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We are already in the

As of yesterday, we'd only been on the list for 8 days and had moved 4 spaces!!! Wow! Praise Jesus!

Also, the Lord has been at work in some dear friends' adoption from Ethiopia! I have been overwhelmed this week by the trials that so many dear brothers' and sisters' have gone through as they wait and wait and wait to bring their children home. I KNOW that the Lord loves these orphans even more than we do and that He desires them to be placed in loving, Christian homes. This morning he moved mighty mountains and answered the prayers that we have been praying for months for our friends!!! I am overjoyed at this news but am hesitant to share more details because of the sensitivity of adoptions in Ethiopia right now. Just know that we are PRAISING Him today!!! Now we are praying that these precious children will be home by Christmas :)

On another note:

Tis the season to begin buying Christmas gifts for friends, family, acquaintances, teachers, coworkers, and everyone else. Please check out my fundraising tab to see NEW gift ideas including cookbooks and fleece blankets. What better way to spend money that you are already planning to spend than to help bring an orphan home at the same time?? Also, check out our friends' adoption fundraiser at leachfamilytree.blogspot.com. They are selling handmade Christmas wreaths and such. They are beautiful!!

We Have a Number!

It's official!! We are on the waiting list at #

Our agency only has one list for 0-18 mo (we had originally requested 0-2 but this is okay with us). Here are some pictures of the girls mailing our dossier...man, it was tough to get both of them to look and smile (?) at the camera...

Dossier Complete!!

We are thrilled to announce that thanks to some donations that have already been submitted for our Lifesong Grant (see "Letter" post for more info), we have more than enough to submit our dossier!! It is FINALLY going in the mail tomorrow and we will actually be on the waiting list for a child!!!! I have been dancing around the house all afternoon in excitement :) Thank you Jesus for providing the funds for us to be on the waiting list!!

Letter

October 25, 2011

Dear Family and Friends,

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” John 14:18

Some of you know that we are in the process of adopting an orphan from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in Africa. We believe that we have been called by God to care for an orphan as our adopted child just as He has adopted us into His family. We are planning to adopt a child of either gender between the ages of 0-2. We will be matched with our child, Lord-willing, in the next 6 months and then travel about 4 months later to bring him/her home. We are very excited and cannot wait to bring our precious child home! Hopefully, he/she will be home by next summer.

Did you know that there are between 143 and 210 million orphans worldwide? Every single day, 5,760 MORE children become orphans! How sad would that be to grow up without the love and support of a family?! Here is a little bit of our story about why we are adopting.

We first began seriously considering adoption about 2 ½ years ago when our church, Immanuel Baptist Church, had an adoption emphasis month. We began to talk about adopting “someday” but we didn’t know what this would look like for us. Over the course of the past two years, we prayed about when and where we should adopt. We also read Russell Moore’s book, Adopted for Life, and it really helped us understand the doctrine of adoption. It also affirmed for us that God had indeed called us to adopt. You can read more of our story on our blog at www.koenigsjourneytoadopt.blogspot.com.

We estimate our total expenses for adoption fees, document preparation, home study, airfare, travel, attorney fees, etc. to be $23,000. We know that God is faithful and wants us to trust Him to provide these funds. By His grace, we have been able to pay about $5,400 so far.

LifeSong for Orphans (www.lifesongfororphans.org) partnered with our church Immanuel Baptist (www.ibclouisville.org), has graciously given us a $4,000 matching grant!! This means that everything that is donated to our adoption up to $4,000 will be doubled!! That is a total of $8,000, which is almost our entire referral fee! That is the fee we will pay when we are matched with our child. This money must be received at Lifesong by December 20, 2011.

We are making our needs known to you, our family and friends, because it is Biblical to do so. We appreciate your friendship and would like you to pray and consider helping us in our adoption. There are two ways you can help:

1. Prayer – Please pray that God would take care of our precious child until we can bring him/her home. Please pray that God would prepare his/her heart, as well as ours, to become a part of our family. Please pray that God would give us wisdom, discernment, and insight as we raise this child, along with Abigail, and Hannah, to know Jesus Christ.
2. Financial Support – Will you please consider making a tax-deductible donation to help us pay the remaining $17,600 to bring this child home?

If you would like to be a part of God bringing our child to Himself through our family, you can send your tax-deductible gift between now and December 20, 2011 to the address below. Lifesong is a trusted organization administering the funds on our behalf, and will pay adoption expenses out of funds received. 100% of all funds received by Lifesong for Orphans goes directly to cover adoption costs. Nothing is taken out for administrative costs.

• Please make checks payable to Lifesong. In the memo section of the check, please write “Preference Koenig/#2257 adoption” so the money will be designated to our account. *Note: In following IRS guidelines, your donation is to the named non-profit organization. This organization retains full discretion over its use, but intends to honor the donor’s suggested use.
• Mail checks to Lifesong for Orphans

                              Attn: Koenig/#2257 adoption

                             

P.O. Box 40

                              Gridley, IL 61744

Thank you for investing in the Kingdom through prayer and finances! We will give you an update with a picture and details as soon as we receive them. Please pray that this entire process will glorify God and fulfill His purposes!

In Christ,

                                                                

Joshua, Kristen, Abigail, and Hannah           

"One Less"

All I can say is Wow! This is pretty powerful...

Lifesong

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow! Praise Him all creature here below! Praise Him above Ye Heavenly Host! Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! A-men!!"

We just got some news we had been praying to hear!! We've been approved for a $4,000 matching grant through Immanuel Baptist Church and Lifesong for Orphans!!! If this grant is funded in its entirety ($8,000), it will cover the complete referral cost for our child!!!!

We KNOW the Lord wants us to bring this precious child home and we KNOW that He will provide the funds needed but sometimes it's discouraging when it takes soooo very long to raise a little bit....We are soooo encouraged by this great news! Thanks so much to Immanuel and Lifesong!!!! Thanks does not even begin to put into words, the gratitude that we are feeling right now...We will post more info on this as soon as we hear exactly how the funds can be donated and we get our support letter written. *Editing this to share how you can donate if you feel led to do so...You write your check to Lifesong for Orphans and in the memo line, write "preference Koenig/#2257 adoption." Then, mail your check to Lifesong for Orphans, PO Box 40/202 N. Ford St., Gridley, IL 61744. This donation is completely tax deductible!

Please join with us in prayer that all of this support will be raised and that none of this gift will be wasted. Thanks be to God!

On another note, we are working on another fundraiser - a cookbook!! We are currently collecting any and all recipes to go into a cookbook that will be back in time for Christmas delivery. It would make a wonderful gift for ANYONE you know! If you have any yummy recipes, please pass them on by this Saturday, the 22nd...Thanks in advance!!

Fingerprints Done!

Sometimes I find it hard to come up with new titles for my blog entries so this one pretty much says it all :) We went today and had our fingerprinting appointment for USCIS. If you know me, you know that the fact that it was completed without incident was a minor miracle :) For as long as I can remember, I have picked the skin on my fingers (too much info?) and therefore, every time I've had my fingerprints taken, I've had to go back 3 and 4 times because they have been rejected. Well, I've tried really hard to not do that in preparation for today and I prayed that God would just cover the blemishes on the screen so that they would be accepted and Voila! It worked :) We are one step closer to submitting our dossier!! Praise God!! I think when we actually get it submitted, I will post the entire Doxology...Well, actually, why not now? God has been so good throughout this process even if it doesn't happen as quickly as I would like it to...

Praise God from whom all blessings flow! Praise Him all creatures here below!
Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Host! Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! Amen!