simply telling this person so he/she would pray for us and immediately were informed that they would gladly donate! He/she even said if we raise enough money fundraising and have extra, we can take this money and put it in our child's college fund :) Wow, it's been less than 24 hours since we made this decision and the Lord is already showing us how He will provide!! And we had another friend post our blog on their page to share with their friends and she has promised to pray for us through this journey!! Thank you for all your prayers as we begin this exciting process!!

The Journey Begins

Well, we have known for a while now, approximately a year and a half, that "someday" we will adopt. We just weren't sure when that "someday" would be. However, last night, after looking at some very real pictures of some very real children in a very real orphanage in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and after watching the You Tube video by Third Day called Children of God, we realized that "someday" is NOW! If you haven't seen that video, I encourage you to watch it (see below) but be forewarned, it is powerful and will probably change your life! In that video we are once again reminded that we are adopted in the Lord! Therefore, we believe that God is calling us to adopt one of His precious children and to raise him/her to love and serve Him. I was struck by how "good" I have it...so often I complain about trivial things. For example, when first getting out summer clothes, I remarked that Abbey needed some more short-sleeve shirts because I thought she only had 5, turned out that she had 11...Really??!! I thought that it was important that she needed more clothes?? These orphans are lucky to have one outfit and that outfit is probably full of holes and not the right size...I also often think that our child needs several different pair of shoes to go with different outfits...what these orphans wouldn't do for ONE pair of shoes...Also, it is RIDICULOUS that our children have so many toys that we have a fairly large box in storage, yes, in storage! These orphans don't have a single toy to play with...Finally, and the most troubling for me, I complain if I burnt the peas or overcooked the noodles and often, I throw it out because I can just go get more...in the DRC the children in orphanages are the "lucky" ones because they get to eat ONE meal a day while the other orphans in this country are "lucky" to eat three times a WEEK and this meal is not a balanced meal with meat, fruit, veggies, and so on, it is most often a bowl of what I would consider to be "mush"... So, where am I going with this? I believe that the Lord finally brought Josh and I to a realization that the "things" we have are not important (yes, we have known that and said that for years now but do we really act on it?). Rather it is important to seek after Him and follow Him. He will provide everything that we could ever need and he has shown us this continually over the years. Therefore, although we do not have the money to adopt a child from the DRC as it costs approximately $20,000 for one child, we are trusting that the Lord will provide this for us. We know that He wants us to call one of these children son or daughter as He has called us His sons and daugthers. Therefore, He will make that possible. So, our journey begins...I spent some time this morning talking to an agency to see where we should begin so we are starting the application process and praying that God will provide the means to continue this process however He sees fit. We simply know that He is telling us to start the process NOW and to bring home a precious child from the DRC.