Our response

Thanks so much for your prayers as we wrestled through our decision about the 8 year-old girl we were offered for adoption. It was really good to talk through it together and to seek wise counsel from others. Our heart goes out to her and her family but in the end we had peace that the answer was no.

Yesterday I called the agency to give our answer. The social worker informed me that she is no longer up for adoption anyway because they wanted the mother to seek counsel and help for her mental disorders. I am glad this is the way the agency has chosen to advise the mother and we pray she will get the help that she needs so they can stay together as a family.

Thanks again for your prayers and for walking through this with us!

We got a call...

Last week both Mike and I were out of commission with some kind of stomach bug. Not fun. One of the days when we were both vegged out on the couch, either sick or recovering, we got a call from the adoption agency.  We haven't heard from them for ages so I thought it was them wondering what on earth we are going to do now that we are pregnant. Anyway, it was a call to see if we would be interested in a little girl who is not within our preferences. All the lady knew was that she is 8 and has blue eyes and blonde hair. So together we talked about what that would be like and if we are even open to that option for our family. We decided we were open and we would wait to find out more.

A few hours later we got a call from the lady who knows more about this little girl. As soon as she started describing her situation I immediately said a big "NO" in my mind as you probably will too when you read some of what I heard. So I had settled on our answer being no but just last night Mike mentioned that he couldn't get her out of his mind. This opened up my heart and mind to think more about it and learn more about where my big "NO" is coming from. Lots and lots of fears and not trusting our big God.

Here is her situation:

She lives in Florida with her mother and stepfather. The extended family doesn't know where they are so it makes me think they may be on the run. The mother has had several relationships and the little girls has been exposed to a lot of trauma and abuse (we aren't sure if it is just witnessed or personally). The mother has multiple mental disorders but we don't know any details. The little girl probably doesn't know anything about this request from her mother to be adopted. The mother has considered adoption before but has never gone through with it.

So as you can see there are multiple really big red flags in her little life description. My mind goes to all the worst case scenarios of which there are many. Will you please pray for peace, wisdom and clarity in all this?

Thanks for joining us on this journey.

What to do

Trust...Wait...Believe...Pray...Seek

I am thankful for the 10 weeks I had to process all this before we told people we are pregnant.  It has been quite a journey.

At first, when I found out I am pregnant, I realized that I was allowing the adoption process to steal my joy at being pregnant, which is what I have wanted all along! The joy stealers in my mind were wondering what people will say, what to do about the adoption, wondering if I even want to adopt now, wondering what people who have prayed and sacrificed for our adoption will say or think. Mostly I was not looking forward to people's reaction and asking about what we were going to do about adoption now. So silly. When I realized how these wrong thoughts were draining my energy and joy I was able to push them aside and enjoy the journey a whole lot more.

Later on in the process, I have struggled with lots of why questions: why didn't we go with a different organization that didn't want all the money up front, why didn't God stop us, why did we go down this road, why didn't we hear God better???

Other questions and struggles have been about seeking God's will and His control in our lives. I have wondered if we heard God wrong and we weren't even supposed to be on this road at all. I have wondered if we were rushing things instead of taking God's pace and thus ending up here. I have wondered if we were like Abraham taking things into his own hands to have a son.

It seems that most of the life lessons that God teaches me end up with TRUST ME! Over and over again I am reminded that God is in control no matter what road I walk down. God has reminded me that He orders my steps no matter what my plans are. We don't know the eternal ramifications of this whole adoption process or this journey. We don't know if I will deliver a healthy baby. We don't know if we will adopt. We don't even know if we will be here tomorrow. We don't know where this road is leading. But I need to continue taking each step trusting, seeking, praying and believing that God is my guide and will take care of me all the way!

A Crazy Thing Happened on the Way to Adoption

A note from Mike: 

Cindy and I wanted to let you know what the Lord is doing in our family.  As most of you know, we have been in the adoption process for over a year and just waiting to see when the Lord would give us another child.  Well, He has, but not the way we would have thought.  We are excited to announce that Cindy is PREGNANT! 

We went to the doctor yesterday morning and the ultrasound shows a perfectly normal baby developing.  Since both of us are older, they did a blood test to show if there is any sign of chromosomal issues, as there is a greater risk of that at our age.  We’ll get the results for that in about a week. 

We’re excited/shocked/surprised by how the Lord seems to have decided to add to our family and knew you would be as well.  Please pray that God’s will would be done through this process.  As far as adoption is concerned, we’re keeping that door open until the Lord closes it.

Cindy’s due date is May 8^th, so if all goes as it should, we’ll have a new baby at graduation.  Thanks for loving us and rejoicing with us as God adds to our family. 

Mike, Cindy, Luke (and Special Eddie)

Interested in starting a new business?

Do we have a business for you! A fingerprinting business!

For the past three weeks we have been trying to get our fingerprinting done for our FBI checks. There is one fingerprinting place in Columbia with one employee who sits in a 10x10 office all day. Well not exactly all day because there are only a few specific times you can go to get your fingerprinting done. We went the first appointment unsuccessfully because they didn't have us in the system correctly and they had run out of fingerprinting papers. The second time was to have been yesterday but I had signed up for the wrong appointment type. Once again we were in the system wrong and we couldn't change to what we needed at our appointment. So hopefully this Tuesday we will be able to go and be successful at this endeavor! Our paperwork for this expires tomorrow so we hope to not be delayed any longer!

The above is a bit of what we have been up to. I also have been working on our SC clearance. I was at a loss as to what to do. One morning I read a great devotional about praying for specific things to see specific answers. As I was thinking through this I prayed, "But God I am asking for wisdom and that isn't a tangible thing to be able to see." God graciously gave me wisdom right then and I knew what to do about the clearance checks. So within the day I had our clearances in hand and was able to send them to our agency.

Life continues on with me being a wife, mother and taking care of various and sundry things. I love homeschooling Luke for preschool and making money while being at home by babysitting and making things to sell on etsy. Mike's work has been challenging for various reasons. He meets regularly with each of his 26 students which he loves but it can be draining as they often pour out their hearts to him. At the moment he is needing to replace one of our team members who had to leave for medical reasons.

Thanks for praying with us for wisdom!

Waiting

Why do the days seem so much longer when you are waiting? We have other things to distract us but the waiting isn't easy. I was wondering today what life will be like in 10 years. All this waiting will be over and we will be able to look back and see God's plan very clearly. In the meantime I pray for patience in the waiting!

We started our adoption journey a year ago with the state. The paperwork we did with them is now starting to expire so we will be needing to work on that. Unfortunately, the state handled it all and just said, "Sign here and go there and fill out this paper." Now we need to figure out how to do all this on our own. At least it is something tangible to do while we wait.

We still have an empty room. This week we went back and forth considering having another high school student stay with us. We decided it just isn't best for our family at this time. I will admit it was hard to see the money slip out of our fingers but I know it was the right decision.

But God...

Last night Alex decided that he needed to move back into the boarding houses. He has been suffering from anxiety and not sleeping well. We all thought that being in a home would help ease some of this but in the end it made it worse. We only want what is best for him.

Thanks for praying for Alex as he continues to struggle with these fears. We had the opportunity to share the gospel with him and he said that he wants to become a Christian but still has questions.

Now we have an empty bedroom and are waiting to see what God does to fill it again. We have the option to have another boarding student but Alex was already a part of our family in a way so we aren't sure about having another students that we don't know at all.

This week I have been challenged from various sources to not dwell on the past in a negative way. Mike gave me two words to squelch this negativity. BUT GOD! I have said this throughout the week as we were seeking to help Alex and then again as he moved out. I am so thankful that God is in control and we can trust Him!