Finishing the Race

This year has been a long road. We have saved and sewed and sold and planned and prayed and felt defeated and prayed some more and then were blessed abundantly. I have read several times that the road to adoption feels like a marathon. It is long. And hard. And there are times you want to give up. But, I guess anyone that has ran a marathon knows, it is so worth it when you cross that finish line (or so I hear...) .

So, even though we are so much closer to being fully funded than we were a week ago, we still have a few thousand dollars to go. So, here is our next fundraising effort..........

CHOSEN....Marathon for Adoption

Chosen is a half and full marathon in Gruene on October 29 and is an incredible way for people to fundraise for their own adoptions and also a means of bringing awareness to adoption itself!! It's really cool and this is how it works......

- Mitch and I are both running the Chosen half marathon. We have created a "team" called "Team One Less" (original, I know).  If you are a runner or even a marathon walker, then if you sign up to run under our Team name, your registration fees go to us! If you get your friends to run with you, they can sign up under our Team name as well and their fees go to us too! Now, I know that some of you have signed up or are planning to sign up for the San Antonio Rock n Roll marathon in November. And I know that race is really fun and all. BUT....this race you would be running for a reason!! To help us bring our child home!! (have I played the guilt trip up enough? Or should I keep going?....). Oh, and this race is quite a bit cheaper. AND it is in Gruene which is a super fun town. AND we are really fun people. AND we can wear matching shirts. (oh no...I think I went too far....)

- If you are NOT a runner/walker, then we have a way for you to help too! Click on the link above for the race and then go to the donate tab. There is a way for you to make a donation using paypal to our specific team (TEAM ONE LESS....don't forget to put that part) which is also tax deductible!! How easy is that?!

We are really excited! It will be both of our first half marathons. Mitch will fly through it no problem. They might carry me across the finish line on a stretcher. But, I WILL cross that finish line :)

So far we have a few precious, faithful friends committing to spend the next several weeks training and then running alongside us in October. We are so grateful for their support and love!! It's not too late for you!! You still have time to buckle down and train! 13.1 miles is easier than you think (or at least that's what I am telling myself right now...)

Will you run with us too? Or help support our Team? Or will you pray for us to cross that finish line? :)

Let me know if you plan on signing up!!! The more the merrier! We can CARRY each other across!!

God is a-mazing

Shut. the. front. door.

I pressed "publish post"on my last blog entry and two minutes later walked out the door with the family to meet some friends for dinner.

We came back from that dinner with $10,000 towards our adoption. Yes, I just said that.

Our precious (and unnamed...by their request) friends felt God's leading to help us and were unbelievably obedient. They hadn't read my post. They hadn't asked how much money we still needed. They knew a little bit about where our hearts are right now. But more importantly they knew that God had called them to action. And they obeyed. Big time.

I wish I could shout their names from the rooftops giving them honor for their obedience and love.
But they are choosing to allow us to give God all the glory.

We have some really good friends. And I know God is pleased with them.

And we now have an almost fully funded adoption account. For real. Nothing stopping us now. Get outta our way dumb Satan. We don't have time for the likes of you.

God is amazing. And we are grateful.

One year later.......

I have sat here with this blank screen and blinking cursor many times in the last several months. But it always resulted in me not finding the right words, getting sad, discouraged, confused...and then just closing up the computer. Feeling defeated.

It has been almost exactly ONE year since Mitch and I had that talk driving in our car. The one where he said randomly, "So, you know how we talked about adoption awhile ago? Well, I think I am on board." I vividly remember that day thinking, "This is it! We are doing this! By this time next year, we will have a baby girl from Ethiopia in our family and home with us."

So, here we are. One year later. No waiting list. No referral. No baby. 

This year has been a crazy roller coaster. If you have followed our story at all you have probably noticed that. And possibly have even grown tired of hearing about it. But if you haven't or if you are just really in need of some torturous recapping.......

-We decided on Ethiopia in September. Researched and contacted agencies. Found one we liked but were told our addition on our house had to be completely done before we could move forward. So we waited. But the money to finish our addition wasn't there. Actually money for our life in general was seeming to get more and more sparse. But we were faithful in saving and raising money. I was convinced Ethiopia was the place for us. And that specific agency was the way to go.

- Found out that agency had been wrong. Our social worker ultimately wouldn't care about the finality of our house, but rather about the emotional health of our family (and to clarify, of course wouldn't want rusty old nails laying around or anything...). So, we decided to find another agency and start everything again. We found an agency and a social worker. Then (and I need to clarify here that we really hadn't done any important paperwork stuff up to this point, just general things that hadn't required any fees) our new agency informed us that Ethiopia was slowing their adoptions down from about 50 a day to 1 or 2. So families would now be expected to wait up to 3 years for their child. That was a sad day. I had been completely convinced that Ethiopia was our only option. God knew better.

- We found out that Uganda had opened up just a short time ago and several agencies had started pilot programs there. Our hearts began to grow for Uganda. Meanwhile we were planning our fundraiser race (One Less 5K) and decided we would focus on that and see where we were financially after all of that was over. The race was incredible. We raised a pretty good amount of money. But were still fairly far (about $13,000) away from the amount that we needed. 

Which brings us to this summer (recap over and current story begins)......

We started slowly doing some of the "paper chase" stuff for our social worker and waiting on the actual adoption. Waiting for what? I'm not sure. There were lots of things to blame our waiting on. Money. Work. Illness. I am embarrassed to say, but feel the prompting to tell you, that I felt as if compared to all the other things happening with us and around us, this adoption felt......silly. selfish. and ill-timed.  And this made me....well....just flat out sad. I knew in my heart that this was part of our story. That God had called us to adoption. 

But, we (I believe I am speaking for both Mitch and I) let that idiot Satan get in our heads  and tell us "oh, just wait. you are kind of broke. and this is a really inconvenient time. for everyone. there are bigger things happening and it's really just pretty selfish of you to want to do it now. maybe someday soon. just not now." And let me tell you (in case you were wondering)......I know those words did not come from God.  There was never. not one time. a peace in my heart about it. I wrestled with it constantly. I felt guilty.  Mitch and I argued.  And if there is anything I know about God vs Satan it is this....Satan is full of lies and unrest. You will never feel peaceful about the decisions you make based on his prompting.  Even the thought "well, we will do it soon. You know, whenever (fill in the blank) is over...", never brought true comfort. And I am so glad it didn't. What a waste of a life is someone who allows Satan to talk them into being complacent. 

As our pastor always says (and I like to remind my sweet precious angel children often) "delayed obedience is disobedience". We may have thought we would "do it soon....", but deep in our hearts, we knew we were being disobedient. God called us into action. A year ago. Yes, we do completely believe that God used this last year to grow us. To change our hearts about certain things (which I will share another day) and to bring us to this place of repentance. 

We know this road is difficult. We know that our personal finances are not what we would love them to be. We know that we do not have enough money saved to pay for this adoption full out. But we also know that we cannot continue to live this life of disobedience. Whether well-intentioned or not, it is still a complacent life. And one we are ready to leave. 

So.........last Friday we mailed off our official application to Little Miracles International to adopt whatever God chooses for us (boy or girl, age 0-3) from Uganda and will be signing the contract by the end of this week. Our new home study will begin next week with a different social worker (We had to switch due to an accreditation problem with our previous one. I should also mention here that God saved us again from having to pay any serious high fees to our other social worker.). 

We have jumped off head first (which I guess is really just called "diving". Whatev. You know what I mean.). God has ignited our hearts again. He has redeemed us from the last 6 months of waiting on nothing. And has reassured us that He will provide for whatever He has called us to do. "God funds what He favors"....I have heard a lot these days. We are reminding ourselves of that daily. Especially when we see a pile of bills on our counter. :/

Thank you for reading. Thank you to our friends that have had to listen to the drama that seems to have been this story and for still being excited when we said we finally mailed off a FOR REAL application (you know who you are). Thank you for encouraging us and loving us no matter what. Thank you for sticking with these sinful humans who are just trying to figure out what God wants from them. I feel like we got it right this time. Finally.