God’s Gift From India

Hello family and friends, We know life has been very different for so many of you these last few weeks as coronavirus spreads around the world. We’ve also had a weird schedule and lots of time at home together as a family. One of the blessings in all of this has been our ability as a family to focus on prayer during this time. Having a slower morning with nowhere to be means that the kids and I have been talking more about specific prayer requests. And more time at dinners at night has opened up conversations about people and countries we can be praying for. There is so much we can be in prayer for right now and we are humbly asking that you add our adoption process and India to your list of prayer requests. We have a few updates and specific things we ask that you pray for as individuals and families: 1. India is under a 21 day nationwide lockdown. In a country where millions are already living in unbelievable poverty, this is a very hard hit. We know that we as a country a...

Adult "Declare His Glory Among The Nations" T-Shirts Child "Declare His Glory Among The Nations" T-Shirts Many of you know that we have been waiting a long time for CARA approval (this is India’s pre-approval of our documents that will allow us to be matched with a child). Today marks 20 weeks waiting. The wait has been hard. It is hard to be patient when you know there is a sweet little one across the ocean that is waiting for a family. We are so eager to be matched! A picture and a name and a face will make so much of all this paperwork feel more real. We can’t wait for that moment and so we are asking that you pray with us for patience and perseverance and also that God would be preparing the heart of our little child as we wait. As hard as the waiting has been, God has been so faithful to our family! So many of you have prayed with us for financial provision and we have been blown away at how God has provided each step of the way, often down to...

So many of you have asked recently “how’s the adoption going?” We only have a brief update but we are encouraged seeing all the ways God is at work!  We are still waiting for CARA approval which is the approval from India’s adoption governing body that will allow us to be matched with a child. We’ve been waiting a little over 14 weeks for this approval. It has become more difficult to patiently wait, and at the same time we have seen some cool ways God is at work even as we wait! We received I-800a approval which is initial approval from the U.S. government to adopt. This was exciting as it involved a quick trip to Sioux Falls, South Dakota for very expensive fingerprinting! It felt great to check this portion off the list by getting the pre-approval letter in the mail! While we’ve been waiting to get CARA approval we’ve been working hard filling out adoption grant applications! This involves many nights of getting paperwork together, writing essays, being interviewed...

This past weekend Brady and I were blessed to attend Rooted in Love, a conference that our adoption agency hosts in Alabama for all of their adoptive families as part of their required adoption training. We attended with over 60 other couples who are also adopting both internationally and domestically . We were so incredibly blessed by the speakers, the times of worship, the opportunities to connect with other couples and the education we came home with. We truly cannot say what a gift this conference was to us! We walked way feeling so refreshed, equipped, and eager for the next steps in our adoption journey. We want to share just a few of the highlights for us of our time at Rooted in Love and some of the ways we saw God’s provision! One of the most amazing parts of the conference was how Gospel centered every aspect of it was! From the moment we walked in and started the conference with worship and prayer, to the way each speaker encouraged and reminded us of God’s sove...

It has been a long time since we last updated you all on our adoption process, but quite honestly there hasn’t been much to update on until recently. However, we have some exciting news to share… our home study is officially complete! The home study process required a lot of paperwork, expenses, medical appointments and social worker visits so it is a huge relief to be done with this step of the process! While our home study took much longer than we had hoped, we trust that this adoption process is in God’s sovereign hands and His timing is perfect. Once again, we are so thankful to those who prayed for us over the last 6 months as well as those who gave financially to help us with the cost of our home study! Your prayers, encouragement and financial support mean more to us than you will ever know! So what’s next? We have sent copies of our home study along with other needed documents to both the U.S. government and India’s government and we are waiting to receive approvals ...

December has been a crazy and exciting month! At the beginning of this month we filled out a packet of starter paperwork and mailed a check for our first two big adoption fees. Since then we’ve been working on renewing our passports, getting some “pre-home study” paperwork together, fundraising and filling out the applications for two home study grants that would help offset some of the costs of that portion of adoption.  We want to share some huge PRAISES from this last month... 1) We’ve sold ALL 500 pieces of our puzzle... that’s SO amazing! A huge thank you to all who gave! We’ve been so blessed by people who gave to buy 1 piece all the way up to 150 pieces! Every donation we’ve gotten is a reminder of what an awesome community of family and friends we have... this has been so encouraging to us and we appreciate each one of you! (The picture above is the puzzle completed... the back is filled with names of those who gave) 2) We finished and mailed in our starter paper...

We have some exciting news… we are almost 1/4 th of the way to having our puzzle completed!!! (See the picture at the bottom of this post) That is so exciting for us because that means we are even closer to having our home study fully funded! THANK YOU SO MUCH to those who have given online or in person! What a blessing it has been for our family to read your sweet words of encouragement, to hear that you are praying for us, and to know that your support is getting us a little closer to having our little one home! The cool thing about being closer to having our home study portion funded is that once our home study is complete we are one big step closer to being matched with a child! Also, most adoption grants require a completed home study to apply… so once our home study is finished we can apply for a lot of different grants that will hopefully help with adoption costs as well! We still have about 390 pieces of our puzzle that need to be “bought” before it is comple...