Friday, August 22, 2008

Pearls of Africa

Many of you have asked about the latest adoption adventure we're involved in now. Since we have made it official as of yesterday, I thought I would jot a quick note today about how God brought us to this point.

The Major and I have begun the process to adopt a sibling group of 3 children under the age of 7yrs from Uganda, Africa. I know, I know...you probably think we're crazy. That's the usual response we get from people. Or we hear "Are you sure you can handle that?" To be honest, no, I don't know if I can handle it and we probably are crazy, but Love makes you act that way sometimes.


Even while we were courting, the Major and I discussed our desire for a big family and how adoption would be a part of that equation. When God closed my womb we realized that we had been given an incredible opportunity to impact children's lives from around the world who may never know what the word "family" means. As the time approached to finalized Shiloh's adoption we began to discuss our next addition to the family. We both wanted to go international this time. The Major wanted to focus on war orphans and I wanted to bring home a sibling group since they usually had a harder time being adopted. As we began to pray for God to guide us to where...Rwanda was placed on hearts. After doing a ton of research and making connections, the door to Rwanda shut. We were confused and not sure where to go from there. We had felt pretty sure that we were supposed to focus on that area of the world. We went back to God and asked again.

Within a few weeks, we had 3 totally different people mention Uganda to us. I did some research and was horrified at the situation going on in that country. I found myself angry that our media was so blatantly ignoring this country and grieved at the suffering of my brothers and sisters there. If you want more information check out: http://www.invisiblechildren.com/ & http://www.wardancethemovie.com/ And you can read the book: Girl Soldier by McDonnell & Akallo

The Major and I became really excited about this possibility, but were once again confused and frustrated when we found out that the government requires you to live in Uganda for 3 years before you can adopt. Then God stepped in and put us in touch with an organization here in our area that is working with an NGO group in Uganda to facilitate adoptions. As we emailed back and forth, we began to realize that God was throwing open this door and it was an amazing opportunity to adopt from a country with real needs where very few people were willing to go.

Yesterday, we met face to face with the head of the agency we are working with and handed in our first round of paperwork officially starting the process. It will take some time, but we are excited and trust that God will provide everything we need emotionally, physically, spiritually, and financially for this adventure.

I will keep you all posted on each step of the journey. Hopefully, I'll get some time in a later post to explain exactly how the process will go, so you can be praying with us through each step. Thank you all again for your love and support of us through this. We look forward to meeting the African children God has chosen for our family!

Live Brave & Love Crazy!! =)


6 comments:

  1. God bless you on this journey. There are also people who told me (to my face and behind my back) that it was a horrible idea to adopt in our situation (bio baby on the way). Then there are the people who simply shake their heads.

    It is hard...but it is worth it and you can do it.

    Blessings on your journey. I can't wait to follow it!

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  2. Oh...you asked about raising support. We began the process understanding that we would most likely go into debt and we did. Ethiopia does not like fund raising for adoptions and, honestly, neither did we. The people who wanted to give gave and were very generous.

    Not saying that it is bad to fund raise, we just didn't choose to.

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  3. SO exciting!!!! Thanks for the update!!!!!!!! We are praying!

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  4. I love that last line, Sis. You are amazing.

    Blessings and much love.

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  5. Woot woot! If I could go with you, I would! Don't know that DH and I are quite there yet. Only the Lord knows. But I have my suspicions. ;o)

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  6. hi! I just found your blog and think it's super exciting that you're adopting from UG! We used to live there and have two kids adopted from there... Who are you adopting through?

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