How we chose our agency and country

The decision to adopt came quickly for us. God knew his divine plan for us but the opportunity came suddenly for us, and we were not expecting the opportunity to come in the way, and at the time that it did. Don't hear me wrong, we are really excited about the opportunity to adopt but the way that it came about was just a shock.

We had not really done any research on adoption agencies before this point. We made the decision to start the adoption process and then we had to decide what agency we were going to use. Some people know the country that they want to adopt from and they chose their agency based on the country that they want to adopt from. We had no idea where we wanted to adopt from. We decided that we wanted to approach all the decisions about the adoption prayerfully. We made the decision that we wanted to chose an agency that we trusted. We put a lot of time and prayer into the decision of what agency to use, we talked to friends of ours that had adopted to see what agencies they used and the experience that they had with those agencies.

After a lot of research and prayer we decided to use Lifeline Children's Services in Birmingham, AL. Once we chose an agency we started praying through all the countries that were available for us to adopt from through Lifeline, including both international and domestic adoption. We both felt very clearly that God was leading us to adopt internationally at this time. We are not ruling out domestic adoption for the future but we just felt very clearly about the decision to adopt internationally right now.

Lifeline had a list of countries that you can adopt from through their agency. We started praying about each one of those countries and looking at the requirements to adopt from those countries. Each country has it's own requirements for adoption in that country. When we read the requirements for Uganda, Africa we fit each requirement. As we read about Uganda and prayed about adopting from Uganda, we were both filled with such peace. We knew right then that we were supposed to adopt a baby from Uganda. The age range for our adoption is 3 months old to 2 years old. So, our baby will fall in that age range somewhere.

We sent in our application to Lifeline and a few days later we got our acceptance letter via email. Matt and I had run an errand to TJ Maxx and we were standing in the checkout line, when we got the email. Matt read it to me as we were waiting in line and we had our own public moment of rejoicing and praising God for His blessings. We were able to pay for our items and get out to the car before I lost it. I just sat in the car and cried because I was so happy.

I told Matt, "This has got to be what it is like to find out your pregnant. I don't even know this child, I don't know if they are a boy or a girl, I don't know what their personality is like, I don't know anything about this person, but I'm already in love with this child!" We know that God already has a child picked out for us and we know that one day soon we will get to meet this child.

Sorry this post is so long, but I am trying hard to get our blog up to date. Thanks for bearing with me as I'm trying to explain our thought process and decisions that we have made up to this point. God has bless us so much through this whole process and we want to be able to share that with others, so that they can see how good God is.

Our Adoption Story

Our story of adoption really starts when Matt and I were dating. Adoption was something that we talked about once we realized that our relationship was heading towards marriage. We both talked about that we had an interest in adoption and that it could be a possibility of how we would grow a family.

After we had been married for a couple years, we decided that we wanted to go ahead and try to start a family. We wanted to start early because we knew that we may struggle getting pregnant. So we started trying to have a baby. After about a year with no results we went to see a doctor. After several doctors appointments and tests, I started fertility drugs. We were on the fertility drugs for about 6 months with no results. My doctor decided that he had done all that he could do and that we needed to go see a specialist. The closest fertility specialist to us was in Mobile, AL. So we traveled over to meet with the doctor and discuss our possibilities.

After Matt and I left that meeting we decided that we had a lot of decisions to make. We struggled with all the possibilities and knew that we had to draw the line somewhere. We could spend all of our time and money spent persuing fertility treatments, if we wanted to. Also, we could put all of our resources into getting pregnant and God may not ever bless us with a child. After spending a lot of time in prayer and discussing the options we decided that we needed to take a break for a while.

After several months of taking a break from all the fertility drugs and treatments, Matt and I felt really at peace with our decision and we were also starting to come around to the idea that we may never have a biological child. During all of these years of decisions and struggles adoption was always a topic of conversation. We would talk about adoption and if we felt as if God was calling us to adopt a child during this time. We never felt at peace about pursuing adoption at that time. I started to pray more consistently about adoption. I prayed that God would help us see when the time was right and that He would provide the finances for an adoption. We knew that the finances would be an issue for us, but I prayed that God would show us areas in our personal budget that we could cut back on to raise money for an adoption, I prayed that God would give me ideas of how to raise money, and I prayed that He would provide the finances.

God heard my prayers and He provided the funds for our adoption. God provided the funds in such a way that it was a complete shock to us. We took some time to pray about the decision to start the adoption process. We felt very clearly during this time that God was telling us the start the process.

God has blessed us tremendously during this whole time of struggle and decisions. We know that we are doing exactly what God had lead us to do during this time. We are taking the whole process one step at a time and we are trying to be patient while everything is being worked out according to God's plan.

Update

We have had a lot going in the last few months. Well, really since May. I feel like we have been going non-stop since the end of May. We spent most of our summer traveling to see family and making preparations for the next school year. We really had a good summer and got to spend lots of time with family.

We also made some major changes to the BSU building at the Perk campus, which included lots of painting, removing wall paper, and redecorating. It was a lot of work and all of our free time in the summer went to the work that needed to be done at the building. I am so glad that all the work is done and I'm never taking wall paper down again! I didn't realize removing wallpaper is tough work!

We also made a big announcement this summer. We are adopting a baby! It's been a while since we first made our announcement, but I wanted to update our blog and be able to tell more of the details on here. We are really excited and looking forward to day that we get to meet our baby.

We took family pictures this summer and this is one of the pictures that we are able to take.

Just a heads up, you may see this picture on a christmas card too. So here are some of the details that we know. I'll share more about our story in later posts but for now I'll just share some of the major details that we know. We are adopting from Uganda. We have not specified wether we would like a boy or a girl. My thought process behind this was that you don't get to choose when you are pregnant, so why should I get to choose. We will be fine either way. We know that God already knows who our child is and we will get to meet him or her very soon. We have requested the age range of 3 months old to 2 years old. Our agency has given us a timeline of 9 to 15 months, but we know that any numbers of things could prolong our timeline. So, we are just praying that God protects us from those delays.

This is just some of the major things that happened this summer and I will be sharing more about our story at a later time. Check back in the next few days to read more about our story and where we feel like God is leading us.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas...

Before we left for Thanksgiving I went ahead and started decorating for Christmas, so we could come back home and it would all be done already. I love decorating for Christmas because I collect stuff all year and then when it comes time to pull everything out it's like Christmas because I forget about everything that I've have.

Here is our tree. I did the netting and ribbon a little different this year and I'm not really sure how I feel about it and I'm too lazy to do it again. Let me know what you think, and it won't hurt my feelings if you don't like it because M already told me he didn' t like it.

Here are some other views of our place with our Christmas decorations. It takes me a while to figure out where to put everything.

The navity is really special to me. I got it from my grandmother, who collected all the pieces from Avon a long, long time ago. She gave it to me a couple years ago and I love it! The table cloth is new this year. It was an after Christmas clearance sale at Target.

I love to see other people's decorations. So now I want to see your Christmas decorations. So take some time and post a few pictures of your decorations and some of the traditions that your family does.

Black Friday

We made it back from Thanksgiving. We had a good week in AR with our families, but it is good to be back and sleeping in our own bed. I didn't take any pictures to document our Thanksgiving this year. I need to be better about taking pictures.

This year Thanksgiving was spent with M's family. We had a great time and lots of really good food. One of things that M's mom likes to do is to participate in Black Friday shopping. So Wednesday and Thursday when the sale ads came in the paper we would all sit down and go through everything that we needed to get or stores we wanted to go to. This year our big Black Friday stop was at Walmart. I've gone shopping on Black Friday before, but I have never gone to a store and waited for a specific item. M's mom was looking for a couple specific things at Walmart so we all went.

I didn't need anything special so I mostly got to observe everything. Once the sale got started M and I had so much fun just walking around, dodging people, and picking up a few items that we saw. Here are some of our purchases. (I can't show everything because some it is Christmas presents)

I think we got some pretty good deals. M got these packs of undershirts for $7 each and I got the sheets for $20. We had a good time experiencing Black Friday madness, but I'm glad I wasn't trying to get anything specific.

For my family

We went to go visit our families recently and I had several people inform me that I need to update my blog. I was starting to question if I should even keep our blog or just get rid of it. I feel like we don't always have the most exciting information to share, but recently I've come to the realization that it's ok if we don't exciting information to share. People just want to keep up with us, even in the mundane everyday stuff. So I'm going to try and be better about blogging.

School started in August and we are having a really good year so far. We have a really great group of students and we are really excited about what God is doing on our campus and our three other campuses. This year has a totally different feel for Matt and I. This is now M's third year on his campus. One of things that we learned over the summer is that we can not force God to move, but what we can do is step back and let God do what He wants. It's not about us and what we do, but it is about Him and all we can do is point students to Him and pray that students develop a burning desire to get closer to God and His Word.

Here is a picture of our first event of the year. We did a cookout and had a huge slip-n-slide! It was so much fun. Matt and I's life group from church came to help us and it was a huge blessing. We were able to meet new students and hangout with students because our small group was handling all the food and programing details.

We have been super busy since school started, but it has been a good busy. So we definately can't complain. We are starting to feel more and more at home in Mississippi. We have made some really good friends and they make it easier to be here and so far away from our families.

We did just get home from a trip to visit families and it was so good to see them. I wasn't ready to come back, but I know that the holidays are right around the corner. My sister drove back to MS with us to spend a couple extra days with us and it was so great to have her here. I took her to the airport this morning and I miss her already. Thanks for coming to visit us sis!! I love you!

I'm sure there is alot more that I could share about our lives right now, but I think I better wait. I better ease back into this blogging thing!!

...When I stood condemed to death He took my place....

We have been really busy the last couple weeks, but I'm not complaining. We have had a lot of fun! Two weeks ago Matt and I had the opportunity to go to a Gaithers Vocal Band Concert with our friends J.P. and Lacie. J.P. is a big fan of the Gaithers (big may be an understament!). M and I had never been to a Gaither concert and really we hadn't ever listened to much gospel music, so we really didn't know what to expect. We had a great time! We got some good pictures of the all the artists that performed including The Isaacs, Buddy Green, David Phelps, and many others.

This is a picture of Bill Gaither and the Vocal Band. The first part of the concert was my favorite. All the artists take turns singing their songs that they are known for doing and then the second half everyone joins together and all sing together.

This is at the very end of the concert. If you don't know, the man in the front is Bill Gaither. Honestly, I didn't know what he looked like before the concert. I'm really upset that I didn't get a picture of the four of us at the concert. I meant to snap one but I just forgot. We had a really good time listening to all the artists and we worshiped right along side of them. If we had the chance to go to another concert we would go, but next time we would have a better idea of what to expect and maybe could sing along with everyone. So if you have the chance to go, definately go!