Easter Prayers

Today is Easter. The day Jesus rose from the dead. I have so much to thank Jesus for, dying for all of our sins. It was there on that cross that You shed Your blood and died for us. By this, Jesus, You took the punishment that we deserve and in return you offered your righteousness. This verse says it all. “He (God) made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21. I can’t thank you enough…..

As my family and I woke up this morning I couldn’t help but think about my child in Africa. Kaitlynn, Gabe, and Lily ran downstairs to see what the Easter bunny had brought them. They were really excited. We left for church. The service was on the resurrection. Amazing!!! We came home and played outside with the kids. What a beautiful day! It was then time for dinner. As we sat down to eat our meal together we bowed our heads to pray. I couldn’t help but notice the empty chair at our table. I prayed please God keep your arms around him. I wonder, does he know you God? Does he know what happened 2,000 years ago? What you went through for all of us? With all these questions running through my head I prayed harder. Lord you already know the child you have chosen for us. Please show him your presence and be with him. The day can’t come sooner when that empty chair is filled. With our precious son, who you have chosen for us. The day can’t come any sooner when there will be another Easter basket to fill. That day can’t come any sooner when in our Easter picture of the kids, I will have my two beautiful girls and two handsome boys. The day can’t come any sooner that I can teach my son more about you Jesus. I pray again God please give Nick and I comfort and patience through this journey to our son. I know that my impatience is selfish. I need to focus and put all the Glory back on you God. For You have never let me down.

My Elephant Pregnancy!

I absolutely love this picture and the bible verse! This says it all! You see I have a dear friend who is pregnant. We were talking about her amazing gift from God (her pregnancy). In our conversation we started also talking about my adoption. I had made the comment that I have an elephant pregnancy. Elephants are pregnant for almost 2yrs and that’s about our waiting time to hold our beautiful boy we are adopting from Ethiopia. My friend, Amy, had seen this picture in a store and thought of me. She brought it to me at my shop. I cried and cried. Such an amazing picture and the bible verse, you can’t get any more perfect! I will forever love elephants and respect them, for waiting for the beautiful gift of life for 2 yrs. It is a long time, but well worth the wait!.......

Our process is moving right along. We have had an hour conference call with both our case manager and social worker this week. We have received our workbook and started on our online classes; we have to take 10hrs of classes. We started working on our paper work for our homestudy, which is around 120 pages, and sent in for birth certificates. Nick and I are just getting started. We are feeling a little overwhelmed. With patience and trust in God we will get through these stressful, tough times. Waiting on our miracle from God is worth it all. Thanks for following along.

Yesterday, March 11, 2013 we sent all our notarized paperwork in. It should all get there on Thursday. We are really excited. This process is just moving right along. We want to thank you for all of your prayers and support. It has been emotional and uplifting. I have had a lot of questions about our adoption.  One question that I am passionate about giving my reasons is “why are you adopting from Ethiopia, why not the US?” First of all I love this amazing country we live in. It’s nothing against this country and the orphans in this country. I just feel there is a bigger need to help orphans in Ethiopia. I feel God has been leading us there since the day we decided to adopt. We are all God’s children, (well now I know how our adoption agency came up with their name). He loves us all just the same. God wants us to love each other just how He loves us. It doesn’t matter where we are born or live. America, Ethiopia, China, Ukraine, Russia, I could keep naming more. I just want to stress that it doesn’t matter to God or to us. The depth of God’s love is beyond us .This verse says it all. Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave, nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  We would also like to share some statistics with you. Please watch this video by clicking on the following link,   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H1CRs-MMc0

One step closer!.....

Getting closer! Today at 11:00 we had an hour long orientation call with AGCI. The call went well. Tiffany was very helpful explaining all our paperwork and answering all our questions. She guided to our next step, which is to start our home study process. This process takes around 3 -4 months to complete. AGCI will walk us through it all. We will be filling out paperwork and having it notarized this week .We will then send it in. Then we will be one step closer to our son. I would like to share with all of you about what my kids and I did last night. So Gabe and Lily were sitting around me while I was looking up Africa. We love to look up the culture over there. Lily then asked me “Mom is my brother going to talk like me? I thought about it and said no he will not .We will have to teach him. Since he will be between 2-5 he will be speaking his language. We then decided to look up a couple of words of his language (Amharic) .We went on YouTube and there was a woman translating simple words from English to Amharic. I clicked on her video. The first words she was teaching was don’t cry baby, I’m coming back. Wow! What a God whisper! Of all the words she could have been teaching those were the best. We will have to travel to Ethiopia twice and will spend time with him and then have to leave him. Come back home and wait for clearance. You bet we are learning how to say “don’t cry baby, I’m coming back”! I can’t wait!!!!