Friday
Jun252010
T-Shirt Give-Away!
Friday, June 25, 2010 at 10:29AM Check out the new Lifesong t-shirts...and YOUR chance to win!
Mens:
Womans:
So what do you have to do to win a free t-shirt? Post a comment (with email address) on our blog or the Lifesong Facebook fan page before Monday, June 28th, 5:00pm sharing a brief experience of how God worked in the waiting...
From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him. Isaiah 64:4
Reader Comments (29)
Through this entire process (since Feb 2009 we began the paperwork to adopt from Ethiopia) its helped us see in a stronger way our biological children as Gods children he has given to us as a gift. In my ignorance it was hard at times to surrender them to God because of all the physical pain I went through to deliver them and they came from MY body, etc...! Through this and all the realities of raising a child that was born by another and would they reject me at the end of all this and so on?! I realized though that there is no difference between an elect biological and an elect adopted child. Ultimately it is God who gives....no matter the way they come into my life. I have committed my biological children to the Lord in a whole new way and knowing that they are all His children. I am given them...however they come into my life....for a season...to raise and teach them about Jesus Christ. If God changed our path right now...He has taught me a lesson I will prayerfully never forget!
Waiting a year before officially deciding this is the right time for us to adopt and now waiting 7 month so far to bring our daughter home has greatly strengthened our faith. In the process we have a much deeper understanding of who our Abba Father is and His love for us. We are also growing more in love with our daughter-to-be by having to wait and having all the tasks to do to be ready for her. It is teaching us to wait on the Lord for his perfect timing!
Waiting on the Lord. Isn't that what we are always doing? Every day is a new day and we wait to see what He has in store for us! :) As for adoption, we adopted our 4 year old daughter from China a year and a half ago. We waited 7 months for her referral after we were logged in (we adopted her from the Waiting Child list) and then had to wait an additional 5 months after we saw her beautiful face! The Lord taught us so many things while we waited. The most important thing we learned was just trusting Him. Trusting Him with the timing. Trusting Him with the finances. Trusting Him that yes, she was ours and He meant for her to be. Trusting Him that we WOULD at long last go and bring her home. We became stronger as a family and stronger in what believed was the Lord's purpose for our family. And yes, we learned to REALLY trust the Lord in ALL things!
Today, we are waiting (trying ever-so patiently) for our first foster child(ren). And as each day passes, we lean on the Lord and His strength and trust in His promises for us and the children He brings to us! Yay God!!
We have been waiting for almost exactly 1 year since our papers were sent to Ethiopia. We are waiting to be matched with siblings 5 years or younger. Although I would never call the wait "easy", we have felt called to spend this wait preparing and using our energy and passion to do some of things we might not have the time or energy for once we have our kids home.
The first thing we feel called to do is to Join Team World Vision and encourage a group from our church to do the same. So, my husband and myself along with my 60 year old parents and approximately 20 others from our church are running the Chicago Marathon or Chicago Half Marathon this fall! Team World Vision raises money for deep, clean water wells in Africa, in communities in Kenya and Ethiopia. Our goal is to raise $13,000 as a team! So it's such an encouragement to do something for a counrty where our future kids live!
The second thing is to get an orphan minsitry started at our church. We are well on our way with a great team gathered and approval from our Elders. Our pastor also plans on doing a series on the book "The Hole in our Gospel" this fall. We hope to launch our ministry this fall and are so excited and blessed to see how God is working in this ministry!
We have also been so blessed financially during this time. We worked on raising funds last summer. We had a fund at our church from the garage sale that we held at the church. Since then God has provided in wonderful ways and we feel God would want us to use the money to help others adopt. We have had 2 other families start the adoption process in the last month (I've been at this church for over 10 years and haven't know any families who have started an adoption). So basically we were able to start a small adoption fund a year before it was needed! Also, Ethiopia has also recently required two trips instead of one. Only days before this new regulation came about, my husband received a sizable and totally unexpected bonus from work (hasn't had one in over 9 years). The amount is almost exactly the cost of two additional plane tickets! What a blessing to have a God that cares about the details and provides sometimes even before we know the need! Praise God!
We adopted siblings from Kazakhstan just last September. It is hard to believe it has been almost one year since we first met our kids in August of 2009.
We took our first steps towards adoption in 2006. We started in Ukraine and ended up in Kazakhstan. We started out thinking we were going to adopt a couple of toddlers we ended up with a 9 year old and a 6 year old. We started out thinking we would be done within 18 months, it took 40+ months.
While we waited God was changing our hearts and changing our expectations from what we wanted to what He wanted. It was His plan "A". I think one of the biggest works God did on both of us was to bring us to the point where we would be willing to consider "older" children.
Our first referral was for siblings who were over 5. We passed thinking we wanted to adopt younger children. When the second referral came, it was for a little boy, we wanted a girl, but we took it anyway knowing we should, but not knowing how God would work it out for us.
That little boy, Vadim, was bait I think. God used him to teach us trust. When we arrived at the orphanage for the older kids in Kichiri, Vadim had already been adopted by another couple. We were shown just what we asked for - siblings, one of which is a girl. When we met Alyosha and Zhenya we knew why we had waited, they were part of God's plan "A" for our life.
As it turns out, Zhenya wasn't available to be adopted until June of last year, 2 months before we arrived to take her and her older bother home. We waited because Zhenya wasn't ready to be "delivered" yet.
God has used this waiting time to soften the hearts of our family towards the idea of adoption, to open our hearts as we trust God to provide for this adoption and our family, and to allow more opportunities for the gospel to be preached as we explain why it is WORTH the WAIT to bring a baby from afar to our home.
yestoadoption@gmail.com
James 1:27 (New Living Translation)
Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.
I love that verse!
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