About your blogger…

I think I’m technically an author on this blog, so it’s about time I posted something.  This post isn’t as much directly related to our adoption as it is a profile about the better half of this set of soon to be adoptive parents.  So without further ado, let’s get down to it…

Lynsey Stultz is an amazing woman, who I am extremely blessed to have as my wife.  I thank God for our 7+ years of marriage, they have been the best years of my life.  I am thankful for all the time we spend together, for all the laughter, all the smiles and the occasional tears.  I am looking forward to many more years of seeing your eyes twinkle and your little mischievous grin!

One of the reasons that I love Lynsey is her kindness and generosity.  Lynsey has a big heart that breaks when she sees people hurting.  I’m sure some of you have experienced this through cards or plates of cookies and/or brownies, and if you haven’t, please know that you are being diligently covered by her prayers.  Lynsey puts the needs of others before her own needs, and will work tirelessly to see that those needs are met.

I love Lynsey because of her love for God.  Lynsey is dedicated to Bible study and prayer.  She provides an excellent example for both me and our children.  She inspires me to be more disciplined in my own study and prayer life.

Lynsey is an awesome mother and home-maker.  Eva and Eli are blessed to have the greatest mother in the world!  Our new child has no idea how wonderful his or her new mom will be!  Lynsey is so patient and caring with our children.  She works hard to be sure that they are learning new things daily, and she is responsible for shaping them into the wonderful little people that they are.  Somehow, after she does that, Lynsey still manages to cook us hot, delicious, healthy meals, and keeps our house as clean as possible (especially considering that she has a 1, 3, and 32 year old working against her!).

Lynsey, these are only a few of the reasons that I love you!  I hope that you know I appreciate all of your hard work for me and our children, and I look forward to whatever God has in store for us in the future.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY LYNSEY – I LOVE YOU,

Adam

Not Much to Tell...

Sorry I haven't written much lately, but nothing much is going on...  Adam spoke with our international adoption consultant, Robin, last week and she informed us that the wait time has increased a little, from 4 to 6 months to 6 to 8 months.  We are now looking to receive a referral somewhere between March and May.  That was a little hard to hear.  I am so looking forward to seeing who we are praying for and it is especially hard not knowing what that little person is going through while waiting!  On a brighter note, Robin sent us an e-mail this week to let us know that European Adoption Consultants very first adoptions from Ghana went through this week!  The Ghana program is a pilot program through EACI so while they have completed many adoptions through other countries, they just completed their first through Ghana.  This is very exciting news!!!  They now have a more definite time frame for us and there are two less orphans in Ghana!  Yay! 

Just for laughs... Our daughter, Eva has told us all along that she really only wants a sister.  We have explained many times over that God will choose whether she gets a sister or a brother and that brothers can be just as much fun!  She always replies with the same answer, "I already have a brother, I want a sister!"  This week Eva has changed her nightly prayers from "God, please bring me a sister." to "God, thank you for bringing me a sister!"  She is already thanking God in advance for answering her prayer....I wish I had a little more of her faith :-)  I have so much to learn from these little guys! 

FYI...Adam told me last night that he has started to pray for a sister so that he doesn't have to tell Eva it's a boy!  ha ha!  Brother or Sister, it will still be a blessing from God! 

Lynsey

Lesson Learned...

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 :-) 

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! 

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

 

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!

"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