Our Journey to Adoption Begins...

Some of you may have read the post I wrote here a couple of weeks ago about trusting God. I am filled with praise as I announce to you that we have officially started our journey to adopting a child from Ethiopia. Our days have been filled with reassurance from God that this is His will for our family and that He will bless this journey. So we are taking a complete leap of faith and walking the path that He has laid in front of us. My husband wrote an email to all of our friends, family and acquaintances today...I hope you don't mind, but I would also like to share his letter with you too. Here it is:

Blessings to you and your family,

God has asked us to do some major things in the last few weeks and He wants us to share our story with everyone. So, we are obeying. We apologize if you received this email and have no idea how you received it...we do not know who He wants us to share our story with, so we are starting with everyone we know. We have addressed this to everyone in our email address book and we are praying that it reaches those He wants to hear it. We have prayed for a long time that God would use our hands to do HIS will...He is now showing us HIS will...

Our walk of complete faith began a couple of months ago. God was telling Amy that she needed to publically praise Him for all of the things He has given us big and small. So, she continued to pray about what He was showing her and she decided to start a praise blog. She began the blog and began to write what was in her heart. God then began to lead others to her blog. Within the two months she has had the blog, it has been visited by over 2,000 people. She has been able to share her praise for God to people from all over the world. How else would she have ever been heard by people in Australia, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, China, Hong Kong and many, many more places? It has been truly amazing to watch and pray over.

However, our walk does not end there. One night a few weeks ago, Amy said to me, "I think God is telling us we are suppose to adopt." I was absolutely floored by what she said, because God had been placing the same thought in my head. I shared with her the same thoughts He had given me. We both questioned it...surely, God couldn't mean we needed to adopt now. We already have three children??? We just had Ryann months ago??? We questioned the money...how could we possibly come up with all of the money??? God reassured us to TRUST Him. Then He placed the biggest sign in front of us. Amy shares it best on her blog, you can read her version here, but basically she was checking the updates of her blogging friends. She saw that one of her friends, Kim had updated. (Kim is currently in Hong Kong with her family, but they are originally from TN. ) When Amy clicked on her blog, it did not go to the latest update, it instead took Amy to a post that she had previously missed. It was about some friends of theirs who already have four biological children and just adopted from Ethiopia. Their family shares their story about Lucy Lane through a blog and a video. Amy and I sat down to view the video and it was amazing! We sat there and watched as tears ran down our faces. We knew God had just spoken to us through this video. Even more amazing is the fact that they are located very close to us and we have the opportunity to go meet them and their family on August 16th.

So, our real walk has begun. We have been preapproved to begin the adoption process for Ethiopia. We will be submitting our first bundle of paperwork this week. This is a complete walk of faith for us because we are laying down our pride here and telling you that we do not have the $24,000+ that it is going to take to adopt. However, God has shown us that He is going to bless this walk. We will be sharing our praises for Him throughout this entire process. Every time He provides, which we know He will, it will be added to our testimony of how He took us to receive this child He has planned for our family. It would not be quite the same walk of faith if we had the money and were able to just rely on ourselves. We are relying completely on HIM.

We already have our first account of how He has provided. Previous to all of this, we had booked a condo for a vacation in Florida for fall break. We called the man who we have booked the condo through and shared our story with him. We cancelled the condo for fall break because we need to spend that money on the adoption. He is going to refund our money and guess what??? The amount he is refunding is exactly enough to cover the first payment we will need to make next week to start our paperwork.

We have already come up with many more ideas of how to make this adoption happen. We will be selling MANY things on eBay. We are going to make personal sacrifices and we are going to have fundraising raffles.

What we are asking of each of you is to share our story by forwarding this to everyone you know. He wants this story told. Please share our testimony with others. Also, please keep our family, our journey and the child God has planned for our family in your prayers. You can follow our adoption story as we share God's praises and ask for prayers on Amy's blog: www.filledwithpraise.blogspot.com

Here is the video that was our absolute sign...click here

And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me.

Matthew 18:5

I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!

Matthew 25:40

Blessings to you,

Paul, Amy, Taylor, Cade and Ryann

Happy moments, praise God
Difficult moments, seek God.
Quiet moments, worship God.
Painful moments, trust God.

Every moment, thank God

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