Redeeming Journey

Ephesians 1:3-6 says:
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves."


As we have been praying and spending time thinking about our new child, God has been sending the word adoption to us through scripture.  This is a verse I have read over and over again and even taught on it as a student pastor, but within the last 5 months it has come alive.  We are adopted as God's sons through Jesus Christ.  That kind of love and passion that flows from God blows my mind away.  If you put it into context of what we are walking through with this adoption, you will understand God in a whole new light.  We have never had contact or even seen our future daughter, but the love we have for her is growing and blossoming.  It is a love that we can't explain.  She has done nothing for us, given us nothing or even interacted with us, yet we feel like she is our child.  It is so hard to explain, but when I read that verse in Ephesians it makes me realize how much God loves us as His children.  The word adoption is defined as, "taking into ones family."  God has chosen to bring us into His family.  I am grateful for all of the lessons and God moments we are having with this process, because every time I look into our child's eyes I will be reminded of God's perfect plan and love for us.  


As I am writing I am also internalizing an additional thought.  I have always thought I was going to miss out on some of crucial bonding moments in the beginning of this child's life that we had with Riley and Rowen, but in this moment God is showing me how wrong I am.  Since we are adopting a toddler aged child I will not have had the privilege of rocking her to sleep or watching we crawl or walk for the first time, but God is bonding us.  This journey He is taking us on is bonding us with Him and His heart and in turn with our future child.  I may miss out on some of those initial moments, but I would not trade the journey God has been taking us on and will continue to lead us on for anything.  Our foundation and memories of this child's life has already begun and her history with us began in Christ.  Too cool.  


We have also been overwhelmed with love and support of friends and our family that are helping us break down the walls.  This process of adopting comes with a lot of waiting, uncertainty and an enormous financial burden.  Coty and I have always believed that God called us to this and this is our financial responsibility, but we have been overwhelmed by the amount of people who are wanting and willing to support us.  Our good friends Amanda Lowe, Lauren Duplantis (former Lauren Irons) and Kim Adamski have stepped in to help us raise some additional financial support.  Amanda designed a t-shirt that we are about to begin selling. The shirts will be $15 a piece and of that $10 will go directly towards our adoption expenses.  This is more than a logo or shirt design.  It speaks volumes to our expression towards Africa.  The red love in the design is in the center of Ethiopia.  Every time you see the red love on these shirts remember to pray for our future child and for our process.  We are overwhelmed by all of the love and support we have received.  We can't wait to update you again on where we are in the process.  Once our paperwork gets back from the Federal Government we will be ready to send everything to Ethiopia.  

It has been a month since we posted last.  We were hoping to have an exciting update about our process to share with you, but much like a lot of the adoption process, we are in a waiting period.  We are still currently waiting for our immigration paperwork to be approved.  Everything has been filed and submitted, we are just waiting for the government to approve everything.  We are hoping this will be returned within the next couple of weeks.  Once this is done and in our hands we will send everything to Ethiopia for them to begin their approval.  One thing we have learned about the process is every step in the journey comes with an at least 6 week wait to hear anything.  We will keep you updated on the process as we move forward.

We have also started applying for adoption grants.  There are many grants available to offer financial assistance to families who are adopting children with special needs.  Our goal is to complete 3-4 applications per week.  Please pray that God continues to open doors and direct us to the specific grants that we will be approved for.  It has been very eye-opening researching these different grants and all that the various organizations do to support and provide care for orphans around the world.  If you come across any grant options while online let me know.

On a personal note we have been staying busy as a family.  Life keeps moving forward faster and faster.  We are enjoying the time we have with our girls while they are little, but always have that special feeling in our heart that God has our other family member out there waiting for us.  We have been committed to mastering how to love our kids by embracing 1 Corinthians 13 as much as possible.  With all of the adoption training we have been through and will have to complete, the best form of preparation is God's Word.  So that is where we will be spending most of our time preparing for the arrival of our child.  Thank you for praying for us and for partnering with us.  We can't wait to celebrate our new family member with you in the near future.

Jeffrey, Coty, Riley and Rowen

This week has been so refreshing and exciting for us.  Not much has happened in regards to the adoption, but God has smiled down on us and our life.  We have been overwhelmed with the love and support of so many people in our lives.  We did not anticipate this much love and encouragement.  God continually uses people to speak into our lives and remind us of His plan for us and the impact that this child will have on so many people.  Thank you for your love and commitment to us and our future child you have never met.  It is exciting to know that there is someone out there that God created for us.

In regards to adoption process here is what went on this week.  We made another payment for our stateside process and are waiting on the immigration paperwork to come in and be completed.  Pray for us this week as we continue to apply for and seek out grants that will help offset some of the costs.  There are a lot of potential grants out there, but we have to go find them and apply for them.  Continue praying for our child wherever they are and for whoever is taking care of them and protecting them right now.  We love you and are overwhelmed by your love and support.

In the spring of 2009 we began asking ourselves, "Who did God create us to be and who is He calling us to be?"  After some time meditating on this and just stepping back from our lives for a little bit we both came to a realization that we felt God created our family to be redeemers.  At the time we were unsure what all this meant, but were open to whatever God was doing in our lives and what He wanted for us.  In May of 2009 both Coty and I felt strongly that part of being redeemers was for us to adopt an international child.  We did not have a specific country or child in mind or even an idea of where to start the process, but knew that God was definitely leading us in this direction.  As we personally began processing everything and continually feeling God opening doors for us, we started looking back throughout our lives and began identifying specific life experiences that had prepared us for this moment.   Towards the end of May we began researching different adoption agencies and all that went into the process.  We decided to go with Bethany Christian Services.  We found out once we began filling out the paperwork that our youngest daughter, Rowen, needed to be 1 year old before we could officially begin.  We spent the next 7 months praying and seeking God and through this time period He birthed a passion in us for our future child.  During this time we strongly felt led to adopt a special needs hard of hearing or deaf child.  While this seems like it came out of left field to a lot of people, for us it led us straight to the heart of God.  This is what He meant when He called us and created us to be redeemers.  We are to help redeem a child who has been passed over in orphanages, or is not the first on the list, to be adopted due to a hearing loss and/or other special needs. 


So, where does that leave us today?  We have officially completed our home study and have moved into the immigration process to adopt a child between the ages of 1-5 years old from the country of Ethiopia.  Why Ethiopia?  We didn't choose Ethiopia, Ethiopia chose us.  We only qualified for 4 international countries due to our family size, income level, ages, etc.  Out of the four countries three of them had barriers and obstacles with travel times or expenses that we were not able to overcome.  God clearly directed us to Ethiopia.  Our case workers from Bethany have told us the average time from this point in the adoption is 12-18 months.  Due to the fact we are adopting a deaf child who is not an infant, we do not fall into average time frames.  It could happen a lot faster or it could be a much slower process.  Either way is ok for us.  Keep in mind Rowen is only 1 and Riley is 2, and we have our hands full right now.  We should have all of our immigration paperwork done and all of our other stateside requirements completed within the next month and hopefully have everything submitted to Ethiopia before the beginning of June.  


Why the blog?  We wanted to invite you to be on this journey with us.  A journey that we hope will help lead you to the heart of God.  God is continually revealing Himself to us in this process through people we have met, scripture we have encountered or the moments where He speaks into our chaos and reminds us who He created us to be.  Check back throughout the next couple of weeks and months as we update you with what God is doing in our hearts and lives through this adoption and where we are in the journey.  We would ask that you begin praying for us.  Pray for our continued pursuit after the heart of God, for financial provision, for our future child, for Riley and Rowen as they will be making some major adjustments when our new child arrives and for our marriage.  We know that whenever we step out in obedience, the enemy is waiting to fill our minds with lies and distract us from where God is leading us.


We are so excited and can't wait to keep you posted throughout this journey