When Adam and I were first discussing adoption, I remember having a conversation about finances. We were both very concerned about how we would come up with the money to complete an adoption so I, of course, started a spreadsheet :-) I came up with all of these different ways we were going to obtain the almost $30,000 that we needed. Adam and I were on a walk with the kids one night when I went through my spreadsheet explaining where we would get the money from. It went something like this...
"We will put in the $1,700 we have, we will get $5,000 from this grant and $5,000 from this grant, $12,650 from a tax credit, $3,000-$5,000 from here, and the rest we will fund raise for...like yard sales, dinners, etc."
Both of thought, "Hey...that's do-able! That wont be so bad!"
It's funny now that I look back on that conversation and realize that God taught me a HUGE lesson through this. We knew he was calling us to adopt but when it came to the finances, I needed to figure that out ahead of time. I was still trusting God to give us all of the money and we were still stepping out in faith that He would provide all that we needed but in order to go forward I had to have some sort of an idea of where it was coming from.
Interestingly enough...almost none of that money came from where I planned. We did not get any grants, the tax credit became non-refundable, lets just say, the money did not come from where I thought it would. Awhile back, in the span of one week, I found out that basically we had around $7,500 left to come up with and three of the sources that I thought we would get the bulk of the money from came back and said that we were not getting any money from them. I got really frustrated...I wanted to know why and so I asked God. Over and over I asked Him in prayer, "Why are you not giving us the money through the paths I thought you would?" And then I came to the conclusion one day that I needed to figure out whether I still trusted God to provide the money. And I did. I knew that He was going to provide for this so I began to pray, "Lord, please provide the money that we need. I thought you were going to give it to us in all these different ways and none of them are working out. Lord, please perform a miracle." And He did...
Within one month, an anonymous donor gave us $1,000, our Sunday school class took up an offering and gave us $2,880 and the very next weekend a couple called and donated two plane tickets to Africa (that's $4,000!!!). NONE of this was in my plan. But God reminded me that this was His plan all along...
For I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11
His plan for providing the money was more than I could have ever imagined...
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. Ephesians 3:20
I really think now that I am looking back over where all this money came from (yes, I have a spreadsheet), that God had a specific plan in where it came from as much as He did in where it did not come from. I don't know about you guys but God rarely works anything out the way I think He is going to and praise Him for that! He sees the big picture...the one I can't and I am so thankful that He loves me enough to teach me over and over again to trust in Him and NOTHING else.
So...in six months we went from $1,700 to $30,308 and we give all praise, glory and honor to God. Now we are praying for a very special phone call :-)
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Monday, November 26, 2012
The Two Week Challenge
Our Pastor at Summerdean has been preaching a series on prayer over the last few weeks and he brought up a point that had never occured to me. He was preaching on Luke chapter 11...
One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray..."
I have read this verse many times but it never occured to me that this was the ONLY thing they asked him to teach them. That struck me as really odd...I mean, if I had the opportunity to ask Jesus to teach me something, ANYTHING...sadly enough it would probably not be how to pray. They could have asked him how to perform miracles, how to heal people or raise them from the dead, how to evangelize...they could have asked him anything but they asked him to teach them to pray. Pastor Stafford pointed out that when Jesus prayed to God, AMAZING things happened and the disciples had seen this! Now, I definately believe that! I believe that God performed miracles over 2,000 years ago when people prayed and I believe that he still does because I have seen it! We have such an AMAZING priveledge of talking to God through prayer but I don't think we always believe he answers us. So our Pastor challeneged us to pray for something over a two week period and to see what God does...so immediately two prayers came to my mind. I prayed for a woman at our church that has been sick. I am not particularly close to this woman but God has really laid her on my heart lately so I felt like he was asking me to pray for her. I also prayed that God would provide the money that we need to complete this adoption. We were praying we would get a referral for a child soon but we did not have the money to accept a child so my prayer was that God would provide the money. So I prayed everyday for these two things and God did something AMAZING!
The next Sunday, I went to Sunday school class and our teacher announced that next week's Sunday school offering would go towards our adoption. I was so excited!!! And I kept praying...
I was almost through the second week of praying and Adam, Eva, Eli and I were out on a Friday afternnoon and ran into the lady I had been praying for. This is first of all exciting because for awhile she was not leaving her house except for doctor's appointments so I was really surprised to see her out and not going to see a doctor! The next thing she told me was that she could feel my prayers working! Now she has not been completely healed yet and she said she still has some more testing to go through but I am praising God that she is feeling so much better and that she knows it is because of God! I am continuting to pray for her healing!
On the following Sunday, two weeks to the day that I had started to pray for the adoption money, our treasurer at church, David, walked up to me and handed me an envelope with a check in it. I didn't even look at it right away because I had turned in a receipt for some cirriculum I had purchased for the church so I just assumed that was what the check was for....but when I opened it, it was written to Adam and I for $1,010! That was a little more than the cirriculum cost (ha ha) so I ran to catch up with David and asked him what that was for and he said, "someone donated it to you guys for the adoption." Tears just started to run down my cheeks and I asked him if he could tell me who it was and he said, "I was told to tell you it was a gift from God."
Later that morning, Pastor Stafford was preaching on prayer again and he said that if our prayer had not been answered yet, KEEP PRAYING! So I kept praying this past week that God would heal her and provide the money that we need.
So I went to church yesterday and I was talking to a few ladies when David walked up to me again and handed me an envelope. This time he stuck around for a minute because I am sure he knew what was coming :-) I asked him what the envelope was and he said, it was the offering from our Sunday school class. Let me just preface this with the facts, we are not a very large class. There are on average 9 families represented in there and all of them are right around my age. Most of them have small children and none of them are wealthy (I hope no one in my class takes offense to that! We are all blessed with everything we need but I would not consider any of us to be wealthy by American standards.) So I had not thought about how much money would be in that envelope but looking back if I had to guess, I would have said probably around $300-$400 would have been a very generous amount. So I opened up the envelope and the check was for $2,880! I cannot explain to you how astonished I was! I began to weep because I do not know who gave all of that money but I know that each dollar that was given, was given sacrifically.
I am in awe of my God. We now have more than enough money to accept a child when the referral comes :-) I cannot wait to hold that little person in my arms and tell them how much our God loves them and that He performed miracles to bring them home.
We had $1,700 to put in our adoption fund in May when all of this started. We have prayed and prayed that God would provide everything we need to complete this and in less than six months, we now have $26, 308. I am going to keep praying because God still performs miracles!
One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray..."
I have read this verse many times but it never occured to me that this was the ONLY thing they asked him to teach them. That struck me as really odd...I mean, if I had the opportunity to ask Jesus to teach me something, ANYTHING...sadly enough it would probably not be how to pray. They could have asked him how to perform miracles, how to heal people or raise them from the dead, how to evangelize...they could have asked him anything but they asked him to teach them to pray. Pastor Stafford pointed out that when Jesus prayed to God, AMAZING things happened and the disciples had seen this! Now, I definately believe that! I believe that God performed miracles over 2,000 years ago when people prayed and I believe that he still does because I have seen it! We have such an AMAZING priveledge of talking to God through prayer but I don't think we always believe he answers us. So our Pastor challeneged us to pray for something over a two week period and to see what God does...so immediately two prayers came to my mind. I prayed for a woman at our church that has been sick. I am not particularly close to this woman but God has really laid her on my heart lately so I felt like he was asking me to pray for her. I also prayed that God would provide the money that we need to complete this adoption. We were praying we would get a referral for a child soon but we did not have the money to accept a child so my prayer was that God would provide the money. So I prayed everyday for these two things and God did something AMAZING!
The next Sunday, I went to Sunday school class and our teacher announced that next week's Sunday school offering would go towards our adoption. I was so excited!!! And I kept praying...
I was almost through the second week of praying and Adam, Eva, Eli and I were out on a Friday afternnoon and ran into the lady I had been praying for. This is first of all exciting because for awhile she was not leaving her house except for doctor's appointments so I was really surprised to see her out and not going to see a doctor! The next thing she told me was that she could feel my prayers working! Now she has not been completely healed yet and she said she still has some more testing to go through but I am praising God that she is feeling so much better and that she knows it is because of God! I am continuting to pray for her healing!
On the following Sunday, two weeks to the day that I had started to pray for the adoption money, our treasurer at church, David, walked up to me and handed me an envelope with a check in it. I didn't even look at it right away because I had turned in a receipt for some cirriculum I had purchased for the church so I just assumed that was what the check was for....but when I opened it, it was written to Adam and I for $1,010! That was a little more than the cirriculum cost (ha ha) so I ran to catch up with David and asked him what that was for and he said, "someone donated it to you guys for the adoption." Tears just started to run down my cheeks and I asked him if he could tell me who it was and he said, "I was told to tell you it was a gift from God."
Later that morning, Pastor Stafford was preaching on prayer again and he said that if our prayer had not been answered yet, KEEP PRAYING! So I kept praying this past week that God would heal her and provide the money that we need.
So I went to church yesterday and I was talking to a few ladies when David walked up to me again and handed me an envelope. This time he stuck around for a minute because I am sure he knew what was coming :-) I asked him what the envelope was and he said, it was the offering from our Sunday school class. Let me just preface this with the facts, we are not a very large class. There are on average 9 families represented in there and all of them are right around my age. Most of them have small children and none of them are wealthy (I hope no one in my class takes offense to that! We are all blessed with everything we need but I would not consider any of us to be wealthy by American standards.) So I had not thought about how much money would be in that envelope but looking back if I had to guess, I would have said probably around $300-$400 would have been a very generous amount. So I opened up the envelope and the check was for $2,880! I cannot explain to you how astonished I was! I began to weep because I do not know who gave all of that money but I know that each dollar that was given, was given sacrifically.
I am in awe of my God. We now have more than enough money to accept a child when the referral comes :-) I cannot wait to hold that little person in my arms and tell them how much our God loves them and that He performed miracles to bring them home.
We had $1,700 to put in our adoption fund in May when all of this started. We have prayed and prayed that God would provide everything we need to complete this and in less than six months, we now have $26, 308. I am going to keep praying because God still performs miracles!
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Approved!
Last Friday, October 12th, we received our Immigration Approval Letter in the mail! It just so happened that Adam got off at 12:00 on Friday and had the opportunity to pull into our driveway as I was waving our approval envelope in the air and jumping up and down...and yes, I was doing this in the driveway!
Later that evening we had our Pampered Chef, Silpada, Thirty-One, Scentsy fundraising party and it was a hit! I do not know how much we made from the party yet because the parties have not been closed out yet but I will post as soon as I do know. We did have quite a few ladies there though and many people have ordered through the websites so I am excited to see what the grand total will be! I do want to say a HUGE thank you to the ladies who so willingly gave their entire profits to our adoption fund and to Alison Stultz' mission trip fund. Becky Crosswhite from Thirty-One, Amber Hubble from Silpada, Ann McDonald from Pampered Chef and Sonya Lucas from Scentsy are all giving their profits to us. Thank you very much!!!
I also want to give another HUGE thank you to everyone who continues to pray for us and for the adoption process and a HUGE thank you to God, who continues to amaze us!
Lynsey
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, forever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21
Later that evening we had our Pampered Chef, Silpada, Thirty-One, Scentsy fundraising party and it was a hit! I do not know how much we made from the party yet because the parties have not been closed out yet but I will post as soon as I do know. We did have quite a few ladies there though and many people have ordered through the websites so I am excited to see what the grand total will be! I do want to say a HUGE thank you to the ladies who so willingly gave their entire profits to our adoption fund and to Alison Stultz' mission trip fund. Becky Crosswhite from Thirty-One, Amber Hubble from Silpada, Ann McDonald from Pampered Chef and Sonya Lucas from Scentsy are all giving their profits to us. Thank you very much!!!
I also want to give another HUGE thank you to everyone who continues to pray for us and for the adoption process and a HUGE thank you to God, who continues to amaze us!
Lynsey
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, forever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21
Monday, October 8, 2012
Pamper Yourself Before the Holidays
So, as promised, we have a few fundraisers coming up! The first one is this coming Friday night, October 12th at 6pm. My dear friend Lauren has organized a Pampered Chef, Thirty-One bag, Scentsy candle, Silpada jewlery party and she is having it at my friend, Leigh's home (545 Hedgelawn Ave, Roanoke, VA 24019) It is a come and go party. There will be no "show" from each of the vendors. You can just drop by whenever you would like, have a few snacks and look through the catalogs and see if there is anything you want or would like to give someone for Christmas. Each vendor is giving between 15 and 25 percent of the proceeds to go towards our adoption expenses and Alison Stultz' mission trip (you can read about her here http://alisonstultz.theworldrace.org/). If you are not able to make the party but you would like to support us, you can order online.
For Pampered Chef - www.pamperedchef.biz/annmcdonald then click on "Shop Online", type in "Lauren Crawford" as the Host/Organization
For Thirty-One - www.Mythirtyone.com/Rebeccacrosswhite and click on the "my parties" tab at the top. Find "Stultz Fundraising" and click on "Shop Now".
For Silpada Jewelry - www.mysilpada.com/amber.hubble
For Scentsy - http://sonyalucas.scentsy.us then look under "My Open Parties", "Lauren Reynolds-Crawford" and click on "buy from party"
Thank you for your support and happy shopping!
For Pampered Chef - www.pamperedchef.biz/annmcdonald then click on "Shop Online", type in "Lauren Crawford" as the Host/Organization
For Thirty-One - www.Mythirtyone.com/Rebeccacrosswhite and click on the "my parties" tab at the top. Find "Stultz Fundraising" and click on "Shop Now".
For Silpada Jewelry - www.mysilpada.com/amber.hubble
For Scentsy - http://sonyalucas.scentsy.us then look under "My Open Parties", "Lauren Reynolds-Crawford" and click on "buy from party"
Thank you for your support and happy shopping!
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
"CALL ME BACK!"
So I went into a store yesterday by myself and I left my cell phone in the car...for those of you who know me well, I am sure you are shocked at this! When I got back out to the car I realized there were two missed calls from Adam and a text that read, "CALL ME BACK!". So at this point I am a little worried that something has gone terribly wrong and I call him and he says, "Guess what?" which I took to mean the house wasn't on fire and he wasn't on the way to the ER with one of our kids so I took a deep breath and said, "What?" and he began to read the e-mail to me that we had just received from our international adoption consultant...
Hi, Adam and Lynsey,
Congratulations, you are officially placed on the wait list to receive your referral!!
Your dossier has shipped from Ohio direct to Ghana via Fed Ex by EAC. It is expected to arrive and reach our in country staff in Kumasi, GH on or before Tuesday, October 9th.
It is time to celebrate this amazing milestone in your Ghana adoption!!!
***Referral***
At present, the estimated wait time for a referral from Ghana is 4-6 months. I understand ‘waiting’ is one of the most difficult steps parents take on their adoption journey. And, I will be in touch with you as soon as a referral is ready for you.
I cannot explain to you in words how excited I was to hear this! Let's just say yesterday was a GREAT day at our house!
Please continue to pray for this process, for the money to complete the adoption, and most of all, for the newest member of our family!
Lynsey
Hi, Adam and Lynsey,
Congratulations, you are officially placed on the wait list to receive your referral!!
Your dossier has shipped from Ohio direct to Ghana via Fed Ex by EAC. It is expected to arrive and reach our in country staff in Kumasi, GH on or before Tuesday, October 9th.
It is time to celebrate this amazing milestone in your Ghana adoption!!!
***Referral***
At present, the estimated wait time for a referral from Ghana is 4-6 months. I understand ‘waiting’ is one of the most difficult steps parents take on their adoption journey. And, I will be in touch with you as soon as a referral is ready for you.
I cannot explain to you in words how excited I was to hear this! Let's just say yesterday was a GREAT day at our house!
Please continue to pray for this process, for the money to complete the adoption, and most of all, for the newest member of our family!
Lynsey
Friday, September 28, 2012
He works in amazing ways.
We got home from the beach last Saturday and were so excited to find our letters from The Department of Homeland Security waiting on us. They scheduled our appointments for fingerprinting for Thursday morning so we traveled to Charleston, West Virginia to have our finger prints taken for immigration approval and that is the last thing we have to do right now! I absolutely loved checking this item off of my list! This appointment came a few weeks earlier that we had anticipated so I know that God is getting us there as quickly as possible...His child is waiting!
The next thing on my list is coming up with the money to bring our child home. God has provided in AMAZING ways over the last month and I want to give you just a couple of examples...
A couple of months ago, Adam needed to take a few things to the dump and so he drove our Jetta over to his parents house and picked up their truck to use for the evening. He left our Jetta parked in their driveway and unbeknownst to us, there was a hail storm while our car was there. Adam went back and dropped the truck off and picked up our car and we never even noticed that there was any damage. A couple of weeks later, a family member (who lives in the same neighborhood as Adam's parents) asked us if we had any damage to our car. I had no idea what they were talking about but soon found out that there had been a hail storm while our car was parked there so we went outside and looked at our car and sure enough...there were little hail dings on our car. Well...we thought about calling our insurance company but we looked into what our deductible was and since we are trying to come up with money right now instead of spending it, we decided we wouldn't worry about it...it's just a car anyways. Well a couple of months went by and someone had mentioned to me in a conversation that they had hail damage to their car so they turned it into their insurance and were given a check to have their car fixed. So the wheels started turning in my head. I thought, "well, even if it is only a few hundred dollars, we could put that money towards our adoption." So I googled whether it was illegal to collect money from your insurance company if you were not going to fix the vehicle and since I found many sites that confirmed there was nothing illegal about this (believe me, I did come across a lot of sites saying that this was a really stupid thing to do because the value of your car has dropped significantly), I called Adam and asked him, "do you think we should get an estimate on the hail damage on the car?" So Adam agreed we should look into it and he took the car for an estimate a couple of days later and I could not believe how much money they gave us! Are you ready... $3,600! It just so happens that small pieces of hail hit every panel of our car :-) A few years ago, if someone asked me if they should do this...take the money they should take to repair their car and use it for something else, I would have said, "absolutely NOT!" But I thought this over and prayed about it and I came to the conclusion that God cares more about our child than he does about what my car looks like! I am sure that Eva will be a little sad when she gets this car at the age of 16 to drive and it has little dents all over it but I hope once we tell her this story, she will love her God for his provision :-)
A few weeks ago, I was at Bible study one evening and I had a conversation with a friend (and family member) about fundraising. She is raising money to go on The World Race which is an eleven month long mission trip she is going on in January...you can read about it here http://alisonstultz.theworldrace.org/ . She was asking me what fundraising events we had planned so far so that she could make sure she didn't do anything on the same date (we both go to the same church and are in the same family so we really don't want to do one on the same day!) I told her that we had a Pampered Chef, Silpada, Scentsy, Thirty-One party coming up in October and we had an Applebee's pancake breakfast in November (believe me, you will be hearing more about these soon!) After our conversation, we sat down to watch the video and I really felt like the Holy Spirit was telling me to give her half of the money from both of our upcoming events. And for about 5 seconds, I am not proud to admit this, but I thought, "God, we still need $10,000, are you sure we should give half to her?" So for the rest of the video I was partly paying attention and partly praying about this and I knew what I needed to do. I told her right after the video was over that we wanted to give her half of the fundraising for these two events and she was really excited! I went home that night and as soon as I walked in the door I told Adam what I did and he was really excited too...I confessed to Adam that I struggled for a few minutes on whether to do this and he told me what we always tell each other...be obedient and He will handle the rest. Well...the next morning, I prayed about this and told God how sorry I was for doubting him and for being selfish and then I went on about my day. We had a lot planned that day and after I took the kids to the library for story time, we went over to someones house for lunch. After lunch, right before we were leaving, they handed me a very large check. I was overwhelmed with gratefulness and for the confirmation from God at the exact time that I needed it....He is going to provide for this and I don't need to worry about how He is going to do it. I hope that you do not read this story as me bragging about giving some of the money away but that you will see that I am selfish and God still loves me! That He calls us to be obedient, even when it doesn't make sense to us and He will reward you for your obedience...it might not be here on earth but you will be rewarded :-)
He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it." Luke 11:28
So now our total fundraising is at $20,355.52! We have raised $20,355.52 since June (and when I say "we", I in no way think I had anything to do with this!)! We give praise and glory to God for every dollar we have been given so far and trust that he will provide the almost $10,000 more that we need!
Keep praying for our child :-) I can't wait for you to meet them!
The next thing on my list is coming up with the money to bring our child home. God has provided in AMAZING ways over the last month and I want to give you just a couple of examples...
A couple of months ago, Adam needed to take a few things to the dump and so he drove our Jetta over to his parents house and picked up their truck to use for the evening. He left our Jetta parked in their driveway and unbeknownst to us, there was a hail storm while our car was there. Adam went back and dropped the truck off and picked up our car and we never even noticed that there was any damage. A couple of weeks later, a family member (who lives in the same neighborhood as Adam's parents) asked us if we had any damage to our car. I had no idea what they were talking about but soon found out that there had been a hail storm while our car was parked there so we went outside and looked at our car and sure enough...there were little hail dings on our car. Well...we thought about calling our insurance company but we looked into what our deductible was and since we are trying to come up with money right now instead of spending it, we decided we wouldn't worry about it...it's just a car anyways. Well a couple of months went by and someone had mentioned to me in a conversation that they had hail damage to their car so they turned it into their insurance and were given a check to have their car fixed. So the wheels started turning in my head. I thought, "well, even if it is only a few hundred dollars, we could put that money towards our adoption." So I googled whether it was illegal to collect money from your insurance company if you were not going to fix the vehicle and since I found many sites that confirmed there was nothing illegal about this (believe me, I did come across a lot of sites saying that this was a really stupid thing to do because the value of your car has dropped significantly), I called Adam and asked him, "do you think we should get an estimate on the hail damage on the car?" So Adam agreed we should look into it and he took the car for an estimate a couple of days later and I could not believe how much money they gave us! Are you ready... $3,600! It just so happens that small pieces of hail hit every panel of our car :-) A few years ago, if someone asked me if they should do this...take the money they should take to repair their car and use it for something else, I would have said, "absolutely NOT!" But I thought this over and prayed about it and I came to the conclusion that God cares more about our child than he does about what my car looks like! I am sure that Eva will be a little sad when she gets this car at the age of 16 to drive and it has little dents all over it but I hope once we tell her this story, she will love her God for his provision :-)
A few weeks ago, I was at Bible study one evening and I had a conversation with a friend (and family member) about fundraising. She is raising money to go on The World Race which is an eleven month long mission trip she is going on in January...you can read about it here http://alisonstultz.theworldrace.org/ . She was asking me what fundraising events we had planned so far so that she could make sure she didn't do anything on the same date (we both go to the same church and are in the same family so we really don't want to do one on the same day!) I told her that we had a Pampered Chef, Silpada, Scentsy, Thirty-One party coming up in October and we had an Applebee's pancake breakfast in November (believe me, you will be hearing more about these soon!) After our conversation, we sat down to watch the video and I really felt like the Holy Spirit was telling me to give her half of the money from both of our upcoming events. And for about 5 seconds, I am not proud to admit this, but I thought, "God, we still need $10,000, are you sure we should give half to her?" So for the rest of the video I was partly paying attention and partly praying about this and I knew what I needed to do. I told her right after the video was over that we wanted to give her half of the fundraising for these two events and she was really excited! I went home that night and as soon as I walked in the door I told Adam what I did and he was really excited too...I confessed to Adam that I struggled for a few minutes on whether to do this and he told me what we always tell each other...be obedient and He will handle the rest. Well...the next morning, I prayed about this and told God how sorry I was for doubting him and for being selfish and then I went on about my day. We had a lot planned that day and after I took the kids to the library for story time, we went over to someones house for lunch. After lunch, right before we were leaving, they handed me a very large check. I was overwhelmed with gratefulness and for the confirmation from God at the exact time that I needed it....He is going to provide for this and I don't need to worry about how He is going to do it. I hope that you do not read this story as me bragging about giving some of the money away but that you will see that I am selfish and God still loves me! That He calls us to be obedient, even when it doesn't make sense to us and He will reward you for your obedience...it might not be here on earth but you will be rewarded :-)
He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it." Luke 11:28
So now our total fundraising is at $20,355.52! We have raised $20,355.52 since June (and when I say "we", I in no way think I had anything to do with this!)! We give praise and glory to God for every dollar we have been given so far and trust that he will provide the almost $10,000 more that we need!
Keep praying for our child :-) I can't wait for you to meet them!
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
He changed everything.
Hi Everyone! We are in the process of filling out applications for different grants for the adoption and we could really use your prayers! Please pray for endurance for us as we fill out the many, many forms that go along with these! God is continuing to financially provide for this in amazing ways and we are so thankful...there will be more to come on that soon!
On another note...I had a few thoughts I felt like sharing so if you feel like reading :-)
I have been reading "The Story" over the summer while I was out of Bible study. It is a book that came out in the last couple of years that is described in the title as being "The Bible as one continuing story of God and His people." Basically, it is the Bible written as somewhat of a novel. I got to the part of the book where the story changes from the Old Testament to the New Testament and the author wrote a brief introduction to the New Testament where he said,
"But God's story wasn't finished. "When the set time had fully come," as the apostle Paul put it, God spoke again - this time in the person of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, whose birth, life, death and resurrection changed everything."
This statement has come to my mind so often in the last week that I find myself reflecting on the ways that Jesus Christ changed everything in my life. When I really sit back and think of all the ways he has changed me, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the grace and forgiveness he has freely extended to me.
I will start somewhere in the middle of my story... I did not know the Lord growing up. I had heard of God and I had even been to church when I was young but during the years where I really feel like a person "grows up" I did not attend church regularly. This was very evident in my life as a middle schooler, high schooler and even young college student. Somewhere during the first year after college, I began to question what life was really all about and thankfully I turned to the God I had learned about all those years ago. I would have said that I believed in God all throughout my life but I did not come to really know and love the Lord until my early twenties. I met Adam when I was twenty-four and God used him and his family to show me what being a follower of Christ really looked like. I have met many dear friends over the last seven years that have really showed me what putting flesh and bones to the gospel really looks like and I am so thankful to God for making my path meet theirs.
I believe that when you accept Jesus as your savior and have a relationship with the God of the universe, there is evidence of that in your life. The first confirmation of this in my life, that I remember, was at my ten year high school reunion. A friend of mine from high school, someone I hung out with after many Friday night football games, laughingly made the comment that if our class were to vote on "The Person Most Changed Since High school," that would definitely be Lynsey. I am not sure if he meant this to be funny, but I took it as a compliment. It was the first time I had seen a lot of my friends from high school in many years, even ones I was very close to and I am sure it was shocking to them to see me completely different. Jesus changed everything.
When I graduated from college, I got a job working at an accounting firm in downtown Roanoke. One morning I remember very clearly walking from my car in the parking garage to the large building where my office was located and I remember thinking to myself, "I finally did it!" Since middle school, my dream was to go to college, graduate, make enough money to fully support myself, work downtown, and wear a suit everyday. I know that sounds very funny to a lot of people but that really was what I wanted out of life. I really wanted to be materially wealthy and very good at what I did. Jesus changed everything.
When I was younger, I was very selfish....I was very, very interested in what made me happy. I had decided very early on that I did not want children. That will come as a huge surprise to some people and not so much of a surprise to those of you who knew me back then. I was very into whatever made me happy and I really could not see why someone would want to spend their life having children. I wanted to spend my life on me. Jesus changed everything.
Somewhere along the way, Jesus completely changed my life. I know how crazy that sounds to all of you who are reading this and are not Christians but, really, he did. Over the last eight years I have studied the Bible and developed a relationship with God and he has changed my desires. Over time, I started to understand who God was and what this life was really about and I know this will come as a shock to some of you but it was not about me! ha ha! I spent years of my life obtaining an education and working very hard to get the career that I wanted and then, just when I was getting exactly what I wanted, I quit work to stay at home with my kids. Children? I thought you didn't want any children? I know! He changed that too! Sometimes I look at my life and I think, what happened? Everything that you once held to be of such importance is gone. I know even friends and family members who knew the "old me" look at me now and really think I have lost it. I can see it in their eyes when I say something completely against our current culture and they think "she has lost it!" And I am so very happy to say, I have. Or atleast I am on my way to losing it. You see, Jesus said,
"For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." Matthew 16:25
I read something the other day in "7, An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess," that just about wraps up my thoughts...
"The average human gets around twenty-five thousand days on this earth, and most of us in the United States of America will get a few more. That's it. This life is a breath. Heaven is coming fast, and we live in that thin space where faith and obedience have relevance. We have this one life to offer; there is no second chance, no plan B for the good news. We get one shot at living to expand the kingdom, fighting for justice. We'll stand before Jesus once, and none of our luxuries will accompany us. We'll have one moment to say, "This is how I lived." More than thirteen thousand of those days are over for me. I'm determined to make the rest count."
I feel like I wasted so many years doing what I wanted and I am going to attempt to "make the rest count." I know a lot of people would say that you only have this one life to live so why not live it having fun and doing exactly what you want to do? The funny thing is, I don't feel like I am doing things I don't want to do...God just changed my desires to match his. He has changed my heart so that what makes me happy is doing what makes him happy! And I am having way more fun now than I ever have in my life. I spend my days playing with the two most amazing kids (I know I am biased!) and I have the priveledge of getting on a plane to go get another one to love on! Who would have ever thought I would be a stay at home mom with three kids and married to one of the most amazing people I have ever met? Certainly not me...but Jesus changed everything.
Lynsey
On another note...I had a few thoughts I felt like sharing so if you feel like reading :-)
I have been reading "The Story" over the summer while I was out of Bible study. It is a book that came out in the last couple of years that is described in the title as being "The Bible as one continuing story of God and His people." Basically, it is the Bible written as somewhat of a novel. I got to the part of the book where the story changes from the Old Testament to the New Testament and the author wrote a brief introduction to the New Testament where he said,
"But God's story wasn't finished. "When the set time had fully come," as the apostle Paul put it, God spoke again - this time in the person of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, whose birth, life, death and resurrection changed everything."
This statement has come to my mind so often in the last week that I find myself reflecting on the ways that Jesus Christ changed everything in my life. When I really sit back and think of all the ways he has changed me, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the grace and forgiveness he has freely extended to me.
I will start somewhere in the middle of my story... I did not know the Lord growing up. I had heard of God and I had even been to church when I was young but during the years where I really feel like a person "grows up" I did not attend church regularly. This was very evident in my life as a middle schooler, high schooler and even young college student. Somewhere during the first year after college, I began to question what life was really all about and thankfully I turned to the God I had learned about all those years ago. I would have said that I believed in God all throughout my life but I did not come to really know and love the Lord until my early twenties. I met Adam when I was twenty-four and God used him and his family to show me what being a follower of Christ really looked like. I have met many dear friends over the last seven years that have really showed me what putting flesh and bones to the gospel really looks like and I am so thankful to God for making my path meet theirs.
I believe that when you accept Jesus as your savior and have a relationship with the God of the universe, there is evidence of that in your life. The first confirmation of this in my life, that I remember, was at my ten year high school reunion. A friend of mine from high school, someone I hung out with after many Friday night football games, laughingly made the comment that if our class were to vote on "The Person Most Changed Since High school," that would definitely be Lynsey. I am not sure if he meant this to be funny, but I took it as a compliment. It was the first time I had seen a lot of my friends from high school in many years, even ones I was very close to and I am sure it was shocking to them to see me completely different. Jesus changed everything.
When I graduated from college, I got a job working at an accounting firm in downtown Roanoke. One morning I remember very clearly walking from my car in the parking garage to the large building where my office was located and I remember thinking to myself, "I finally did it!" Since middle school, my dream was to go to college, graduate, make enough money to fully support myself, work downtown, and wear a suit everyday. I know that sounds very funny to a lot of people but that really was what I wanted out of life. I really wanted to be materially wealthy and very good at what I did. Jesus changed everything.
When I was younger, I was very selfish....I was very, very interested in what made me happy. I had decided very early on that I did not want children. That will come as a huge surprise to some people and not so much of a surprise to those of you who knew me back then. I was very into whatever made me happy and I really could not see why someone would want to spend their life having children. I wanted to spend my life on me. Jesus changed everything.
Somewhere along the way, Jesus completely changed my life. I know how crazy that sounds to all of you who are reading this and are not Christians but, really, he did. Over the last eight years I have studied the Bible and developed a relationship with God and he has changed my desires. Over time, I started to understand who God was and what this life was really about and I know this will come as a shock to some of you but it was not about me! ha ha! I spent years of my life obtaining an education and working very hard to get the career that I wanted and then, just when I was getting exactly what I wanted, I quit work to stay at home with my kids. Children? I thought you didn't want any children? I know! He changed that too! Sometimes I look at my life and I think, what happened? Everything that you once held to be of such importance is gone. I know even friends and family members who knew the "old me" look at me now and really think I have lost it. I can see it in their eyes when I say something completely against our current culture and they think "she has lost it!" And I am so very happy to say, I have. Or atleast I am on my way to losing it. You see, Jesus said,
"For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." Matthew 16:25
I read something the other day in "7, An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess," that just about wraps up my thoughts...
"The average human gets around twenty-five thousand days on this earth, and most of us in the United States of America will get a few more. That's it. This life is a breath. Heaven is coming fast, and we live in that thin space where faith and obedience have relevance. We have this one life to offer; there is no second chance, no plan B for the good news. We get one shot at living to expand the kingdom, fighting for justice. We'll stand before Jesus once, and none of our luxuries will accompany us. We'll have one moment to say, "This is how I lived." More than thirteen thousand of those days are over for me. I'm determined to make the rest count."
I feel like I wasted so many years doing what I wanted and I am going to attempt to "make the rest count." I know a lot of people would say that you only have this one life to live so why not live it having fun and doing exactly what you want to do? The funny thing is, I don't feel like I am doing things I don't want to do...God just changed my desires to match his. He has changed my heart so that what makes me happy is doing what makes him happy! And I am having way more fun now than I ever have in my life. I spend my days playing with the two most amazing kids (I know I am biased!) and I have the priveledge of getting on a plane to go get another one to love on! Who would have ever thought I would be a stay at home mom with three kids and married to one of the most amazing people I have ever met? Certainly not me...but Jesus changed everything.
Lynsey
Friday, September 7, 2012
Drum Roll Please!
I cannot even put into words how excited I am to tell you...drum roll please....we have submitted everything required of us to European Adoption Consultants!!! Robin, our adoption consultant, should receive our package via FedEx today and she will review it for any errors...please pray there are NO errors, and then she will send it on to EAC's headquarters where it will be reviewed again and then it will be sent to Ghana. I have never before in my life prayed for a material item as much as I have for this packet of information on it's way to Texas. Please join me in praying that this package would make it everywhere it needs to go in one piece! After the package is received in Ghana, we will be put on the waiting list until our immigration approval is received and then, we should receive a referral for a child (the wait time right now is running four to six months). For those of you who do not know what a referral is (because until four months ago, I had no idea what a referral was), the government of Ghana will send us a picture of a child with any known background information as well as medical history and we have been instructed that we should talk to an international doctor regarding their medical issues and then either "accept or decline the child". I can tell you with absolute certainty that the first thing we will do is pray. I cannot image a situation where we would "decline" a child but we will pray unceasingly until we feel like we have heard from God on this. I cannot wait to see this little person! To know whether Eva and Eli will have a new sister or brother. To know what their name is and where they are living. To know whether or not I need extensive training in cornrows or just a little info on products :-) he he! I am so excited!!!!
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
"Maybe you prayed too hard!!!"
I received a phone call from a church member on Wednesday night that went like this,
"Lynsey, are you still having a yard sale THIS Saturday?"
"Yes, we are still planning on having it."
"Well, I am at the church and I was going to put my donations in the fellowship hall and there is nothing here."
"Don't worry, we have some stuff in our garage that people have donated and we moved a few things from the fellowship hall to our Sunday school classroom earlier in the week. I am sure we will have more things come in. Just keep praying!"
"Okay...I'll do that!"
I will have to admit that I was a little nervous when I got off the phone. I asked Adam, "What are we going to do if we don't have enough stuff to sell?" So I just kept praying that God would move people to donate things...and I prayed, and prayed, and prayed. Then, I went to church to meet a few hardworking volunteers on Thursday night at 6pm and I cannot even explain to you how much stuff we had! We had stuff in the fellowship hall, stuff in our Sunday school classroom, stuff spilling out into the hallways, stuff on trucks...we had so much stuff I was overwhelmed with what to do with it all! Everyone kept asking me if I was okay. I think I had that deer-in-headlights look on my face. My nervousness about not having enough to sell quickly turned into nervousness that we wouldn't be able to get it all out to sell it! We (I say we, like I was one of the men doing it!) moved 40 tables (that is EVERY table in our church building) into the fellowship hall to lay stuff out on and it still wasn't enough room! This is what the room looked like on Thursday night when we left...
And we didn't even have everything out yet! Grandpa Owen came over on Friday night and he asked me...
"Lynsey, what do you think of all this?"
"Well...I am a little overwhelmed! Owen, I prayed and prayed and asked God to please move people to donate things to this yardsale."
"Well, Lynsey, I think you might have prayed to hard!" ha ha!
We still had not touched about 1/3 of it! We hadn't moved any of the clothes (and there had to be atleast 1,000 peices of clothes)! We left at 11pm on Thursday night and I could not sleep, I was so nervous we weren't going to be able to get it all out on Friday night! Friday, we started again at 6pm and we worked and worked and worked and when we left at 11:30, it was atleast organized chaos! We resigned ourselves to the fact that all of the clothes could not be hung up (although they hung up a ton of it) and there was no way we were going to be able to price everything...there was just too much!
We arrived very chippper (well, atleast some of us!) at 6 am and began to move a lot of the stuff outside so that the room wasn't so crowded. We worked on the bake sale stuff and then at 6:50am we welcomed our first customer! And they kept coming, and coming and coming, until after 2pm! We never had a time when there were less than 10 people shopping! There was such a long line at one point that there were 4 of us just taking money!
It was an AMAZING day and I give all praise and glory to Jesus! We asked him to move people to donate things and he gave us so much stuff we couldn't even price it all! We asked him to bring people to buy the stuff and he brought hundreds of people, so many that after we had totally packed up at 3:15, there were still women looking through boxes of clothes! We prayed that we would make $1,600 because that is what we needed to submit our dossier to Ghana and he gave us over double what we asked for! All total, we made $3,326...at a yardsale!?!? Who makes $3,000 at a yardsale??? All I know is that we covered this event in prayer and this was just another confirmation that this is exactly what he wants us to do!
I want to thank EVERY person who helped make this day such a huge success! Thank you to everyone who donated stuff and baked goodies...and then came back to buy someone elses stuff! I would name everyone but I am sure that I would miss someone! Thank you to Scott, Joshua, and Bruce who moved every one of those 40 tables and a ton of stuff from different locations to the church. Thank you to Aunt Janice who came to drop a few things off and stayed for hours to help (mainly because I think she felt like I was in over my head...and she was right!). Thank you to Erica and Roxanne for helping to empty boxes and boxes of stuff! Thank you to Hazel who had a plan! Thank you to Kathy who was there before I was on Thursday and Friday and then left Friday night at 11pm and went home and made cookies for the bake sale before she came back at 6am on Saturday!!! Thank you to Peggy, Sarah, Lauren, Jason and Mom who hung up clothes until they couldn't hang up anymore (if you go to their houses and their clothes are on the floor, you can blame me! They probably never want to hang anything else up as long as they live!)! Thank you to Nicole for all the hangers!!! Thank you to Stephanie, Frank and Cindy for pricing hundreds of individual items! Thank you to Ashley and Caleb for making cards...they sold really well! Thank you to our parents who played with our kids while we did all of this (I know it was a joy but still, we thank you!). Thank you to Leigh for making all the bake sale stuff look pretty and for the coffee! Thank you to Wayne, Sam and Roger who came right in time to help clean everything up! Thank you to every person who prayed for this day! And thank you to Jesus who gave us the idea :-) Love you guys!
"Lynsey, are you still having a yard sale THIS Saturday?"
"Yes, we are still planning on having it."
"Well, I am at the church and I was going to put my donations in the fellowship hall and there is nothing here."
"Don't worry, we have some stuff in our garage that people have donated and we moved a few things from the fellowship hall to our Sunday school classroom earlier in the week. I am sure we will have more things come in. Just keep praying!"
"Okay...I'll do that!"
I will have to admit that I was a little nervous when I got off the phone. I asked Adam, "What are we going to do if we don't have enough stuff to sell?" So I just kept praying that God would move people to donate things...and I prayed, and prayed, and prayed. Then, I went to church to meet a few hardworking volunteers on Thursday night at 6pm and I cannot even explain to you how much stuff we had! We had stuff in the fellowship hall, stuff in our Sunday school classroom, stuff spilling out into the hallways, stuff on trucks...we had so much stuff I was overwhelmed with what to do with it all! Everyone kept asking me if I was okay. I think I had that deer-in-headlights look on my face. My nervousness about not having enough to sell quickly turned into nervousness that we wouldn't be able to get it all out to sell it! We (I say we, like I was one of the men doing it!) moved 40 tables (that is EVERY table in our church building) into the fellowship hall to lay stuff out on and it still wasn't enough room! This is what the room looked like on Thursday night when we left...
"Lynsey, what do you think of all this?"
"Well...I am a little overwhelmed! Owen, I prayed and prayed and asked God to please move people to donate things to this yardsale."
"Well, Lynsey, I think you might have prayed to hard!" ha ha!
We still had not touched about 1/3 of it! We hadn't moved any of the clothes (and there had to be atleast 1,000 peices of clothes)! We left at 11pm on Thursday night and I could not sleep, I was so nervous we weren't going to be able to get it all out on Friday night! Friday, we started again at 6pm and we worked and worked and worked and when we left at 11:30, it was atleast organized chaos! We resigned ourselves to the fact that all of the clothes could not be hung up (although they hung up a ton of it) and there was no way we were going to be able to price everything...there was just too much!
We arrived very chippper (well, atleast some of us!) at 6 am and began to move a lot of the stuff outside so that the room wasn't so crowded. We worked on the bake sale stuff and then at 6:50am we welcomed our first customer! And they kept coming, and coming and coming, until after 2pm! We never had a time when there were less than 10 people shopping! There was such a long line at one point that there were 4 of us just taking money!
It was an AMAZING day and I give all praise and glory to Jesus! We asked him to move people to donate things and he gave us so much stuff we couldn't even price it all! We asked him to bring people to buy the stuff and he brought hundreds of people, so many that after we had totally packed up at 3:15, there were still women looking through boxes of clothes! We prayed that we would make $1,600 because that is what we needed to submit our dossier to Ghana and he gave us over double what we asked for! All total, we made $3,326...at a yardsale!?!? Who makes $3,000 at a yardsale??? All I know is that we covered this event in prayer and this was just another confirmation that this is exactly what he wants us to do!
I want to thank EVERY person who helped make this day such a huge success! Thank you to everyone who donated stuff and baked goodies...and then came back to buy someone elses stuff! I would name everyone but I am sure that I would miss someone! Thank you to Scott, Joshua, and Bruce who moved every one of those 40 tables and a ton of stuff from different locations to the church. Thank you to Aunt Janice who came to drop a few things off and stayed for hours to help (mainly because I think she felt like I was in over my head...and she was right!). Thank you to Erica and Roxanne for helping to empty boxes and boxes of stuff! Thank you to Hazel who had a plan! Thank you to Kathy who was there before I was on Thursday and Friday and then left Friday night at 11pm and went home and made cookies for the bake sale before she came back at 6am on Saturday!!! Thank you to Peggy, Sarah, Lauren, Jason and Mom who hung up clothes until they couldn't hang up anymore (if you go to their houses and their clothes are on the floor, you can blame me! They probably never want to hang anything else up as long as they live!)! Thank you to Nicole for all the hangers!!! Thank you to Stephanie, Frank and Cindy for pricing hundreds of individual items! Thank you to Ashley and Caleb for making cards...they sold really well! Thank you to our parents who played with our kids while we did all of this (I know it was a joy but still, we thank you!). Thank you to Leigh for making all the bake sale stuff look pretty and for the coffee! Thank you to Wayne, Sam and Roger who came right in time to help clean everything up! Thank you to every person who prayed for this day! And thank you to Jesus who gave us the idea :-) Love you guys!
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
"I hope you know what you are doing..."
“I hope you
know what you’re doing…”
This is the
response I got this weekend from someone when they learned we are in the process
of adoption. So what did I respond with…
“I think we do.” This response is kind
of funny now that I think about it. Do
we ever really know what we are doing? I
usually don’t. Sometimes I think I have
a really great idea and it blows up in my face.
For instance, just this afternoon, I cleaned up from lunch, began to
prepare to make chocolate dipped pretzels with Eva, and put some bacon in a
frying pan so that I would have that ready for dinner tonight. Seemed like a good idea at the time but a
friend called to see if they could come by for a moment and I of course said “yes”
and then before I knew it, Eva was burning her hand on melted chocolate, Eli
was screaming, and the bacon was burning…all in front of our guest. I just laughed when she gave me a hug before
she left and said “I hope that your day gets better!” I told her, “Oh this isn’t a bad day, this is
pretty normal!” This story is for anyone
out there who ever thinks that I have everything “together.”
The truth is,
I have absolutely no idea if we really know what we are doing. All I know is that we are following God’s
plan for us right now and I am overjoyed in walking in obedience to him. We could have said “no” but we would have
been hypocrites. We have both accepted
Jesus Christ as our savior and in doing so have chose to die to ourselves and
live for him. We have decided to say “no”
to what the world thinks is normal and to embrace God’s plan for us. We are choosing to adopt a child because God
has adopted us. We live in this world and
love those around us because he first came and died. We are in no way perfect people, we are just
trying to live out what he has asked of us.
I am going to try to memorize that for my next response J
I have been
reading a few books lately about attachment disorders and various other things
that can “go wrong” when we bring our child home. These books have started to make me anxious
about bringing our child home and since God’s timing is perfect, he had a
perfect word for me. Two Sunday’s ago,
our associate pastor at Summerdean was preaching on fear and his question to us
was, “If you knew without a doubt that something would work out well, what
would you do?” My immediate thought went
to adoption. My fear is that this will
not work out well. The more I read about
attachment disorders, the more nervous I get.
The more people who tell us that our child will be black and how
difficult it will be to raise them as white parents, the more ill-equipped I
feel. The more people who pose the
question,” Do you really think you can do this?” the more I question whether we
really can. But the reason I feel this
way is because I am focusing on the problem instead of Jesus. A dear friend reminded me of this passage
earlier this week…
Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” Matthew 14:25-33
Jesus made Peter capable of walking on water, but what happened? Peter took his eyes off of Jesus and began to focus on his circumstances and then he began to sink. This reminded me to keep my focus on Jesus and never to doubt his plan.
So, No, I don’t know exactly what I am doing and I am not sure it is going to turn out perfect, but I do know that my God has promised this…
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[a] have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28
Since I know that he has called us to do this, I am not worried about whether it is going to work out well. It is God’s plan and it will work out the way he wants it to.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
One or Two?
Thank you for all of your prayers! Our second interview and the home inspection with our social worker went great...at least I thought it did! I was very anxious about this interview and I am sooooo glad that is over! We should have a rough draft of our home study by the end of the week!!!
We have gone back and forth between adopting one child or two children since this began. At first, we decided we would like two for a few different reasons. One, because we wanted them to have a biological sibling, someone they looked like and connected with. Two, because if we are going to go all the way to Africa and adopt a child, why not bring home two? And three, because we have talked about having four children to complete our family so why not do the next two all at once. Then we decided that we probably shouldn't do two for a few reasons as well. One, because it was explained to us that sometime when you bring two children home that know each other, this can cause them to cling to each other instead of really connecting to your family. Two, because it costs more money to adopt two children. Three, can we do this? Bringing home a child from a different country and integrating them into our family is going to be very difficult, can we handle doubling the size of our family on top of that? And four, because, lets face it, two is exponentially harder than one. When I was pregnant with Eli, I really assumed that having two children would be twice as much work as having one. I think I was very wrong! Having two children is much, much more difficult than having one...at least for me. Along with that, two is twice the laughs, twice the hugs and exponentially more joy! Having said all of that, now it has come to the time where we have to put down on paper our requests...do we want one child or two? We know without a doubt that God will equip us to do what he is asking us to do so we are praying very hard for God's guidance in this and we would really appreciate it if you would join us. Please pray that he will reveal his will to us and that he would make it very clear to us.
Trusting in Him,
Lynsey
We have gone back and forth between adopting one child or two children since this began. At first, we decided we would like two for a few different reasons. One, because we wanted them to have a biological sibling, someone they looked like and connected with. Two, because if we are going to go all the way to Africa and adopt a child, why not bring home two? And three, because we have talked about having four children to complete our family so why not do the next two all at once. Then we decided that we probably shouldn't do two for a few reasons as well. One, because it was explained to us that sometime when you bring two children home that know each other, this can cause them to cling to each other instead of really connecting to your family. Two, because it costs more money to adopt two children. Three, can we do this? Bringing home a child from a different country and integrating them into our family is going to be very difficult, can we handle doubling the size of our family on top of that? And four, because, lets face it, two is exponentially harder than one. When I was pregnant with Eli, I really assumed that having two children would be twice as much work as having one. I think I was very wrong! Having two children is much, much more difficult than having one...at least for me. Along with that, two is twice the laughs, twice the hugs and exponentially more joy! Having said all of that, now it has come to the time where we have to put down on paper our requests...do we want one child or two? We know without a doubt that God will equip us to do what he is asking us to do so we are praying very hard for God's guidance in this and we would really appreciate it if you would join us. Please pray that he will reveal his will to us and that he would make it very clear to us.
Trusting in Him,
Lynsey
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Our Crazy Life...
I really thought our life couldn't get much crazier and then we entered the adoption process!!! I feel like I am constantly spinning ten plates at a time and at least once a day I hear something crash! ha ha! Seriously though, life is busy and I wouldn't have it any other way! I have to remind myself (usually during nap time) to sit down, take a deep breath and thank God for the AMAZING blessings he is giving us!
We have finally finished gathering all of the paperwork for our home study. We have both written our autobiographies, we all had our physicals, and all of our personal references have sent in their letters of recommendation to our social worker...this in itself is a HUGE thing! We have our second interview with our social worker on Thursday morning and prayers would be much appreciated! We have been warned that this will be a much more in depth interview and she will be asking a lot of questions about what we wrote in our autobiographies. I feel like we are being looked at under a giant microscope and this makes me very anxious! We will also be scheduling our "home inspection" during our meeting on Thursday for sometime next week and after that, we will know if we passed! I am so excited to be on the downhill slope of the home study!
Once we have passed (hopefully) the home study, we will gather the last few pieces of paperwork we have left to send in for our dossier and wait for our FBI clearances. I am praying this goes quickly and smoothly! And then the waiting begins...
So what's going on in the meantime???
I am praying, praying, praying! Praying for God's provision, for his protection for our child, for food for this little person and that he would provide someone to love and care for our child until we can bring them home.
I am reading, reading, reading!!! Everything I can about raising adopted children, trans-racial adoption and trying to learn as much as I can about Ghana. We just finished our adoption classes and these were very helpful! We went over all the things that could possibly go wrong and then what to look for and who to call if any of these things happen. I felt very inadequate every time we left these classes but I was quickly reminded that God will equip us to do what he has asked... he has promised us this!
We are fundraising like crazy! I feel like I am constantly planning something and God is constantly making me aware of his provision for this adoption! We have raised $12,429.77!!!!! I am not sure how to put into works how astonished I am at this number! We are 42% of the way there and every time I am overwhelmed by the amount we still have to raise, I feel God speak to me and tell me to relax...he has this covered! I am currently planning an "It Works" wrap party at my house on Thursday, August 9th. A friend of mine from high school is an "It Works" consultant and she contacted me out of the blue to see if I would like for her to do a party for me and give me all of the profits! I am in awe of the amazing generosity of God's children! If you are interested in coming, just let me know! We are also planning a yard sale for Saturday, August 18th and people have been calling and dropping stuff off at our house for us to sell since the moment I posted it on Facebook! People that I haven't talked to in years have called! People I don't know and people I would consider just acquaintances have dropped stuff off! It is so cool to see how God is working through his children to provide for this! I can't wait to see whats next!!!
Lynsey
We have finally finished gathering all of the paperwork for our home study. We have both written our autobiographies, we all had our physicals, and all of our personal references have sent in their letters of recommendation to our social worker...this in itself is a HUGE thing! We have our second interview with our social worker on Thursday morning and prayers would be much appreciated! We have been warned that this will be a much more in depth interview and she will be asking a lot of questions about what we wrote in our autobiographies. I feel like we are being looked at under a giant microscope and this makes me very anxious! We will also be scheduling our "home inspection" during our meeting on Thursday for sometime next week and after that, we will know if we passed! I am so excited to be on the downhill slope of the home study!
Once we have passed (hopefully) the home study, we will gather the last few pieces of paperwork we have left to send in for our dossier and wait for our FBI clearances. I am praying this goes quickly and smoothly! And then the waiting begins...
So what's going on in the meantime???
I am praying, praying, praying! Praying for God's provision, for his protection for our child, for food for this little person and that he would provide someone to love and care for our child until we can bring them home.
I am reading, reading, reading!!! Everything I can about raising adopted children, trans-racial adoption and trying to learn as much as I can about Ghana. We just finished our adoption classes and these were very helpful! We went over all the things that could possibly go wrong and then what to look for and who to call if any of these things happen. I felt very inadequate every time we left these classes but I was quickly reminded that God will equip us to do what he has asked... he has promised us this!
We are fundraising like crazy! I feel like I am constantly planning something and God is constantly making me aware of his provision for this adoption! We have raised $12,429.77!!!!! I am not sure how to put into works how astonished I am at this number! We are 42% of the way there and every time I am overwhelmed by the amount we still have to raise, I feel God speak to me and tell me to relax...he has this covered! I am currently planning an "It Works" wrap party at my house on Thursday, August 9th. A friend of mine from high school is an "It Works" consultant and she contacted me out of the blue to see if I would like for her to do a party for me and give me all of the profits! I am in awe of the amazing generosity of God's children! If you are interested in coming, just let me know! We are also planning a yard sale for Saturday, August 18th and people have been calling and dropping stuff off at our house for us to sell since the moment I posted it on Facebook! People that I haven't talked to in years have called! People I don't know and people I would consider just acquaintances have dropped stuff off! It is so cool to see how God is working through his children to provide for this! I can't wait to see whats next!!!
Lynsey
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Yard Sale
Some people have asked us if we will be doing a yard sale for the adoption...so without futher adieu
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Fundraising Dinner
The fundraising dinner was a HUGE success! Our God is truly AMAZING! One hundred and fifteen people came to eat and thanks to Bruce & Susan Stultz, the food was ready and hot! I want to give a huge thank you to those who helped serve food, Lauren & Jason Crawford, Jennifer Goldsmith, Nancy, Alison, Aaron & Sarah Stultz, Scott, Leigh, Joshua, Stephen, & Abigail Beard & Kimmie Walker! You guys did a wonderful job! I also want to thank Ron & Jennifer Goldsmith and her mother Phyllis for making the coleslaw and The HomePlace Restaurant for donating the gravy! Thank you to Carl Stultz for washing A LOT of dishes! And thank you, Lou Musgrove for watching Eva and Eli so that we could do all of this! It was truly an amazing day! God was glorified and we were overwhelmed by the amount of love in one room for our family and for God's children! We were able to collect $4,743.77 and every penny of that will go directly to our adoption expenses! Bruce & Susan Stultz paid for all of the food and Lou Musgrove paid for all of the t-shirts so we are able to keep all of the profits! That brings our total fundraising to $11,258.77! We are over 1/3 of the way there and we give all praise to God for his provision!
I was also able to talk about God's call to us for adoption and although I was very nervous, I felt like I was able to communicate what God had laid on my heart to say without crying uncontrollably! This was definitely a gift from God! Adam also shared a little about the adoption process and he was able to talk a little bit about Ghana as well! On Friday night before the dinner, Adam went over to my cousin, Morgan's house to talk to her husband, Jeremy who has spent 9 summers in Ghana doing mission work! This was a huge blessing to Adam because he was able to share a little of what Jeremy told him about the country and we were able to borrow a lot of souvenirs from Jeremy that were from Ghana to decorate with.
We really appreciate everyone who came out to support us and if you weren't able to make it and are still interested in supporting us in some way, we have a few items for sale.
We are selling t-shirts for $15
This is the front:
This is the back:
We have a few sizes left and we will also be putting in another order soon so let us know if you would like one of these.
We are also selling fair trade, organic coffee from Just Love Coffee. This is a very cool business that started because of a man who grew up in the coffee business and then adopted children himself from Ethiopia and decided he wanted to help families who wanted to adopt children. We receive $5 from each bag of coffee sold and you can either order from the website at justlovecoffee or you can let me know and I will be putting in an order this week if you would like to save a little money on shipping.
You can sponsor a puzzle piece for $10. You can write your name and/or a message on the back of a puzzle piece and we will frame the puzzle with glass on both sides to hang in our child's room when they arrive. This will be a reminder for them and for us of who all helped to bring them home. Just let me know if you are interested and I will get the puzzle piece to you.
We are also selling hand made cards made by myself and my sister-in-law Ashley. She is making them for us and sending them all the way from Germany and they are beautiful! Individual cards are $2.50 or you can buy 5 for $10. If you are interested in purchasing any, please let me know and I will get them to you so that you can pick a few out.
We are not exactly sure what our next fundraising event will be yet but we will keep you posted!
I was also able to talk about God's call to us for adoption and although I was very nervous, I felt like I was able to communicate what God had laid on my heart to say without crying uncontrollably! This was definitely a gift from God! Adam also shared a little about the adoption process and he was able to talk a little bit about Ghana as well! On Friday night before the dinner, Adam went over to my cousin, Morgan's house to talk to her husband, Jeremy who has spent 9 summers in Ghana doing mission work! This was a huge blessing to Adam because he was able to share a little of what Jeremy told him about the country and we were able to borrow a lot of souvenirs from Jeremy that were from Ghana to decorate with.
We really appreciate everyone who came out to support us and if you weren't able to make it and are still interested in supporting us in some way, we have a few items for sale.
We are selling t-shirts for $15
This is the front:
We have a few sizes left and we will also be putting in another order soon so let us know if you would like one of these.
We are also selling fair trade, organic coffee from Just Love Coffee. This is a very cool business that started because of a man who grew up in the coffee business and then adopted children himself from Ethiopia and decided he wanted to help families who wanted to adopt children. We receive $5 from each bag of coffee sold and you can either order from the website at justlovecoffee or you can let me know and I will be putting in an order this week if you would like to save a little money on shipping.
You can sponsor a puzzle piece for $10. You can write your name and/or a message on the back of a puzzle piece and we will frame the puzzle with glass on both sides to hang in our child's room when they arrive. This will be a reminder for them and for us of who all helped to bring them home. Just let me know if you are interested and I will get the puzzle piece to you.
We are also selling hand made cards made by myself and my sister-in-law Ashley. She is making them for us and sending them all the way from Germany and they are beautiful! Individual cards are $2.50 or you can buy 5 for $10. If you are interested in purchasing any, please let me know and I will get them to you so that you can pick a few out.
We are not exactly sure what our next fundraising event will be yet but we will keep you posted!
Saturday, July 14, 2012
In Case You Missed It...
This is my adoption testimony I gave tonight at the fundraising dinner.
This past year has been
a huge year for me. I have been
following Paul around in the Bible over the last year in Bible Study Fellowship
and God has taught me so much through this man’s life. After Paul turned his life over to God, he
was used in amazing ways and God has used Paul’s life to encourage me and show
me what a life fully given over to Jesus Christ looks like. During that time, I also did Beth Moore’s
study on James and if you have never studied the book of James, you need
to. Wow…that is a book that will open
your eyes and convict you like no other.
God used James to teach me that
we are all called to care for the poor without exception and that we are not
just to read the Bible and know what it says but to actually do it! And then I did Kelly Minter’s study on Nehimiah
and God has spoken the same message about adoption to me through all of these
studies this year. I have been praying
that God would break my heart for what breaks his and wow, did he do it.
I am going to back up a
few years just to give you a little background on our decision to adopt. Adam and I began praying about adoption about
4 years ago. A lot of you know that Adam
and I used fertility medication to conceive both of our children and I often
wondered why God made us wait so long and go through all of that when he was
going to bless us with children in the end anyway and now I know. If he had not put us through that, we may
have never looked at adoption. We prayed
about adoption before I got pregnant with Eva and then when I got pregnant, we
stopped. Then when Eva was about 8
months old, we started looking at adoption again and praying about it and then
we put it back on the shelf when I got pregnant with Eli and then in January of
this year Adam and I decided we would begin to diligently pray about whether
adoption was what God was calling us to and this is what I have learned over
the past 7 months.
I have prayed every
morning that God would speak to me through his Word and through his people and
he has amazed me! I began to look into
some statistic on orphans at the beginning of this year and I learned a
lot! There are somewhere between 143
million and 151 million orphans in the world right now. Orphan being a child who has either lost both
parents or been abandoned. This was such
an eye opener to me. While studying the
book of Nehemiah this year, I learned that Nehemiah was an Isrealite that also
held the position of cupbearer to the king of Persia and along with this
position he lived a life of luxury in the palace. When his brother visited him from Judah, Nehemiah
asked about the condition of Jerusalem, he wanted to know how they were doing
and once his brother told him about the state of Jerusalem… Nehemiah knew he
needed to do something to help them.
Nehemiah taught me that with information often comes responsibility; if
we know, we are be required to do something and I very clearly heard God asking
me, now that you know there are this
many orphans, what are you going to do about it? So I began to pray about
orphan care. I asked God whether he
wanted us to adopt or to just send more money.
I told God I wasn’t sure we could do an adoption. We didn’t have enough money. I was worried about what would this do to our
family, to the two children we already have?
What would this do to my life? I
felt like God answered this question while studying his word early one morning. I read a verse that morning that I have
probably read hundreds of times before but that morning it had a whole new
meaning to me. God laid 2 corinth
chapter 8 vs 9 on my heart. It says, For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was
rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might
become rich. I immediately knew that God
was saying to me…I left heaven and came to earth for you. Enduring shame, hatrid, and even death so
that you could live a better life.
So I knew that God was asking us to do something but I still
didn’t know what so I asked the question of God…are we to adopt or just send more
money? I am sure that I was secretly
afraid of what he would answer with but that very morning, when I got off of my
knees, I opened my Bible to the verse we were to study that day and it was
Nehemiah 2:17,
You
see the trouble we are in…Come, let us rebuild.
Nehemiah didn’t merely send help from Persia, but he chose to share in
their suffering and recovery process. I really
felt God say to me that morning – Don’t just send money to them, do
something. So I began to pray that God
would speak very loudly to Adam J
One night while Adam
and I were talking about adoption again, Adam told me that he was afraid of not
being able to complete this because honestly we do not have the money to do
this and then he asked me if I felt like God would look at this as bad
stewardship? 25-30k is a lot of money! You can do a lot of other things to the glory
of God with that money. Is this what he
wants us to do with his money? This was
on Saturday night and so Adam and I decided that we should pray about it so we
did together that night and the next morning, I asked God again if this would
be his choice for his money and on Sunday morning, Stafford talked about assigning value to an object very briefly in
his message to us. He explained that
something has value based on what you would pay for that object. He went on to say that we had amazing value
in God’s eyes, each one of us because God paid the ultimate price for us. He gave his son for you and for me. This
message probably had a very different meaning to everyone else at Summerdean
that morning but to us, I felt God say how important his child is for us and
that he has paid way more than 30k for one of his children. He gave his son…what wouldn’t he give for us?
After praying and
praying, Adam asked me one night in the kitchen….so how many do you want? I can’t explain how excited I was!
At the end of that
week, Adam and I decided it was time to tell our parents so we asked if they
could come over for dinner on Saturday night but they were busy so we had to
settle for the next Tuesday. I was a
little bummed b/c if you know me, once I have heard from God, I want to get the
ball rolling but we would have to wait and boy did God have a reason for
waiting. He knew that I was a little
worried about telling our parents and what they were going to think and Monday
night at Bible study, the night before we were going to tell them, part of the
video we were supposed to watch was about a couple who adopted an orphan. They
explained how God called them to adoption and what a blessing it had been to
them and I was overwhelmed by his timing on this! How cool is that? I knew that after seeing that video, they
were going to be fine with it and Susan even asked me if we had decided to
adopt before I saw that on Monday night.
This
is one of the many reasons I know without a doubt that God’s timing is
perfect. I have seen it many times over
in my life. Now that I have children,
when something happens to one of them there is a feeling that stirs inside of
me that I can’t explain. It is like my
heart breaks a little when something bad happens to them. When they take bad falls, it takes my breath
away. When they are really sick and I
pray for them, my heart is just heavy for them.
I have been doing a lot of research in the last year into orphans around
the world and especially in Africa and the thought would enter my mind every
once in a while…what would I do if that were Eva or Eli? I could not wrap my brain around the pain it
would cause me as their mother to know that they were hungry and have no food
or to know that they were sick and there was no medicine and possibly no one to
hold them and love them. And then I felt
God speak to me….he said, these are my children. I am watching them starve to death, I am
watching them die of preventable illnesses and you are supposed to be my hands
and feet in this world.
So I have asked myself
why do I feel like we should adopt an orphan and this is what I have come up
with so far. Because of Paul who taught
me this year that my life is not my own, I was bought at a price. I am here for a purpose. Because of James who taught me that pure
religion is to care for orphans and widows in their distress and because he
calls us to be doers of the word, not just hearers, Because of Nehemiah who
taught me that with information comes responsibility, Because of Jesus who told us he would not
leave us as orphans, that he would come for us, and the final reason and the
most important to me is simply because I know that he told us to….and so we
are.
Monday, July 2, 2012
After the Storm...
I have just sat down on my couch in my home with electricity! I cannot put into words how excited I am! It has been a pretty stressful couple of weeks leading up to the storms on Friday night, then we lost the electricity at our house and have spent the last few days with family and friends. Although I am very thankful to have had friends with electricity that my family could stay with, I did find myself frustrated and a little sad because we were not able to stay at our home. God has reminded me over the last few days of how spoiled I am. He has reminded me over and over to be thankful everyday for the amazing blessings that he has given me. He has also reminded me that our child is living somewhere today in far worse conditions than I have endured. Although we were a little hot, we still had plenty of food. When we decided it was too hot to stay at our house, we were invited to stay with friends and family who love us. I am very glad to be home but this weekend has reminded me that I need to work as hard as I can to bring this little person to our home as quickly as I can. Not just for electricity and modern conveniences but to make sure that they have food to eat, somewhere to sleep and someone to love on them. Thanks for the reminder and for being our shelter in the storm...I love you Lord!
Lynsey
Lynsey
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Thanks to those of you who prayed for us over the last two days! Our meetings both went really well!
Adam and I had a phone meeting with EAC (our international agency) on Wednesday and it was very encouraging. Our adoption consultant is very sweet and you can tell that she absolutely loves what she does which I am so thankful for. Basically, she told us that we needed to get started on our home study right away and at the same time, start sending her all of the registration documents that EAC needs in order to forward them to Ghana to get us registered. These are things like, birth certificates, marriage certificates, tax returns, financial statements, proof of insurance, etc. The list goes on and on! The most exciting thing that came out of the meeting was that after we submit our dossier to Ghana (this process usually takes 3-6 months), they are averaging a 4-6 month wait time on referrals for a child. This is very exciting!!! This also means that the child God has picked out for us has already been born. When I think about this, I am overcome with a heavy heart and extreme worry for what our child is going through but I am repeating Philipians 4:6-7 over and over in prayer...
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Please pray with us that God would provide food, adequate medical care and someone to snuggle on our little person until we get there!
We had our first home study interview today with CCC (our local home study agency) and that went really well but much more intense than yesterdays meeting. I knew this would be the case since we are basically being interviewed for whether or not we will be a good fit for an adopted child. This makes me so nervous!!! I have been praying over the last two days that God would relieve my anxiety about these meetings and that he would guide our answers to their questions and I feel like he answered that prayer today! Some of the questions were a bit hard but God gave us the words to answer and I am so grateful! I left the meeting looking like a deer in headlights for lack of a better term. I knew this was going to require a lot of paperwork but I am feeling a bit overwhelmed right now. Please pray that Adam and I will take all of this one step at a time and that we will feel God holding our hand through it. I am praying I can keep my focus on what God has planned for us and that we do not get bogged down in all of the details. We have a huge list of documents to gather for the home study as well so I am going to get started on those today! Along with all of the paperwork, we have two more interviews and one home visit where our case worker will look through our home and see us interact with our children. The thought of someone coming into our home to see if it meets some set of standards almost gives me a physical reaction :-) Our case worker promised she is nothing like Martha Stewart and that although it needs to be liveable, it doesn't need to be spotless. She jokingly told me that she was going to show up unannounced and I think she could tell that was not funny to me! ha ha! We also have parenting classes and adoption classes that we are signed up for in July as a requirement for this process.
One of our friends came up to us at our church picnic last weekend and said he could not believe there was so much money and paperwork that went into adoption. He thought you just went and signed a piece of paper and they gave you an orphan to take home. I keep being reminded of this everytime I get a new list of stuff we have to do and it makes me smile. I am so thankful that God does not require all of this to be adopted into his family!
So now I can't decide whether to start filling something out, start making appointments for our physicals or lay on the couch for a few minutes while the kids nap...I think I will rest for a minute but for those of you who know me well, you know this will not last long! God has called us to this and although everyone needs a little rest, I need to make sure I am doing everything I can to bring this little person he has picked out for us home as quickly as possible....after all, they are waiting for us!
Lynsey
Adam and I had a phone meeting with EAC (our international agency) on Wednesday and it was very encouraging. Our adoption consultant is very sweet and you can tell that she absolutely loves what she does which I am so thankful for. Basically, she told us that we needed to get started on our home study right away and at the same time, start sending her all of the registration documents that EAC needs in order to forward them to Ghana to get us registered. These are things like, birth certificates, marriage certificates, tax returns, financial statements, proof of insurance, etc. The list goes on and on! The most exciting thing that came out of the meeting was that after we submit our dossier to Ghana (this process usually takes 3-6 months), they are averaging a 4-6 month wait time on referrals for a child. This is very exciting!!! This also means that the child God has picked out for us has already been born. When I think about this, I am overcome with a heavy heart and extreme worry for what our child is going through but I am repeating Philipians 4:6-7 over and over in prayer...
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Please pray with us that God would provide food, adequate medical care and someone to snuggle on our little person until we get there!
We had our first home study interview today with CCC (our local home study agency) and that went really well but much more intense than yesterdays meeting. I knew this would be the case since we are basically being interviewed for whether or not we will be a good fit for an adopted child. This makes me so nervous!!! I have been praying over the last two days that God would relieve my anxiety about these meetings and that he would guide our answers to their questions and I feel like he answered that prayer today! Some of the questions were a bit hard but God gave us the words to answer and I am so grateful! I left the meeting looking like a deer in headlights for lack of a better term. I knew this was going to require a lot of paperwork but I am feeling a bit overwhelmed right now. Please pray that Adam and I will take all of this one step at a time and that we will feel God holding our hand through it. I am praying I can keep my focus on what God has planned for us and that we do not get bogged down in all of the details. We have a huge list of documents to gather for the home study as well so I am going to get started on those today! Along with all of the paperwork, we have two more interviews and one home visit where our case worker will look through our home and see us interact with our children. The thought of someone coming into our home to see if it meets some set of standards almost gives me a physical reaction :-) Our case worker promised she is nothing like Martha Stewart and that although it needs to be liveable, it doesn't need to be spotless. She jokingly told me that she was going to show up unannounced and I think she could tell that was not funny to me! ha ha! We also have parenting classes and adoption classes that we are signed up for in July as a requirement for this process.
One of our friends came up to us at our church picnic last weekend and said he could not believe there was so much money and paperwork that went into adoption. He thought you just went and signed a piece of paper and they gave you an orphan to take home. I keep being reminded of this everytime I get a new list of stuff we have to do and it makes me smile. I am so thankful that God does not require all of this to be adopted into his family!
So now I can't decide whether to start filling something out, start making appointments for our physicals or lay on the couch for a few minutes while the kids nap...I think I will rest for a minute but for those of you who know me well, you know this will not last long! God has called us to this and although everyone needs a little rest, I need to make sure I am doing everything I can to bring this little person he has picked out for us home as quickly as possible....after all, they are waiting for us!
Lynsey
Sunday, June 10, 2012
We are on our way!
This past week has been a very exciting week! Adam and I wanted to wait a bit to tell most of our friends that God had called us to adoption to make sure that we were approved first and we are very glad to announce... the cat is finally out of the bag! We sent in our completed contract and the first half of the EAC adoption program fee last week so we are finally on our way! The contract was huge and it took us a very long time to read and sign! It kind of reminded me of buying a house and all the paperwork you have to fill out and this is just the beginning! We received our EAC Ghana Adoption Guide and Registration pack in the mail over the weekend and it is 5 chapters long and about 250 pages so I will have a little light reading to complete over the next few days! We are very excited and we give all praise and glory to God, our father who loves us enough to carry us through this! We have two meetings this week that we would like for you to pray for. The first meeting is on Wednesday with our international adoption agency and the second meeting is on Thursday with our local home study agency. Please pray that we will ask all of the questions we need to and that the meetings will go smoothly. We thank you for your prayers and we know that God is going to do amazing things through this adoption.
(As reminded this morning at church)
Your co-worker in God's kingdom,
Lynsey
(As reminded this morning at church)
Your co-worker in God's kingdom,
Lynsey
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
God has
called and we are answering…
This may
come as a HUGE surprise to some and much anticipated news to others…Adam and I
have just received news that we have been approved to begin our journey of
adopting one (or possibly more!) of God’s children into our family! After much prayer and leading from God, we
are following His call to adopt from Ghana.
We do not know who this little person is yet but our God does! What we do know is this child does not know
the warm and loving embrace of a mother, or the joy of a piggy-back ride from a
father. They do not know what it feels like to be tucked in and kissed
goodnight, warm and safe in a caring home. This child has yet to receive full medical
attention and proper, nutritious food. We
cannot wait to bring this little person home, to hold him/her in our arms, and
always provide a hand for them to hold as they grow. No words can capture the true joy and
excitement we feel as we anticipate the blessing of this child’s presence in our
home and we are so grateful to God that He has called us to adopt!
We would like to invite you to be a part of our adoption by helping in a couple of different ways. First of all, we need your prayers! We have a long way to go and we need God’s help! Please pray…
· For strength and endurance during the information gathering stage and that the process will go smoothly. We will have medical tests, home visits, interviews, FBI background checks, etc.
· That God would move mountains to bring our son/daughter home and in the meantime that He would provide protection for them and someone to love and snuggle them until we get there.
· For God’s provision for the many expenses associated with adoption.
We really felt that going to Africa would be next to impossible because of the high costs of an international adoption. We also know that the Lord is leading us to adopt and believe God is bigger than finances, so we are truly relying on faith that God will provide. This adoption will cost in the neighborhood of $29,000. I know that sounds like a lot (and it is), but just as Nehemiah and the Israelites rebuilt the wall in Jerusalem one stone at a time, we are relying on God for $1 at a time. James tells us “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” Not every believer is called to adopt, but every one of us is called to help. Because God commands His church to help, we would be amiss if we didn’t also ask for help from families and friends who may be willing to donate to bring one of God’s children home – no amount is too small! Our plan also includes applying for as many grants as possible and we are praying that doors will open for the money to come through. We trust that God will provide the funds needed to complete this adoption.
BE BOLD!
The Witness Commission at Summerdean Church and Pastor Stafford
Frederick invite you to join us at 6 pm on Saturday, July 14th at Summerdean Church
for a fundraising dinner. We will share about God's call to us in this regard
and about the country we are adopting from, what the children are like there
and what all goes into such an undertaking of bringing one of God's children
into the Summerdean faith community and our home. The menu for the dinner is chicken, coleslaw,
mashed potatoes, green beans, biscuits with apple butter and apple crisp with
ice cream for dessert. We will be
accepting a love offering and in addition will have a few items for purchase in
support of this ministry. We invite you
to join us on July 14th, 6:00 p.m. Please
rsvp by July 8th to summerdeanchurch@verizon.net
or 540-366-6835. Your response will be greatly appreciated as we plan and
prepare for the dinner.
Thank you for taking the time to let us share our journey of ministry with you.
Thank you for taking the time to let us share our journey of ministry with you.
Sincerely,
“I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for Me.” – Matthew 25:40
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