A Roller Coaster

This past week has been a roller coaster!  Friday before last, I was on a mountain top high because God had confirmed to Adam and I that we were supposed to change countries and so we mailed in our registration documents and were officially in the Congo program.  Whew....what a relief!  I had prayed and prayed, and lets face it, whined and whined to God "please tell Adam that we are supposed to adopt from the Congo!"  and he finally did and I was thrilled!  Then came the bad news...this would mean that we would have to wait some more.  This would mean that we needed more money, a lot more money.  This would mean that we would need new fingerprints done, an updated home study, amended immigration approval, a new dossier and all of that would have to be sent to the Congo and then we would go on a waiting list...again.  It truthfully was more than I could handle.  I became overwhelmed with sadness and cried and cried to God.  Then twice last week, in two completely different settings, this verse came up..

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, ² fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³ Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.  Hebrews 12:1-3

I have memorized this verse.  TRUST. TRUST. TRUST.  Jesus, for the JOY set before him, endured the CROSS.  I can endure a little more waiting, more paperwork, more money.  He has reminded me over and over this week...

While you are waiting, I AM WORKING ALL THINGS OUT FOR YOUR GOOD AND FOR MY GLORY!!!!  Be patient, my timing is perfect.

I do not know why this is taking so long but I cannot be fearful and trust him at the same time, so I choose to trust. 

On Thursday of last week, Adam and I went to get our finger prints done again and we mailed off our request for local, state and FBI clearance again.  We also received our updated home study and mailed that to USCIS for an amendment to our immigration approval.  As soon as we dropped off all of the information at the post office, I prayed out loud "Now it's in your hands, God."  And this statement made me laugh out loud at myself...it was never in my hands to begin with!  We serve a God who is sovereign over ALL and I praise him that it is ALL in his hands ALL the time.  I am praying daily that God would move mountains to get all of this paperwork back here and then to the Congo so that we can go and get our baby, please pray with us. 

In the meantime, God has laid something on my heart that I want to share with you.  Over the last couple of months, two people have asked me if I had heard of "Forget the Frock?"  This is a tradition that the Fox Family started and I checked out their blog and it really spoke to my heart...Here is the info they have on their blog...

“It’s simple really.
We commit to give up our Frocks (you know those fancy little dresses we love to slap on for Easter). Yep, we kiss ‘em goodbye and spend our money on something to wear on Easter Sunday that serves a PURPOSE… T-shirts that feed hungry babies, precious orphans actually.

People, who for Easter do something as simple as wearing a t-shirt that helps care for the orphan. Because GOD says “pure and faultless religion is to look after the orphan and the widow and not allow the world to corrupt you.” James 1:27

So here it is… The Easter Challenge… let’s toss aside our Fancy Frocks and let’s join forces to care for the orphan… let’s…

Forget the Frock, Feed an Orphan!!!

“God is for people who are for his people and orphans are HIS people. So if you are for the Orphan… God is for you. ” -Jen Hatmaker

Are you on board? Or maybe still on the fence… Just aren’t sure where to snag your new Easter Shirt… Check out FeedingTheOrphans.org… every last drop of the money you spend on your “Easter” shirt goes to feed hungry babies in Ghana!

So I looked at FeedingTheOrphans.org and you have got to check out this website!  http://feedingtheorphans.org/from-sydney  this is an AMAZING story about 7 year old girl you have got to read!  It's short so take a minute and listen to what God is doing through this little girl and her family. If they are out of your size or the shirt you want, you can also purchase shirts through http://www.147millionorphans.com/ .

Join our family on Easter in Forgetting the Frocks and Feeding an Orphan! 

It's working!!!

This morning started off a little rough...Adam called our social worker and explained that we switched countries last Friday(she only works part time and is off on Friday's so this was our first time talking to her since the switch).  Adam explained that we needed an updated homestudy as soon as possible so that we could send it to immigration and she immediately said that she was really busy this week and then she was taking vacation next week for ten days.  Adam called to let me know and I was so upset.  I am just not good at waiting...so I immediately felt anxious and started trying to figure out what to do so that we could get her to update this before she left on vacation and in the middle of all of this I just stopped and prayed.  I prayed scripture back to God, I asked him to move mountains and people to get this done quickly and then I taped cards of scripture around our kitchen so that I could read them all day and I immediately began to relax :-)  Adam called me back at lunch to let me know she had updated the homestudy and already sent it to EAC for their review and approval!  Yay!  Keep praying...it's working :-) 

A new command...

And this is how it happened...

I wrote this e-mail on January 28th to a couple of friends:

I know this is probably going to sound really "out of the blue" but could you guys pray that we are going in the right direction with the adoption? Last week for some reason I looked on our international agency's website and I looked at the "waiting children" list and in the past this has always been older children and usually from China (which we do not qualify to adopt from) but this past week there were a lot of young children from the DR of Congo and so I started to look at this country and I am just overcome with the feeling that we are supposed to adopt from there. The more research I do into this country the more my heart is pulled toward there...this is one of the absolute poorest countries on the planet right now and the wars that have been going on there are horrible...everywhere I look it talks about "mass killings and mass raping of women." There is a little girl named Mireielle who is 3 and I need you guys to pray that if we are supposed to adopt her that God would confirm this to me but more importantly, speak to Adam about changing countries. And if this is not God's will, that he would take this desire from my heart. The thought of these children growing up there just takes my breath away....the thought that some of the little guys would become child soldiers or the little girls would be raped and killed just does me in. I am guessing the reason there are so many children there waiting is that the DR of Congo is a place that you are warned not to visit unless you are humanitarian aid... I know that if this is what God has for us, that He will protect us but that is a little scary too...so just pray :-) I have mentioned this to Adam and haven't gotten much of a response so I am just praying and waiting :-)Pray for my patience too :-)

Life kept on going and I kept on praying...

Then a week and a half later, I was praying the same prayer to God, "please confirm that we are supposed to change countries or please take this desire from my heart." And then I opened my Bible study homework and that day's study was on Genesis 22:10-12,

¹⁰ Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. ¹¹ But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

¹² “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

And the first question I read after reading this passage was, "Describe how you might follow Abraham's example of faith and obedience when he received a new command from God?"

And I knew...without a doubt....that God was telling me we were supposed to be changing directions. I know that may seem really weird but everything in me knew that God was telling me we needed to change countries, that he was giving us a new command too.

And that same day I read in my Bible study notes...

"The instant God's voice called for a change of direction, Abraham gladly obeyed. What a necessary lesson for all who follow God! Are your eyes fixed upon God... as the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress? Psalm 123:2  It is wrong to imagine that God will never change the direction in which He leads you. When God requires a new step, are you ready to follow Him?

So I kept on praying, and praying, and praying. I prayed a lot for patience and that God would help me to not go ahead of him...I did not want to bug Adam about this and I knew that was going to take the restraint of the Holy Spirit!

This past Wednesday I woke up just overwhelmed with frustration that God has not told Adam yet...anyone who knows me, knows that patience is not my strong point. So I prayed to God that morning asking him to help me to be patient but I also told him I didn't understand why he wasn't telling Adam! Why would he tell me and then wait so long to tell Adam?  And that same day, the coolest thing happened. 

That afternoon I noticed there was a message on my cell phone (for those of you who know me, this is a miracle in itself that I noticed there was a message one the same day it was left! he he!) and when I checked it, it was Debra from our international agency calling to discuss the differences between adopting from Ghana vs. the DR of Congo. I was so excited! Adam must have called her and asked what we would need to do to switch countries so I immediately called him and said that Debra had called him back and left a message for him to call her. Adam sat there silent on the phone and said, "I didn't call Debra.... she said she wanted to talk about adopting from the DR of Congo?  Talk about divine intervention!" Adam called her back and she explained the differences in the two programs.  She had just returned from a trip to Africa where she had spent time at the orphanage in the Congo and she said, "If God has not specifically called you to Ghana, we need you to go to the DR of Congo." She went on to explain to him what a great need there was to adopt these children. And that night Adam and I talked it over and we both agreed, this is where God was calling us to.  These are pictures taken of the orphanage where our child will come from. 

We mailed our paperwork to EAC to switch countries on Friday and now we need your prayers! EAC has contacted the representatives in Ghana to try to get our dossier back which is filled with lots of original information that we need to send to the DR of Congo now. Please pray that we will be able to get this information back quickly! Please pray that we would be able to get our home study updated quickly and that the immigration paperwork would come back quickly and most of all for patience with the process and that we would learn to trust God more everyday through this process. 

There are three really cool things God has opened my eyes to in the last couple of weeks that I wanted to share with you too...

The first is that I say all the time that I trust God but this is really where that trust is being tested.  It occurred to me that in the past my children have been with me since conception.  As soon as I knew of them, I was able to keep them safe.  I protected them and I fed them and I have done this from the beginning…before I even knew what they looked like.  But this is different.  I know that I have a child but I don’t know what they look like or where exactly they are or if they are sick or hungry…and I cannot protect them and I cannot feed them but God can.  He has reminded me over and over that his timing is perfect and he loves them more than I ever can and I need to trust that he is with them even while I am not.  I was feeling very overwhelmed with anxiety about this on Friday morning and I was praying and asking God to help me to give all of this to him.  And a scripture had come to my mind and I couldn’t remember it word for word but I knew that the gist of it was, worry about nothing pray about everything.  And I decided that after I finished my Bible study homework, I would need to look that verse up so that I could write it down and memorize it this week.  And when I opened up my Bible study for that day, guess what the verse was? 

⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7

I just love God and how he has reassured me throughout this process that this is his will and that he is right here with us. 

The second one is that over six months ago, an old friend contacted me from a firm that I used to work for and asked if I might be interested in working from home during tax season for them?  This was really out of the blue because I had not worked there in over seven years but what a timely offer seeing as though we needed A LOT of money for the adoption!  So Adam and I prayed about it and we decided this was one of the ways God was going to provide some of that money!  Well, by the time tax season started, we already had all of the money we needed for the adoption which really made me wonder why God provided this job for me, and now I know.  We will need at least another $2,000 and God knew that! 

The third is that I went on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic a few years ago and I was really bummed that I did not take Spanish in high school!   Adam and I even had a conversation where we talked about how Spanish would have been so much more useful.  Adam took German and I took French…when I say I took French, I mean that I started my first year of French in 8th grade and continued to take it all the way through high school, and then college.  By the time I finished college, I was fluent in French.  Well, a couple of years ago, our parents took us to France and I was so excited that I was going to finally use all of that French I had learned.   I quickly learned that I had forgotten most of what I had known and so I tried to brush up a little on it and when we got to Paris I was so excited!  The first time I tried to talk to someone, they just looked back at me and responded in English!  I was kind of bummed.  But guess who will speak French?  Our new child!!!  Isn’t that cool!  God knew that 17 years ago I would need to take French because 17 years from then, I was going to need to communicate with a little person God was creating specifically for us.

I am so thankful for God's love and constant guidance through this process.  People have asked us along the way, "What made you choose Ghana?" and our answer has always been, "We felt very led to help a child from Africa and really it was just a process of elimination.  There were not many countries that we could adopt from, Ghana and Ethiopia were the only two and we decided to go with Ghana because Ghana had the shortest waiting period."  We now know that God had a different plan and I am so thankful that he has led us where we needed to be all along.  I just wish he had told us before I named our blog, "following him to Ghana." he he!

 

Lynsey

 

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!