In God's Time

Are you wondering why there haven't been any posts? Honestly, I've been a bit distracted. I guess God is showing me that everything is in His timing. We haven't had a chance to work on the international paperwork lately. I had the flu, our computer was down,and Seth was sick with a fever,rash and irritability. As all this was going on, I struggled with discouragement. However, I am realizing I need to remind myself,"My times are in Your hand".Psalm 31:15

God has blessed me with 3 amazing children. They need me, and I need God to equip me to parent them. Being there for them and spending QUANTITY time with them is what's most important. As I glean from God's Word, and faithfully be the mom He has allowed me to be, everything else will fall into place. He knows there is a little girl in the Ukraine waiting for a mom and a dad, so He will be our help in the busy times. For example, an important letter needed to be sent to the Ukraine requesting Irina's adoption status. I forgot about it, but my Helper didn't. A family, who is adopting from the same orphanage, called us asking if we wanted to send the letter together and split the shipping cost! Then, we were helped again when our friend drove to down town Chicago to get our letter properly stamped with an Apostille. Let me tell you, if I had to drive to Chicago to get an Apostille, the letter would still be undone!!!! Oh, Lord help me learn to rest in YOU!! Thank You, for Your encouragement, and for working through willing vessels. Thank you, Jesus, Lewis family and Mrs. Traci!

So Busy

WOW! It has been really busy around here. We finally finished everything we needed for our home study!! Yeah!! We are just waiting for approval from the state. We will hopefully be sending out our I600A form tomorrow, if my printer will cooperate. Now, we begin tackling the international paperwork. It's overwhelming at times, but my husband put it all in perspective tonight when he said,"It's all for her freedom." That blessed me so much. I've never thought about it like that!
We now have an online coffee store set up to help us raise money at www.justlovecoffee.com/Allens. Our store is called Heart's Desire Coffee Shop. Check it out to see what God is doing through Rob Webb. He is helping families with the cost of adoption, while helping to support the coffee farmers. I have heard it is really great coffee!!!

No More Doubts

Well, this past week was full of God's confirmation that we must be on the right track. Tuesday morning, I went to Psalms 10 because it was the 10th of Nov, and I quickly needed direction before starting the day. I was so amazed by God's faithfulness to speak to me even in a hurry. We have never stopped asking the Lord if adopting now is what He wants us to do. Everytime I ask He answers from His Word so clearly!! Ps 10:14,17-18 says ,"But You have seen, for You observe trouble and grief;to repay it by Your hand. The helpless commits himself to You; You are the helper of the fatherless. Lord, You have heard the desire of the humble; You will prepare their heart; You will cause Your ear to hear, To do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of earth may oppress no more." The children in the Ukraine have no future due to their orphan and HIV status. They are not considered important and placed in orphanages where many have never seen the light of day. Yes, they have never been outside to play, see the sunlight or the trees!! However, God knows them each by name and He hears their cries. Friday, we sent off our service agreement which means we are committed to bringing our daughter home!! God has heard her cries and He is sending help!! She has only lived in the orphanage since she was 4yrs. old when her mother was deprived rights. She knows she lost her family, and they say she longs to have a family again. I wish she knew we were coming for her. I can't stand thinking about her losing hope. They won't tell her until we meet her in person on our 1st visit to the Ukraine. The only problem with this type of referral, is there are no guarantees. She might not be available when we get there, but they say it's unlikely. Still, it's hard to wait and wonder.
If I doubted before, I can doubt no more!!!! Thank You, Jesus!!

Orphan Sunday

Today is Orphan Sunday!! I had no idea until my friend ,Traci, and her family went before the church today. They gave the staggering numbers of children in the U.S and abroad waiting for families. They shared lots of scripture about what the Lord says about caring for widows and orphans. We were so encouraged by this since we are beginning the adoption journey. It's taken a while for us to better understand what God is speaking to us, but He keeps bringing His Word as confirmation. Sadly, not everyone is supportive of our decision, but we know God is. We continue to move forward asking for His wisdom and direction. This is what He says" Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this:to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world"-James 1:27 and "A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy habitation. God sets the solitary in families..." Psalm 68:5-6. After experiencing the death of my children, my faith was shaken to the core, and the foundation I thought I had in God was not solid. It was during that pain that I turned to the Lord and found Him to be so TENDER and ultimately TRUSTWORTHY. I realized Jesus had been my Savior, but He wasn't my Lord. I lived my life independently as I saw fit, and then asked God to bless it. As I have been made alive through God's healing Words, I now want to live fully dependent on Him. My life is not my own. (Gal 2:20) I was bought at a price. (1 Cor 6:20) Therefore, now that our eyes have been opened and we know there is a beautiful 8yr old girl in the Ukraine waiting for a family, we want to be obedient to God's Words from Prov 24:12 , If you say, "But we knew nothing about this,"does not He who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not He who guards your life know it? Will He not repay each person according to what he has done?NIV

So Much To Tell

There is so much to say and not enough time to get it all in. We've been very busy the past few days getting ready for our home study visit today. Tim stayed up last night until 2am, and I got up @ 5:45am this morning to get everything done. Our visit with our Social Worker went well. We still have a few more loose ends to tie up, 4hrs of on-line courses to take, and we need to make our final decision on which girls to choose. Since we learned about the children on the Reece's Rainbow website we have been drawn to 3 girls. However, we did not meet the requirements to adopt 3 non-siblings from the Ukraine. We decided against 1 of the girls when we were informed she would be difficult to place due to her older siblings, and we moved forward intending to adopt the other 2 girls. We have been praying and asking the Lord to confirm what girl or girls we are to commit to. We needed to know by today, and we needed a certain amt of money to make the commitment as well. We've been waiting, and God ANSWERED right on TIME. God is never late!! Yesterday, we got word that there is a family nearby interested in adopting from the same orphanage that our girls are in,and they want to commit to 3!! We were not able to do that, but God is providing someone else for these precious children! All we have wanted is for them to get out of that orphanage and have a family to love them. Where God wants them is where we want them. After learning more from our Social Worker today, we feel are prayers are being answered concerning" who" and "how many". We are going to move forward with adopting only one of the 3 girls from http://www.reecesrainbow.org/ . God also brought the funds we need last night! We've been waiting for our car to sell, and the night before our home study visit, a guy calls interested, made a cash offer over the phone without driving it 1st, and within 45min the car was sold!!!!! WOW
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is GOOD; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him! Psalm 34:8

Hey everybody!!

This was posted by Amy !!!! (Cindy's daughter)

Here is a little about me. I'm 11 yrs old ,I like skateboarding and dancing.

WOW! I just can't believe were adopting! I'm shocked because 3yrs ago I was an only child; now I have 2 bros and we're adopting two more.I didn't know that 2 huge blessings could come so close together. I'm so excited, that I'll finally have someone to dress in girly clothes. :)

Why Adopt?

The thought of adoption came during my grieving process. Although God had answered my question with Deut 30, I was afraid of having more children after the loss of 2 newborn baby boys. At that point adoption seemed a better alternative. We started the process to adopt a little girl from Mexico, but another family was chosen instead. It took a few years for God to bring the healing I needed in order to obey His Word. Yet, in His Mercy, He tenderly brought me to the place I could be at peace with trusting Him no matter what happened. "Through the tender mercy of our God,with which the Dayspirng from on high has visited us;to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace". Luke 1:78-79. I can honestly say there is more rest in full surrender to Jesus than trying to control my circumstances. Even though it was hard to trust God with getting pregnant again, I did not want to miss out on any Blessings God had for us. Since our beautiful Amy Grace (aka Amazing Grace)was born, God has given us Samuel Lee and Seth Levi. They are here today because I chose Life and Blessing instead of Death and Cursing( from Deut 30:19). It continues to be a choice, and I want to choose the glorious life God has for me. Why adopt now? Because we want all the Blessings God has for us. We believe God has burdened our hearts for orphans, and we want to bring them home. We understand loss and all orphans have experienced loss in some way. Also God loved us so much He chose to place the sins of the world on His Only Son to pay the penalty for our sins. Because of Jesus death on the Cross, we can be adopted into God's family when we realize we are sinners in need of a Savior(Eph 6:1-12). "I will not leave you as orphans-I will come to you" John 14:18

I have a BLOG!

I can't believe it myself! When will I have time to blog? I'm not sure, but I am really excited about what God is doing and I want to share it with everybody!!
My new friend,Traci, God sent into our lives just helped us get started. The name of our blog is from Deut 30:11-20. This verse is a gift from the Lord that He gave me in Oct 2002 after our son Jeremiah was stillborn. I asked God at a Women's Retreat, "What do I do from here?", and He answered me from His Word. Deut 30:15 says, "See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; in that I command you today to love the Lord your God,to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statues and His judgments that you may live and multiply, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it." His answer jumped off the page! That you may live and multiply! Since then God blessed us with 2 healthy baby boys. Now, God is blessing us through adoption!! We are in midst of lots of paperwork to finish our home study, and wanting to commit to 2 girls from the Ukraine as the Lord brings the funds.
Starting our new blog today is special because it is our 1st son, Russell's B'day. He would have been 12 yrs. old today.