How Can We Help?

How can we help? We keep getting this question lately and WE LOVE IT!! There is no getting around the fact that we need help bringing this child home! "It takes a village" seems like an understatement! We appreciate you asking us how you can help and for those of you that have been praying for ways to help we have a few things that we can say "We need help with..."

1. Prayer!! 

We would be foolish in this entire process if we were to neglect our NEED for Prayer! We ask for prayer for our child (or children). We ask for prayer for us, for the stress that comes with adoption (or with any child for that matter). We ask for prayer for the process to go smoothly. We pray that our child would know that we are coming for them just as He came for us!

2. Garage Sale!!

We have been collecting items already (big, small, tall, short, smelly, whatever!) for our Garage Sale that will 100% benefit our adoption process!

The Sale is Saturday, May 18th

at our house 7513 Kerri Way

We will take anything you want to give us. We have been making small trips with my dad's truck to get big things as well. We want to say thank you for everyone who has already pilled into this effort and we welcome more help! We will also need some bodies helping that day! We expect a lot of people to show up that day so the more "workers" we have the better. Please let us know if you have items that you would like to donate or if you have time that Saturday to come out and help!

3. T-Shirts!!

Jennifer designed these really cool t-shirts that we are having printed by a local Christian printing company. They are $20 and we have had over 100 people order them so far! They have the shape of South America on the front with Adoption words, verses, etc to make the shape and the back has Ephesians 1:4-5!We chose a dark gray and these shirts are super soft! Can't wait to see all our friends and family wear them together! We are filling an order at the first of May and will do others as the need arises. 

4. Financial Donations

We have made it through our first step, but there are many more to come. This entire process is estimated to take $25,000-$30,000! We just keep reminding ourselves that God paid the Ultimate price for our Adoption and that was His Son's Life!! Whew! Seems less overwhelming when we think about it that way. But it is still a huge need. We are doing everything we can to cut our spending, saving, not eating out, ditching cable, and lots more but we still cannot do this without the generous gifts from others. We have had many give through our donation site as well (www.gofundme.com/nickandjennadopt) We would humbly ask you to pray about the decision to join us on this journey! 

5. Kid's Stuff (Future Need) 

We currently do not know the sex or age or our child...or if we will be adopting siblings. With that being said, when we do find out (towards the end of the year possibly) we will begin to ask for help with clothing, toys, etc. that will fit their ages and sizes. We will let you know all the details we can as soon as we know. Until then, we will be patient but knowing that when the time comes, we will need to spring into action to get our home ready for kidos!

We count it a blessing to have you alongside us in any way! 

Till they are home,

Proverbs 19:21

"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails."

~Proverbs 19:21

Yesterday marked almost 2 months since we were faced with a challenge. It wasn't a challenge for the Lord, but rather a challenge from Him. We had just turned in our adoption paperwork to the agency and were approached by a good friend about helping him raise support for his job. Back up a little bit. This guy has been a friend of Nick's since they were in elementary school. They grew up together but went to different high schools. They ran into each other one day while running at the park (wouldn't you know it he lives 1 mile from our house) ! Turns out the Lord had been doing some awesome things with him over the years and he was now a staff member for one of UT's largest Christian athletic outreaches. We have grown to love and pray over his ministry there (Nick was a UT athlete and thus we both understand the importance of ministries such as his). 

So this bring us to yesterday. Yesterday we finally debated over what we had felt "called" to give to our friend in support of his ministry, even though we are trying just as hard as he is, to raise our own support for our adoption process. These past few weeks have been selfish on my part "But Lord we are doing a mission too, we need that money" "God he has huge donors I'm sure they can help" "What if we need this money down the road to make an adoption payment"..... (continue Jenn's whining) SO! Like a good submissive and wise wife we went with the "calling" of my husband which was much less selfish than I. We decided on an amount, hit monthly gift online, and bam! Done! Committed for a year... hope we don't miss it....Lord are you sure you know what you're doing.....yikes we are crazy.... etc etc. We slept well with the slight uncomrotable-ness (is that a word?) that this situation gave us and just prayed that it would be what God had wanted us to do, even though it was not much.

So then comes today. Out running an errand and I get an email... it says "You've received a payment from "Anonymous" for $$!! I looked at it again, just to make sure....it was, I wasn't seeing things.... that $$ amount was almost EXACTLY what we had just committed to give to our partner friend in ministry!!! There is not a big enough camera that could have captured my grin  overly excited almost crying Smile on my face!! Really Lord!? I would have fallen right on my face in Khols had I not been afraid they would have called an ambulance! 

Almost right at the EXACT amount....recap....that's the exact amount that I whined about, the exact amount I was uncomfortable with, the exact amount that I feared we would need...the exact amount that "anonymous"  probably had the same argument and hesitation in last night while we were having ours.... is Now sitting BACK in our bank account. Funny Huh? Praise worthy? Yea! 

People told us during this process that the Lord would "show off" and He sure is. 
This verse out of Proverbs was a reminder for me today that WE have all sorts of plans. We have plans of how many kids we will have. We have plans of how old they will be. We have plans of when this will all come to a reality. We have plans of how much we can save and how much we can live on. We have plans. We all do. BUT PRAISE THE LORD THAT HIS PLANS ARE BIGGER THAN OURS AND THAT "THE LORD'S PURPOSE PREVAILS"!

Thank you Lord for showing us, once again, that this is your will for us right now and that you are rewarding our obedience and the obedience of others. Lord please be with our friend's ministry and bless him with the support he needs! 

Just a little note and a plug for our Friend. His name is Ryan Matthews and his Ministry is CRU and Athletes in Action. They minister all over the world and in our back yard here at our campus! If you would like pray for him, to know more about his ministry, or would be willing to consider partnering with him you can visit: https://give.cru.org/0593910

Till they are home,

First Goal Reached!

God is so good! I hope you know that! And not just saying you know that but Really Really KNOW that! He answers prayers sometimes in the long run, sometimes when you least expect it, sometimes not at all, sometimes before you can finish praying it... tonight while sitting reading over our adoption paperwork I began to worry about the fees again, started looking back over the amounts and questioning why it was so much, I began to pray over each amount listed, the different fees and their explanations. I heard my phone beep (usually don't check that when praying) but got an email from our donation site. $1,000 deposited by some people who love us very much! I literally started crying and ran to show Nick! I am in shock but then I'm thinking Why? Why would I be shocked that our Creator, the one who's called us to do this, is making this possible and revealing Himself every step of the way. I hope you have a blessed night because ours has been beyond so this week! Every little bit has added and added and the prayers have come and come and kept coming and I'm so excited to say we are able to move to the next step in our Journey! We will begin our HomeStudy this week! We have already been working on some parts of it but now we're official. Step 2. We love you! Thank you! God is good...all the time!

Kings and Queens

Do you ever hear a song over and over and over and realize that God is just using it in a mighty way? I have to laugh at myself now because for months (like since last fall when Nick was apparently beginning to think about adoption) I have been hearing this song. It's Audio Adrenaline's "Kings and Queens" if you haven't listened to it, you should, and if you haven't seen the video you will absolutely love it!

So now that you possibly have tears in your eyes, or at least a huge smile on your face and the desire to finger paint,   you can get why this song means so much to me right now.
I hear it a  lot every single day multiple times between K-love Air1 and the Christian satellite station they play at work. God has used this song in so many ways and so this morning, as I was folding laundry (for 2 people mind you... dear Lord help me when we have this child or multiple kids here WHEW the Laundry will be the death of me) anyway as I was putting things away guess what came on. Yep you guessed it!
So as I type my laundry remains on my bed to be done later today tonight if we're lucky, and I just wanted each of you to hear this song and read the lyrics.

Audio Adrenaline "Kings and Queens" 

Little hands, shoeless feet, lonely eyes looking back at me

Will we leave behind the innocent to grieve

On their own, on the run when their lives have only begun

These could be our daughters and our sons

And just like a drum I can hear their hearts beating

I know my God won’t let them be defeated

Every child has a dream to belong and be loved

Chorus:

Boys become kings, girls will be queens

Wrapped in Your majesty 

When we love, when we love the least of these

Then they will be brave and free

Shout your name in victory

When we love when we love the least of these

When we love the least of these

Break our hearts once again

Help us to remember when

We were only children hoping for a friend

Won’t you look around these are the lives that the world has forgotten

Waiting for doors of our hearts and our homes to open

Chorus

God is reminding me everyday that I AM A QUEEN and how blessed I am to be called that. We want to love the least of these. Oh how I pray for our child, that he or she would be imagining right now what it would be like, feel like, sound like, to be loved, to be wanted, to be a KING or QUEEN. Oh man they do not know what's going to hit them when they get here. They will be treated like Royalty because we serve the greatest LORD of all!
God,
Thank you for taking me into your family. I was the yucky kid that the King would have kicked out of his Kingdom and you said nope, come here, I LOVE YOU and I WANT YOU. I stand in awe of my KING! I want to shout your name in Victory. Thank you for making me your daughter.

Enjoy the day!

Approved!

I have never bought anything new before (like a car, house, etc) so I feel like that great phrase "You've been approved" only shows up in the annoying form of mail cluttering my mail box on a weekly basis. But today was no April fools joke. We've been approved to begin our adoption process! We are a few $$$ away and yet closer to having our baby or babies home! Please pray for us as we begin to read over the 130 page... again no April fools....130 pages of info they sent us today as a "welcome to the family" note.
We are so excited I couldn't wait to call Nick and tell him. Then my mom. And luckily Ashlee Harb was with me in the office when I got the call and she controlled my squealing to a manageable level.
Today we go to sleep thankful for the ability to even be able to enter this process. Our God is so good! Our Church paid off it's building debt on Easter and it has been such a great reminder of the amazing DEBT that has been paid for us! Remember that as you sleep and wake tomorrow for His mercies are new each morning!

Why we're adopting...

So quite a few people have asked us "What made you all decide to adopt?"
And we have been so excited to let them in on the numerous reasons of why we feel called and why we're choosing to adopt. When explaining this to people we then proceed to get questions about different aspects of the process. Although I will admit we are no where near knowing every answer, God has provided us with enough of the answers that we feel assured of our calling to adopt. 

• So what made you decide to adopt? We have recently come to realize the tremendous picture that our marriage is in depicting Christ's love for his Bride the Church. In this we began to read more in depth into our own salvation and adoption by Christ as son's and daughters. We feel called to adopt and try to live out James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
• How do you know if you'd love them like you would your "own child"? We feel that Christ shows us his love and that he loves us as much as he did his own son, so the issue or loving a biological child more or less than an adopted child is not really an issue at all...we will love them the same.
• Are you going to tell them they are adopted? Yes, Christ makes it known that HE adopted us! And not to mention they could look a lot NOT like us. :) 

• Isn't it expensive to adopt? Yes but how much more expensive was HIS adoption of us...it cost him his own son's life on the cross! And yes we plan to fund raise and build things to cover the costs. 

• What if they don't want to leave and go with you? The way we see it is we are daily still kicking and screaming to go back to our sin and to the world and Jesus holds on to us and says "what I have is so much better for you" so we expect them to adjust but we once again see a tremendous picture in this.
• One more reason that we are following this path is a little more tricky to say for fear of hurting feelings. When we talked about it we think there is going to be something so powerful in Choosing to do this first over having biological children first. The reason this is a tricky explanation is that adoption for some people is a very tender subject and it is their second option. We want this child(ren) to know that we are choosing them first. In the words of our good friend Piper "Adoption in God’s mind was not Plan B. Adoption was not second best. It was planned from the beginning." and so we are trying to model Christ in this way as well, with making this our plan A and choosing adoption first, with the utmost respect for those who have chosen it as a second option or as a option at any point.  
• What agency are you using? We have chosen Lifeline Children's Services. They are based in Birmingham, AL and are a wonderful Christian, God guided ministry. They have an office in Nashville and have an amazing staff from what we have experienced so far. 
• Do you want a little baby? How old do you think they will be? Well we're not really sure. The more we try to put our "preferences" into this process the more they become small details. God seems to make it pretty clear that he is behind this entire thing and that it's not really going to be about our preferences of a boy over a girl or a healthy child vs a special needs child....it's going to be a child or children that God has for us and we desire to be satisfied in that. 
• Where are you looking to adopt from? Right now our hearts are drawn toward Columiba, although our ages and length of marriage limit us to only a few select countries. We feel a strong draw to South America since Nick's family is from Bolivia, but Bolivia has very difficult impossible guidelines for adopting and there hasn't been one in years from there. Columbia and a few countries in Africa seem to have much more stable programs and so we are choosing them.
• How can we help? First we ask that you pray for us in this journey. We need a support group like you wouldn't believe. We need people to tell us the good the bad and the ugly. We also need to begin raising financial support and would love it if you would pray about the opportunity to help us financially as well. 
• How long will it take? The process varies from country to country but they estimate 3-4 years for a healthy child and 18-24 months for a special needs or special characteristics case. We are praying about considering a child with a special need or a sibling group which is also considered a special need.

That being said...this is going to be a long process...So if you have other questions of us please feel free to ask. We are open books and want to be a picture of Christ as much as we can during this process. We have been given great advice so far about the ups and downs and rejoicing and heartbreak that all come along with this process.

We ask that you would begin to pray for us and our soon to be family. Please pray that God would guide us and our agency in making the right decisions and being the best stewards of God's resources.

Our Heart's Desire

Psalm 34:3 "Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together"

This is the verse that is inscribed on the inside of my engagement ring from Nick. It is the verse that is highlighted in my bible from the day he proposed. It is the verse that hangs in our office that a friend painted for us. It is a verse that reminds us of the picture we are painting with our marriage. 
Lord,
We want to Glorify you together, we want to praise you in this process. We want to involve family and friends and loved ones and strangers who will become friends. We want to pray, everyday, for your guidance, your provision, your steadfast love. We have felt your calling to adopt one of your children. We are Expecting great things from You. We have Open Arms to the Child you will choose for us. Lord, We lay all this in your hands. 
Amen.