His ways are not our ways...

Well my first blog post was more of an update as to what is happening with the adoption. I just wanted to share some of how this started for me. Even as a child I always thought adoption was such a neat thing. Giving a child a home that didn't have one, what a privilege!! Fast forward to after J and I had the two older kiddos. I wanted a 3rd (and perhaps a 4th and 5th) and J was content with our boy and girl. At 24 I knew I couldn't be done having kids. I LOVED children. I always babysat while I was in jr. high and h.s. I was going to college so I could get my degree in early childhood education when we got married. I taught Sunday school when we first started going to church. We could not be DONE having children!! I looked into adoption and after much, well, grumpiness, J decided we could have a third child. Phew! Shortly after we had littlest one, we KNEW we were done having children naturally. God quenched that desire when she was about 6 weeks old!! Adopting children wasn't out of the question though but definitely on the back burner. I had been enjoying the freedom of their ages, 4, 6, and almost 8. We are diaperless and have been sleeping through the nite for 4 years. Bliss!! My plans for this fall included homeschooling all 3 kids, babysitting a one year old and another almost 4 year old, 3 days/week, hopefully teaching ballet again at the school, and perhaps leading another study with the girls. But alas, God knocked, I answered, He said we were to adopt, OK, on it Lord!! The tug though started last fall when a couple came to speak at my in-laws church about Haiti, and their adoption of a little boy from there. Oh the tears!! This kid was precious, the story was heartbreaking. So we started sponsoring 3 children from Haiti last Christmas. In January a friend posted about a child who was aging out of an orphanage in the Ukraine (16 yrs old!!) and needed a home. Oh the tears again!! Why did this touch me so? I knew we couldn't do anything (we had zero things in order as far as adoption went). More of these situations came up and just pulled my heartstrings.  J and I had both been reading a book a dear friend wrote called "We're sons of God...so what?" and it talked about how as Christians WE have been adopted by God and the ransom has been paid for us by the shed blood of our Savior. Whoa, never thought of it THAT way!! We knew God was preparing us for something big and didn't know what...We looked into adoption from Haiti but we didn't fit the age requirements. One early June day, the sermon at church was for me :) He talked about how when we're called to do something we need to do it. To trust the Lord, and that He's not using us because we're worthy. I'll share more of this in detail later. So I started filling out our adoption application and after a yard sale we were able to send out the application fee. God led us to adopt from Ethiopia so we're looking to get a little guy from 0-4 yrs old. So that's my story. We don't know all the details of how this is going to work out but He does. So we're sitting next to our Captain and trying to enjoy the ride because He is in control.