With much excitement we announce that our family will soon be growing to 3!!!
James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress..." It's official! We are adopting! We applied to an agency called Adoption Advocates International and were accepted this week! We are soooo excited!
We have chosen to adopt from Ethiopia. It is one of the highest need countries for adoption and has over 4.8 million orphans! Boys are the highest adoption need, so we have requested a healthy, infant boy, as young as possible.
Some might wonder, "why adopt?" but for us, it's not even a question. Due to what we know about the heart of God and what we understand about what it means to truly live a life with the heart of Jesus, the decision was easy for us. The only question was simply "when?" This past June the desire to adopt grew to an overwhelming one and we could sense the Lord leading us in this direction at this time in our lives. We have been praying continually about this and WOW, I never knew I could love someone so much whom I've never met! It's crazy that we have already cried tears of love, compassion, and concern for this little baby that we don't even know yet! I have dreams of what it would be like to hold him, but I wake up and can't remember what his little face looks like. We want to be with him so bad it hurts!
So, many are asking... when? We have begun the process of a home study, then after that we have to compile a huge packet of documents called a dossier. It will take a couple months to put together the dossier. So, all in all, we are looking for our baby to join our family next summer in 2009, or early fall 2009.
We have a BIG God, a powerful God, who is in control of all things. Our very specific, huge, God sized prayer request is that we can bring our baby home in early June so that he can meet our extended family at my cousin Jenny Boulet’s wedding on June 20th. That's really pushing it time wise, and falls much shorter than the time frame we were given. But the process in Ethiopia is currently going very smoothly and plus, God is ultimately in control! Would you join us in praying for an early June travel date? We realize that even if the Lord does not grant us this request, that His timing is always best.
One of our biggest joys has been the overwhelming amount of people who are sharing in our excitement and passion. It means the world to us! We love talking adoption, so don't be shy if you have questions you want to ask. We’d love to hear from you! We love you and thank you again for your excitement as we travel on this incredible adventure!
3 comments:
Rach and Jon, Rob and I are thrilled for you three. We will pray for an expedient delivery in His time.
I hope you don't mind us "peeking in" on your adoption blog from time to time. We made the same decision you did...about a month later. We will be anxiously tracking your progress and praying for children neither of us has seen.
In the seventh grade I saw a documentary about Ethiopia and decided that day that I would one day adopt a child from Ethiopia and do everything in my power to give him or her the best life possible. My senior year of high school I found your blog and I have been following it steadily for the past three years. I am now a junior in college in an area where my dream is not so readily accepted. At the end of the day, I always come back to your blog and know that no matter where I end up in life a beautiful Ethiopian baby will be there with me! Thank you SO MUCH for continuing with this blog as your family has grown! Best of luck with the home schooling!!
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