Thank you for being my guest adoption blogger this week!!

God placed adoption on my heart at an early age.  In high school, I knew that one day I wanted to adopt. I had not only a love for children, but also a love for adoption.  I just thought it was a beautiful picture of what the Heavenly Father does for us, and I loved the idea of helping and loving a child who did not have a family.  When Jayson and I started dating, adoption was one of the things we discussed.

I was so very thankful that he thought adoption was great as well and did not have any concerns about growing our family this way one day in the future.  Once we were married, we were eager to start our family.  The Lord blessed us with two biological boys, but adoption was still on our hearts.  When our youngest son was just about 14 months, we decided it was time to move forward to adopt.  We met a family who adopted a little girl from Taiwan.  We did a little research and found an agency right in our home state of Florida that worked in Taiwan.  We qualified, made some calls, and decided to go ahead and get waiting (since it would take about 2 years to complete the process.)  The waiting was VERY hard.  Even though we knew going into it that we would have to wait, I was just very unsettled and not content waiting.  There were children all over the world that needed families RIGHT NOW.  I was ready to have a baby (and hopefully a girl) RIGHT NOW.  It just didn’t seem right to wait on a long waiting list when children were waiting.  So, we had waited over a year with not much movement in the Taiwan program and the need just didn’t seem to be very big there.  We started looking into other countries where there was a greater need.  Our friend’s friend had just adopted from Uganda and was trying to place some of the children she met while there with forever families.  After getting in touch, we soon learned that God was directing us to Uganda.  There were children waiting for homes.  We would not have to sit on a waiting list.  We got to work on updating our home study and gathering all the information that would be needed for our dossier.  We were hoping for a baby girl.  After two boys, my heart was longing for a daughter.  But we were told that we needed to be open to either gender, and we agreed that as much as we were praying and hoping for a daughter, it wasn’t about us.  It was about a child in need of a family, and we decided that if God wanted us to have another son then that would be just fine with us.

When our paperwork was complete and we were just waiting on our I171h approval, we were matched with our precious DAUGHTER!  We couldn’t believe that we were going to be the parents of a little baby girl. Seeing her face for the first time over the computer was amazing and thankfully we only had to wait a few months before we were able to travel to Uganda and meet our newest addition.  We were in love with her right away, and we also fell in love with Uganda.  The culture, the beauty, the lifestyle, the friends, the food-we LOVED it all and miss it now.  We are already anxious to return, whether it be for Missions trips, vacations, or hopefully another adoption journey.  We have been home with our little girl for over 5 months now, and we are enjoying every minute of parenting her.  She has grown so much and is doing so well.  She is walking (almost running) everywhere!  She loves to eat!  She loves playing with her big brothers.  She loves to be cuddled.  She does not like to have her hair done, but I am still trying.  She is our daughter and we love her so much.  We cannot imagine life without her.  She has brought us so much joy, and we our honored that we get to be her parents.  We will forever be grateful to those that helped us in this process, and our lives will never be the same.  Uganda will forever be a part of our lives.  We love this beautiful country that gave us our beautiful daughter.  We love how God directed us, all the way across the world in the U.S., to our daughter in Uganda.  It is truly a miracle.

Current Update:  Kai has now been home over 10 months and is doing so well.  She has grown a ton and is so happy and active. She loves running around the house and playing with her big brothers.  In September, I was so blessed to be able to return to Uganda.  I went with Sixty Feet on an amazing missions trip and made many new friends and spent time with some of the sweetest children ever.  I would encourage everyone to check out this amazing organization and consider going on a future missions trip.  You will forever be changed and it would be so meaningful to the staff in Uganda and the children residing in remand centers there.  I also was able to visit the orphanage where our daughter once was and able to show the amazing ladies that care for the children there how much she has grown through a picture book.  We are excited to begin the process of adopting our next child from Uganda.  Our home study is scheduled for December 12 and we look forward to seeing how God works to bring us our the next Harvey.  We can’t wait to return to Uganda in 2012!  Please feel free to follow our journey here.

Alison, thank you for being my guest adoption blogger this week!

When Mark and I got married we very intentionally put the word “choose” in our vows.  We wanted to declare that out of all the people we could have chosen, we chose each other to love… no matter what.  We wanted to say that love is a choice, not a feeling.  Regardless of what we feel about each other, we are committed to that person, we are committed to loving each other in the way that God has loved us.

How does this relate to adoption?  Adoption, in the same way, is about choosing to love someone… no matter what.  Just like finding our future spouse, falling in love, and filling out paperwork to make our marriage official, so we find our future child, fall in love through pictures and updates, and fill out paperwork to make this “marriage,” called adoption, official.

The glue that holds our marriage together is not feelings.  It is a strong commitment, a choice, to love that person, even when they don’t seem loveable.  Adoption is tough.  It will not be easy to learn to live with this new child in our life.  But it was hard learning to live with my new husband!  God takes a strange man, puts him into my life, and then I have to learn how to live and love him.  In the same way, God has picked out a strange child, will put them into my life, and I will learn to live and love them.  I am not saying this in a bad way, just that it will be different than the previous norm.  And that it IS possible to love the person that starts out as a stranger.

Some people will say that giving birth to a child is natural, and falling in love with that biological child is natural.  But then when that child is older, they say things like, “well, I’m stuck with him, I don’t have a choice.” or “I guess she’s stuck with us as her parents.  She didn’t have a choice.“  How can you say that about a child?  You always have the choice to love that child… no matter what.  Maybe those who never adopt may never truly understand the concept of loving a child by choice.  Or maybe they do have a glimpse of what it means, through their experience with marriage.   But our very first child will be coming to us because we choose to have them in our life, and because God had chosen them for our family.

I want our child to know that they are chosen… they are loved… no matter what.  I think it almost makes sense to make the same kind of commitment to your child that you do for your spouse.  Here’s part of what we vowed to each other, written out for our child:
Dear Child, as we commit to being your parents, we choose to love you in every circumstance that we face, no matter what our financial status or social standing, and regardless of your physical, mental, or emotional state.  We choose to be loyal to you, to serve you – putting your interests before our own – to honor and respect you, speaking good of you and not evil.  We choose to provide for your physical and spiritual well-being, to the best of our ability, in God’s strength, until we are separated by death.

As I think about what lies ahead for our family and the challenges to come, I am encouraged to apply my commitment of love to my child.  This stranger-child may not like our family at first.  This child may want to try everything they can to fight and run away from anything scary… including someone that may want to love them.  This child may not love me back for the first couple of months, maybe not for a couple of years.  But remember, love isn’t just a feeling.

This causes me to pause and consider the amazing love of my Heavenly Father.  He is a Father who has chosen me for His family.  I did not love Him at first.  He chose me when I was hating Him.  He chose to love me… no matter what.
I am one of God’s elect “who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood” (1 Peter 1:2 ).

He has adopted me into His family, He has made me His child, He has called me by His name.   

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1) What an example to follow as we choose to love our child in the many years to come…. no matter what!

Alison’s Blog

Thank you for being my guest adoption blogger this week! Your story is so inspiring!

This adoption was an adoption of faith-almost from day one!  We signed on with our agency in February and were excited to again add to our family through the miracle of adoption. Greg lost his job in October, along with the $5000 adoption credit his company would give. Yikes!  There were so many questions at that time–where would he find a job? Would we have to move? What about the adoption? Did we hear God wrong?  We chose to have faith and believe God had something in store for us and He did! Greg took a job with our local food bank which lines up with his heart for helping the vulnerable! We were blessed as he only had to go two weeks without a job.

We continued to wait for our referral.

In March we received the referral of a beautiful baby boy whose name means “Praise.” We were excited and quickly fell in love. We received a court date for the first week of June. The Monday of the week were leaving, I received that DREADED phone call.  Our little one’s mother came to court and changed her mind and took him home. My first emotional reaction? I am done. Adoption is too hard. I can’t stand the emotional roller coaster anymore.  I AM DONE! 

Even in the midst of this God was working and moving. My caseworker called my husband first and told him to come home. A friend was walking up the walk for a play date minutes after I hung up. (little did she know it was going to be a cry fest!)  We cried, prayed, asked many why’s and just sat in silence. 

As we continued to pray God asked me, “what is adoption about? You or the child that needs a home?”  I began to realize, (I knew it down deep but it finally rose to the surface of my heart) that this was a good thing.   If this little baby’s mom changed her mind and could raise him–than that is who he should be with!  A friend emailed me words that comforted my heart “a baby is back in the arms of his mother tonight.”  How could I be upset with that?  Was I grieving?  Yes–for the loss of the child who we thought would be our son. However, I was so happy that this child could be raised by the mother that carried him, named him, and loved him. 

We were also blessed to have friends there when she picked up him from the orphanage that took pictures of them together and told us that she loved him and he would be okay.  Our hearts will forever be linked to theirs. There was a purpose and reason for all of it. Little “Praise” will be thought of and in our prayers for the rest of our lives.  He was not to be our son, but he will not be forgotten.

Fast forward a couple of days and we received another referral of a tiny little boy, Teshale, whose name means “Better One.” I can’t even begin to tell you how that confirmed everything for us. God has blessed us immensely and looking back we can see how everything worked according to His plan.  Teshale needed to be home quickly. Because we were already in the court system, the gracious judge just postponed our court date for us.  As my caseworker said, “you are ready and he needs to be home quickly–a perfect situation.”

July 15 we were in Ethiopia for court and met our son. He was our son! The bond was immediate and we knew this was the child God had for our family. We came home September 10^th ( after an amazingly quick for clearing Embassy) and are doing well. Adoption is hard. It is emotional.  It is full of bumps, curves, and road blocks.

It is worth it.

I now have so much more of a picture of what Christ endured for me. I have a glimpse of His heartache and passion. As I sat and cried over that first little boy I imagined how God weeps over those that He longs to have as His children.

God, continue to break my heart for the things that break Yours.
My Blog:
www.forsuchasthese.blogspot.com

www.grassrootsheroes.org

Awesome Slow Cooker Pot Roast

By: Brenda Arnold
“This is a very easy recipe for a delicious pot roast. It makes its own gravy. It’s designed especially for the working person who does not have time to cook all day, but it tastes like you did. You’ll want the cut to be between 5 and 6 pounds.”

Over the past year, my son and the Pirates have raised over $20,000 for their well project in Chuko, Ethiopia. Take a peek here. They even got to visit the community and see their well site this summer. This is no longer a dream, it’s a reality for this tiny village.

Would you donate $5 today to help complete their goal. October 29th is their silent auction event and even if you can’t join us in real life, please consider buying a ticket. 100% of the ticket proceeds goes directly to the well project.

DONATE HERE!!!

Once upon a time there was a group of Pirates that didn’t have anything to do. Arrrrrr they were tired of the same old lazy land lubbin’plundering, homework, sports practice, and chores. Well, the Pirates who didn’t do anything decided to make a difference in Ethiopia and dig a well. They were good at digging, but had neverrrr “piratin”such an adventure before!

I’m one proud mom of one of those crazy Pirates who arrrrrr digging a well in Ethiopia- please email me if you have any questions about how you can jump on board!! The Pirates have teamed up with Julie and Rob Neal’s Dig Deep Project and A Glimmer of Hope and are working hard to raise the final $60,000 as a school to bring fresh, clean water to Chuko Weyama. In fact, at the time of print, their total booty earnings $21,325!!!

You can participate simply by donating to the well project - DONATE HERE

A little information about A Glimmer of Hope: first of all, 100% OF ALL DONATIONS go directly to funding Pirates Dig A Well (even credit card and Paypal fees are reimbursed by Glimmer and back to the projects!) Glimmer’s mission is to lift women, children and families out of extreme poverty in rural Ethiopia. Using an entrepreneurial model developed by the organization, it provides clean water, schools, health clinics and micro finance loans. Over the last 10 years, A Glimmer of Hope has improved 2.5 million lives. On behalf of those who lives are forever transformed by your generosity, thank you.

We are the pirates we don’t do anything

We just stay at home and lie around

And if you ask us to do anything

We’ll just tell you, we don’t do anything… but now we are DIGGING A WELL IN ETHIOPIA!!

I really do know the real Jack Bauer!  Two years ago, I went on my very first mission trip with Bauer’s team (aka Steve Ijames) and ministered in Haiti.  This trip changed my life and ultimately God has opened the door for me to lead mission with Visiting Orphans! He’s a fantastic leader, and it only took me begging him one time to convince him to lead with me again to Haiti January 20th- 27th 2012!!  Take a peek at a short clip of us a year ago, planning our 2nd trip back to Haiti to bring formula post-earthquake with my church family.  (He’s a hoot!)

I have 6 spots open for “Simply Love Haiti” 2012 Mission Trip!!

Apply here- Visiting Orphans

Do you know the #1 reason why people are not serving in Haiti?  The F.E.A.R. of earthquakes, violence, and disease are keeping the numbers down low for Haiti Mission Trips.  Well, I want to break the mold and DO IT AFRAID!!!!!  I’m bringing a co-leader who has traveled extensively throughout Haiti and has built a relationship with the police in Port-au-Prince… they trust this guy!  We will travel through Haiti with the best of the best!!  My new Visiting Orphans “Hope for Haiti” mission trip in 2012 will change your life- I promise!

Tell me what your thinking?

Jack Bauer’s Bio:

Major has been a police officer for the past 29 years, and recently retired as an assistant chief with the Springfield, Missouri Police Department.  Ijames is a graduate of the 186th FBI National Academy, and has a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice, and a master’s degree in Public Administration. During his law enforcement tenure Ijames served in, supervised, and commanded a variety of assignments including uniformed patrol, investigations, undercover narcotics, and Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT).  Ijames created the less lethal force (impact projectiles, chemical munitions, noise flash diversionary devices, TASER) instructor/trainer programs for the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), and is the author of their model policies and position papers involving these technologies. Ijames has offered related training on behalf of the IACP and the U.S. Department of State across the United States, Canada, and in 33 other countries including such places as Tanzania, Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti, El Salvador, Yemen, Pakistan, and East Timor. Ijames has served on a number of post event use of force investigative commissions, most recently in New York City and Boston, has reviewed approximately 1,500 police use of force cases for agencies of varied size including the Los Angeles and Chicago police departments, and provides police litigation consulting in a wide variety of resistance control and related areas.