Yesterday we experienced one of those days that will forever be etched in our place called, " Fond Memories". We celebrated our South American sweet princess' birthday! Her radiant love for the Lord is evident in her life and we stand back in awe and amazement of the work God is doing in our sweet South American kiddos lives!! We see the Hand of God moving ahead and preparing these kids future with Him. And dare we, in faith, also say, that God is preparing them for our family. At first we were uncertain of an older child adoption and we wanted to back away from it...you know, that situation in life that you feel it would be better all around if you could just not know it existed? Well that is how it began for us...
First God called us to adopt...we felt the calling. It was fine. I honestly figured that Mike and I would be grey and wise and our biological kids would all be at least youth age. Maybe that's why Mike is already showing a lot of grey hair! ;) But the older and wiser and all our kids in their youth age..well God's plan is different than what we planned.
A few years later, Mike was like, "Why wait till we raise our kids? Why not adopt now and raise them with our kids?" That idea took some getting used to...and as the years passed, our hearts grew bigger..and I guess looking back we did grow older and a bit wiser! (All to the glory of God!)
I think the earliest written recording we have of our call to adopt is in 2005. As some years crawled along and others sped by, we began to pray literally for these kid(s) that were ours. We had no idea who they were and how to find them. No real idea where to start. And absolutely no $30,000 to pay for them.
The urgency to adopt began to deepen with the years but our pocketbook didn't..and finally our reason to not pursue adoption right now, was not valid in our God's eyes. He knew what we didn't, that all He needed was our "yes" and He would faithfully do the rest.
I love how God moves us along kind of at levels. Once He started the wheels of us becoming an adoptable family we found ourself immediately presented with the who and where! And as often the case, we were tested in even this....the age was an 8 yr old little girl from America. I happened to recieve the call from the agency and after the gentleman explained this little girl to me and her story, I knew in my heart we could never say yes.
Or could we?????
I have to laugh a little as I write this because God takes the "Or could we" moments and builds from there! We knew we must pray instead of coming out and refusing....so we prayed...we each had our separate request that God fulfill so we'd know...BUT God isn't bound to our request and He gave us peace in that. After sometime, and even tho' we did not feel equipped in ourselves, we knew God was, so we began the steps toward making this little angel of a girl our daughter.
We were one of several families that stepped forward. It was a dissolved adoption case and God laid it on Mike's heart to pray for reconciliation for this child and her adopted family that was giving her up. After questioning the agency about the chance of that, Mike was told that pretty well everyone involved felt that the adoption being dissolved was for the best...
After waiting for the child's family to choose one of several families' profiles we got word that this child's family decided to take her back and work toward reconciliation. Our faith was increased!!! So even tho' we felt a heart attachment to a little girl we never met, we knew to trust God in all of this.. And God so lovingly used this child to teach and stretch us a lot! Also stretching us toward older child adoption.
So now what? We then expressed our desire to adopt internationally and this agency only has the one Country in South America. So our "where" was easily enough decided!! We jumped on an international orphan host program just in time for the due date and prepared for a child to stay with us. It was encouraged that we could become familiar with the Culture and Country we would be adopting from.
We asked for the youngest little girl possible, but we stood firm in our resolve that we would not put God in a box. So if it was a boy or a bit older of a child we gave room for that. We prayed that God would orchestrate things so that the child we hosted could be the same one we would adopt...
The agency tried to get us a younger child but it wasn't going to be easy.. We were told that a little child could be adopted if their older brother or sister were being adopted also...okay, we are willing to host two kids, but the absolute youngest possible..oh my, that just gave God ALOT of room to work!!! ;)
As it held out, we would be hosting two much older than what we first expected children.... One option was; one little girl, and the other option was one little girl ( the same age as the other ) and also her older brother.
We found ourselves with several more "Or could we??!" situations and true enough God built on them. As long as we don't say a resounding no and shutting the door on our Lord ( and even then He's quite capable of carrying out His will!!) He takes our insecurities and and we find rest in Him, He takes our weakness and empowers us. He takes our willingness and creates something oh so lovely and beautiful because it has His handprints all over it and not ours!!
So yes, the same two previous kids that we hosted over Christmas, the same two that were by far much older than we ever originally set out for, is the same two adorable ones that we are pursuing adoption of~and we are excited!!!
How could we adopt two much older ones, you might be asking... Remember back....way, way back......we'd been praying for our child(ren) and these we believe our the ones we've prayed for....and they were much much younger than...we just dudn't know yet who they were..seriously, our life has had a serious amount of testing through the years. We believe it was teaching us, preparing us, to walk this road in complete trust and faith without wavering in a big Almighty God! Our God!!!
(This blog was written in the summer of this year- 2014.. We are currently continuing in the journey to bring these kiddos home..we would love your prayer support. Also if you feel led to give, there is a donate button on this page and we thank you and bless you in advance for your gift of any amount. God is continuing His awesome work in the lives of these kiddos and in our life as we work toward bringing them home. Great is His faithfulness!!)
