Not About Us

So it has been a month or so since we announced that we were pursuing an adoption of 3 boys, ages 3, 4 and 5 which would make us a family of 8 with 6 kids under the age of 7!!  The reaction across the board from many people has been that we are crazy!  Bless your hearts, but you are crazy!  Yeah, we know!  We agree, we are kind of crazy, but we wouldn't have it any other way!!  We are certainly not equipped with incredible patience, tons of wisdom, or gobs of gentleness to handle all of these little lives.  We are far from perfect!  However, we have lots of love and an incredible passion for orphans, the poor, the needy and just an overall passion to live out God's call for our lives.  For us that happens to be orphan care and helping the poor.  We are not amazing-as Katie Davis (Kisses from Katie) says, we simple read the Bible and did what it says.  In fact, if everyone would simply live out God's call for their lives, no one would think we are crazy because many "amazing" things would be happening all the time.  God uses ordinary people for his glory and to do extraordinary things-to do his work.  He wants to use all of us-no matter what kind of a mess we are.  And we aren't the first people ever to adopt a bunch of kids and create a large family.  We are blessed to know people and email and blog with people who have done or are doing the same thing.  It just needs to become the norm instead of the crazy!!  It's not about us, it's not about accumulating more stuff for myself, it's about freely giving and helping those who need it.  We feel blessed that God has blessed us with an incredible passion for the orphans and the poor and we enjoy just walking in obedience to him.  We also feel very much at peace with our decision and so we trust that our powerful God will be with us every step of the way. 


 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,  to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Ephesians 3:20-22

We would also very much value prayers for our adoption journey and others adopting from the Congo as well.  The Congo has very little infrastructure and so sometimes cases are heard and processed quickly and other times there are long delays.  Kids are dying weeks before their parents can get to them.  We would so value prayers that our adoption case and others would go quickly and smoothly without delays so that we can get to our children and love on them-as we all desire so badly to do!!  Thanks for praying! 

We are blessed so we can bless!!!!

Crazy Courage

There are a few updates regarding our adoption process.  Our dossier is completed, translated and sent off to the DRC!!  Yeah!  We also know the next steps in our process which is good.  It is nice to be able to follow along with what is going on.  So our next step is receiving a court date in the Congo.  That should happen in about 5 weeks, maybe sooner.  Upon receiving our court date, we will then hear whether or not the judge approved our case.  After court, there is a 30 day waiting period.  Once the 30 day waiting period is up our kids will be moved from Mbuji Mayi to Kinahsa where we will pick them up.  We will wait about 8 weeks for all the paperwork to be completed and then be able to travel.  So in all we are looking at 5 months if there are no paperwork delays and up to 8-9 months if there are delays.  We would so value your prayers that there are no delays and we have a quick process!!  I have been asked if these sweet boys are really ours...  The answer to that question, is yes, in my heart, Matt's heart and our kids's hearts!  We love them so much already!  But officially, no, they are not ours.  After we get through court and our 30 day waiting period, we will get the adoption judgement that states that we have officially adopted these boys.  So we have to wait about 9 weeks or so for the court process to get done and then we can call it official.  I titled my post today Crazy Courage because I believe it takes a lot of crazy courage to adopt!!  We are fairly confident that our court process will go well, but we are aware of cases where it hasn't gone well and people have lost their referral for various reasons.  So it takes some crazy courage and a whole lot of Jesus just to get through this part of the process!  Adoption is hard but it has already yielded blessings beyond anything I could have ever imagined.  Our spiritual and relationship growth along this journey has been incredible and I am so excited for what the future holds!  A special thanks to my sister in law for the following verse that I am holding close to my heart for the rest of this journey:  "Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong." 1 Corinthians 16:13.

By the way, I encourage all of you to be courageous and think about adoption or supporting an orphanage. There is a great need out there and God asks us to take care of the orphans, the poor and the needy!!