One Step Closer

This has been a great and exciting week for us! My family was here for graduation and my brother Hunter proposed to his girl friend Mary Beth! We are so very excited for them and had a wonderful time getting to meet and celebrate with her sweet family. We also got to see a lot of good friends over graduation weekend and watch a lot of others graduate!

It has also been an exciting week on the adoption front. We turned all of our paperwork into our agency, it has been approved and is being translated now. We got an email on Thursday asking us to pick between two regions--one that has a normal wait time and one that will move a lot faster! We chose the latter and have been working hard to get everything in order in case this process goes very quickly.

It is crazy for us to imagine that we could have this child home soon. We know that anything can happen or change along the way, but we are definitely getting excited about moving ahead with this journey. We aren't really sure a specific timeline, but as our paperwork gets to Russ*a we should get a little bit more information as we go.

This has been such an incredible journey for us so far and one of the biggest blessings has been having it documented by one of the students at the University where we work. Kathryn did this in several different ways but one of them was a video that tells our story up until about a week ago.

I hope that you enjoy this little piece of our lives!

Happy Birthday!

Today is Josh's 26th Birthday!

I am so very thankful for a husband who
                ....loves the Lord and puts him first in our marriage
                ...is my best friend
                ...puts his family first
                ...loves his friends and investing in them
                ...lets me serve alongside him in ministry
                ...works tirelessly on all of our adoption paperwork
                ...gets my heart for the least of these
                ...is passionate about fighting for marriage and families
                ...loves Alabama football as much as I do

I love you baby!

In honor of Josh's birthday, we have set up our first fundraiser! We are hoping that we will be able to bring our child home during Josh's 26th year and so we are asking for a one time gift of $26 to be able to do that. The link below will direct you to the fundraiser:

Help Us Bring Our Baby Home

Many of you have already given and we are very grateful! You have no idea how much your support means to us, both through prayer and financial support!

To Endure

In Russell Moore's book, Adopted for Life, he makes the following statement: "God often doesn't explain his providence to us, past or future. He asks us to trust him, to endure, and to know in the words of the old gospel song, that we'll 'understand it better by and by.' Sometimes, though, he grants us a glimpse in the middle of it all of how he's silently working toward something joyous." 

Yesterday was one of those days...the days that we endure. Everyone has told us that it would be hard. But yesterday was one of those days where it just didnt make sense. I know that adopting this child is the Lord's will. So I just don't understand why it is so complicated. Why can't this process just be easy? Why can't things fall into place? 

I dont understand. I dont get it. But my heart tells me to trust...to endure...to fight for this child. We cannot quit. No matter how discouraged I feel because I cannot see a light at the end of all of this paperwork, the Lord has promised this child, chosen this child. Our God never fails. 

Today I choose to trust, to endure. And I pray that someday soon we will see a glimpse of the joy that is to come.