Connecting dots

It's been so long since I have updated or even written about our adoptions. Our life is an adventure for sure! Our days are full, and our hearts are too. We are blessed, in the valley and on the mountain. Through it all, we continue to see God work miracles in our lives. He is so, so Good! I wanted to share just one way He continues to connect the dots in our lives. He amazes me.

Family vs. Family

What we expected vs. Reality

Today I am unable to focus on anything else other than how good our God is and how He makes everything beautiful in His time, how He knows what the future holds and prepares us for what He calls us to do. I am reflecting back on the past year of my life, which seems more like five years, to be honest.

When God's not finished...

...and I have now realized that He never is.

As long as we remain open to His plan (even if it seems "inconvenient"), to His blessings (even in disguise), to His promptings (no matter how "crazy" they may seem at times), He will continue to visibly work in and through us.

a wish and a prayer

October 27th. It's Jamesley's 2nd birthday.

I wish Jamesley was here to celebrate with us; We would have candles and his favorite cake. He would hear "I love you" at least a dozen times. I would smooch his sweet caramel cheeks and tell him how precious he is to us. We would give him the biggest bouncy ball we could find because that is his favorite type of toy. But he's not here, and we can't do those things. So we continue to hope in our Lord to make this situation beautiful, whatever beauty looks like to Him.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress AND TO KEEP ONESELF FROM BEING POLLUTED BY THE WORLD." James 1:27

This has been the verse the Lord gave us for our adoption, and I always wanted to leave the last part off. Each time I started to do that, I felt this nagging to go back and add it on, so I did. I have no doubt that the Lord placed the ENTIRE verse on my heart for our adoption because He knew that we would experience pollution during our process. He was trying to prepare us for what was to come.

"We know that the Lord does not shut one door without opening another."

That is basically how I finished my last post about our adoption.

God really does have a sense of humor. He also has inspired the awe factor in me, once again. Each time He does this, it's harder to take for granted His all encompassing love for me, His compassion, and His redemption..
Since our last adoption update, there have been some drastic changes. Hang on for this one. It caught us all off guard...

Catching Up and Calling Out

Life has been absolutely crazy. Crazy beautiful and chaotic and hard, all at the same time. Many of you know our family went to Haiti this past May to meet the children we were matched with. I had planned to share our wonderful experience shortly after returning, but the day after we got home, the tornado hit Moore. I didn't have time to even begin to process my trip to Haiti; the minute I turned around, it seemed Haiti had followed me home.

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. 

A birthday request...

It's been so long since I have updated the blog! I apologize, but there really has not been anything to post as an update. There is so much uncertainty in Haiti right now, with adoption in general. The order of operations has changed a bit, as far as when we will receive a referral, so we are prayerfully waiting to celebrate the day this does happen. We have learned so much already through the short time we have been in the process. God has put some amazing families in our lives and has continued to reveal His will for our lives. We are continually seeking Him and He is refining us daily.

our Christmas surprise

I think I could have kissed our mailman on Thursday...on the cheek of course! He brought something in the mail that caused me to literally squeal "thank you Jesus!" and jump up and down.

I am so giddy with excitement as I share the news that we have moved one step further along in our adoption journey; we got our approval letter from USCIS! It reads "notice of favorable determination concerning application..." and then goes on to say that we have been determined able to furnish proper care to an orphan, with other details of what steps to take next.

A different kind of Christmas

**We found out Thursday that it wasn't going to work out for us to participate this year. We know God has a perfect plan and pray some time in the future we are able to serve Him through the foster care system in this way. 

This year for Christmas, our family is planning to do something different.

After some friends told us about how they participated in a program called "home for the holidays" with DHS over Thanksgiving, we have decided we would love to have this opportunity as well!
In both Oklahoma and Cleveland county, there are many kids in DHS custody, and lots of these kids are in a shelter right now and will be for Christmas, which means they are not living with a family yet.

"New" news

I was on facebook last night and came across an article published in Haiti describing some of the new laws they are hoping to apply there regarding adoption. The laws right now in Haiti state that a couple should be married for 10 years and be over age 35, but under the new laws, a couple will be required to be married for only 5 years and be 30 years of age. This is excellent news for our family, since we have been married about 5 1/2 years and are both 31 years old!

USCIS

I don't even know what it stands for. I just know it's one more step we have completed, which puts us a little closer to bringing home our child(ren). James and I went today and had our fingerprints done for the United States side of our adoption. It's the beginning step to being granted permission to bring our children home to live with us as citizens of the United States. As we were driving, I couldn't get the song "Kings and Queens" by Audioadrenaline out of my head. I wanted to share it with you and hope you enjoy as much as I do.

Waiting for a match...

I wanted to update everybody as to where we are on our adoption journey. We collected, notarized, and legalized about every document you could possibly imagine and sent it off to our agency. They have received it, and we are now waiting for a referral, which is the step where we are matched with the sweet children that will be OUR children. We are so very excited and a little impatient at times for

In a nutshell

This is an update that we sent to family and a few friends near the end of the summer (2012) and thought it would be great to begin our blog with this as well. 

    God has really been working in our lives, and we want to share with you some of the ways He continues to bless us. We walked through a very difficult time in our marriage around a year and a half ago, but as we have both continued to seek God, He has remained faithful and completely restored our marriage...and then some!

Ready, Set, Go!

We are so excited to be adopting from Haiti! This whole blog thing is completely new to us, so it may take a little bit (or a lot) of time to get the hang of. We know that this is the best way to keep our family and friends in the loop with our adoption journey and are so excited that you want to be part of it! Through this blog, we pray that we can be an encouragement to you, on your journey as well, as we share our lives and our story with you! Keep us in your prayers as we pursue this wonderful calling that God has placed on our lives!