Our amazing boy...

Wow, ever since we gave God our "Yes!" and stepped out in faith to adopt a little boy we have never met from across the ocean, God just keeps sending us little reassurances that we have honored His call and that He is helping us through this.  Our hearts have been falling in love with a little picture from 4 months ago and few videos that had been watched a million times.  We've hoped and we've prayed and we've trusted that this little guy would fit in our family in just the right way...we knew God would work it all out...we trusted.  Good or bad, we would serve our God and we would love this little boy.  That would be enough for us.   But sure enough, God has given us another little gift.  We received some updated pictures and info. about our little boy.  And we are more in love than ever!!  He sounds amazing and we are aching to bring him home as soon as we can.


Look at this little guy!  He has stolen our hearts :)

It is so hard to love a little boy in another country as your own and know that you are depending on orphanage workers to love that child for months and months until you can go and get them.  You hope and you pray that he's being loved each and every day.  You pray that he will be able to overcome the years in an orphanage and be able to bond and attach to you as his parents.  You are sad for the years they have missed out on the security of family and close knit love in the arms of their very own mama.

There are "good" orphanages and there are bad ones.  Even a good orphanage is not a family.  It never can be.  

This little guy has a spark.  I wish I could post these pictures larger for you to see...try clicking on the photos and I think it will show an larger version of the photo. He just has this amazing light in his eyes.  In his two years of life in an orphanage, he still has a spark of joy in him.  We desperately want to bring him home before the years in an orphanage start to dampen that spark of his.  And trust me, folks...if left in an orphanage to eventually age out into a mental institution he will most certainly lose that beautiful spark. 

  Please, if you'd like to help bring our boy home, there are several things you can do.  We have puzzle pieces for sale and we have T-Shirts for sale.  Maybe your family can't adopt right now but you'd like to help a family that is.  Maybe you'd like to collect loose change as a family and donate it to bringing Joseph home?  Maybe your planning to have a yard sale anyway and would like to donate the proceeds from the sale to bringing him a family?  We've had people mention selling things on E Bay for us...whatever God might be calling you to.  

It is hard to ask for help, but I also know that this little boy is waiting for us.  Each and every day he waits.  And God calls His body to work together to accomplish His will.  So I will put my pride aside and ask for help so that this little boy can come home while he still holds such an incredible light in him.

We also want to say thank you to those that have already so thoughtfully helped us with funds to bring Joseph home.  Little by little,  it will all add up!  Thank you so much!

Yet another reason why I am blessed

Hi all,

still pretty sick, but I wanted to take a couple minutes to thank the person that continues to bless me year after year...my husband, Dan.  Every Father's Day,  I am reminded how incredibly blessed I am to have such a faithful, devoted and hard working husband.  We've been married almost 11 yrs. now and he's still working at it...still trying to improve and be a better husband.  He doesn't golf or have any major hobbies right now that would pull him away from his family every weekend...he's here, home with his children and being present for them with all of his time.   Don't get me wrong...he's an amazing guy with many talents and interests...he should really have a whole bunch of hobbies right now, but he works really hard to prioritize right now while his kids and wife need him.  He has lots of things he wants to do...but knows he can do them when the kids are older.  He puts others first.  He's made his interests and hobbies things like our homestead...things he can teach the kids and do with them and pass on traditions and heritage to them as they grow older.   What a blessing...

Here we are with 4 crazy kids...great kids, but busy and active none the less and he happily gives his life for them.  Most professionals he knows already think he's crazy for having 4 children...and here we are adopting a special needs child and oh yeah...also pregnant.  That will make 6...by the world's standards, its way too much work and too much responsibility.  But I am blessed with a husband that lights up with happiness when he learns that I'm pregnant.  Even after all these kids.  I'm blessed with a husband that thinks pregnancy is beautiful.  I'm blessed with husband that actually loves infants...he's actually a big mush-ball when he gets around an infant.

In this world of materialism, selfishness and lack of respect for the value of family...I am giving thanks today for the Father in our house that blesses our family each and every day.

Our children are so blessed to have such an amazing Dad.  And until their old enough to really get that, I'll just have to be the one to bring it up :)

Happy Father's Day, hon...I love you!

God's plans...

So Kim is feeling really bad about leaving our blog readers hanging.  Well,  there is a really good reason for this, but on account of our news, Kim is in no condition to explain herself.  We're expecting a little bundle of Joy!

You know what they say, make plans and watch God laugh.  We're both very surprised by this news since it's been several years without us getting pregnant and we have been open to life the whole time.  The timing is interesting too, we had just committed to Joseph in a big way; trusting that God was calling us to take him into our family.  We still feel that bringing Joseph home is His will for us and God has planned it all out so perfectly that He convinced us to choose a particular agency that doesn't automatically take you off your adoption if you become pregnant.  Most do that.  Ours just happens to decide on a case-per-case basis whether the adoption should continue or not.  We have been given the go-ahead from our social worker, agency and even the in-country facilitator.  God already knew all of this and had it all covered.


Kim just had a couple things she wanted to let people know...hopefully she'll be back here when she feels less sick.


We are very excited about this new little one.  We are due January 25th.


We are still working very hard to bring Joseph home...he was never a substitute for having a baby...he is a special little boy would needs a family and we still hope to be that family for him.


God knows what He is doing.  His plans are always better than our own and we are trusting Him to work all this for His Glory!


We'll be better about posting...and please pray that Kim can start to feel better...we've got a lot of fundraising to do!


Thank you God for blessing our family even more than we could have imagined!