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!!!!