ethiopian faith journey

(Follow link to the right 'OUR STORY FROM THE BEGINNING' for more of our story)

“For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11.

God has been writing our story in His book of life – orchestrating details and making connections for our faith journey to Ethiopia for some time. Here is a glimpse of what God has unfolded for us and the journey He has called us to – God has written the story start to finish, but we are just beginning to receive this blessing. He will unfold His journey for us a little bit every day and we are blessed to have you experience the love of Christ for His children with us. There will be a day when we know the whole story and I pray that we can spend eternity with each of you singing praises of His goodness together!

The above verse from Jeremiah goes on to state, “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord…” (v. 12-14)

We have called upon God and prayed to Him and He was listening. We sought Him with all our hearts and we found Him calling us to Ethiopia.

After we adopted Eliana, God led us to cross paths with many people who were touched by adoption, considering adoption or knew someone adopting. After seeing the way Eliana’s story touched lives, I (Angie) began giving out our phone number to anyone showing interest, praying that God would use our blessing to touch others for adoption. I received a phone call one day from a woman, Jen (& husband, Larry, also in the process of adopting), who expressed several people had given her my name & phone number, from varying circumstances and she felt that God had placed it on her heart to connect with me. They were using the same agency, All God’s Children International, and they actually lived only 3 miles from us – ‘isn’t that a coincidence’ we commented. We kept in touch and I was blessed by watching God at work through their journey to Ethiopia for their beautiful daughter Aleena. By chance, we actually met in person at the Little League field while watching our boys and we shared the joy of their upcoming travel to Ethiopia in crossing at the ball fields! About 4 weeks ago, Jen shared with me with that Aleena has 2 biological brothers that were later relinquished for adoption. After petitioning the Lord and praying for Aleena’s brothers, they felt God was telling them not to adopt them. She was broken and crying out for these boys and the Lord’s provision for them.

Upon receiving the email, something stirred in my heart…the same quiet knock God gave me when He brought Eliana to us. That day, I knelt at my bedside and prayed for these boys that God would bless and protect them and lead them to the family He had already chosen for them. I prayed that God would break our hearts for these boys if I was hearing the knock from Him and not from within my own selfish desires. Joe and I began to pray for these boys and the families that would be approached about them – ‘Lord…let the people hear your heart for them and bless their precious lives.’ Every family contracted with All God’s Children (AGCI) prayed over the placement of these boys and each one received a ‘no’ from God. When there was one family left to contact, we called AGCI and stated that although we were not currently contracted with them, we were praying over them and felt God calling our hearts to them. At this point, our hearts had been broken for these boys and our confirmation from the Lord would be that He stirred every other waiting family’s hearts to say ‘no’. On November 26, 2007, we received a call from AGCI that these boys had not been placed. Joe and I prayed together once more for these precious lives and received clear calling from God that our sons, Muaz (age 7) and Bereket (3 months) were being saved for us. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

As of Friday, November 30, we are an officially contracted family with All God’s Children International and are pressing forward at mock speed to bring our sons home! Our adoption process in being done in reverse order since normally the home study and paperwork comes first and placement with your child follows. Well – God is working this miracle for us in reverse, so it is a race to catch up and bring them home. Our second confirmation from God that this was His calling for us is that it is also beyond us financially. God is made strong in our weakness and we are about to experience that in all of His fullness. In the next few weeks, we will be watching God make the miracle of approximately $18,000 happen (and then another $20,000 in the next 3-4 months)! In the past, I struggled with making this need public in order to adopt again, but God has shown us His need for these two boys to be safe, loved and growing in Christ. It is about watching an awesome God work a miracle and giving Him the glory for who He is! It is about leading others to Christ by experiencing His love for His children (our boys) lived out to the fullest measure…

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7 The Lord is working in powerful ways and we are excited to see Him work a miracle…

Joey has arrived!

December 21, 2007

CHRISTMAS BLESSINGS...


As we ponder the joy of having 5 children fill our home next Christmas, we are thankful for the 3 blessings God has already gifted us with. It is a tradition in our home to read Luke 2:1-20 daily during the advent season and it is such a joy to hear the Christmas story roll off the lips of our young children in celebration of the birth of baby Jesus. It is fun to see the expression on their faces and hear it in their voices about the shepherds being "terrified!" and the angels proclaiming "glory to God in the highest...!" By the time Christmas arrives, they are close to having it memorized and hearing them recite it is a Christmas gift for mom and dad. Thank you God for the gift of children.

"Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds...teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." Deuteronomy 11:18a, 19



PAPERWORK MARATHON!

We were blessed with 3 early Christmas presents on our front porch this week: 2 paperwork packages from AGCI and an absolutely precious video of our boys at the orphanage in Ethiopia. 'M' is a very handsome little man and it was priceless to see him smile and show us his school work (which was in English!! Praise God for that blessing to the homeschool mom of 5!). He also held sweet 'B' and fed him a bottle. My eyes were filled with tears when the video stopped as I wanted to keep watching our boys for hours (every facial expression, smile, their body language, the baby's wiggles...so priceless to see them - live!). We got all of our paperwork requirements and forms for our home study and dossier, so we have officially begun the paperwork marathon. We are pressing forward at a full sprint on this familiar labor of love to obtain necessary documents, complete personal profiles, get physicals, fingerprints, references, notarizations, the list goes on and on! And each completed documents brings us closer to the boys, so praise God for hard work!
1 Corinthians 3:8 states "The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor." The verse previous to this states "neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow." We are laborers in the fields of His fatherless doing everything we can to plant the seeds and water them (through our paperwork, meeting requirements, filing government documents), but we are reminded that it is God alone who will deliver our boys to us and He already knows the day and the hour...

December 20, 2007

2008 Calendar

We just received our 2008 All God's Children calendar and we are so excited that our little princess has yet again been published! She is included this year in the month of November. We are also very excited that 'the boys' sister is featured as well. I like to call her "Miss January". Her picture is so very beautiful. You can't help but melt in the twinkle of her smile and those dark brown eyes. What a joy it is to have another little princess (actually she is dressed as one in the picture) in our lives! God is awesome how He brings families together and allows us to share a Christ-like love for one another.


We encourage you if you do not already have one, to order one of these amazing calendars to display the stunning images of all of God's children. Every month you will be captivated by the smiles and glimmer in each of these children because you know that God has given them a life that they never would have had unless He interceded. He has given hope to each of these children that have been placed with their forever family and receive the love of a family and best of all the gift of knowing Him! What an awesome God! So order up. They make great gifts as well.




December 12, 2007

New Features to the Blog

We have added a few features to the blog that we are excited about and want to point out. On the sidebar, there is an option to subscribe to our blog via email powered by FeedBlitz. With this feature, subscribers will be kept up-to-date with our journey via email. Updates will be generated not more than once a day or as we post to the site. We are in the testing stage of this and hope to add our friends and family to the subscription list very soon (other than the inadvertent email that was sent while setting up this feature).

Another feature we added was our funding goal meter. We have been experiencing some confusion in this area and we hope this will help to keep the need these boys have clear. We continue to ask for earnest prayer in this area and for God to bring the rain!

We have also added a couple other links to our agency All God's Children. We encourage everyone to order their 2008 calendar as our precious Eliana is proudly featured (not sure where but unfortunately she didn't make the cover even after much persuasion). There are also opportunities for child & home sponsorship if you are called to assist in this way. With the closing of adoption in Guatemala, the need is great to sponsor the children who will be stuck and are not in process of their adoption.

December 10, 2007

Prayers for 'B'


Please join us in prayer for 'B' (4 months old) - he was given a diagnosis of congenital glaucoma in his left eye. He needs surgery to address this issue and we are being given the option as to whether to have this done in Ethiopia or to wait until he gets home. We are researching this and consulting with pediatric specialists here to determine what is the best course of action. We have been advised to wait if at all possible (due to conditions of government hospitals in Ethiopia); but if we wait, it could present the risk of vision loss. Please pray for God's protection of 'B's vision and for God to lead us to a wise decision on this.

December 5, 2007

We Have Contracts!

Our contracts for AGCI's Ethiopia program arrived on the front porch yesterday and our orientation call is this evening. The paper trail marathon begins - sign here...answer these 50 questions...notarize here...answer another 10 more questions...sign there...notarize here....it is music to our ears! That is the sound of footsteps hitting the pavement on the road to Ethiopia to bring our boys home.

The Lord led me to these verses from 1 John 3:21-22 this morning, "Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us." We have placed this journey at the foot of the cross of Christ and are humbled by the miracle He is working out through us for Muaz and Berekt.

The passage goes on to state, "Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us." This calling is beyond our means for many reasons, but God is made strong in our weakness. He has called us to something awesome and we are humbled and overjoyed by this gift to our family. The Holy Spirit has been gifted to us and we are enjoying great peace by resting in him for every need we are to overcome.

Please continue to lift us in prayer and give God praise for every detail He orchestrates!

EPHESIANS 1:3-6 (NLT)

"All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son."

ADOPTION IS GREATER THAN THE UNIVERSE