Rejoicing in the Lords Work

This past Saturday our small group had a yard and bake sale to raise money for Freedom 4/24.  We had great success and hardly had any stuff left over!  We have been rejoicing in the fact that the yard sale brought enough money for 26 girls to be bought out of the sex slavery industry for one night! Praise the Lord!!  Thanks to everyone who donated stuff and came to support a great cause for Gods Kingdom!

The guys were awesome salesman and also had fun with the merchandise!

Here is the whole group minus Wes

Good Times at the Beach

Okay so I know this post is very much delayed but I still wanted to share about our awesome vacation with the Harkers!  It was such a blessing to get away, relax, eat good food and enjoy the beautiful beach that God created.  Here are some highlights of our week.....

We ate some really good food....

Homemade Blackberry Cobbler

Fresh Flounder and Garden Vegetables

Saw some beautiful wild horses........

 Saw some of God's beautiful creation.....

 "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created."  Rev 4:11

Found out that Emilee and Nathan's baby is a BOY and his name is Jackson!

Emilee is 20 weeks in this picture...Already half the way to meeting Jackson!! :)

Jared and the guys fished a lot.....

Praise the LORD from the earth,

you great sea creatures and all ocean depths

Psalm 148:7

 

This is where you would find the men during the day

We had wonderful weather all week and had great beach days full of fellowship, good food and naps!

We enjoyed many evenings hanging out on the roof deck.....

We celebrated being on the waiting list for 6 months while we were at the beach.....

and enjoyed a beautiful evening on the sand dunes watching the sun set!

We are both wearing our new Africa t-shirts that Emilee and Nathan gave us! They say dad and momma in Amharic which is the most commom language that is spoken in Ethiopia. We love them and it made us get so excited that we could here those words out of our babies mouth some day!! Thank you Emilee and Nathan!!

We would love to think that next year at the beach that we would have our sweet baby with us!  We havent seen any movement on the waiting list this month and some days it seems like this process is taking forever.  We want so badly to be matched with the child that we love so much in our hearts.  Our love for our little one grows so much everyday!! God continues to be so faithful in this long waiting process.  He is teaching us more about his Word, pruning us and his word always speaks so clearly on what we should be doing......

Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act...

Psalm 37:7

6 months of waiting....

Today marks 6 months of being on the waiting list for a referral. Time is rolling by and God continues to equip us for parenthood while we wait.  Our agency informed us last week that the wait times for receiving a referral have increased to 8-14 months. We also learned that the court in Ethiopia will be closing from mid August to mid October.  We arent sure of how this will effect the referral process but we continue to trust that Gods timing in meeting our little one will be perfect. :) 

Praying for Orphans

As of a few days ago, we are # 27 on the unofficial waiting list from our agency for a referral. We have been #31 for a while and have finally seen movement in the last few weeks. So we are rejoicing to know that four children have now been matched with their new families! We are praying that more children will be matched before the court closes for their rainy season/summer break. We continue to pray for the children as they wait for us and for all the other families that are patiently waiting to receive their referrals. I wanted to share the following to consider when praying for the orphans.

Another BCS family shared the following from what they witnessed in one of BCS orphanges in Ethiopia. A laughter therapist (who has the guiness world record of the longest laugh) came to visit the children and this is what they experienced........

"The nannies took all of the orphans about age 4 and older and had them line up in about 4 rows facing us. Then the laughter therapist said, Today you are blessed because when an orphans prays God comes and you will get to feel the presence of God. Then he had an orphan I would guess who was about 6 years old come out and face the other orphans. All of the orphans covered their eyes and this little boy prayed for about 20 minutes in Ahmaric. Not one orphan got out of line and not one of them misbehaved, they all just stood there praying with their fellow orphans. As luck would have it there was a couple adopting 2 boys who were Ethiopian and spoke fluent Ahmaric. The laughter therapist had them interpet for us what the orphan prayed for. We were then told that this was the most amazing thing he had ever heard. The orphan prayed for the staff, for us, for protection for the staff and for us. He then at the end prayed for himself. He asked God to send him to a family that would take care of him. Give him good food to eat, a safe place to sleep, and love."



Jared and I were so humbled when we read this story of what this family had witnessed. What a blessing to know that these precious children are praying for us as much as we are praying for them. Also that their faith is so strong. Please continue to pray for these children that they will feel the Holy Spirit with them and that they will have these basic things in accordance with Gods will that they have requested.

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

Romans 12:12



Another Blessing

   This weekend our nephew Tank turned one and at his birthday party he opened a gift that was a BIG BROTHER t-shirt.   We are so excited that Chip and Tana are expecting again and due in January!  Jared and I are looking forward to winter when our family will have two new additions! Our child is going to have lots of cousins to greet he or she when they arrive in the USA! :) Praise the Lord for new life and precious neices and nephews! :)

Every good and perfect gift is from above

James 1:17

Congratulations Chip and Tana!!

Adoption is Greater than the Universe

  Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.  For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

Ephesians 1: 3-6

Summer Update

Since we are in a season of W-A-I-T-I-N-G in our adoption process and we don't really know anything new, I figured I would just give you some summer highlights of what is going on in our world while we wait in this process. 

In early June we spent two weekends at Emilee and Nathan's awesome river house! We spent two days floating the river and a lot of time eating, relaxing and catching up with family.  Here are some pictures......

Jared and Nathan caught a lot of fish and I enjoyed reading and getting a tan! :)

While we were at Emilee and Nathan's they told us that they are EXPECTING a baby in December!!! We are pumped about having another neice or nephew!!  Mom, Emilee and I enjoyed a girls day together last week shopping and of course we had to stop in the Maternity store! We look forward to knowing whether its a boy or girl later in the month! CONGRATULATIONS EMILEE AND NATHAN!

As of June 28th, we have been on the official waiting list for 5 months and been on the adoption journey for 1 year and 8 months.  We continue to pray for our child, their family who will have to make a hard decision to give them up, and for the nannies who give all their love to the orphans day in and day out.  We hear from the families that have already traveled that the nannies are awesome and give excellent care to the children until the adoptive families can bring them home.  That is so comforting to me that the children are getting lots of love!  We contine to have patience in this process that can only come from the Lord. We are so grateful for the way the Lord continues to provide all that we need in this process.  We continue to have peace that he is our childs Father and that he is with them every minute providing for all our childs needs. We look forward to the day when we will be joined together with our child and become a family!!  Until then we wait.........

On July 1st, Jared and I celebrated 5 years of marriage! What a blessing it has been! God has so richly blessed me with an awesome husband, lover and best friend! We celebrated by eating a nice steak dinner on our porch!  :)

Then this past weekend we celebrated the marriage of Joey and Tori, a couple in our small group! It was a beautiful wedding and we enjoyed being a part of it and getting to catch up with so many friends!

Mr and Mrs Joey Marrs!!!

Then to celebrate the 4th of July we floated the James River with our small group and had a blast! We hit a lot of rocks along the way due to the water being down but we enjoyed our time on the water and had great fellowship all while enjoying Gods beautiful creation! 

Jared got out of the boat to fish and the current started to pull me down river and I am trying not to float away!!