Blessed.....

           This past Monday I went to the Southern baptist Conference in Orlando. Jon had to work and I decided the night before at around 11pm that I was going to drag my kiddos there and go by myself. I really felt like the Lord wanted me to go. I am so glad that I did. It was truly amazing. The kids were awesome. During the breaks I had them run up and down a hallway (hey, they needed to burn off all that energy somehow) I am so glad the Lord told me to go and that I listened. I loved that my kids also got something out of it too. They realized that it was important to mommy, they got to see a room full of people talking about Jesus and praying for children that have no home, and they loved the Watoto Children's Choir. During the singing one of the girls was telling everyone how they are all orphans due to war or AIDS and my sweet Brianna came over to me and with a serious tone and says "Mommy, can we take them all home to live with us? I will be their sister and we can all be a family." I started crying right then. Out of all my kids it was her who said something. It just melted my heart. She really has such a sweet heart, we constantly joke that she thinks she is an only child because she wants so much attention, so for her to say that was truly the Lord working in her heart. Just beautiful. Jon was unable to go, but he got to watch it live from home, so we were constantly texting each other.  There are so many times you get to experience something incredible and you want your significant other to be able to experience it too and he was able to. Another blessing from the Lord. Leaving the conference made me want our son even more.

      Which brings me to something I guess I should clear up. If you are friends with me on Facebook you saw a status I had a couple of days ago saying that I was praying for clarity. Some people assumed that I was referring to adoption. Well one, didn't your mother ever teach you not to assume things? :D and two, that statement had absolutely NOTHING to do about us adopting or anything in regards to that. Jon and I have been praying about something else and I was referring to that. I have since deleted that post, because I guess I can see how people would assume that. I have no doubts at all that we are in line with God's will. I have blogged about that many times. My feelings have not changed except for maybe they are stronger. We were approved on (my son's 7th birthday ) April 8 2010 to be able to adopt. It is now June 18th and by the end of next week our homestudy will be done and we are half way finished with our dossier. That's HUGE and that's all God's work. What better confirmation would you want? He has provided so much, so quickly, so I know that I know that I know that we are in line with God's will. That our son is out there and that he will be in our arms. There is no doubting and their is no clarity that I am seeking from God about our son.

      Back to the conference. They shared with everyone how they are starting a fund to be able to give $2000 to help families with adoption (you have to apply) what a beautiful thing. In our church we have just officially had our first adoption meeting. We have started an adoption ministry at our church. We are actually going to be having our first fundraiser on June 28th. I will blog about that very soon :) We have a missions board and now an adoption board.  Truly incredible to see God moving. Makes me wonder what it would look like if all the churches did that. Start a fund to help their members who are adopting ease the financial burden. Like I said before every little bit helps and coming from my point of view (who is in the middle of adopting) it's so comforting to know that people want to help and be a part of bringing your child home.

  I'm specifically praying that the Lord will calm my anxious heart. We are just so close to getting the money needed to get our dossier in. Will you please help us? Once we get this in we will be waiting on a referral for our son. That will takes months, but here's the good news. Once we get our dossier in we can start applying for grants (money for the fees) Once we get our referral we will owe over $7000 and that does not include travel, so we really need to start applying for grants and we can't until our dossier is turned in and we can't do that til we get the money. See why I am so anxious to get this done??  I know the Lord will provide, but I wanted to let you know what steps we have to take next. So please pray about giving. Please email me and I can give you my address if you don't want to use paypal.

One more thing......I don't normally recommend books, but I really want to recommend these.

 I was so blessed to be able to hear David Platt speak. Truly a man who is on fire for Jesus. I have read this book and I think everyone should.  So read it :)

I read this book about 8 months ago and then read it again when we were called to adopt. Such a great book. I also got to hear Russell Moore speak at the conference. I think I cried the whole time. Please read this book even if you are not adopting, it will truly break your heart for orphans.