APPROVED!

So we've had some really exciting things happen since the last post... and some not so exciting things....

A few weeks ago we received our APPROVAL from the USCIS at the Department of Homeland Security!!! HUGE step... HUGE. Then again, everything feels like a huge step in this never ending process :) .... Aaron and I were super excited to receive this because we were thinking we were DONE!! Definitely thought this was the moment things would be sent off to COLOMBIA and out of our hands!!..... UMMM not quite. Then come to find out we were still waiting for the return and authorization of our sealed finger prints from the FBI. Yes, the FBI. And yes these were the third set of finger prints we have had done. No big deal right? So we waited some more. Then about one week later... we GOT OUR FINGERPRINTS delivered to us!! Another really excited step that brought us one step closer to bringing our child home!

So we were now thinking that THIS surely had to be the last thing to submit to our Dossier company... umm, not quite! Luckily ( I say with a forced smile) our Dossier company found a few things that needed to be changed in some of our papers. Things that needed to be re-notarized, dates that needed to be typed out, new name change forms... the list could go on and on and on.... SOOO where are we now???

With all of the approvals under our belts, we have to move really fast. These approvals only last for 12-15 months (which may sound long, but you'd be shocked at how fast the time goes before everything can be 100% good to go, mistake free, type-o free, sent to Colombia)! We have corrected all that needed to be corrected (HOPEFULLY!) and are now waiting for our currier to take our sealed prints from the FBI to Washington to get apostilled, then our Dossier company will look over everything again, double check everything, triple check everything, THEN give us the good news that we can officially send our Dossier off to COLOMBIA!

As discouraging or tiring or frustrating as this whole process can become... The Lord frequently sends us sweet things to smile over and encourage Aaron and I. The Lord has seriously breathed the call of adoption into this community more so than I ever could have imagined. Some of our very best friends, other dear dear friends, other people that we have just now gotten to know and love.....! And above and beyond all of this... it hasn't stopped. One of my very best friends older sister just announced that she and her husband are beginning (kind of... they've had this on their hearts I do believe for a long long time.....) their journey of adoption as well!!!! Not only that, but 2 more sweet couples have come forward to talk about adoption... PLUS meeting several new families at FBC preschool who have domestically and internationally adopted that have just moved to the area... Seriously, how cool is this? How great is our God? Our Lord works in beautiful and mysterious ways...

Sooooo until the day comes where we can receive the referral for the child the Lord has chosen for us... we will wait. Some days patiently... some days not so patiently... some days joyfully... some days a little more frantic than others..... some days it feels like that last month in your pregnancy when you are just ready to have your child here and are tired of being pregnant.... some days a bit more peacefully knowing that the Lord is not quite done refining us and preparing our child for us to bring home.... !!

All in all it is with lots of JOY that I get to say we have made huge strides forward....!!

This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the JOY of the Lord is your strength. Nehemiah 8:10
--reminding myself daily that it is through our Joy in the Lord that we find our strength... and with that strength all things are possible!

So.. what's new with the adoption?!

Constant changes in the international adoption processes, constantly new hurdles, new rules and regulations.... the only REAL constant in this process is the UNKNOWN. When we began this process and first felt the calling to adopt, I promise I could've hopped on a plane that day, flown to Columbia and taken our child THAT DAY. Or at least that's what I thought.... Adoption will make you a PATIENT person. Adoption will teach you to wait on God and God alone. Adoption will teach you to trust that whatever is thrown your way is OKAY because guess what... it's all part of this beautiful (in HIS eyes, maybe not the world's eyes) plan God has for us. As I look back, we began this journey in February and God has revealed so much to me from that point and I look forward to learning more as we continue in our process and wait to bring our child home.

So the real question everyone wants to hear answered "WHATS NEW WITH THE ADOPTION!?" . Well I'm glad that you asked. August 1st we received our approval and notice that our Home study was finally FINALIZED! In a nutshell that is what I would tell most people when they ask this question... when in all reality my heart bursts to explain the rest of the process. Completion of the home study seems so minute, but this is HUGE. Soooo here we go with the continuing steps (which are always subject to change....)
1. Home study finalized! (CHECK!!!!)

2. Home study sent off to the United States Citizen and Immigration Services to get approval for us to immigrate a foreign born child into the US!!!
               --This is exciting stuff people! The USCIS is running about 40-50 days to review and        hopefully approve. Once we get this approval we get the green light to continue on and submit our paperwork TO COLOMBIA. Oh yeah... and this piece of paper grants our child AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP as soon as we LAND ON U.S. SOIL the day we bring him/her HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3.  As we wait these 40-50 days to receive approval from USCIS, we work on our DOSSIER. Our Dossier is a super complicated huge set of paperwork that I have been collecting since MARCH. I think I have everything, but you never really know.
               --We have hired a company to help us with this process. A woman who used to work with our agency opened up her own company helping families through the Dossier process. When I say complicated... that doesn't even do it justice. With this company, we send them all of our papers I have already completed and collected and she submits everything for us. Everything is sent exactly where it needs to go. The first time.

4. Once the Dossier is complete and ready to be submitted, it can take 3 weeks to get translated into Spanish. Once translated, we hopefully get approved. THEN our file is TOTALLY LEGAL and READY to receive a REFERRAL for a CHILD!!!!

5. Current wait time could be one month, 6 months, or 12 months-To receive a referral.

6. 5-7 weeks to prepare for travel AFTER we accept a referral for a child.

7. TRAVEL!!!!!!  Depending on where the orphanage is that we are adopting from, travel could be 3 weeks ... or 8 weeks!!!!!!


So this is exactly where we are. Seems long and complicated, YES... but we are moving along. I love how God continually refines our hearts to look a smidge more like HIS. When we began this process I was certain I could do the paper work faster than normal, I was certain that it wouldn't take near as long as it was taking other families, I was certain that we would fly through this process (because of course I could control that.). Common problem there is the re-occurrence of the word "I".



God's up to some pretty cool (and intense!) things..... Loved our time of praise and worship this Sunday... The 1910 band did a new Hillsong song and these words are so simple but seriously heavy in our hearts.....


And I will run and not grow weary
I will rise in God my strength
My heart will trust
For all my hope
Is Christ alone

Now my soul sings
Your love it knows no end.... 

I will love for You have loved
I will forgive as You forgive
Your love prevails

Our life group (minus a few!!) got to go experience some pretty NEAT things the other day in Kerrville at this HUGE cross. This is seriously what "doing life together" is all about... the support and LOVE from these other couples is unbelievable. 

Little Update!

The Home Study went fantastic! Thank you to everyone who prayed for us and stood with us through that process!!! It was calm and peaceful and pretty entertaining with these two girls of ours. Our sweet case worker got down on the floor and played with Faith and Ava, chatted with them, had "tea" with them, and even played baby dolls together. She was with us for about 4 hours asking questions about our child hoods and upbringings and reasons for wanting to adopt ... and every question you could possibly think of. We pretty much went through our entire life stories :). At the end of it our case worker told us that she gives herself a month to finalize everything and prepare it for our 1800-A (incredibly important immigration papers). Once that happens and our agency submits it and we wait to get approval to move a foreign born child to the US :)! From what I understand, this process could take a few (1-3ish) months. THEN once we get that approval, we wait to get an appointment to get fingerprinted ....then we send off our dossier (a huge amount of paper work). The great news is ... that once our home study is finalized, our paperwork gets sent over to Columbia for the orphanage officials to begin looking over it and trying to match us with a CHILD! While we are waiting to receive a referral for a sweet child we will be waiting for the 1800-A approval and be finishing up the dossier. A time line is near impossible to predict right now...

Last weekend some of our really dear and incredible friends hosted their second annual ONE LESS race. A couple of years ago God gave them a vision of hosting a 3k/5k/10k race annually to help financially support families in the adoption process and bring awareness to the orphan crisis in our world. This sweet family, the Fickeys, are in the process of adopting from Africa and have seen the financial and emotional struggles you can go through when trying to navigate an adoption process. Aaron and I were completely honored and humbled when they asked if we would be one of the families they sponsored. The race was a complete success and we were COMPLETELY blown away by the love that God poured out through our community. Not only did the Fickeys step up and put on this amazing race (I still don't know how they did it..), but our Hill Country CrossFit family showed up HUGE to run and support us. I am still totally blown away by it all.  I really do believe that there is something special going on in this community.. and I'm excited to see just where God takes us all as His picture and His plan are slowly beginning to be revealed more and more....

The Awesome Fickey Family, Us in the middle, and another sweet family adopting from Ethiopia, The Menn Family at the ONE LESS RACE

They built this big tri fold that had all kinds of pictures and information about each of the countries that each one of the families are adopting from....

Please look at those BEAUTIFUL faces ......!

And on the other side Katie put together information about each family and had a spot where you could write a note or prayer or words of encouragement for the families.... still in total amazement every time I look at these pictures....




NOW........A little (LONG!) side note of what God is slowly revealing in our lives....

These two bring so much joy and laughter and love... and of course frustration every now and then :) into our lives.......



Where do I even begin. There for a couple weeks it seemed like our lives were simply on cruise control. Nothing was really bothering us, we were having fun, totally thinking about ourselves, we didn't have any more paperwork for the adoption, and the home study was about to happen--- which went so wonderfully and so peacefully!!--. A couple weeks ago my dad left for 10 days on a mission trip to Kenya and I committed to pray for he and his team every day while he was away. During those times in prayer God began to awake in my heart again this awareness that I had some what let get dimmed and pushed away to the back of my brain. We were thinking about vacations and cars and birthday/ mothers day presents. Don't get me wrong, there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about our third child, and what he/she is going through, and whether or not he/she is hungry or cold or in pain or in need of medical care or physical and emotional LOVE.

God is awakening my heart again to not get complacent .. not get comfortable... but to continue with this next step and put it into action- not just this emotional awakening, but to further it by getting our feet wet. I have no idea exactly what that looks like but I'm excited to see where this goes. I was reading "The Barefoot Church", a book that our life group is going through right now and for the sake of not plagiarizing the entire second chapter, I wanted to share this persons updated version of Matthew 25:44-46

The actual way this scripture reads is, "They also will answer "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you? He will reply, "truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for the least of these, you did not do for me."

Richard E. Stearns takes it to the next level by translating it into something we can relate to a bit more easily... and maybe feel a bit more conviction for without even really asking for it.....

For I was hungry, while you had all you needed. I was thirsty, but you drank bottled water. I was a stranger, and you wanted me deported. I needed clothes, but you needed more clothes. I was sick, and you pointed out the behaviors that led to my sickness. I was in prison, and you said I was getting what I deserved.

Ouch.

It is amazing to see people on television or read about people in the newspaper or see videos on YouTube of people with tons of money or tons of biblical knowledge making a difference in the world. ... BUT it's even more amazing to see people in our community, people we know, making a difference. People getting their feet wet. Jason Brown once said in church several years ago, "I'm tired of us shouting at the dirty water! Let's get in a clean it up!"You don't have to have some outrageous bank account, or have this amazing personality, or have tons of biblical knowledge.. or have ANYTHING for that matter to make a difference. You don't have to go international. But you also don't have to limit yourself to our local community needs either. I for so long have watched people like Ja Brown, and Greg Lewis, and my dad, and my Aunt Kandy and Uncle Roger, and Mark Johnson.... people who have taken it to the next level. I'm tired of buying the t-shirt, wearing the bracelet, and just sending in a check each month with out getting my hands and feet dirty.

I want to challenge you, just as we are trying to figure out exactly where God is leading Aaron and I, to get your hands and feet dirty. To stop shouting at the dirty water, but actually get in and clean it up. Let's take our faith to the next level and pray about how exactly we are to make a difference. Don't get me wrong, being financial supporters of missions, and church's, and orphanages, and non profits is a HUGE deal. And maybe that's exactly where the Lord has called you to. But for us specifically who don't have the financial means, I'm TIRED of living this comfortable life. I'm tired of knowing these incredibly disturbing facts ( like there are an ESTIMATED 147 million orphans world wide... children..babies... teenagers who are hungry and hurting or being sold into prostitution or 12 years old and killing there own people with AK 47s), and still going on about my day where, what I'm going to do with the girls and serve for dinner and when I've got to get to the gym, are the questions that occupy my mind.  I can't ignore the fact that while we spend a silly amount of money of food to eat the way we do, there are millions of people, families just like ours, who have nothing to eat. And the fact that most young girls in 3rd world countries are sold into trafficking by the average age of 14. 14! Let that sink in for a moment.  Let's make a difference. Let's figure out more ways to get involved and make a difference. Not just compliment the ones who are out there doing the leg work.

There are so many areas just in our small community to get involved. Every Friday night Mark Johnson and a team of amazing individuals go down town and feed and love on and encourage people less fortunate that us. Greg Lewis is like a walking encyclopedia when it comes to mission trips and being globally minded. Hill Country Daily Bread is another amazing organization that serves local families needs here.   And the list goes on and on...... AND for any of you who have ever had any desire or any tid bit of pulling in your hearts for adoption, whether domestic or international, I have some exciting news. The Fickey's and us are in the process of launching an adoption ministry for our city called "Reclaimed". Not like we know everything about it BY ANY MEANS.... but we are walking through it right now and know that it can be a really scary/intimidating/overwhelming process to get started. Especially if only one spouse has felt that calling while the other spouse isn't quite ready. If you have any desire or curiosity about adoption, I encourage you to come to our first meeting the evening of Sunday June 24th. The location has yet to be determined. Even if you might want to entertain the thought  of adoption I encourage you to come check it out!!!!

HOME STUDY SCHEDULED!

Wow... okay so I know it's been quite a while since my last post. Soooo- since then we finished up on all the beginning stage paperwork and for the first time since March 22 our brains were able to TAKE A BREAK! The ball was completely out of our court and totally in our agencies. We had no more appointments to make or paper work to work on or copy or mail or fax, and no more official documents to obtain! We had done everything we could so far, and were simply waiting to hear from our caseworker to let us know we were approved for our home study!

It took about two weeks, but I GOT THE CALL FRIDAY. If any of you have ever adopted, or fostered, or planning to adopt.... then you know just how monumental it feels to know you are ready for your home study. The voicemail started out with her saying how excited she was for us which was quickly followed by a, "unfortunately I'm much busier than normal for this summer and am actually booked for the next two months." (insert dagger in my heart now)--but then she quickly went in to how she has one opening left THIS WEEK that she wanted to offer us ( insert incredible excitement here)!

All this said... our home study is scheduled for this Thursday morning at 9am!!!!  Then starts the crazy paperwork trail again to finalize all of our international and immigration paperwork, that way when we get the call that we have a referral for a CHILD, we can get the ball going as quickly as possible to travel. The home study is how the orphanage officials in Colombia will choose which child they think will fit best into our family. Super important in case I haven't emphasized that enough!!


So I'm sure every one is wondering time line now..... once we get the home study done, and the case worker finalizes everything- we go on to wait list and wait to get a referral.... on average right now our agency is saying 6-15 months to get a referral, then an additional 5-8 weeks to get us all ready to travel to Colombia. Once we arrive in Colombia, we'll have a day or so to get settled... then we get to go to the orphanage to meet our child!!! That same day we will be able to take our child back to the hotel/house/apartment/idontknowwhereoneatherwewillstay and he/she will be with us the entire time in Columbia while we finish up the legal adoption in country. Our stay in country varies big time depending on which city the orphanage is in. It could be as little as 2 weeks- or as long as 6 WEEKS!

Now all we can do is continue to wait and pray for our child, for God's favor, and for God's provision...

A Little Info... :-)

Hi Friends :-)

Just wanted to post a little update to let everyone know where we are in our journey. Our hearts have been turned inside out, upside down, and all around as we continue to learn new things every. single. day. This journey has been exciting and nerve racking and everything in between.

Since the last post God has shown us a vision and spoken direction and peace into each of our hearts. We are currently in the process of getting the paperwork together for our international adoption from Colombia.

We are working with an agency located in Texas and have been so thankful for their patience and attention to detail in our process so far. We are gathering documents, getting blood work, psych evals (this should be interesting!), and working on compiling papers for our Dossier. Once we send our first group of paperwork in we are ready to have our Home Study!! We are hoping to get that done during April. From there we will continue to work on our Dossier and anxiously await a referral from the Colombian government..... I love how God's patient spirit has completely overcome our home... and I pray I allow myself to keep accepting it. Don't get me wrong, I have TOTALLY had my share of crazy, frantic, hurry it up now moments. But I am completely confident that my God has our son already chosen for us, and until He is ready to reveal our son to us, we will patiently wait, work on our paperwork, and be on our knees in prayer for him. Will YOU join us?

A little bit about Colombia....

Colombia does not allow you to choose gender, although we both feel that God has a son out there for us, and we have been told now by several people that because we have two biological daughters, the Colombian government will most likely place a son with us! We have specified 0-35 months old, but more than likely our child with be at least 7 mos (in all reality probably older) because Colombia tries to keep younger children available for adoptions in their own country before they allow internationals to come in. Once we get matched with a child they will send us a picture, medical report, and perceived reason the child was placed in the orphanage. From the date of referral it will take approximately 5-8 weeks to prepare everything before we can travel to Colombia to meet him/her!

Once we arrive in the country, we will BOTH have to be there for the first 8 days to meet our child and "bond" with him/her. After those 8 days one of us can travel home if need be. We will be staying in an apartment that our agency sets up for us! After those 8 days of traveling back and forth to the orphanage and getting to know our sweet child, we will be able to take him/her back to apartment with us! So he/she will be able to stay with us 24/7 while we finalize the legal part of the adoption in Colombia!! We will have a driver, translator, and lawyer whenever we go anywhere. Our agency has estimated that from the time of beginning paperwork to placement with the child will be around 15 months.

As far as our time stay in Colombia to finalize the adoption... we are unsure. Our agency has estimated based on previous adoptions anywhere from 3-7 weeks. What we are going to do with Faith and Ava... we still don't know! What Aaron is going to do about taking time off from Jet (which everyone there has been AMAZING and so helpful to us in the process so far)... we still don't know!! We are simply faithfully trusting that God will take care of each and every detail. We will cross that bridge when we get to it.

And then there were 5....

So many crazy, exiting, nerve-racking,  and confusing things have been going on in this Baker home. Get ready to read a book. If you want the quick version just read this first paragraph :-) 




Like many couples, Aaron and I had talked about adoption throughout our entire marriage... shoot, we entertained the thought even before we were married. But unfortunately when my mind got any where near the concept of ACTUALLY doing it, it started swirling in all this fear and doubt and question that I allowed the world to speak into me... and I ran. Like so many times before, I would read a scripture, read what scripture calls us to do, commands us to do, let it impact me for a split second, then move on and never actually follow through with it. It wasn't until last fall when I started a bible study on the book of Daniel that I REALLY felt this unbelievable conviction to change. My little world of being a "luke-warm" christian was about-to-get-ROCKED. And God did just that. Over these past several months things have been shaken, stirred, and completely flipped upside down in my heart. We will no longer "waver between two options (1 Kings 18:21)". The quick version of the story can be summed up in one sentence: Our family is taking a leap of faith, obeying our command, and adopting. 

I have to add a little excerpt from my friends blog... she says it pretty perfectly:

"Who, me? Yes, you. Because the harvest is great and the workers are few. Because there is no Plan B in our world. We are it. In small ways or giant ways. It's not an option. It is a mandate. Help the poor, the orphaned, the widows, the homeless, the enslaved. Bring justice to them. THIS is true religion." -Katie Fickey :-)

How It All Began:
 1 Kings 18:21 says, “Elijah went before the people and said: “How long will you waver between two options? If the LORD is GOD, FOLLOW HIM.” This verse hit me like a ton of bricks as my mind had been racing for several weeks now concerning the idea of adoption. If anyone knows my husband, you would chuckle at this comment. Seriously.  Aaron has said from the moment I found out I was pregnant with Ava Hope that he was DONE. He was happy with his two happy and healthy girls. Our family of four would be easy. My heart was still very unsettled with the idea of not having any more children. My sweet friend, Avery, encouraged me to pray for either a change in my heart, or a change in his so that our will would align with God’s. So I did just that. 

A few weeks after that night another good and precious friend of mine told me about a new book coming out by one of her favorite authors, Jen Hatmaker. I had never read any of her books but I knew that if Katie liked her, she must be good! The book, Seven, was about the authors journey through a seven month fast. Each month she gave up different things and challenged herself to specific tasks to make herself more aware of the excess we live with and all around us. This book was a tremendous tool for the Holy Spirit to open my eyes to the seriously abundant amount of blessings Aaron and I have. Such conviction about our overspending and ridiculous amount of clothes and the amount of time, or shall I say lack of time I was giving to my Father in Heaven. How dare I feel like I have NOTHING TO WEAR when I have a closet full of clothes that could outfit 20 families? How dare I feel like my children have to be dressed to a T in a stupid expensive outfit? How dare I ever compare my house or my possessions to anyone else’s, OR feel like they are not enough? Our home is more than enough, our cars are nicer than they need to be, my clothes are abundant. This culture had made us into possession obsessed, money driven, stressed out monsters. with out us even knowing it. OUCH, Holy Spirit.. Thank you for piercing my heart and bringing to light the dark places in there. So where am I going with all of this? 

Insert Beth Moore’s bible study, James. WOW God, am I really that blind that I didn’t see where this was going? This is my first time studying James. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve highlighted scriptures from this book so obviously I knew some about it, right? Oh how foolish I was. We weren't even through the first chapter and my heart was overflowing with amazement and awe and excitement to learn about Jesus’ half brother, James. Beth says that, “James writes like a man who’s about to run out of ink.” How right you are Beth. He is blunt, and to the point, paints these beautiful pictures and images in my mind that bring the scripture to life. I don’t have a huge understanding of the bible, or can I quote many scriptures off the top of my head, but what I do understand this far in my study is that James is a man who challenges us to live out our faith as Christians. We know what is right, what is commanded of us, but without deeds our faith is dead. On day one of the second week of study Beth asked us to write 4 things that we needed wisdom for because in James 1:5 it says, “ If anyone lacks in wisdom, he should ask God, who give generously..”. Day one I wrote on there that I needed wisdom to guide my heart towards adoption or away from adoption.

The next day we continued on with chapter one. James writes in 1:23-24, “Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror, and after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.” He continues on in verse 27 to write, “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.” Hello light bulb! You could say my eyes were opened. Proverbs 24 comes to mind here.. 'Once our eyes are opened, we can't pretend we don't know what to do. God who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows that we know and holds us responsible to act...' Proverbs 24:12. I've read those verses in James but never allowed God to open my eyes and CHANGE my heart.

I began tearing up, which of course led to weeping (because I’m a hormonal woman). That day I asked a close friend to help pray for my discernment on a certain issue (as if the writing on the wall wasn’t big enough- I still doubted..). This precious friend asked if she could know specifically what to pray for. Hesitant at first, but so thankful in the end… I spilled my guts and poured my heart out to her. We talked back and forth via text for about an hour. She didn’t know at the time, but God was using her to speak direction and comfort and peace and clarity and wisdom to me. She then left me a surprise on my doorstep; one box of Tazo Passion Tea (a LOVE of mine), and the book, Adopted For Life. Precious, amazing, thoughtful, God given friend you are to me.

That night I took the plunge and began a conversation with Aaron about adoption. GULP! Needless to say I was super nervous about this. I started out with a, “Soooo I wanted to talk to you about something…”, which he quickly replied, “NO YOU CAN NOT BUY ANYTHING AT LULU TOMORROW WITH AVERY!”. Um, OUCH. I replied with a, “…. No I want to buy a child.” Buy a child?!?!?! REALLY? Yeah, I still can't believe I said those words either. I guess it was one way to break the ice. We talked back and forth with a sense of calmness (thank you Jesus for sending a spirit of calmness into our home) for about an hour. He expressed several concerns and gave me typical responses… “I’m pretty happy with just our two girls. You know how expensive it is? I think it’s stupid ridiculous how expensive it is. I don’t know, we already have two of our own. I want to provide the best I can for those two girls upstairs. Nothings for certain, I could lose my job tomorrow. I want to give those two girls the best future we can and provide a HOPE for them like my parents did for me.” OH… GREAT interjection point here. “What about the baby, the child, the sweet soul that has lost all hope and has no idea who our Jesus is or what love of a family feels like that we SOOO take for granted? We have this amazing family, church family, LIFE GROUP (words can't express how thankful we are for the other 6 couples in our LG). The bible calls us to adoption… everyone’s story is different and some might be called to help financially, physically, or emotionally in others adoptions or directly in the life of orphans , and some are actually called to adopt. Today, Jesus had told me adoption IS IN OUR STORY.” Our conversation ended pretty much on that note and with a little shake of the head and Aaron saying, “I don’t know, we’ll see.”

On February 1 I was reading Adopted for Life when, seriously for no reason at all I started weeping, not crying… weeping. I couldn’t stop. This escapade lasted for almost 20 minutes. Embarrassing- YES. During that time I felt the spirit prompting me to talk to Aaron again that night and something about 9 months. I didn't know if that meant in 9 months he’d be ready, we’d be adopting a 9 month old, or we’d get a child in 9 months (highly unlikely!). Just at that moment I got a text message from none other than my friend Katie. She spoke more words of comfort and encouragement to me and sent me a video about our calling as Christians to take a stand for adoption, not just talk about it… to put our FAITH in ACTION… sounds a little something like James… oh James how I think I will love, struggle with, and cry over every word you wrote. Bring it on.

This past Monday we were able to have dinner (with no kids!!!) with some friends of ours who have 2 domestically adopted boys. God used this couple to speak peace and comfort and information and tools and excitement into both Aaron and myself. Since that Monday we have chosen our adoption agency and have been shown so many things!  We had no idea where to begin… do we want a boy or a girl, what age, what agency, what race (ohhh how I HATE that question), what about special needs children? Needless to say our minds were racing with anxiety. It’s amazing how much of a reminder we need sometimes to know that God really is in control and will speak direction to us… I love how Romans 8:26 promises, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.” And the Holy Spirit did just that. Our first response that Aaron and I both heard was that God has a son picked out for us. A son. A SON, people!!!!! I have a son somewhere that is waiting to be claimed and loved and sheltered and raised by us; A son who already bears the Baker name. Insert tears here. Soon after that, AAB and I were talking about race. I hate even writing about this because in all reality, IT SHOULD NOT MATTER. But I needed a quick kick apparently. If Jesus tells us that we are all created in his likeness/ image (Gen. 1:27), then what should the matter of race… matter? I believe that this doesn’t just mean man (Jesus) like man/ woman (us), I believe this means man (Jesus) like man/woman who’s red, yellow, black or white (that little children’s song can still teach us something)! That next morning I woke up early to do another day in my study on James. The scriptures we were dissecting and discussing just so happened to be chapter 2, entitled “Favoritism Forbidden”. Love that beautiful confirmation. I’m not going to type out the entire second chapter of James, but I challenge you to go read it. It’s quick. And painful, and eye opening, and beautiful all in one. If we are to love one another as we love ourselves, and not show favoritism to the rich over the oppressed, poor, and weak, then how dare we have any issues with race? Again I say, HOW DARE AARON AND I EVEN QUESTION THAT ISSUE. On our application- that box will be left open. We will not specify. Boerne may be a little bubble (a bubble which WE LOVE don't get me wrong)- but we do not care. Boerne… get ready for a movement to rock your world because we have news for you… there are many other families in the midst of the adoption process, several who have already adopted, and I believe that God will call more- lots more, to adopt. Get READY town of Boerne… It’s going to be good!!!!!!