Family Friday: "...Nothing is by chance..."

Phillip and Elaine were first called to adoption in 2000 as they sought to grow their family. They now have five daughers (three through adoption). After attending an "If You Were Mine" conference with the intent of starting a church adoption ministry, they were convicted that the Lord was calling them to adopt again.

Please listen is as they share God's almighty hand as He worked through their 4th adoption of Lily Rose from China with the help of Jeeah's Hope, one of Lifesong Church Adoption Fund Partners.

Our Lifesong grant was probably the biggest God-thing that occurred during the adoption process for Lily Rose. We met a couple, Skip & Ashley, via an online adoption community several years before beginning our adoption for Lily Rose. Ashley followed our blog during our adoption of our 5th daughter. Unbeknownst to me, she and a friend had began an adoption ministry called Jeeah's Hope, and were praying about who to award their first grant. Upon reading my blog about our financial plight, she contacted Lifesong.

I had no idea this was going on behind the scenes when we applied for our grant. Through Lifesong, they awarded their first grant to our family. That grant gave our Lily Rose, also a "critical heart child", a chance at life. By the worlds standards a coincidental meeting several years before began the process that would ultimately bring our daughter to her forever family. Of course, we knew that with the Lord, nothing is by chance and He had it all orchestrated before the foundation of the earth. We stand in awe of how He unites His families!

-Phillip & Elaine

Family Friday: "...confident in His ultimate provision..."

Meet Wes & Kellee.

Their adoption story began in Kellee’s prayer group. When a woman in her group came home from a mission trip to an orphanage in Beijing, China, she shared with their group about a special little boy with Spina Bifida who had captured her heart.  She asked for their group to pray that he could find a “forever family.”  Kellee and the rest of the women prayed diligently for this little boy for two years. 

During this time Kellee began to feel that God was telling her that they were to become his forever family.  She brought home a picture of him and as a family they prayed for him every night.  Over time, Wes & Kellee knew God was leading them in this direction. 

Three months ago, they were able to bring home 7-year-old, David, home into their forever family!

Listen in as they share their hearts...

God used a number of resources including Lifesong to enable our family to bring one of His dearly loved children into our home. We were aware of the financial burden of the adoption process when we started our journey, but we were confident in His ultimate provision for every expense every step of the way. Through His clear calling and faithful provision, we are also resting in the peace that He will continue to provide EVERYTHING we need. Not just monetarily, but perhaps more importantly, spiritually and emotionally.

We have faced many challenges since arriving home 3 months ago with our newest member: a (now) 7 year old boy with special needs. We are learning to love each other as we overcome a difficult start to this precious boy’s life. God is making Himself know to us in ways we never could have known Him had we not been obedient to His call on our family. We have been blessed to see Him work through friends, family, and even strangers. It has also been incredible to hear stories from other people who have reported being blessed and challenged as they heard the story of our adoption journey.

--Wes & Kellee

 

Family Friday: "...more & more in love..."

Thankful to share yet another story of God's faithfulness of setting the lonely into a family.

We were blessed to partner with Greg & Angie as they organized a Both Hands Project to raise funds for the adoption of their new daughter Joy, from China.

Please join us in prayer for this family who chose to grow their family through adoption! Thank God for his steadfast love in adopting each of us!

There have been many challenges throughout our adoption process. We are finally moving past survival mode and are growing more and more in love with our daughter, Joy, every day. We cannot imagine going through the process without the help of Both Hands and Lifesong and the many, many prayers of our friends and family. We are so thankful for Joy and we can’t imagine life without her in our family. We are thankful for the help we received to bring her home.

--Greg & Angie

Family Friday: "..sew him into our family, Lord..."

Meet Justin and Jaymi...

Because of their involvement in their local church's adoption ministry, God began to work on their hearts and lead them towards adoption. Through this ministry, Jaymi saw a picture of a little boy from Taiwan that captured her attention.  She says, “I had looked at a number of photos of waiting children before, but this time was different.  He stole my heart and I took this experience as a green light for our family to being the process of adopting.”

We at Lifesong felt blessed to partner with this special family as they brought home little Zac from Taiwan this spring. Please join us in listening in to their testimony of God's faithfulness...

We prayed specifically for God to "sew" our son into our family, even before we met. People who didn't even know us prayed those exact words over our adoption! That could only be from the heart of our loving Father who knows us all! We have been home with Zac for 6 months and it feels like he has been with us forever. He is sewn in!

--Justin & Jaymi

Family Friday: "...my heart was so full."

 

Please enjoy another Family Friday feauturing Evan, Carla and their new son, Ephrem, who they brought home into their FOREVER FAMILY this summer...

We were humbled and blessed to receive adoption support from Lifesong. Our adoption was quick because we were adopting a special needs child, which was amazing and also exhausting. We found the encouragement from Lifesong and Both Hands to be unexpected, but very welcomed support in our process. 

We began our adoption with $1,000 in the bank and a promise to ourselves to avoid going into more debt to finish our adoption. We didn’t know how we would do this, but we trusted in our God to provide. Only six weeks into the process, we received our referral for our son. Our agency said that they would expedite the process to get him home and into medical treatment. This was wonderful…and terrifying because it meant that we would have to pay the fees on a quicker timeline. Nevertheless, we trusted God to provide.

The financial support we were able to get from Lifesong/Both Hands was essential to bringing our son home. It provided for the travel costs (airfare, lodging) as well as some agency fees toward the end of the process. Without this support, we wouldn’t have gotten our son home in May/June without going into debt. When Ephrem and I walked out of security and got to hug Evan as a family of three for the very first time, my heart was so full. 

--Evan & Carla

"A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling." Psalm 68:5