God Plants the Seeds ....

Last July, as we started to plan our ministry's annual Adoption Seminar and Expo, God started to place upon my heart that we needed to offer a breakout session to address questions and concerns about adopting outside of your skin color. We were connected with Rebecca Kepley and she hosted one of the 40 minute breakout sessions. As I was busy overseeing the entire event, I did not have an opportunity to attend her session. Later in the year, while putting together the 2008 calendar of events for the ministry, God again pressed upon my heart to offer a few more of these seminars as stand alone seminars throughout the year. So, again I contacted Rebecca and she was more than willing to assist with these. We held the first in March of 2008 and I was in attendance. It was an amazing 2 hour seminar packed full of helpful information. Rebecca and her husband have a precious little girl who is bi-racial and adopted domestically. They are now waiting for a court date to go and complete the adoption of their little boy from Ethiopia.

Also, last April, at our annual social at Pullen Park, we met the Mestas family. The have three biological children, 2 twin boys adopted domestically and were in the process of adopting three children from Ethiopia. The Mestas adoption journey is an amazing testimony of faith and we asked them to share it at our Adoption Seminar & Expo in September. Over the next few months we got to know the Mestas and followed their adoption journey through their blog. In October we attended a small fundraiser luncheon to benefit Shaohannah's Hope, an adoption grant fund started by Stephen Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman. Stephen was in town to perform at the State Fair and so he performed at the luncheon for us. The Mestas received their referral of twin baby girls and a sibling brother in August. Over the next three months, it was very exciting to read the daily updates to their blog. The week of Thanksgiving, they traveled to Ethiopia, to bring their children home. (the same time we brought Emily home in 2004)

Late in 2007, I began to wonder if God was calling us to do more than just "promote" adopting outside your skin color. Maybe He was calling us to actually adopt outside our skin color. I pondered the thought often and would occasionally talk about it with Mike. In January, we went to meet the Mestas new children and in February we attended their new daughters 1st birthday.

One morning I was driving to work and thinking about a rainbow and how beautiful it is with all it's many colors. I thought about how boring it would be if a rainbow were all the same color. What a beautiful thing God created! I thought this was a good analogy of adopting outside your skin color. As I turned the corner, right smack in front of me was a gorgeous RAINBOW! It was an overcast day, no sunshine and no rain. The conditions were not good for such a wonderful rainbow, or any rainbow for that matter. God had placed that rainbow there in the sky at that moment to speak directly to me. He was telling me that THIS is what he had planned for us.

As I talked with Mike, over time, about adopting from Ethiopia it was hard for me to get a feel if he felt the same calling or not. Even after asking him at one point, he said he was not against it but had not yet felt the call the way I had. I told myself that this was a decision that we both needed to be in sync with. I thought to myself, if Mike does not want to go to Ethiopia, I will not push it. I mean, look at the two beautiful children we adopted from Russia. Why in the world would I have a problem going back to Russia to adopt two more! Russia would be "easy" for us. Easy in the sense that the process was familiar, the paperwork was familiar, the flights were familiar, etc. Just when I would get comfortable with the idea that we might not go to Ethiopia but back to Russia, God would start to work on me again. He would put people and circumstances in my path. "Easy" is not what God calls us to do. God does not call the equipped but equips the called.

In late March, Mike and I shared our testimony to our Sunday School class at church. Mike shared how God used adopting these orphans to show and give him purpose and meaning in his life and I shared about God's great provision for us with our miracle. It was an emotional day for ALL (Mike, Me and even our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ). I was really proud of Mike. He was so brave and really opened up and shared some very personal things in his life. It's amazing how supportive we can be of one another if we could only let down our guards and be more transparent with one another. On the ride home, as we reminisced about our testimony and talked about the possibility of going to Ethiopia, Mike asked what we were waiting on to make the final decision that our next children would be from Ethiopia. I told him that I was waiting for him to have the "calling". He said, then it's official. Gods wants us to go to Ethiopia to get our children and that is where we will go.

So, it is now official. We will go where God has called us to rescue and bring home our children from Ethiopia.

We will spend the next few months getting the house ready, start the paperwork in August, hope to have immigration approval by December, then go on the wait list and hopefully have our children home by summer of '09.

Sounds a bit planned out, I know! You know me! It's as planned as an adoption can be with the expectation for blips and delays. We are at the mercy of God's perfect timing. So, stay tuned for updates as we travel down this road.