As I look back over the last year or so I can see the journey we've been on. God started a big work in our lives and to be able to see where we are today, you have to see where we've been and how God has been nudging (or shoving) us throughout the last couple of years. So, here are some snippets of some past writings...
October 2011:
Lately, Gabe and I have been feeling God moving in our lives in a big
way. It has been through a host of different experiences. We recently
attended a marriage class, I attended a women's conference, we have been
studying through a series at church entitled "Weird" on both Sunday
mornings and in our small group, and I have been doing a Beth Moore
Bible Study called "Believing God". In all of these things we have felt
like God is doing something in our lives and our family and it's time
for us to hold on because this ride is about to take off. We have
struggled this year with a lot of extra (non-budgeted) bills because of
medical issues and repairs. I had been having a "woe is me" attitude
about it because at the end of last year we had made a commitment, on
top of our tithe, to the church for a 2 year campaign. To me, I thought
that meant that God should give us a pass for the next 2 years on any
other financial hardship. Although it has been hard and we will still
be paying off the extra expenses that we've had this year for awhile, we
have been able to keep our commitment, have food on the table and the
heat on in our house. Gabe and I both feel so unsettled about our
current budget but without a lot of "extras" that we can cut out we are
strongly considering downgrading our living expenses by selling our
house and buying something less expensive. Our house isn't extravagant
now and we love having room for family to stay with us. That is
something we don't want to give up because we both feel strongly about
spending time with family, so we are looking into possibly something not
necessarily smaller but less expensive. We're not sure what that means
yet and know this is not the time of year to put a house on the market.
So, we're going to keep praying that God will give us discernment on
this issue. We are hoping by spring, we may try to put the house up for
sale and pray God will show us a house that will fit our budget and
family. We just know that we are called to be generous and want to do
everything in our power to be able to do that and leave our kids a
legacy bigger than house payments.
Well, as time went on, we didn't feel like moving was the right option for us, so we cut back where we could and continued to try to make wise choices with our resources. God has blessed that and we have been able to give even more money away than we originally committed to. We continued to read and grow and be stretched....
In November of 2011, we started helping out at a homeless mission in town as a family. We started by providing a meal for it's 40ish residents once a month. Then, we decided we wanted to be more involved so we started helping weekly for awhile with going and hanging out with the kids. We would teach a lesson and play with the kids while the moms would do a Bible Study. It was such an eye-opening experience for us as a family. It was heart-breaking that while we lived 15 minutes away in a warm house with more toys than necessary for our kids, people were homeless, living in extreme poverty. And our side of town seemed to live in complete ignorance of this issue. It felt wrong driving back home to all the comforts of our lives. The only reason we are more privileged is that we were born into families that were able to provide and teach us about God and most of those people weren't.
I had been mentioning the idea of adopting another child to Gabe for months at this point but was trying to patiently wait for God to move in his heart if this was truly a path for our family. Adoption is a big deal and we definitely needed everyone on board if it was to happen. Well, helping at the mission helped do that for Gabe. Those kids broke his heart for what types of lives they were growing up in. And while we realize we can't take them all in, we can make a difference to one.
Around Christmas last year I wrote this regards to the financial and medical struggles we had last year...
Now, while our future is still not clear to us and we are far from having it all
together, we believe that God is going to use these struggles to bring
about great things in the year to come for our family. We are excited
and a little anxious about the future. But, we no longer want the
"American dream". We want to see how God can humbly use us, a simple
family, to change the world, one day at a time.
Fast forward a few months, God was still working in our hearts in regards to adoption and we finally started sharing that idea with a few people close to us. We started feeling like it was a good to start exploring how to make it a reality in our lives. In July 2012 we started the process. We made the call to a social service agency to start getting licensed. We had decided that adopting through the foster care system was going to be the best option for our family. We were really hoping to only take a child that would be adoptable. But, as we met with the social worker and started filling out paperwork and praying about how God wanted to use this situation we decided that we were open to fostering no matter the outcome. Obviously, it would be hard emotionally if the child lived with our family for several years and then had to return to his/her biological family. But, maybe that's how God wants to use us, maybe God will use us to change a whole family and not just one child. Maybe God wants us to adopt the child that lives with us and that would be great too. We're willing to travel whatever waters lie ahead of us. That doesn't mean we haven't thought through the hard situations we may encounter, the stress of adding another child, most likely who will have a lot of baggage. We're not naive, just ready to be obedient to the journey God is asking us to walk. We are in the process of getting licensed and are in the middle of the licensing classes right now which go until December. Hopefully that means our paperwork will be all done and put us on the list for calls by the beginning of the year. We're excited to see this journey play out in our lives and grateful that God was patient with us as we learned to give up the ideas and dreams and life plans we felt entitled to but were not His plan.
