When Chris and I met in 2007 he became my best friend. We talked about everything under the sun, including the fact we both wanted more children if we either one ever married/remarried. Little did we know at the time, WE would get married.
When we got married we both started praying for more children, our daughters prayed for more children. I stumbled across a foster care ad and started looking into it, I showed it to Chris and we decided we wanted to do Foster to adopt. All through the process we prayed, and prayed. We have had 8 children in our home, none of which are adoptable.
Months back a family we know started a blog about thier adoption process. They were adopting 2 children from Eastern Euorpe who had down syndrome. As I followed the journey they were on I kept feeling a tug at my heart for the children still in these orphanges. I mentioned it to my husband and he kinda blew it off. I kept praying as we followed their journey. In this time 3 more families we know also decided to adopt. I started looking through the children who needed families and kept coming back to one child. He just pulled at my heart and I knew he needed to come home. Again, I kept praying and I had resolved, it wasn't our time. I however, kept praying that if it was Gods will for us to adopt this child, that he would touch my husbands hearts when it was His time for us to adopt.
The first family brought those 2 precious children home and we got to meet them yesterday. They are the cutest,sweetest children you will ever meet. And they are so full of love and joy. You can see it radiate from them. Again I felt the tugging at my heart but said nothing. As we got in the car leaving church, my husband turns to me and says "I think we should adopt". My heart was overjoyed, I had been praying and praying for this. Praise God!! So we talked about it and prayed about it. Then last night we sat down with our daughters and talked to them about it. They were all excited, and more than willing to go through this journey even though it may be an uphill one. So that was the first answer to prayer, we were all agreed we are going to adopt.
So the next question... WHO, WHEN, WHERE. We started looking again at the children on the Reece's Rainbow website. As we were scrolling through the children, that one child that has had my heart all these months came into view. I just sat there as my husband looked and he too fell in love with this child. Praise God!!! Another answer to prayer.
Okay so we know the Who, and kinda the when & the Where but now the HOW???? Adoption is expensive, and International Adoption is very expensive. It will cost us around $35,000 to adopt. We don't have that kind of money laying around, we don't even have a thousand dollars laying around. I started feeling discouraged, until my husband says "We'll do fundraisers, and we will have tax refund coming in a couple months, and we can cut some expenses around here". Praise God!!!!!!! As we sat there as a family talking, my children start throwing out ideas, they will do. Rebecca said she will make some crocheted things to sell, Jessica said she will make bracelets, and Britney said she will walk dogs.
So we can't officially commit to a child yet, we don't have our homestudy done & we don't have the money to send in to commit yet. But we WILL have it!! We truly believe God would not have set us on this journey if he didn't know we could do it, WITH HIM!!! None of this would be possible without the Lord, and we pray He gets all the glory!! We feel blessed and in awe that he would use us for this journey.
So... here we go starting our journey to Save our Starfish, because it makes a difference to One!
