God's Glory......

Hello? Caleb managing the office :)
Enjoying one of his favorite meals....chicken and french fries

The Pose....what else can be said about this one??

Today Zack and I held an America World seminar at our church. As America World Associates, we have done a few of these in the past, and each time we are so blessed by them! It is our honor to help tell others about the miracle of adoption any way we can. So far, we know of at least three families that have submitted applications to America World after attending a seminar. That is at least four children who most likely will be adopted! Praise God!!! He moves hearts in awesome ways!

The seminar today went awesome! God really showed up in an awesome way, and counting Zack and I and my parents (who always try to come for moral support), there were 17 people! That is the best turn out by far!! We were able to speak with many of the families personally after the seminar, and we believe that more children will be adopted! Again, praise Him!

Zack and I have often talked about how we never could have imagined how God would use our adoption to bless so many people and to open so many doors for us to speak about adoption. We are humbled and honored to be able to be used in such a way. It is such a blessing!

In the last post I wrote about feeling as if God was leading us to wait a bit before we made any decisions, as we were waiting to find out about a few different situations and circumstances. In the past week, God gave us an answer for each of them! So, we feel confident to move ahead in our decision to adopt from.......Ethiopia!!!! We have a strong peace in moving forward with this decision. We will be requesting a child ages 6-18 months of either gender (which will most likely result in a boy- a brother or Caleb!! yay!!!! ) that is HIV positive. Because we are requesting a child that is HIV positive, our referral could come as soon as 1-3 months after our paperwork reaches Ethiopia! We are not quite sure when our dossier will reach Ethiopia (we haven't even submitted it to our agency yet), but we are estimating it could be there by the end of May. It is crazy to think about bringing home a child this year, but I guess it could happen!

We are now going to commit ourselves to preparing as much as possible and learning as much as possible about HIV and how to give the best resources and care to our child. We have already done quite a bit of networking in terms of medical care and getting to know other families who have/are adopting children with HIV. We trust God will continue to lead us in this way as we seek to show His love to our new child!!

It's March Madness and that can only mean one thing......Break out your blue and cheer on those Kentucky Wildcats! As you can see from the pictures above, Caleb is already a full fledged Wildcat fan! We raise them right in Kentucky :)

In adoption news.....well, no concrete decision has been made in regard to country, still. We just feel like the Lord is asking us to continue to explore some very specific scenarios and situations, and this means....more waiting! Trust me, I don't want to wait. I want to just go, go, go! Especially since we have all our paperwork ready to submit for our dossier! It is so different than our last adoption- we had to wait and wait on paperwork. This time, we have all our paperwork completed, and our social worker is basically just waiting on us to decide the country so she can write our home study. But, we wait. It is hard. But, with God's grace and help, we wait.

What has been the most exciting thing to me the last couple of weeks is to see how God has used our previous adoption to lead so many people to adoption, even if it is just to peak their interest. I stand in awe of God's glory and sovereignty. Just a couple of weeks ago I ran into an old high school friend at the post office. She knew of our adoption and she asked me how Caleb was doing. She also expressed to me that she and her husband were interested in adoption and that they would be traveling this summer to do mission work in another country, and would really be interested in adopting from that country. I tried to encourage her as much as possible, and I also gave her our blog address. I took down her email and sent a few links regarding adoption. Long story short, she is now signed up to attend the upcoming adoption seminar and we are having lunch soon to talk more about adoption- so awesome!!! Then, just last night we were at the park with Caleb and we ran into a young couple who has not been able to have children biologically. I had spoken with the young lady many months ago about adoption, but hadn't heard anything from her. After speaking with them last night, she seemed very interested in attending the adoption seminar as well. God is at work, and we praise Him for that!

Being able to play a small role in helping others along the path of adoption has helped our anxiousness and waiting with our own adoption pass more quickly. In the meantime, we continue to pray and look for opportunities to speak to others about the awesome plan of adoption!