Marked By LoveMark me with your sign of love. Plan only the best for me, God!

As we’ve been sharing with people that we are adopting, we’ve been asked a few times by well meaning people….”If you want another child why don’t you just have another one?”  This question is difficult for me to understand because it’s not about “wanting another child”.  It’s about what it does to our hearts everytime we hear that there’s 132 million orphans in the world (2008 UNICEF estimated total but only God really knows) and that 95% of all orphans are over the age of 5!  132 million children who don’t have a family; who don’t have a mom or dad to run to when they fall and skin their knee; who don’t have a family to eat dinner with; don’t have someone to help them with their homework; to hold them in the night when they’ve had a bad dream; don’t have anyone to love them……  This breaks our hearts!

Some people think they can’t imagine adopting a child…..but I can’t imagine us not doing this.  It only makes sense.  God adopted us into His family as His sons and daughters and now we get to do the same.

It’s easy to become overwhelmed at the numbers….we’re just going to love our daughter the best way we know how.

Some of you have asked for more information regarding orphans and adoption, so here’s some articles I’ve found:

http://abbafund.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/how-many-orphans-are-there-update/

http://abandoned-orphaned.typepad.com/paulmyhill/2009/08/the-count.html

thanks for listening,
Katie

Today Katie and I had a chance to get away and pray at our favorite place.  It was also a really good day because it feels like things are moving forward.  When we got home we had an e-mail that our dossier is heading by DHL overnight to Ethiopia. So over the course of the next two weeks our whole life, the good, bad and ugly will be translated into Amharic and then will wait for a court date.  A couple more e-mails later, was a major milestone in our adoption process, we were matched with our daughter!

I was reminded that God is so good and He never changes.  I love this quote by A.W. Tozer,”All that God is He has always been, and all that He has been and is He will ever be.” During this season of our life when it seems like everything is constantly shifting and changing, I am really glad that “God is the same yesterday, today and forever.” To tell you the truth I have a new understanding of what it means to see God as our Good Shephard. Because all we can do right now is trust that he will continue to take care of us and lead us to green pastures where we can rest in the fact that we are loved and taken care of by Him.

I cannot tell you how much I trust that God is good, because today has been proof that he is!

Today the shepherd was calling and his voice was clear.
CJ

Two days ago, I think the neighbors were wondering if I was crazy or if I won the publishers clearing house sweepstakes because I was running up the driveway waving an envelope with the final two documents we have been waiting for for our dossier. So yesterday we passed our completed dossier on to Nikki (who has been a huge help and answered all our calls) who sent it to Washington DC and it should be on its way to Ethiopia next week. Once it is in Ethiopia it will take about two weeks to get translated and then the wait for a court date begins.

As you can imagine we are so excited and cannot wait to bring our girl home. Please pray for us as we still have a lot of bills coming our way. If you would like to help us out we still have bags and shirts available (we can also do kid shirt sizes).

Waiting and Dependent,
CJ

Well CJ and I just went on a very over due date afternoon. One of my husbands favorite things to do in the world is to go see a movie. There’s something about the large screen and crisp sound that causes him to act like a kid again. Seriously, a few minutes before our babysitter arrived, he was singing in our kitchen, “We’re going to a movie….we’re going to a movie!”

The movie we saw was “The Blind Side”. Awesome movie…..everyone should see it! Really hits home for us. I cried through the real family photos at the end. It’s so beautiful the difference having a family makes to a kid. It makes me so thankful for my family, and so privileged that we get to provide a family for a child that doesn’t have one.

If I could sum up in one word what God is trying to teach us it would be:  Trust.

Today, I’ve been reading chapter 7 in Crazy Love by Francis Chan.  He’s talking about the disciples in Luke 9:3.

“Jesus sent out his 12 disciples and told them to “take nothing for the journey-no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic.”  Why did Jesus do this?  Jesus was forcing his disciples to trust Him so they would have nothing else to fall back on!  This place of trust isn’t a comfortable place to be; in fact, if flies in the face of everything we’ve been taught about proper planning.  We like finding refuge in what we already have rather than in what we hope God will provide.”

Wow this hits home with CJ and I.  Our whole lives we’ve tried our hardest to be “proper planners”.  Now here me when I say, I am definately not against proper planning, but the best place to learn how to trust is when you don’t have anything to fall back on.

-Katie

We came across this great opportunity to raise some money for our adoption.  If you shop online this Christmas, click on the link below, choose your favorite stores available through “onecause” and select Marked By Love as your cause.  A portion of every purchase you make will go toward our adoption!

Shop Now to Support
Marked By Love

This video will help you understand how difficult life is in Ethiopia. The video is about 45 minutes long.

Click Here to watch

Thank you all for your excitement in this process with us!  I was thinking I should explain what the time frame looks like now that we have completed our Dossier.  This basically means that most of our work is done and the waiting begins.  It can take 3 months for our dossier to get approved by Ethiopia; 6 more weeks to get a court date; and 6 more weeks before we travel to pick her up.  We are hoping to bring her home sometime in Spring???  Ya never know with these things though….anything can happen!    If you are getting this e-mailed to you, you will know the play by play as it unfolds!

On a more personal note, CJ and I were looking through old pictures today of all the people who have been a part of our lives over the years.  What precious memories we have with so many.  Thanks so much for leaving a “mark of love” on our lives and being a part of this journey with us.  We love you!

Our dossier is finally complete!  It will be sent to Ethiopia for translation and then we get approved to adopt an Ethiopian child.  This is a big milestone in the adoption process.  After we put this in the mail tomorrow, we will get matched with our daughter hopefully soon and then wait.  And Katie will be looking for a job!  :)

CJ called my today while I was at Walmart…he forgot to tell me this morning that he had a dream about our daughter last night!  I thought I would share it with all of you (with his permission of course)…

We were in a large building and our daughter was somewhere in the building too.  The person said we could go see her, but not together.  When they left I said to CJ, “Come on let’s just go sneek in (of course I would!).  She’s never seen you before so I’ll walk up to her and you just act like you are a stranger and just walk by.”  When we walked in the room our daughter wasn’t facing us.  She turned around and was all dressed up really cute and looked so beautiful!  CJ was suppose to act like he didn’t know her, but instead, when he saw her, he couldn’t help himself and started crying because she was so beautiful and had to run out of the room!

What a beautiful dream God gave him.  He is preparing our hearts for our new daughter!