The gospel will call you to things you thought you'd never do...if you let it.

"The gospel will call you to things you thought you'd never do....to things that you didn't know you wanted to do.
If you let it." 

Read that again and let it sink in. 

Pastor Tim Mannin posted that on his facebook page several days ago, and as I read it, I realized that his statement describes my family.  

"If you let it." Well we have let it. I don't know of any other way to describe the transformation in my family over the past two years or the plans He has for us for the future, other than Jesus and the hope that lies in Him. 

We are so excited to announce that we have gotten our referral for our beautiful Haitian babies! Our referral came in an email almost two weeks ago. This is how it read. "Congratulations! It's a GIRL, GIRL, BOY!" My heart literally leaped with excitement and skipped a few beats all at the same time as I realized that I am going to be a mom of FOUR! My family just doubled in size with the snap of a finger, with one single breath! James was working that day, so I didn't read any further down the email than that. I called James and told him we had received the referral and we both agreed to wait to read it until we could do so together. That was the longest day of my life (5 whole hours), waiting to read details about our children and see their faces. 

This is going to be a shock to many, that we are adopting 3 children, rather than 2 as we had initially requested, but God has called us to go above what even we thought we were supposed to do and what think we are capable of.  We are stepping out in obedience to Him and feel completely confident in His ability to equip us with everything we could possibly need, and more. As we have walked through this process, we see God's hand all over this specific referral, and I am going to share with you a handful of ways we KNOW this is the right step for our family.

 When we first began this process, Heather (who does the referrals), asked us if we would consider 3 children. We told her no at the time. We went on with our process and completed our home study. When we got our home study back, we had been approved for THREE children, not two. We didn't think anything of it and just went about collecting all of our other paperwork. There were several times over the past 6 months that Heather asked us if we would consider 3 children, and each time we said "no." We had talked with her and some other staff through our adoption agency about what we were specifically wanting in a referral. Our main requests were that the oldest child had to be younger than Addi and that we wanted the children to be biological siblings.  About 3 weeks ago, Heather asked us once again if we would consider 3 children. Before replying to her this time, James and I talked about it and we agreed that we would rather have a sibling group of 3 children rather than 2 children who were unrelated. We also agreed that we trust Heather and the staff at our agency enough to take into consideration whatever referral they were considering for us. They pray over each referral throughout the process, never just throwing kids here or there. After James and I talked, I emailed Heather and told her that if she felt God was leading her to match us with specific children, we would prayerfully consider this as an option. It was about 4 days later that we received our referral. I recently had the opportunity to talk to Heather on the phone, and she explained that this was the sibling set she felt was supposed to be ours since before we even turned in our paperwork. She said that recently somebody sent her James' video testimony and that as she watched it, these children's faces flashed before her eyes as if God were telling her that they do belong with us. This is when she decided to email me once again and ask if we would consider three children. We had also already chosen a name for a boy and girl. Our boy name is Isaiah James, and ironically, our baby boy's Haitian name is already "Jamesley." I also remember holding the youngest girl back in September while we served on a mission trip to our orphange. I held her the whole time we were there that day. The day after our referral, I was doing my bible study and turned to the first scripture ISAIAH something. Our son's name. Then it told me to to turn to Psalms something. After I read the 4 verses it asked me to read, there was the name we have chosen for our daughter-SELAH. It is found in a few places in the bible and is there to tell us to pause and wait on God. God had once again reassured me that we are taking the right steps. This was enough for me to know that I know that I know, but God has continued to pour out his provision and grace. In the photos we received of our children, they were not smiling at all and look quite sad. I kept seeing their little faces and just wondering if they were happy. Two days after we received our referral, one of the women I have become friends with through adoption emailed me and asked me what my kids' Haitian names were and told me she was pretty sure she knew where many photos of them were. Sure enough she had found a goldmine of photos of my children, SMILING, PLAYING, and HAPPY! She randomly saw these photos on instagram when a girl used #Haiti. Out of all the people on instagram and all the photos, I had been introduced to a 20 year old missionary who just happened to serve at the foster home where my 3 children are living right now. 

Are you really this good to me, God? and why???

After we received our referral, we officially accepted it and haven't looked back. We are now responsible for "child support" (for lack of a better word) for each of our children. That is $300 a month per child, so $900 a month.God has already begun to provide for our financial needs. We paid our SUV off in March, so that has freed up around $642 a month that we had going out. The day after we officially accepted our referral, we received a check from some friends for $1000 with a sweet note that they wanted to be part of our support for the journey. I won't lie. I had been questioning how we were going to afford $900 extra going out each month. That day, God floored me and spoke to me loud and clear. I don't need to worry about next month or the next. I just need to be concerned with today. And today (the day we received that check) God provided more than enough for us to care for our children the entire month...plus extra! This was another way God showed us that these three children are exactly what He has for our family. 

We aren't able to share photos of them until we have an official IBESR number (basically until we are further along in the process). We have a sweet 4 year old girl (8 months younger than Addi), a 2 1/2 year old girl, and a 1 1/2 year old boy. Some of our friends gave us some pretty flowers and brought Addi a big sister balloon and some candy.

James, Addi, and I will travel to visit them May 16-19 in Haiti.  We cannot wait to meet them, play with them, love them, tuck them in at night, read to them, change diapers, be completely overwhelmed with them and eternally grateful for them. We plan to fit as much fun and love into those 4 days as we possibly can.

You can specifically be praying for our family as we continue to wait. Pray for a supernatural connection when we go spend time with our kids, that all of our hearts will open up and bond to one another. Pray for our dossier (paperwork) as it likely it will be submitted sometime soon to IBESR in Haiti. Pray for complete favor with the Haitian government. Pray that our paperwork and our children's paperwork is complete and free of error, to avoid delays in the process. Just pray for God to continue to move, as He has been, and for us to feel His presence and remain thankful through it all. 

We cannot wait to share more with you all and appreciate your prayers more than you will ever know! 

"Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him; do not fret..." Psalm 37:3-7

"If the Lord delights in a man's way, he makes his steps firm; though he stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand" Psalm 37:23-24