Short Answers

So now that we and yourselves have processed the news....
We've heard a lot of question.  Here's our attempt to answer a few of them briefly.

is it a girl?  It has been rather comical to us all the comments that either we need a girl (you need a princess) or the warning to not get a girl (soon that princess will be 16).  We are waiting to see who needs a home, and how God is going to direct ours and our future child's paths.

what agency are you using?  We are using a Christian agency YWAM, that Marjorie went on a mission trip with last year.  She saw the orphanages that our child may be coming from.  Marjorie did not identify any specific child on that trip to adopt in case you were wondering.  YWAM has Children's House International do the legal paperwork for the adoptions so we will also be working with them.  Catholic Charities in PA will be doing our homestudy.

so what next?  We have completed our applications for YWAM and CHI.  We have been accepted into their programs.  Now we have to complete our homestudy and do a whole bunch of paperwork....We also have a good bit of our fees to pay in the next few months...

why should I keep checking the blog?
-We are asking for your prayers.  Since we are imperfect people trying to be obedient to His calling, we need them lots!  Keep in touch so you know what you can be praying for.
-We want to share with you how we see God moving in this process.  We have watched other friends adopt and seen how God has moved "insurmountable" mountains.  We believe that God loves adoption because He is in the business of redemption/redeeming/making right.
-We hope to do some fundraising projects and we want to keep you informed about them. 

We really can't stress enough....keep checking in here.  Tell others about what's going on...even if we don't know them.  Sign up on the right to get instant e-mail updates or RSS feed updates.

Money and Obedience

We mentioned in our first post that one of the main reason we didn't think we were going to adopt again was money.  Costs have risen since we adopted C and T.  There are new policies that require us to travel twice as much.  There are extra expenses. We just don't have the money.

We already told you that we clearly heard God telling us we had to adopt again.

What we didn't say is that even though we heard his voice and leading direction, he has yet to drop the money into our lap.  We heard him say that we needed to trust Him.  We heard Him ask us to trust Him.

So we fully acknowledge that this doesn't make any logical human sense.  We're attempting to do something that is way beyond our means.  We don't have the money, and we're not going to have the money on our own.  It's craziness.

We're just trying to be obedient.

God has the money.  We feel like He's going to show up in a big way.  We're not totally sure what that's going to look like.  We're going to do some fundraising, and talk to as many people as we can about what we're doing and what God's doing through us.  We're waiting in expectancy to see what's going to happen.

We'll obviously be updating this blog with fundraising information.  We have some ideas of ways people can partner with us.  Again, those are things you'll be hearing about in the next little bit.

ACTION STEPS FOR YOU

1.  Is God speaking to you?  Have you been asked to do something?  What has been your response?  Are you seeking to be obedient even when it doesn't make sense? 

2.  If you haven't done so already, follow this blog.  You can use the RSS feed option (if you don't know what that is, then you probably shouldn't be using it) OR just put your e-mail address into the top field and you'll get notified every time we update this blog.

3.  Tell others.  We are so convinced that other people are supposed to be part of our journey.  It doesn't even matter if we know them or not, we want to connect with as many people as possible.  Feel free to share this blog with anyone you feel lead to.  Encourage them to sign up to follow us as well.

4.  There is now a DONATE button in the right hand column.  We're not begging.  We're not even really asking at this point.  We're just giving you the option.  If you'd like to make a tax deductible donation, there is a way to do that to....just NOT with the button.  More info to come on tax deductible giving in the near future.

The Reveal and Reaction

So on Mother's Day we drove to my (Aaron's) parents house after church.  We needed to tell our parents before the news went to the world.

We've all seen couples telling their parents that their pregnant in unique ways right?  Giving them copies of the ultrasound or the pregnancy test (which is creepy and gross to me).  With both Corban and Tobiah we just kind of told our parents.  So we thought we'd do something new this time.  We printed out the picture that we used in our first "Something's Missing" post and put it into a frame.  We had another gift and a card for mom to open, so that that picture was on the bottom.

I can watch this things a ton of times and have it not get old.  The boys are helping her open it.  Watch her mouth...you can see the exact moment that she "gets it".  So priceless.  Makes me giggle every time.  My dad asks Tobiah "who goes in that empty picture"...to which Tobiah says "I don't know".  So funny.  "I thought you were done!" 

Something's Missing.

Do you see the problem with this picture?  We do too.

Backstory:  Our family has come from a variety of places.  The United States, Canada and Ethiopia (we're not sure where the fish are from).  We like it that way.  We're proud of where we've come from and we love our family.

About a month or so ago Marjorie and I (Aaron) were talking seriously about children.  Are we done?  Would we try to have home grown children?  Would we adopt again?  In that discussion every time we talked about adopting again a large problem arose.  Money.  When we adopted Corban and Tobiah we knew where the money was.

Then one Saturday morning, Marjorie went to a ladies Bible study where she clearly heard God tell her to trust in Him.  To which she replied under her breath (but non-the-less outloud) "I hate God".  Now she doesn't really hate God but in that moment she was very uncomfortable with the conviction she felt.  She shared this story with me when she got home that afternoon

The next day in church, one of the points of the sermon was "what are you going to give up to impact one person's life".  Now I felt a nudge.  So under my breath so only Marjorie could hear I said, "I hate God."  About 10 minutes later at the end of church I jumped in my car and turned on sports talk radio because it would be "safe".  As I drove, a foster care commercial came on....at the end of the commercial it said, "you don't have to be a perfect parent to adopt.  You just have to want to change one child's life."  I turned off the radio and yelled, "Are you serious right now?"  See, I had kind of been feeling like we were done.  I didn't really expect God to show up and draw us back to a familiar place again.

So what no one knows, is that when Marjorie came back from her trip to Ethiopia last summer, she called YWAM's adoption ministry to Ethiopia and asked what the wait would be.  She was told that their wait list was crazy long....long enough that they couldn't put a time frame on it...and that was just for the pre-approval process, not even filling out real paperwork.  So she told them to put our name on the list...not because we felt called at that time, but just in case we did later.

So after our nudges from God, Marjorie called them to see where we were on the list now...kind of to see what God was showing us.  We were told that nothing had really changed and we were still looking at 6-8 months before anything could possibly happen, and if we wanted to go with a different agency to just let them know.

So literally a day later, Marjorie got an e-mail from YWAM saying that the wait list ahead of us all disappeared and it was our turn if we were ready.  SERIOUSLY!

We would like to formally announce that we are adopting again.  Within a week of that e-mail we were officially accepted into YWAM's adoption program in Ethiopia.

What does this all mean.

1.  We are going to use this new blog to answer a lot of questions and keep you up to date on the process of our adoption.  We have already felt a strong responsibility to tell lots of people and to take this journey with you.  We want YOU on board with us this time.  Please keep checking in often...or put us on your RSS feed...or if you don't know what that is...sign up to receive an e-mail update every time we update...the link for that is at the top of the right hand column.

2.  We know you have questions.  Be patient with us out of the gate here.  We're going to try in the next couple days and weeks to tackle them one at a time.

3.  We are really asking right now that you begin your partnership with us in prayer.  We desperately desire to be held up in prayer.  Pray for the journey.  Pray for our family and what it'll look like as it grows again.  Pray for a little child that we don't even know yet.  Pray that hearts will be melted together.

4.  I know.  I know....you all want to know if this time around it's going to be a girl.  We don't know.  Our first intention isn't to "even things out".  We're just trying to be obedient to what God told us to do.



We will both be doing the blogging on this blog.  Aaron has every intention of maintaining his other blog as a private blog.  While there might be some personal thoughts on our adoption...because it's part of our life...all main thoughts and updates will be here.