For the Record

Kim and I have been through many emotional and spiritual ups and downs over the past 4 months as we waited for an answer from the judge in Brazil regarding our petition to adopt Maynara, Abraão Lucas, Luana, and Brayan, and last night we received an answer to much prayer. For the record, I wanted to write about our experience last night as we learned that the judge said "yes" and granted our petition! Though we still have some "waiting" and paperwork to do before traveling to Brazil to meet our beautiful sons and daughters, we are in the "when" and not "if" stage. And, man, does it ever feel good!

Keep in mind as I tell this story that we have hardly been away from our e-mail for any significant length of time in the past four months. I have my e-mail open at work at all times and Kim has an iPod touch with wireless, which makes a little "ding" any time she receives and e-mail, so she has been checking constantly at home during the summer. Except for some odd times here and there, we probably haven't been away from our e-mail for more than 30 minutes at a time unless we were sleeping, sitting in church, or driving to Pennsylvania to see our parents. We have especially been following our e-mail pretty closely over the past few weeks, as we have had a couple of requests from the judge for more information, which wetired to turn around as quickly as possible each time. (All the while wondering how anyone ever got through this process without e-mail!)

Last night, however, I got home late, around 6:40, from work, and Kim had dinner prepared so we could eat before our friends came for Bible study at our house at 7:30 as they always do on Tuesdays. We sat on the porch enjoying our dinner, leaving our e-mail unattended for some time. We finished dinner, took the dishes to the kitchen and were going to take one more quick look at e-mail before people arrived when we saw something new in Kim's inbox:

Tuesday, August 11, 2009 6:44:52 PM

Re: no news yet [a leftover subject from previous correspondence]

Please call me on my cell right now

Lu

How could we have missed this e-mail by almost 45 minutes!? Not knowing what to expect, hoping for the best, dreading the worst, and hearts pitter-pattering, Kim grabbed her cell phone, put it on speaker, and called Luciana. Luciana answered, apologized for the background noise as her husband's family was visiting, and proceeded to talk to us about our petition.

I swear Luciana must have been watching too much American Idol or other reality TV shows, because the way she started out didn't sound good. Our hearts started to sink. In what must have been 10 seconds, but felt like 10 minutes, she said, "Now we've known all along that this has been in God's hands, and that He always knows what's best for each family. And you should keep this in mind as I tell you that..." That WHAT, Luciana, that WHAT! "...that they're yours!" Ours! We can call them "our" kids! Not just "the" kids! "And now we wait some more," she added. But that didn't matter. We were ecstatic, smiling from ear to ear, not even knowing what to say!

About that time, I saw a car pull up in front of our house. Our friends James and Mina were walking up to the house for Bible study. I ran to the front door, opened it and said, "we're on the phone with our adoption agency! The judge said yes! You're the first to know!" Kim talked with Luciana for another minute or so while Mina jumped up and down and James and Mina hugged and congratulated me.

After Kim hung up with Luciana, she called her family on her cell phone while I ran upstairs to call my family on my cell phone. Kim's parents were at a baseball game with 50 people from their church. Her Dad answered the phone, Kim told him the news, and he yelled, "She said yeeessssssss!" To which the whole of left field started shouting and celebrating. Those church folk of theirs have been praying along with Kim's parents for this for a long time.

I called my parents and my Mom answered. They are visiting family in Alabama and were on their way to have dinner with my Aunt and Uncle and their family. I told my Mom right away, she started crying, and told my Dad to pull over! We celebrated together with tears and smiles over many miles. She told me she has been carrying their picture everywhere and showing it to everyone.

I also updated my status on Facebook while I was upstairs on the phone. (Which explains the phone calls that we got during Bible study! Oops!) We got through Bible study nonetheless, prayed for the concerns of the group--and of course this great news!--and then proceeded to call our friends and family after everyone had left our house for the evening.

Whew. What an adventure. For many months I have been praying that the God would open the judge's heart to our petition and that she would see a family when she reviewed all of our paperwork, and not just a big stack of paper to deal with. It took about 4 months--far longer than we or our agency ever expected--but, with God's help, she finally did see a family! All the while, however, the petition has been in God's hands and His timing. We may not ever know why it took so long, but we trust in God's infinite wisdom that this was time well-used for His purposes and His kingdom.

Praise the Lord, for He is faithful!

Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him.

(Psalm 127:3)

Praise the Lord for Maynara!

Praise the Lord for Abraão Lucas!

Praise the Lord for Luana!

Praise the Lord for Brayan!

She said YES!!

The judge finally said YES to our petition to adopt our four children. We can finally call them ours!!!

And, because of this great news, we can finally introduce to you our two sons and two daughters:

Maynara (10), Abraão Lucas (7), Luana (5) and Brayan (4)

Praise God!!!

Psalm 105

¹ Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name;
make known among the nations what he has done.

² Sing to him, sing praise to him;

tell of all his wonderful acts.

³ Glory in his holy name;
let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice.

⁴ Look to the LORD and his strength;
seek his face always.

God's miracles with 4 Sisters

James sent me this email on May 20, 2008. Seems like we knew right away that these girls were someone else's daughters, but this email was enough to get us talking about Brazil.

Kim,

Did you get this? I don't know that this will work for us, but it thought it was interesting--they ARE trying to start a program in Brazil. Interested in talking about it? (The program, that is, not adopting 4 girls between 2.5 and 10!)
*****

My answer was:

why not? we could be a family of 6. let's do it! [pretty sure I was being sarcastic.]

:o)

and by the way, i would be willing to switch to the brazil program. yep. i would. [and that's how it happened--God got us to Brazil, where our children live!]

kim

----- Forwarded Message ----
Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 1:00:54 PM
Subject: Sibling Group from Brazil Needs Family!

Dear El Salvador Families,

We were contacted by LIMIAR as they have a sibling group of four girls, who are in need of a family. Let me share with you the information we have at this time on the girls:

Ana Maria (9.4 years old).

Luana (8 years old).

Giovana (5 years old).

Vanessa (2.6 years old).
The court in Brazil wants to keep the girls together.

We thank you for prayerfully considering this request and covet your prayers for these girls.

***

We met these girls this weekend. With their parents, Stephan and Beth. They were an America World/Limiar family just like us and we were so pleased to be able to tell the girls that we found out about them at the same time their parents did, and that not only did God find them a family, he used them to help us find our family. Such a beautiful connection and a beautiful family! We are looking forward to seeing them at next year's Limiar reunion with all of our children together.

Love this blog

Dan Curver, the author of Together for Adoption says all of this so much better than I do.  Adopting children is the picture of God's plan to adopt each of his created children into His forever family.  Dan says it all so well!

Remember this?

Well, here's something cool.  I've been reading some blogs during some of my summer downtime and found a Shaohannah's Hope blog.  Look down to about the middle of the page (November 7) where it says "Bloomfield Blessings!" The slideshow there shows some of the many people who donated to Shaohannah's Hope that night, contributing to the grant we received.  What a nice reminder that God is with us and taking care of us: past, present and future!

 

Perfect Provision

When we made the decision to follow God's lead from El Salvador to Brazil, our family coordinator at AWAA let us know that there was some risk involved.  There was the risk of time that comes with not knowing exactly how long this new program will take before our children are home with us.  There was a financial risk that comes with switching from one program to another and having to update documentation and agree to a new set of costs.  He wanted to be sure that we were aware of the risks and were willing to accept them along with all the other unknowns involved in being a pilot family.  We were.  We knew that God had all the time in His hands and that His timing would be perfect.  We also knew that if He called us to adopt our children from Brazil, He would make a way.  

He is making a way and is once again blessing us to see his hand as it works for His glory and the benefit of our family.

After talking through all of the expenses associated with the Brazil adoption program with Ryan (the family coordinator) yesterday, we discovered that all of the fees we've paid to AWAA for our El Salvador adoption would indeed be transferred to the Brazil program... (here's where it gets good)... leaving us with a $1200 credit so far.  That means that when we submit our updated dossier this summer, we will only have $600 to contribute at that time. 

Today when I checked the mail, I had 2 paychecks from work.  One was for some part time hours I'd done a while back (and had forgotten about), and the other was my first summer paycheck.  Since teachers are 10-month employees, the district allows us to stretch our pay over 12 months, but does not continue to take out union dues and insurance fees.  That means that summer paychecks are always a little nicer.  

Between the two checks, God provided just exactly enough to cover the $600 program fee and the payment to our social worker for updating our homestudy.  

The point of this story is not a lesson in personal financial management or budgeting, but one about God's great grace.  He continues to open our eyes to the ways that he continually provides for us and cares for us.  What is $600 to the Lord of the Universe?  But to us, this miniscule blessing is enormous because it shows us that God is faithful and that He will bring our children to us, and that He is taking care of them even now.  

There will still be international and in-country expenses when we accept a referral and travel to Brazil, but God has already provided a grant from Shaohannah's Hope (which will pay about half of the international fee), and we are sure that He will continue to provide what we need to bring our children home.

He has it all in His hands.  

He always has.

 

God's plan does not change

This I know to be true:  God is always moving.  Most often we don't see it, but he doesn't stop orchestrating our lives and all of Creation for His glory just because we look away.  Every so often we can see the shadow of his omnipotent hand moving through our lives in ways that reveal little bits of His glory and little bits of His sovereign plan.  

That's why this is a pivotal post.

We have known for a long time that God has called us to adopt.  For over a year, we have been on a path toward adopting our first child, trusting the Lord would bring us together with our child in His perfect timing.  We have been waiting along with other America World families in the El Salvador program.  That was the right place for us to be, and this week we found out why.  During the past year of waiting, God has grown and shaped us into who He needed us to be in the moment we were presented with the opportunity to switch from the El Salvador program to a brand new one in Brazil.  And we switched.

But God's plan for our family did not change.  It was our hearts that changed.  As of today, we are no longer waiting for a toddler from El Salvador.  No, God has more for our family.  

We are now waiting for two siblings from Brazil!  

We do not know who they are yet, but we are beginning to update all of our paperwork to submit a new dossier to Brazil.   Hopefully, within a year's time, we will be traveling to Brazil for 6 weeks and coming home as a family of 4!  

God is good at abundance, and he is good at preparing us to receive his riches.  His plan never changed.  It was the hearts of His servants that changed.  What a blessing it is to be open to the leading of the Lord.  His plans are perfect!

John Piper on Adoption (Ephesians 1)

www.desiringgod.org/blog/1113_adoption_is_greater_than_the_universe/

1000 blessings in one concert

A few weeks back, we were invited to Steven Curtis Chapman's "This Moment" concert in Bloomfield, CT by Shaohanna's Hope, an organization founded by the Chapman family to "mobilize the body of Christ to care for orphans." They asked us to come to the concert to help them by being the face of CT adopting families. When we accepted the invitation we found out that we would be going on stage with Steven Curtis Chapman so that the whole audience could see that a real, live, Christian family in Connecticut is preparing their home to love and accept a parentless child from far away.

What we didn't know was that Shaohannah's Hope was going to collect an offering that night that would be given to us... onstage... in front of 1000 people... as a grant to help us pay the last round of fees to bring our child home to us. We were stunned when we found out and overwhelmed to accept a generous gift of $4000 from the offering and Shaohannah's Hope. Around $2700 was collected at the concert, and was matched by Shaohannah's Hope. Before we left the stage Steven Curtis Chapman and everyone in the audience prayed for us and our child in El Salvador.

After the concert, we had the opportunity to follow Steven Curtis Chapman to his dressing room for some pictures and a wonderful chat about the miracle that adoption has been in his family's life, how God is working the same miracle for our family, and how God truly works the same miracle in each of us who comes to be adopted into His family through Jesus.

At least 1000 blessings in one evening!