Could it be?

So, I inquired. Got some info. Got a little more info. I knew we would be moving again in about a month so finding a homestudy agency was going to be difficult. Apparently not that difficult. And they would work with the adoption agency that worked in this child’s country. Doors were opening. I was getting a little excited and yet didn’t want to jump the gun. I kept giving it back to the Lord. I didn’t tell my man any of this until I got an email asking if we wanted updated pictures and info on this sweet little. Then it was time to spill the beans. He said, “yes” after me telling him I had done something without telling him. You should have seen the look on his face. I think he was expecting me to say I totaled one of our cars or something. So, I asked for the update. We prayed and asked God to clarify that this was our little. God gave me scripture time and time again in the weirdest places. He gave us “Open Doors” to step through that didn’t seem like open doors at all. Even through a series of miraculous events and some great detective work from one of my bf’s, she learned that our sweet S had been adopted by an American family. We were thankful that she was in a forever family, just a bit sad that it wasn’t ours. But there was relief as well. Relief that there would not be a choice if the possibility ever arose that these two precious children would have been available at the same time in different countries.

I wanted to move on this! I started to think about fundraising to bring this sweet little home. I started to think about room arraignments, buying a bed, dresser, etc… I wanted to get started!! But we were moving once again. In fact, we were moving in less than a month and we needed to get our house ready to sell. Get ready for the movers to come. Find a home in the new city. Put in our application for the adoption agency. Pay fees. The list of to do’s was way longer than the days were long it seemed. So, we prayed. I prayed a lot. I found myself thanking God for the smallest things during this time. For screen doors that kept flies out while letting fresh rain air come in. For kids laughter. For a husband who loved his wife in spite of herself. I asked God to simply order our steps. First things first. Because we were getting overwhelmed with all that was in front of us.

So, we worked at getting ready for our move and the house going on the market. The day we met with the real estate agent about our home, we got the long awaited update. Pictures and a brief update with a longer translated update was promised as it was being translated. We were excited and beyond thrilled. The house went on the market a week later than expected, the movers came and went and we moved. (I shared a bit of a rant about this move about a week ago.)

What does this all boil down to? We said,”Yes!” to adopting a child. We are in the process of signing with our agencies to get the ball officially rolling. We can’t share much about this sweet little yet. But we hope to in the coming days and weeks. So stay tuned and please consider being apart of our adoption story!!!

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Learning to Trust in a whole new way

After being dismissed to go off to our break out sessions, I tried calling my hubby. Could not get through to him. So, I went and talked with Amy, Lorraine and Angel and asked if I could call them if I needed help once the conference was over. They all looked at me a bit crazy and said sure and asked if I was ok. All I could say was,”She’s ours. God just spoke it to my heart very loud and clearly.” They all laughed at me and said they knew the day before. I finally got to talk to my man and told him what I believed God to be saying to me and he was quiet but was agreeing. The rest of the weekend was a blur. I got to spend a little bit of time with my bf from highschool and her family before heading back home to mine.

In the coming months, we would run into some roadblocks as we were trying to adopt this sweet little girl. The door finally closed once we learned she was not available through some of her country’s rules. We were devastated. Heartbroken. We would learn this on our 19th wedding anniversary. Happy anniversary to us. A few weeks later, we would find another sweet angel that we would inquire about as well. Again, the doors would close before they would even have a chance to fly open. That happened exactly a month to the day of learning that A was not available. It would be the week of Christmas. At this point, I became angry with God. Unsure if I had actually heard him at all. Unsure if adoption would ever be apart of our lives outside of supporting those who were adopting and advocating for those who needed to find a forever family. In February of 2011, we would consider one more little girl who has severe special needs. I remember crying and asking God to speak to us about her. I remember asking him some very specific questions and getting some answers. I remember saying to him,”Please, don’t close this door if I step out in faith and say yes to her. I’m trying to trust you. Please, don’t crush this heart one more time in this area.” I called K up and said,”Let’s do this.” Within mere hours of saying this to him and talking with one of my besties, she would be calling and asking,”Is it you?! Did you commit to her? She’s got a family!”

I remember standing there in my kitchen, trying not to cry while talking with her. But saying in my heart,”See God!! You did it again. Not only did you slam the door but did it so quickly. God, you are just like every other dad out there. You crush my hopes and dreams.” I cried a bit and notified K that M had a family. In the end, we were both thankful because we would end up having to move a few months later. There would have been no way would have completed her adoption in such a short amount of time and our time constraints. The next year would be God dealing with me as I was still super angry with God about closing those doors. I didn’t understand what he was doing nor why and to be honest, I really didn’t want to.

By July, he would be talking to me about going to a place I swore I would never go. As K would start his schooling, I would be headed off to Ethiopia in October for 16 days. God was showing up like I had never seen in my life. He would provide every single penny needed in order for me to go. He would provide people to help bless my family in helping to care for our four kids. He would change my world view completely as I learned what it meant to be truly poor – financially and spiritually. We would once again put adoption on the back burner as we continued to pray for our girls but see what God was saying about where to go and do next. I was also learning to trust God in a whole new way. Asking him for forgiveness for being mad at him. Knowing it was all for my good and his glory. Our relationship was coming back around to a place that I had missed so desperately. I was being renewed in my mind and spirit and couldn’t help but love him more each and every day.

Soon, I would be reminded of dreams I had years before of a child I didn’t know. I would go to Ethiopia again in March, coming back being changed once again. Still continuing to hold hope that the girls would one day be available for adoption. Then one night, I had a dream. It was about this baby that I had had dreams of years prior and then months before. But it was different this time. This time it had the girls but they were one. In fact, the girls faces were morphed together. I didn’t understand it. I asked for clarity and wasn’t getting it. At least not then. Then one night, I chose to look at adoption lists again. Finding some of the sweetest faces. Showing them to my hubby once again. He would smile. Say they were cute but that was about it. Then I saw this face. I showed it to K. I asked him who this child reminded him of? He said,”Those are S’s eyes.” I agreed but there was something more. I left it alone. I would dream once again about this child. The next day, I showed our girls all of these kids faces. We oohed and ahhed. Then we came to this child again. I asked them what they thought. I told them daddy thought this sweet thing had S’s eyes. Our Bella said,”And A’s jaw line.” In that moment, the child I dreamt about flashed in my mind. The one whose face was the morphed image of the girls. I was speechless. Amazed. Was God showing me the child he had for us all along? I mean, this child was born in the same month and year as our A. Same color eyes as our S. Same sweet jaw line as our A. And none of them would be fro the same region. Could it be?

to be continued…

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Disappointments abound

So, I was going to T4A. I was doing something really crazy and scary. I was doing this thing that was totally out of character for myself. I was going to travel to Austin, 6 hours away by myself, room with a woman I had never met (and for all I knew she might be a serial killer. Just kidding.) and attend an adoption conference not knowing a single person attending. I would be lying if I said, I didn’t have thoughts of not attending because this was so outside of my comfort zone. I couldn’t remember the last time I had driven a long distance without anyone else in the car. I have never spent the night with another person without knowing them first. Then not really knowing why I was attending this conference, I really was thinking about not attending. But God had different plans. He made it that I would need to have a travel companion from a city 90 minutes north of me. Layla would drive down to my house and we would travel to Austin together. The day before leaving, I would be looking at and praying over children who needed families listed on the Reeces Rainbow waiting children’s list. I came across a little girl who would literally take my breath away. She was beautiful!! to say the least. She had the prettiest blue eyes and the saddest expression on her face. All I could think was that I needed to find her a family. She deserved one. I would show her picture to my family and we would start praying for her.

Once we got to Austin, I would have the privilege of meeting Lorraine, Amy, Julie, Angel, Julia, Carolyne, and so many others that would bless me. During the first day of the conference, I would be so overwhelmed with the statistics. The sheer numbers were taking me back. Knowing that each year, the number would jump by approximately 25 million. The numbers of children that would be taken into some form of forced slavery. Oh my word. Just devastating. I would end up sharing this little girl’s face with many at the conference in the hopes of finding her a family. People said she was beautiful. But no one was jumping up and down saying she was theirs. I was confused. That night I would get a message from my hubby saying,”None of us can stop thinking about this little girl.” I understood. Somehow she was already under my skin as well. The next morning, as we were worshiping, Aaron Ivey was playing a song that I had never heard before. I thought it was strange as I was listening and singing every single word as if I had written it myself. The song is AmosStory song. It’s his promise to their children that he and his wife would do whatever it took to get to them and bring them home. I cried. Then the original speaker for the morning was unable to attend due to some medical issues. So, the sub was a man by the name of Robert Galinas. He is out of a church in Colorado Springs I believe. Anyway, as I was sitting there listening to him speak, I hear this man talking about MY life. He and his wife had four kids. Two boys and two girls. Check. They were done having kids. They had the perfect equal numbers of each gender. Check. Life was good. Check. Life was comfortable. Check. Then it happened. God started moving on his wife’s heart one more time to adopt. check She saw the picture. check. Then he started asking some really hard questions. Like,”What is the reason you give for not adopting?” Ok, I’ll admit this one wasn’t hard for me. It was really simple to be honest. It’s everybody’s first response – MONEY. Yep, that was my greatest fear. Then he asked a couple more. Then he came back to money. He asked this question,”If money is the only reason that is stopping you from adopting, what is it you are saying to God then? Are you calling God a deadbeat dad?” Can we just say that that statement made me want to crawl underneath my seat and hide? I literally started to cry at this point. I can honestly say I don’t remember much more about what he said after that. All I know is I started to repent and cry that ugly girl cry we all do when we are sorry and scared. During this time, I remember hearing God whisper in my heart,”Whom shall I send?” and all I could say was, “Lord, send me. I will go.” Then that sweet little girl’s face swept across my mind and believing he said to me,”Then she’s yours.”

To Be continued…

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6 years ago

Six years ago, Kevin and I attended a Third Day/Steven Curtis Chapman concert for my birthday courtesy of some very sweet friends of ours, who blessed us with the tickets. While at that concert, we had no idea that God would speak to us so clearly about orphans and adoption. By the end of the night, we walked away from that concert believing that God had spoken to both of us about adopting two more children. This was so not on our radar. You have to understand something, we were DONE having children. We had the perfect family – two girls, two boys. Life was good and well-balanced. So adding to our family was not part of our master plan. So, both us hearing the number two from God was a little on the scary side not to mention just a little on the crazy side. I know, most of you are probably laughing at that statement. Go ahead, but I bet if you’re honest, you thought the same way at some point in your life.

We would go home and share just with a few selected friends about that night and what we believe God was saying to us. Then we dropped it. We didn’t mention it again. Just a few months later, some dear friends of ours would start the journey to their first child. He would come home just a few months after we had moved back to Texas. We would be happy for them and keep moving on with life as the thought of adoption slowly fizzled for us and became more about supporting others during their process and having the thought of, “It’s for other people and not us.” After being in Texas for two years, the army would move us up to Lawton, Ok. The smallest town I’d ever lived in and had no idea why God would bring a city family through and through to a small town. One of my bffs would send and emergency email asking me to pray for one of her bloggy friends daughter. Most of you will probably remember Chrissie “Jewelry” Patterson. if you don’t know her story, you need to head over to my friend Lorraine’s blog (This is just the start of her story.  Please read all the way through May to see how God worked miracles) and read the story of how God has used this little girl to draw her readers to himself. I would also find another famous blog that many of you probably know called, Building the Blocks! That God would also use to speak to me. During this time, God would start moving on my heart once again to adopt. Kevin would attend a DART Conference through SWI that summer which would spark something in him that only God could ignite. His passion for helping others in disaster areas and preparedness training. I would talk to him briefly about it but he just wasn’t interested. Then I started to learn about a conference called T4A or Together for Adoption. (I highly recommend attending a conference when you can.  So eye-opening! and the people you meet- AMAZING!) It was going to be in Austin that year. I started reading about it, learning about it and praying about going. I talked with Kevin about me attending and he thought it was a good idea to go. To be honest, I wasn’t going for the adoption aspect. I know! I was going to go learn more about girls and boys who were becoming slaves in every manner a person could dream up. I had my agenda as to why I was going and God would just laugh and shake his head. He would have so much more in store for me.  For us.

To be continued…..

 

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