An update after over TWO  YEARS….

Have you ever felt the Lord’s leading, direction, blessing and guidance in a certain area of life and you go towards that dream with full hope and peace only to find that it isn’t going to happen the way you “thought” it would?  That is the spot that Ben and I landed early last fall with our hopes of adopting from Ethiopia.

In 2013 we started the process of adopting a little girl from Ethiopia with the time frame of 1.5-2 years being clearly formulated in our hearts and minds. We finished a large amount of paperwork and had our home study completed with two small boys running around at our feet and began to pay the first ½ of our adoption fees, which was around $25,000.   Valentines day: February 14th, 2014 our dossier made it to Ethiopia and we officially began waiting! We were hopeful and excited.

Even when our agency contacted us and told us our wait would be extended by another year, making it a total of 3 years, we still held on to the hope that the adoption of our little girl was going to happen. In the meantime, while we waited for our daughter from Ethiopia, the Lord blessed us with a daughter and we continued to move forward hoping that Ellie would have a little sister.

Fast forward to 2016, we were still waiting and hopeful but the climate of international adoption really started to change and for the first time in many years, Ethiopia was less open to international adoption. Some of their reasons are rooted correctly: they want their children to be well cared for and loved and they know that it is best to empower their own people socially and economically to be able to have an infrastructure in the family that is strong enough to raise children and thus decreasing the need for international adoption. Nonetheless, right reasons and wrong, it became clear to Ben and I that an Ethiopian adoption of a baby girl was not going to take place for our family. Our hearts were sad and we prayed that the Lord would show us yet again what He wanted.

We were quickly reminded that time obeying God is not wasted, that if He leads and scripture supports then our job as His children, is to obey, even if that doesn’t always make sense to us. We continued to talk to our social worker and ask for guidance and ask the Lord if maybe our family of five was complete.

Time and time again, both Ben and I and even our boys affirmed that the Lord still had adoption firmly placed on our hearts. So from this still burning flame, we began looking at different agencies. DHS and Indian Welfare Services were options we checked into thoroughly.  However with the unpredictability of those agencies and the likelihood that we may have numerous children in and out of our home before one became a permanent part of our family made both Ben and I uneasy. With our oldest having his own adoption story, we wanted to make sure and guard his heart and mind while he formulates his understanding and identity of who he is in Christ, and our family, and we felt that multiple children in and out of our home may complicate that.

Also, another prayer we had was for the birth mother of our child. We wanted an agency that would be a loving source of hope and care for our birth mother. As we prayed, we had a few acquaintances that had used an agency in Oklahoma City called Lilyfied and had noted some great experiences. We touched base with them last October and continued to pray.

Fast forward again to this year, September of 2017, Ben and I had our first face-to-face meeting with the agency and we loved many things about this group. They, first and foremost, love Jesus and secondly they love the family and all children and mothers. Their goal is to support and love birth moms before, during and after the adoption of their child and to offer children Christian homes, where they will be raised to love God and others. We were excited!

We filled out the paperwork and sent in our application and on October 4th we received the call and were officially accepted into their program! We told the boys that night and captured their expressions when we said that God was going to give us a little sister or brother and they were and are so excited! Ellie, well ,her world will be rocked. J

As we move forward, we have a stack of paperwork and fingerprints and references and home studies to complete and it is overwhelming and exciting. We are excited that the Lord is yet again, leading us to add to our family. Some days this parenting gig and raising small humans to love God and others is overwhelming and character building, but we know there is nothing sweeter or better than this and we are blessed to love these children.

Would you please continue to pray for us. Pray for international adoption and the families that are stuck in the wait.  Pray for our birth mom and our future child and our family as we prepare for the months ahead.

Lilyfield informed us that once our profile goes live, some families have waited 18 months, while others have waited 2 weeks. We know God has a heart for adoption and we want to join Him there.

Would you please also pray for us as we begin to put the pieces together to finance another adoption. We know the Lord will write this detail of our story as well and look forward to His authorship.

We are excited and hopeful, yet again, as we look towards the future and to what God has in store for our family.

God is good.