"Be Still and Know that I am God!"
This is God's constant daily reminder to us throughout the last few months!
God's consistent reminder has kept us on our knees, and has kept our eyes on Him, as He once again is bringing our family on a journey that we never would have imagined or dreamed of!
But boy, are we EXCITED!!!
So our family news - WE ARE ADOPTING ... AGAIN!!!!
Yep, you read that right!! Yes, I know we only planned on having 2 kids and we are already at 3! Yes, we are already fairly busy, okay very busy with our already 3 kids! Yes, this is another HUGE STEP of faith, again, on every level ... emotionally, mentally, financially ...!!
But, boy are we EXCITED!!!
This time we are beyond the "only wanting to have 2 kids" lifestyle ... which puts both of us in a total different mindset! Boy, are we excited!
Did, I mention we are excited!!! So here are the details that we do know! We are adopting from Ghana, West Africa - and are not using an agency this time but instead are working directly with an orphanage! The orphanage is called Beacon House, and is run by this AMAZING woman named Romana- our angel and Ghana's angel - who is doing adoptions out of the goodness of her heart! So all though there are fees again of which we are not totally clear on how we will pay for - the fees are substantially less then our previous adoption!
So the first picture of this post is of our family in Yakima filing our visa orphan application (the bottom picture is at the park across from the office)! Which yesturday we heard, it is approved! So now, ALL of our US side paperwork is done! And we are the waiting for a referral phase, which if we understand it correctly we could get a referral tomorrow or we could get one in 5 monhts, or longer!!! Once we get a referral we could travel anywhere from 3-6 months, or so!
Beacon House normally is an orphanage for children ages 3 and up, and also normally in Ghana children under the age of 2 get adopted by Ghanians! So we are "being still" knowing that "God is God" and that He will bring our son to us in His timing, not ours!
Yep, you read it right - SON! We have requested a boy under the age of our Matteus, who is 2!!! We are SO excited to have another little guy, to have another son!
God has an interesting way sometimes of planting seeds, as it is typically not the way that we adults would imagine He would do it! With this adoption story, God used our Isabella to plant a seed and also to guide us in this journey! Bella out of the blue about 8 months ago said, "mom, I think we should adopt a boy from Africa." Well, she didn't just say it once, but has kept it up, being very persistent that she thinks she should get a brother from Africa! Bella already knows a lot about Africa through the different agencies we support, through TV shows, through art and magazines which we have in our home ... and she already at the age of 5 has a tender heart for Africa! So at the beginning of the summer, we set out to pray and research as to whether God was once again calling us to adopt! We actually thought He was directing us to adopt from Liberia, the history of Liberia is heart break and there is an amazing agency working there! Simultaneously a family from our church traveled to Ghana to bring home their two twins daughters! While they were there, the mom, again out of the goodness of her heart, helped Romana set up an adoption program - Kelly, another angel! Kelly traveled to Africa before it was time to bring her daughters home because her and her husband felt their girls were not even getting their basic needs met, they did not even have clean water! I am sure that Kelly and Ryan had NO idea what God would do through them - as of today, there are a total of 8 other children coming home to Lynden from Beacon House (one of which will be our son)!!! It gives me goose bumps writing that ... as I'm sure Kelly and Ryan got criticized for their decision, Kelly brought their 2 other kids with them, one of which was 1 years old!!!
So, part of why we choose Beacon House was because we wanted to be part of what God was doing in Lynden, in that there will be a community of children from Ghana here! In addition, we also have friends from our church who are adopting from Ethiopia - so there are in process 10 children from Africa coming to Lynden!!!!!! What an AMAZING God we serve, who can do SO much more than what we ever IMAGINED!!!!!
You all know the PASSIONATE HEART God has given Sam and I for the MILLIONS of the orphans of the world ... you can imagine how this brings tears to my eyes writing how awesome we think it is that others too are taking LEAPS of faith to grow their families through adoption!! That is not to say that we don't think our biological children are equally AMAZING, we are just a family that if you can have both adopted and biological kids ... we would reccommend for you to have biologcial and adopted kids! We also don't think everyone is supposed to adopt, we believe it does require a calling from God - as usually there are many difficulties and obstacles a part of the journey - as well as the joys and endless blessings!!!
We are also thrilled for our friends who don't live in Lynden who are also adopting - our best friends Kev and Carm up in Canada are adopting from China - our best friends Kate and Kevin in NJ are adopting a BEAUTIFUL little girl from one of the southern states in the US (they just got their referral) - our other best friends Abbey and Chris in AZ are adopting 2 ADORABLE little boys from Ethiopia - Sam's sister in AZ is also adopting a little girl from China - and our friends the amazing Crooks family is again adopting from China, they are adopting a beautiful little girl - one of their beautiful daughers is from the same orphanage as Faith!!! All of these families already have biolgocial children and are growing their families through adoption, them also sharing our heart for adoption, and for their biolgocial children :)
So that is our family news!
We will be starting an adoption blog ... and will send it to you once we get it up and running!
Blessings to all of you!
"Be Still and Know that God is God"
Carpe Diem today!
Love
Sam, Maria, Isabella, Faith and Matteus
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