One Hundred Families

We are so excited to announce the launching of 100 Families.  100 Families is a Challenge seeking 100 Families who will join together and commit to raising funds for adoption and raising adoption awareness in their churches and communities.  100 Families can have a huge impact in bringing help to the helpless around the world.  To join the challenge and learn more about 100 Families - visit http://www.onehundredfamilies.blogspot.com/  Please share this blog with everyone and encourage others to take the challenge!

Provision beyond measure

As we approach the next few weeks knowing that there are adoption invoices that have to be paid and knowing the money is not yet available - we are praying for God's provision.  Today, our pastor, William Marshall, preached on Malachi chapter 3.  He talked of the theology of knowing the God we serve and His mighty and sovereign means of providing all that we need.  However, in the great scheme of His providence, even as we pray for provision in the here and now - with all of our earthly, fleshly wants and desires driving our thoughts - that God, in His infinite wisdom -has already provided for us through the blood and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  His grace is sufficient for all our needs.  Why do we cry out for pennies and bread today when riches and glory are to be had in eternity?  Once again, thank You, Lord, for Your mercies - Your love for us endures forever.

Hope and Hearing

We got an exciting email today  - our adoption agency received an updated health report on Lori.  She is now wearing hearing aids and responding to her name when someone calls her.  She is not trying to make any sounds or words but she does make sound when she laughs or cries.  This is such a blessing.  Earlier reports listed her as "mute".  Thank you, Lord, for your provision in so many unexplainable and undeniable ways.  We adore YOU!!

Cooking Up ideas!

Our dear friend Mindy is putting together an amazing cookbook filled with Adoption Stories and Recipes from the countries where these families have adopted.  She will be selling these to help fund our adoption and hopefully many others.  If you have an adoption story or know someone who does - or have any great ethnic recipes from China, Ethiopia, Korea, Vietnam, Ukraine, Russia, Honduras, etc - send her an email at legacyofloveblog@gmail.com   I can't wait to see the finished product and I hope she has an awesome time seeing this come together.  Please pray for her and all her efforts - it's a beautiful thing to see how God provides!

Thanks

I don't have a lot on my mind this morning (that happens occasionally!) - but just wanted to post a heart-felt thank to those who have taken it upon themselves to help raise funds for Lori's adoption.  We have some great friends and an awesome church family who are really looking out for us and taking up their portion of James 1:27 to be involved in this adoption.  Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.  We can't wait to see what God does with all your efforts.

Blessings never Cease

I have to tell you - somedays I get a little nervous about how we are going to pay for this adoption.  Just being honest......We shared with our small group Saturday night about our thoughts regarding fundraising, etc. and asked for prayer for direction and clarity.  We have lots of ideas for fundraisers and would love to dig in with both hands and have lots of fun selling things, having bake sales, etc - this is right up my alley!  But, we keep sensing that God has specific plans and that we need to be still and wait - so we wait......yet the invoices for various fees don't.  Right now, we need to send our immigration papers off - but a check for $600 or so needs to be attached - so............Well, today 2 really cool things happened.  I rec'd a text from a dear friend that she had an idea God had laid on her heart and she wanted to talk to me.  She came by and low and behold - the idea was about a fundraiser she wanted to do for us!!  This is not something we had even talked about - yet God in His amazing way - laid it upon her heart to help provide the funds.  She had already made some phone calls and sent some emails - and she is planning a Breakfast Day at Applebee's - so if you live near Sikeston - be on the lookout for this fun event and be sure to come!! 

Then, I received an email from the wonderful Linda Huckaba.  She works with our orhpanage - Harmony House - in the US office and just returned from a visit to China.  She sent me 3 awesome pictures of sweel Lori (in one - she even has pigtails - it's so adorable!!) and a quick litle message.  Even though her message was only about 2 sentences - her words were worth millions (well, at least thousands).  She said she had information that some people have possibly made funds available to cover Lori's adoption.  What??? Are you kidding me???  That's huge, God.    I don't know the details yet - but, I'll keep you posted.  Whether the donation will cover a little or a lot - we are so grateful and amazed at the way God speaks to people's hearts to give. 

Thank you - God for you amazing provision.  Why do we ever doubt You?!

Looking for the Source

I just finished reading a little book called "When Happens When Women Say Yes to God" by Lysa TerKeurst.  In  Chapter 7, she quotes C.S. Lewis.....
      I think all Christians would agree with me if I said that though Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all of that, into something beyond.  One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things, except perhaps as a joke.  Everyone there is filled with light.  But they do not call it goodness.  They do not call it anything.  They are not thinking of it.  They are too busy looking for the source from which it comes.
     Lysa follows with this prayer   "Oh, Lord, give me the desire to be too busy looking atYou to consider anything but Your plan!  Strip away my short and narrow vision to see the wonderful adventure of truly being Your follower.  Help me to be like Your disciples who followed immediately and fully rather than like the people who simply played games at the foot of Your cross."

Oh how often I have merely played games in the comfortable shadow of the cross.  Like Lysa - I pray that I can follow immediately and fully!!!

Remember Whose in Control Here!

Our readers will be baffled by 2 posts in one day - but, oh well......As I was sitting in my "Reading Chair" this morning going over some ideas pertaining to this $3000 we need to pay our dossier fee and this $600 we need to send to immigration - I have to admit I was feeling a little overwhelmed.  Then, I remembered that so many 40,000 things have been perfectly orchestrated over the last 7 years to bring us where we are with our adoption today - that why would something as trivial as $3600 mess things up now??  Just a few weeks ago - we weren't even sure if we would get matched with Lori.  It was as if she were sitting in the middle of a busy highway and we couldn't get past the rushing cars to save her.  She was literally hanging out in cyberspace and multiple adoption agencys had access to her records.  Any number of prospective parents could have snatched her up and called her their own while we sludged through the mire of paperwork waiting to be approved for a match.  Yet, God in His unceasing amazement - seemed to hold her safely in His arms for us.  As far as we know - no one even looked at her file while she was "out there" online for almost 3 weeks while we were getting our papers together.  The God of Wonders is truly alive and in our midst.  Thank you - Heavenly Father - for your infinate provision.  Help us wait patiently for the funds for this adoption, for the State Certifications, the Consulate Authentications, the Dossier Approval, the Immigration Paperwork, and the all-important Travel Date telling us when we can come to China to pick up our baby and bring her home.  

Great Article on the Common Adoption Questions - Enjoy!

Adoption bring up so many questions.  I found this blog post and copied it here because I thought it had some great answers to the common questions.  It's a little long - but well worth it.  Grab a Chai and start reading.  It may spark something!

Written by Jennifer at http://www.beboldjen.blogspot.com/ -

Adoption and the Three F’s      April 22, 2010 by jsloniger

There are a few questions I get asked often. No matter how people phrase their inquiries, the essence of what they usually want to know about adoption, especially HIV+ adoption, are three basic things.
I’m about to uncover my answers to people’s three biggest adoption questions, but first, did you know that?:

**Statistics from 2005 state that over one-third of Americans had considered adoption but no more than 2 percent of Americans actually adopted.

With so many people considering adoptions in the US it’s a wonder the numbers of adoptive families aren’t higher. I mean, two percent? That’s it?

I’ve looked high and low but it seems the 2005 figures are the most current ones available. Even if the number of families adopting in the US doubled things would still look pretty bleak compared to the 147 million orphans world-wide. The reality is that few people ever move from the ‘thinking about it’ stage to the blessing that is the reality of adoption.
Adoption isn’t the answer to systemic change and the prevention of children being orphaned but it is a very real answer for children in need of parents NOW.

My friends and I wondered at the large numbers of people who had considered adoption and were curious what was happening to prevent them from actually adopting. We began listening closely to the questions and concerns about adoption expressed by people around us. In response, we have come up with a theory that there are three places people tend to stop and ask questions at. We call these points the Three F’s. They are Faith, Fear, and Finances. It’s our experience that if the Three F’s can’t be addressed with a satisfactory answer when they arise families tend not to pursue adoption further.