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