Let me start by saying that when I was little I remember hearing older people I went to church with say, "The Lord spoke to me." When I say older, I mean older than a teenager. I would think, "How do you know when the Lord speaks to you?" Do you hear his voice? I'm pretty sure I meant that sarcastically way back then, and I do mean WAY. The week before I met my wonderful husband, I finally did hear the voice of the Lord, and I mean really "hear." That is a whole other post you are welcome to ask about. Since then, I've actually "heard" the voice of the Lord a few times. Trust me when I say you will know when it happens to you. Nonetheless, it was the voice of the Lord that redirected Kevin, Jack and me to change directions with adoption to grow our family- for a few reasons. First, Kevin didn't want to leave Jack for 2-3 weeks and travel to China. Second, Jack was adamant about not wanting to travel to China. Third, China only opened the window to adoption for couples with a history of cancer in January. I was really nervous about the money we would need to invest before being turned away by China. Finally, we feel a strong pull to adopt through domestic adoption. God spoke. We listened.
So, we shared our changing path with our Bethany social worker. Thus, the delay in an update. We are finally excited to share that our home study is complete for domestic adoption. Yay! We are open to adopting from any age through eight, younger than Jack, and any ethnicity. Please pray for us with your family and church. I believe God hears all prayers. We have built our own family portfolio through Shutterfly that we are happy to share if you know of someone willing to consider adoption for their birth child. We are happy to have an open adoption. We truly want to give Jack sibling to grow up with and bond with. We have fostered six special needs children and hosted four exchange students from around the world. God had blessed us immensely, and we want to share his love with another child and his/her birth family.
I would like to thank the following special friends for their puzzle contributions since the last post: Analisa Warriner, Jenna Flood, Emily Child, Tammy Davis, Cindy Bailey, and Kevin's mom Joyce Riley (again). We continue to work on building our puzzle, which is far from being complete. If you feel God's calling, you can contribute to puzzle pieces by clicking on the donate/contribute button in the upper right corner of our blog.
