Exceedingly and Abundantly

Whenever God gives you a word, it is SO exciting and empowering that you could just jump for the sky! It is so refreshing and you have such hope that you can't possibly be brought back down to reality ever... right? Well... not exactly. You see, when you get that initial hope, you can't just grab hold and think that it will take you through the entire process. You have to constantly renew your mind. Constantly repeat the promises to yourself that the Lord has told you. If you don't do these things...  that seed of doubt will be planted. If you aren't strong enough it will be watered and it will grow. Before you know it, you've just gotten yourself into a place that you never wanted to be. How could you be so doubtful of a situation that God clearly told you he had control over. Yes, you may not see the work that is going on in the background, the people whose hearts God is changing, tugging on and making a way for the promise he gave you. To truly have a God size dream... it can't be measured on our earthly terms. It's a dream that can only be achieved through the supernatural, through the Holy Spirit weaving in and out of people's lives, planting those seeds of hope. The hard, at least for me, is the waiting and having patience. As humans, it is so difficult to believe when you don't see. As Christians, this is what it is all about, believing in the unseen. That is what faith is all about, the substance of things that we hope for, the evidence of the things we cannot see. When we feel God has called us to do something we just want to jump in and do it now, on our terms... but that is what's so great about God. If we do it on our terms, so fast and hastily, it won't come out right. But if we wait on Him, put our faith and trust in Him, it will be far greater than our wildest dreams.

"Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us" Eph 3:20

Do you see that... he is ABLE to do EXCEEDINGLY ABUNDANTLY above ALL things that we ASK or even think! How great is our God? I was feeling a tad bit defeated Sunday morning when I went to church, the seed was creeping in, how will we really ever afford all of this? Then I was quickly reminded that God's got it. A lady from our church came over to me and said "I've already told your husband, but I wanted you to know too. You shouldn't be surprised by overflow". There it was, God showing up to clean up my little mess. To remind me that he's got this, and not only does he have this and is he going to fulfill his promise to us, but he is going to do it exceedingly and abundantly. We send up prayers of thanksgiving and are so grateful for all that he is doing in our lives and in the life of the little one who will become our son or daughter. We don't know if they are born yet, but we do know that God is orchestrating everything and that it will be a testimony to only Him who we can give the glory and thanks! :)

Puzzle Fundraiser

Puzzle Fundraiser!

Every person who donates to our adoption becomes a piece of our story; a piece of our puzzle. So here is how the fundraiser works:

• We have selected a 500 piece puzzle and each piece symbolizes someone who will help to bring our child home.
• Each piece is a minimum donation of $20.
• You may choose to be one piece of the puzzle or many. There is no limit.
• Your name will be written on the back of each puzzle piece that you represent. Make sure to add a note to your donation or send an email with the name(s) you would like written on the puzzle piece(s).

Once we have fully funded the puzzle, we will frame it between two pieces of glass and hang it in our child's room. By hanging it between two pieces of glass, we will be able to turn it over and tell the story and remember the names all of the people that supported us making it possible to bring our child home!

Below is a picture that we chose to have made for our puzzle. 

We will write your name on the back of the puzzle piece...

Once we have funded the entire puzzle, we will have raised $10,000! This is almost a third of the price of our adoption. So huge!! 

We would be so honored for you to support us and help us to bring our child home! To buy a puzzle piece you can send your donation to our paypal account here or you can make a tax deductible donation to our Pure Charity account here and click the "donate to this fundraiser" button.

Exciting News!

Family and Friends,

We are so glad that you are here because we have some very exciting news! Peco and I are starting the journey to adopt our first child! And as of a couple of days ago, we have officially been accepted in the India program through our adoption agency! 

**This is our current level of excitement**

We decided to start this blog to keep all of our family and friends informed along the way. The process itself will take anywhere from 18 to 24 months but we are excited!! I thought I would start this first post out with a few of the already frequently asked questions - just in case they were rolling through your mind as well.

One of the biggest questions asked is, "Why are you adopting and from another country?" The short and simply answer is - Because God told us to. The longer version is that we always knew, even early on when we were dating, that if we ever adopted we would adopt from another country. Peco had been on multiple mission trips and I had been to Nicaragua. Once you go to a third world country and you see the sweet faces of the orphans in those countries... well that image truly never leaves you. Our hearts went out to them and we knew that someday we would make an impact - even if it started with just one.   After we got married, having kids seemed to take a little longer than we had hoped and we began praying and asking God for guidance. We had a friend who was adopting a child from Korea and we felt encouraged to look into international adoption... but after seeing the price to adopt ($30-$40 thousand!!), we immediately were discouraged. We determined that we probably  wouldn't be able to afford it, thus pushing that thought out of our minds. After several months of prayer, one day changed the course of our entire future. I'd like to refer to this day as a "meeting orchestrated by God". Peco teaches 3rd grade and he always has a feast in his classroom for Thanksgiving and parents and family are encouraged to come and share in the festivities. I normally attend and help out as needed. On this particular feast, little did we know that one child in his class and his sweet family would encourage and set us on the path that God had intended for us all along. I knew that he was teaching a child who was internationally adopted but I simply had forgotten about it until the feast. I saw the little boy and then I saw his precious mom and grandparents .. and right behind them were his two sisters who were also adopted. At that point everything stopped, it was like the Holy Spirit had filled the entire room. My face lit up and I looked at Peco and mouthed the words "adoption". He smiled and nodded. I struck up a conversation with the grandmother and within our short time of talking she said the words that we needed to hear. She told us "Don't think you can't afford it, my daughter and her husband have adopted four times" and at once, a sense of peace filled me. I said Thank you Lord and couldn't wait for school to be over to tell Peco about my conversation. We have since broke bread with them at their house and they were able to educate and encourage us in our walk. I truly believe that without meeting this wonderful family, we wouldn't be where we are today. All of the reservations that we had pertaining to not being able to afford it had vanished. We were reminded of many sermons and words we had received from God in the past... if he calls you to do something - he provides a way. So while we may have the necessary income to care for a child in our home, we don't have the $35,000 to pay for the adoption outright. And we will need your help to invest in our family with your prayers and donations to bring our baby home... but we know that God will provide and all those who sow into our family - no matter how little or big - will be blessed ten fold back. :)

Another question that everyone is dieing to know is, "How did you decide to adopt from India?" Once again, the answer to this is - Because God told us to. This is another area that we were struggling in. We wanted to adopt from China, maybe because that's normally what you think of when you think of international adoption, but unfortunately we didn't qualify. We were bummed and thought that we would wait a few more years until we had been married long enough to qualify. God had a different plan though. I mean, he had gotten us this far already and we needed to give him a little more faith to let his vision unfold. We once again, began praying... and no answers came. Then one day as we were sitting on the couch we decided to pray again but this time we prayed boldly and specifically for God to tell us which country we were to adopt from. We asked that he give us a clear sign, not one that involved us trying to interpret it. Obviously we were no good at that. As soon as we were done praying, a commercial came on the TV. The very first words from the commercial, in big bold letters said "Go to India!".  We just looked at each other and laughed and said well - it looks like it's India. The next week, I told my boss about the adoption and India and the following day I received an email in my Outlook saying that our company was "going to India". My boss and I quickly came to the same realization that this was no coincidence either. Not only did God give us one sign... but he gave us two! We couldn't be disobedient any longer, so we did some digging and saw that we qualified for India and submitted our pre-application. We then told our parents and a couple close friends and on Christmas night we decided to submit the application to be accepted into the India program for our adoption agency. The adoption agency was closed for the week of Christmas and New Years so we had to wait longer to get our acceptance but there it was the following Wednesday! I'm going to go ahead and write that in the books for our first of many waiting periods for the whole adoption process... God is granting me patience, slowly. ;)

So there you have it, our two most asked questions and I'll update the blog as there are more and with any updates along our journey. The very first step to truly begin the process is to pull from savings and raise the rest of the initial $5,000 that is due to start the infamous paper chase and homestudy! Once we have the initial $5,000 and we fill out some initial agreements, we can start Phase 1. Phase 1 is the paper chase. This involves about 6 months of us running around like chickens with our heads cut off to get a vast array of documents, getting said documents notarized and eventually compiling a full package of papers - otherwise known as a "dossier". During this time we will also be completing our homestudy with a social worker. This will consist of more paperwork, an examination of our home and interviews with us together and separately regarding everything under the sun related to our parenting styles, the way we were raised, our marriage and so on.

To familiarize yourself with the blog, at the top is a link to our Adoption Timeline. This will update you on our big milestones in the process. If your are also adopting from India, this is a neat point of reference so you can see how long it took us. Although I'm sure each adoption varies in their waiting times. :)

There is another link at the top for Fundraising. This will keep you up to date on the most recent fundraiser that we are doing. Our first one will be a puzzle fundraiser and I will post another blog about that shortly. We greatly appreciate your help in sharing these posts and our blog with your friends/family and on your social media sites. :) You never know who will be able to lend a helping hand and every prayer and donation are greatly appreciated. 

If you are feeling led to donate, there are two options. The first option is that you can use the donate button located to the right of this page and your donation will go straight to our adoption PayPal account. The second option is to use the Pure Charity link that is right under the donation button. By donating through Pure Charity, the funds will be transferred straight to our Adoption Agency and are completely tax deductible. 

There you have it! :) If you have any questions along the way, please comment or send us an email and we will answer it as best as we can. Most importantly we ask that you add us to your prayers.That you pray specifically for the provision of the funds to start Phase 1 and for our future child. That God is placing a hedge of protection around them, that they are being placed in a good, christian orphanage and for the Holy Spirit to weave his peace throughout our entire process. We thank you all in advance for your prayers and your support!!