Of course He did!

We had exactly 7 days to raise $6100 so we could say "yes!" to our precious Caleb.

God did it in 5!!

Of course He did!!

I wish I could say that the whole time I was praying and updating my Facebook status with where we were, that I knew that it was going to come in, I wish I could say that I never let it stress me out, because after all God is the one who owns it all, but I can't.

This weekend I went to the once a year Homeschool convention. My friend and I planned and payed for it months ago, so there was no backing out. I am so glad that I went. I will blog more about it later, but it was a wonderful distraction.

On Friday I was really having a hard time. Between some of the negativity that people were saying  on top of me all ready feeling insecure, I was losing it. It was all sin of course and I was desperately trying to give it to God. After all there was nothing that I could do to make people give. I didn't want anyone to feel like they had to anyway, but I was worried it would not come in.

Thankfully God had me run into a wonderful lady named Mary. She has this wonderful gift of encouraging and rebuking you at the same time. I just laid everything out for her. Not just my fears with the money but also all the changes that God was making to our home schooling (will blog more later) and other things. Everything just came at me at once and before you know it my joy was gone. And then since my joy was gone I was even more upset that I would allow that to be taken from me..... Hello....I have waited over a year to find out who our son was and I was not even enjoying it!!!

After she basically told me that I was living in sin I thanked her for loving me in that way and I went outside to pray. I just needed to let it all go and at that very moment. thanks to Lord, I did.... Finally! My joy was back and I was able to not just enjoy the fact that I will be a mother to five kiddos, I was also able to have my heart open to receive all that God was showing me during the convention.

Because of the Lord working through all of you, we are able to send in the paper work and the money to say Yes to our Caleb. We are waiting for the money from paypal to hit our account and then off it will go. What an amazing feeling.

So many of you wrote us thanking us for allowing you the opportunity to be apart of this. Only God!

So many of you gave out of your poverty. You gave knowing you had to pull it from somewhere else, like groceries or bills. Only God!

So many of you prayed and were spreading the word and you have no idea who we are. Only God!

We prayed that we would not be in this situation when we received our referral. We prayed that we would not have to ask people over and over again to help us. Yet, God had other plans and I am thankful that He chose this route for us. Watching all that He did made me fall on my knees in worship. How could you all see my status and the money keep dropping and not praise Him?

I am truly in awe of His faithfulness.

I wish I was a women of amazing words so that you could feel what we are feeling and so that we could properly thank each and everyone of you.

Every single person that gave will be on the back of our puzzle for Caleb. I have not had the time to put it all together but I will take a picture when it is all done.

From the bottom of our hearts THANK YOU!!!

Thank you Jesus for calling us down this road of having another one of your precious children in our home.  I am so undeserving of any of your goodness and yet, you continue to bless me anyway. Thank you Lord for this amazing humbling experience. May you have the Glory and Honor forever. Amen!


I can't wait to tell you more about what God has done. Today was incredible! I will blog more later.



Also for those that may not have seen  it, here is our video of seeing Caleb for the first time. And yes, my hubby is beyond thrilled, He is a man after all and he wasn't going to cry;)

Singing His praises,

It's a BOY!!!!!

I can't believe that I can finally say  that WE HAVE SEEN OUR SON"S FACE!!! Oh and  what a precious face it is!

I will have to blog about "the call" another time, but it was amazing and quite funny.

Let me first tell you his name.

We will call him  Caleb (his given name, which we will not share yet) Maser

God gave us the name Caleb when we first started this adoption process and it seemed so fitting with some people against what we were doing (just like Caleb in the bible) and yet we knew that even though this road would be difficult, God had all ready paved the way. He had a precious boy picked out for us!

Caleb is 9 months old!! He has the most amazing smile and is a little chuncker! I can not wait to hold our little Caleb and tell him all about his brothers and sisters.

One thing that I wish we could do was just enjoy this referral, which we are!!! but we still have to pay the $8300 fee so that we can say "Yes, we want him to be our son!" This is not the route I wanted to take, but this is what God had planned.  I am reminded of Luke 5 when Jesus tells the men to put there nets in the water and they reply, but Master we have toiled all night and nothing...... Like I am saying Lord, we have asked a billion times all ready!..... but they obeyed Jesus and their nets were so full they were breaking....

We are in this position of asking, again.. and we are going to obey, but this time we know our boy. SO we humbly ask you to help us pay our referral fee. We have exactly 7 days to pay it. We only need $6,100.  No amount is to small. A little adds up very quickly. If you could please also share our blog so that others may have the opportunity to give.

For everyone that donates we will write your name on the back of Caleb's puzzle. That way we can also have it completed by the time he comes home <3

For those of you wanting to see pictures, we would be so happy to show you. You don't even have to ask, we will probably show you several times! but we can not post his photo on the internet just yet. Not until he is legally ours.  We will have a picture with us so we can show you when we see you!

Thank you all so much for your prayers and support. Please help us spread the word. You can donate using our paypal to the right or you can send us a check. Send me an email for our address masermel@yahoo.com.

We will update the total every couple of hours. Anything above the referral fee will go towards our travel cost.

Thank you all so much!


In awe of His goodness!

Two become one

Today I am celebrating nine years of hot loven marriage to the man of my dreams.

Last week we had some dears friends offer to watch our kids so we could have 24 hours alone.  We had an amazing time. Most of our date nights are filled with getting church stuff done, or figuring out things with our kids. This 24 hours was a time where we could just be still.

My favorite thing. relaxing on the beach in my mans arms.

And of course we did a lot of this ;)

But something really cool happened that night.

Eleven years ago Jon took me on our first date to the movies. When the  movie was over it was late and he asked if he could take me to a place where you can usually see manatees in the water. Of course I wanted to go. So we went to this beautiful dock where it was pitch black except for the moon shining down and a couple of lights lighting the boardwalk.  We were all alone and there was this nice breeze so we starting dancing. I am not a romantic type of person, but this was romantic.  We never did see manatees but he did kiss me. This place was now our spot, he even tried to propose there (I will save that for another blog) and we have gone there a million times, even taking the kids and I have never seen a manatee. It became a  joke of ours  with me always saying  "Sure there are manatees there, you were trying to court me!"

On our little 24 hours alone, we ended up seeing a late movie. We did not get out til after midnight so I had assumed we were going home. Instead he drove us to our spot. It was beautiful. It was pitch black, with only the moon shining and some lights on the boardwalk, there was a nice breeze and we were all alone. We started to dance and right before he was about to kiss me we heard a loud noise. Like something coming up out of the water for air. We looked into the water and saw about 6 manatees! My hubby's first response was "I told you!"

 I was unable to get a picture of the manatees since it was so dark, but I was able to get a picture of  an amazing couple. :D

At our spot

I am so thankful that God has brought the two of us together. Jonathan is truly a man after Gods own heart. The bible says that a man is suppose to love his wife as Jesus loves the church and that he is suppose to be the head of our family as Jesus is the head of the church. Jon would never agree with me, but he does that. He knows that he is a broken man and the only way he can truly serve the Lord is by continually seeking His face in everything. He can't love me the way that Jesus has required if he does not die to himself.

I get this amazing honor of being his wife and praying with him and more importantly we get to serve the  Lord side by side. I get to do this with a man who loves me for me. A man who holds me accountable (which is not easy), says the things that I don't always want to hear but need too, and  who always points me to our King.

What an amazing man for our kids to look up too. I pray the our daughters will marry a godly man just like their daddy. And I pray that our boys will grow up to be men who serve the Lord first, just like their daddy. 

Praying that the Lord will continue to strengthen our marriage and our family so that we can serve Him in anyway the He sees fit. Praying that I will seek the Lords face so that I can be the wife that He has called me to be. Someone who submits to his leadership, someone who does not hinder the call on my hubby's life, but instead prays for him and  encourages him.

Jonathan, I love you more then words can say.
                                    HAPPY  ANNIVERSARY !!!!!

Yard Sale!!

This past Saturday we had our hopefully last garage sale for our adoption. I say last because, this is our fourth one and I would like to have my garage and house back. Plus I am praying that we get our referral and all the money will come pouring in... hey it can happen :)

We are so thankful to everyone that prayed, donated stuff, cooked us brownies, and helped us sell and organize. Yard sales are exhausting and the fact that many of you spent your Saturday with us meant a lot!!

The big strong men that helped move everything!

My Mother in law has been beside us this whole journey

Those are some cute kids selling brownies for their little brother

Josh brought us over some more brownies that his lovely bride made

Tracie and her sweet girlies came by to show support!  Plus she brought me coffee!!

After we got caught in the rain. Thank you sweet Ladies!!!

We had to cut the sale short because it started to storm.

We had so many people that wanted to come and could not, we had some people stop by and give a donation, and we also had a dear sweet friend send a donation through PayPal since she lives in another state and wanted to support us.

So between the sale, donations, and the goodies we sold. We made almost $500!!!!  We have made more in the past, but I am beyond thankful! That is $500 closer to our boy <3


Thank you so much to everyone! All of you have been a HUGE part of our journey so far. It is such an encouragement to know that people are standing beside us and helping us get our boy home. We love you all!!!

Waiting for a "Yes!"

 God never wastes anything. I believe that because scripture states it. (Isaiah 55:11) But there have been so many times in our walk over the last couple of years where I am asking the Lord " what are you doing?"

Let me explain.

Years ago, God put it on our hearts that we would be serving in another country, We have been to the airport a million times to send people off and for us God says "No, not your time."

With our last couple of pregnancies, God said "No, not your time."

With this adoption. He has many times said no. If we would have asked for a girl, we would all ready have had our referral a month ago, but God said "No, I have a boy picked out for you."

Then over the last month we have been fighting with all that we had and then some for a precious boy who is on the waiting list, meaning he is just sitting there for a family. God is the one the drew us to this almost 4 year old. God is the one that said fight for him and yet in the end we were met with more No's then I can count. Ultimately it was not His will.

Our hearts have been opened for whatever God wants. Older, younger, domestic, Africa, yet God just keeps saying "wait, I have the boy for you."

I know that everything that we go through is for our transformation. I know that one day we will finally hear those words that we have been longing to hear.

But this waiting has been hard. Well over a year on this journey to our boy and it is hard. The waiting the hearing the No's never leaves you. I may have peace about it most of the time, but it's still there. You get to a point where you feel like you have been forgotten about, you get to a point where you feel like it will never happen, you get to a point where you start asking the Lord "What am I missing?"

Yet He keeps saying, "Keep waiting, keeping your eyes on Me. I have great plans for your family and a special little boy that was picked to be a Maser."

 I just want whatever the Lord wants and so waiting is where I will be, keeping my eyes fixed on Him, longing to hear a Yes! and trusting that His timing is ALWAYS perfect.

With all that I am

 

My little diva of a daughter. She is my ummmmmm strong willed child. She has what I like to call an emotional switch. She can be the sweetest, selfless little one around and then when that switch is flipped she can be.. well... not so sweet. 

One of the many things that I do love about her and actually admire is that good or bad, no matter what it is you will get all of her. She doesn't just give you bits and pieces like most of us, you get it all. Every bit of energy, every bit of love, every bit of anger.  There is no holding back with this girl.

 My favorite is her hugs. When she hugs you, no matter who you are, she throws her whole body at you. Thankfully she is tiny for her age so it doesn't hurt, but boy does she body slam you and holds you tight.

I was reading in Philippians the other day and a verse stood out at me. Then last night I heard it again.

Paul is speaking to the church at Philippi, but really it is for us all. 

The verse that stood out is "How I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ." (Phill, 1:8)

Paul was an amazing man. I won't get into his life prior to knowing Jesus, but once his eyes were opened he gave his all to Christ. The good, the bad, the ugly. All that he was, for Christ and Christ alone.  When he says that  verse, "As God is my witness how I yearn for you with the affection of Christ", I believe him. His life proves it. Even when he was in prison, he tried to encourage the body for Christ.

He knew that this love he had for others was not of his doing but it was Christ working through him. The rebuking. the encouraging, the everything that he had to give and then some. 

I want that!

I want to yearn for others. I want to be able to give everyone, not just a select few, my all. 

I want to be able to see people through Gods eyes.

I want to go to bed exhausted at night because I was serving the Lord and not myself. 

I want to share the affection that God has for His children. 

God commands it!

My prayer is that I will constantly seek His face, with all that I am; so that I may have a stirring affection for Christ in ALL things.