I had today off and had a wonderful time in prayer with the Lord. We are continuing to pray for direction as to where we should adopt. In my prayer time I felt the Lord lay Ethiopia on my heart. This is now my second experience where I have litterally felt God's Spirit move in my heart through prayer. This experience was much like when he first convicted me that we should consider adoption. I was overwhelmed with tears, but needed God to make me certain that this was his direction and prayed for additional confirmation. Later I was on the computer and looking on BCS website about other adoption information and came across a blog. When I clicked the link there was a picture of Ethiopia with the verse Isaiah 43: 5-7! The same verse that he gave us on the last day of our 40 days of prayer.
I began crying and just felt overwhelmed with the Spirit and broken over the country of Ethiopia.
I told Jared tonight that the Lord had given me a clear answer on where we were to adopt. He asked me not to tell him and I agreed. We need God to lead us seperately so we can both be certain on this.
March 5-9, 2010
After much prayer, we felt God wanted us to use a Chrisitan Agency to pursue this adoption. So one night we went online and selected five of our favorite Christian agencies that we had been considering. Then we sent for packets from Holt International, Bethany Christian Services, All Gods Children International, American World Adoption and Celebrate Children International. We also filled out some preliminary applications on the computer tonight to find out what countries we even qualify for.
March 10, 2010
At dinner tonight Jared shared that the country Ethiopia stood out the most to him over our past several months. I cried and told Jared that was the exact country that the Lord had revealed to me. I was completely overwhelmed with the Spirit and knew that he had given us the country where our precious child will be awaiting our arrival someday. Out of all the countries in the world, God had laid the same country on Jareds heart!! God is so amazing! Once again the Lord has answered our prayer and laid an answer on both of our hearts separately. We are just rejoicing in the Lord! Although I know that this country is where we are supposed to adopt from, Jared does no have the same certainty, and needs more concrete evidence.
March 15, 2010
We received notification from Bethany Christian Services that based on the information from the prelim application, the only country we qualify to adopt from for is Ethiopia!!!!!!!
March 16, 2010
We received a packet in the mail today from American World Adoption agency about their international adoption program. There was a sheet on every country that they partner with and each country had only one sheet except there were three sheets about adopting from Ethiopia!!!! Here is a picture below!
March 22,2010
I was doing the homework to my bible study, Breaking Free, and the Lord led me to the verse
“And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.” Mat 18:5
I had never read this verse before today. What a beautiful picture God created for me when I think about bringing home a sweet child from Ethiopia…….I just love how the Lord continues to confirm his plan in my heart. HE never ceases to amaze me!
March 26, 2010
We received another packet from an agency called Holt International. When we opened the packet it had a general page with all their countries listed. However there was a loose piece of paper in the packet and it said, “Thinking about adopting from Ethiopia?” It was the only flyer in the packet and no other country had its own flyer! Here is a picture below of when we opened the folder!
March 28, 2010
We are studying Acts in our Sunday school class and Jared and I have never read the book of Acts and haven’t read ahead. Tonight Jared was studying our lesson and continued to read ahead and read that the next passage Acts 8:26-40 was about Phillip and the Ethiopian! He came and shared that exciting news and we read the passage together for the first time. Neither of us have any doubts that God is leading us to adopt from Ethiopia. We learned that the Ethiopian man is reading the book of ISAIAH and Phillip ministers to him and he comes to know Christ. We loved learning about another one of Gods awesome stories in scripture but we were amazed that an “Ethiopian” was mentioned in the Bible. Not only that, but he is reading from Isaiah! God continues to give us confirmation that he has chosen that country for us. We love his confirmations!!
Philip and the Ethiopian
Acts 8: 26-40
26Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." 27So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. 29The Spirit told Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it." 30Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked. 31"How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture: "He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 33In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth."34The eunuch asked Philip, "Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?" 35Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
36As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, "Look, here is water. Why shouldn't I be baptized?"38And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. 40Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea. Acts 8:26-40
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