Here we go again!

Nearly 2 years ago God laid it on our hearts to adopt again. This time from Ghana, Africa. We weren't looking for this new journey. We were perfectly happy with our family of 4 and our new home in Louisville, Kentucky. In fact, we were completely comfortable in our little situation...or so we thought. Then God began to change us. Again! This was not the first time He had made it known that we were in need of a some major priority shifting.

In 1999, God led the way for us to begin building our family by adopting a little boy from Thailand. We brought Joseph home in March of 2001. For 8 years it had just been the 2 of us. We did what we wanted, when and how we wanted. And so we began shifting our priorities to fit our new family. It was 8 more years before God would lead us to adopt again. Oh, we had tried many, many times before. Did you catch the key word there? "We" had tried. "We" had done everything we thought was necessary. But the truth is we didn't need to try on our own and in our time. If one of those adoptions had happened we most likely wouldn't have travelled to Ethiopia in 2009 to bring home our daughter, Terefech. Once again, a major shift to every aspect of our lives.

When we heeded God's call to adopt from Ethiopia we didn't have any money for the expenses. We expressed our concern to our pastor and his response was, "no, you don't have the money, but God does." This simple truth has stuck with us. God doesn't need us to trust in our own resources. God wants us to seek after Him and trust in Him for everything. As we moved forward with the adoption God provided for our needs with every step. It was amazing and a blessing we will treasure forever!

Fast forward to the present. When we heard about a brother and sister in need of a family our reaction was, "we'll think about it". One night, after hearing much about them and seeing their pictures, we told our kids about them. First, we told Terefech who was immediately excited about having more kids in the family. Then we told Joseph. We told him their names, Esther and Shadrach. He sat up in bed, told us their stories from the Bible, and said, "those are great names and I would like to have them as my brother and sister". We knew it was time to trust God and shift. Again.

We have completed our home study and received immigration approval. Now the hard part begins. The hurry-up-and-wait. The truth of knowing how close, and yet how far away, we are to having them home. And, of course, the great discovery of how God is going to provide.