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Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Why adopt?

We have been asked many times WHY we are planning to adopt... Well the simple answer is, God told us to and we are being obedient! But I think that there is more information that is hoped for when we are asked that question. So here we go-
God used many stepping stones on this road to where we are now.
-A mission trip to Honduras while Dave and I were dating. There was a little girl who I adored and her dad wanted us to bring her home.
-Dave's sister has adopted 2 children and I watched as they immediately became part of our family and were loved so very much.
-The Egly family http://www.abeautifultapesty.blogspot.com/ They are friends who adopted 2 little girls from Ethiopia. They too are in ministry and managed to "afford" to adopt through God's provision.
-The miscarriage of our precious twins-an experience that had a huge impact on us and one through which God worked.
-A book called, Adopted For Life, by Russell Moore. Wow what a challenging book. This book had a huge impact on my spiritual walk.
-Learning that there are upwards of 147 million orphans in this world. Orphans who do not have someone to love them and care for them. Someone to feed and clothe them. Someone to tuck them in at night and kiss their boo-boos.
Each of these things and I am sure many others helped increase the drive to adopt and point us in that direction. I began to pray that God would clearly guide and direct our steps. At that point Dave was willing to do whatever the Lord wanted, but did not feel called to adopt. I asked him if we could spend time praying about it and of course he said yes.
We spent quite awhile praying and seeking the Lord's will. On my birthday this year. Dave "surprised" me with the gift of adoption- He had been praying for sometime and had felt God was saying YES we should adopt. SOOO here we are. Following the Lord's leading and trusting HE will be faithful on this journey.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Fundraiser

We have 2 fundraising events coming up. Please pray for each of these events to be a success as we raise funds for our adoption from Africa.
-Monday, April 12 @6:30pm-Chick-fil-a at Knoxville Center Mall is hosting a fundraising dinner for us. Tickets are $15 each which includes dinner, dessert, drink and free food certificates. ALL proceeds from the dinner go straight to our fund!!! Please message us if you would like to buy or sell tickets. There are only 50 slots available and it should be a fun evening of fellowship!
-Saturday, April 17-YARD SALE- If you have items you would like to donate, we would really appreciate it.
Please continue to pray for us as we seek ways to raise funds. Pray for the events already planned to go well. Pray for us as we are patiently waiting to move forward in this process. Pray for a grant that we have applied for that should be decided upon really soon!
THANKS so much to each of you for taking the time to follow our blog!!

Saturday, March 27, 2010

A Bedroom suite-WOW!

As many of you know we are accepting donations of items for the yard sale we are having on April 17. The proceeds from the sale will go toward our adoption fund. Well- this weekend we were blessed to receive an entire bedroom suite. A friend of Dave's mom knew of our sale and donated an almost new bedroom suite to us to sell!! What a blessing. God works in amazing ways. We can not wait to see how HE continues to work to provide for our needs as we proceed towards adoption!!

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Inspired by Crazy Love

I love reading blogs of other families who having adopted or who are currently adopting. It is so neat to read of the journeys of families to bring their children home. As I have been reading I happened upon the blog of a truly inspiring family. They have grown their family through adoption and now have 10 children. I have never met this family, but I am inspired by them and the faith walk they have been on through their lives. You can read their blog http://www.aplacecalledsimplicity.blogspot.com/
Well Linny (the mother of this family) has come up with the idea of what she is calling "Crazy Love." She is asking families to link from her blog and tell some specifics about their family and explain a current need that they have. She believes like we do that God can provide for every need and that He is a God capable of moving mountians.
Well I hate asking for help but here goes... We are a family of 5 and we are adopting from Africa. We are tithing members of Buffat Heights Baptist Church in Knoxville, TN-where my husband is pastor. We are currently working through our home study and all that it entails. We are anxiously wanting to begin the adoption process with our agency, but we need to make our first payment of around $7,000. Please pray with us regarding this need.
Feel free to email us with ideas of fundraisers, questions or any comments- carriethomas5@gmail.com

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Short and sweet

I have a book that I would love to recommend for all to read. It is called "Adopted for Life" by Russell Moore. It is an awesome book about our adoption into God's family. It also will help you to see why we have chosen to add to our family through adoption. This book had a huge impact on my spiritual walk!
I would love to hear what you think about it.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Pressing on

Well we have submitted a huge portion of our home study documents. WOW! What a task. We had tons of questionairres to go through, as well as documents to collect. We have been amazed with all that was asked for. We even had to have Sadie, our dog's, current shot records:) We have a few more items left to complete and submit and then we will begin having our home visits.
We are continuing to work towards funding for bringing our little girl home to her forever family. We have planned a yard sale for Saturday, April 17. If you have items you would like to donate to our sale, we would greatly appreciate it. Just let us know and we will work out getting them from you.
We are also working to plan a Chick-fil-A Fundraising dinner. Our local Chick-fil-a has graciously offered to host a dinner to help us out! We will have more details soon!
Please continue to pray for us as we travel on this journey-
-Pray for us to be patient:) It is hard knowing that there is a child out there that will be ours, but who is not in our arms yet.
-Pray for the grant that we have applied for. They should make a decision the end of this month.
-Pray for us as we seek ways to raise money for our adoption. Pray that we would have discernment regarding what methods to use.
-Pray for us as we have some big decisions to make. Pray that Dave and I would have wisdom.
-Pray that our journey would impact others!

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Hurdle

We need for you to pray with us concerning our next major hurdle. Before we can proceed any further with our adoption, we need to raise about $7000 for our first payment. That seems like a lot of money, but really it is not much for the God who “owns the cattle on a thousand hills” (Psalm 50:10)
The Lord has us in place where we are totally dependent on Him for this adoption. We started this because the Lord touched our hearts and led us here. We do not have the resources to even start the process. We are confident that He will fulfill this before our eyes. How He will do it, and who He will use to accomplish His will we don’t know. We only know this, when all is said and done, the work will have been His, and the glory will be His.
Pray with us, that we may all see His glory.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Our challenge

Adoption is a much bigger and more complicated process than we ever imagined. There is tons of paperwork, which we are trying to wade through now. There are home studies, questionnaires, decisions and of course a huge financial obligation. As I think through all of this I can quickly become overwhelmed. But I believe God has led us to this point and will not leave us!

A verse that I believe God gave me as I struggled through the miscarriage of our twins is one I believe I will lean on through this journey. Jeremiah 29:11- "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm, plans to give you a future and a hope." God has plans for us... as well as for the little girl we are adopting. He did not lead us to this point just to abandon us. He will be with us every step of the way.



We would like to ask for you to pray for us-

-Pray that God would keep us focused on HIM through this whole process..

-Pray for M, J and K- that they will be ready and adjust well when we bring their sister home.

-Pray for our baby girl- that she will be healthy and safe and will be in our arms before we know it! It is possible that we could bring our daughter home by Christmas.

-Pray for God to provide the finances for this adoption. The total cost will be around $30,000. This is way out of our reach. But not out of the reach of our God- Jehovah Jireh!

-Pray that others will be impacted by our journey and might choose to bring home one of the 147 million orphans in this world.

Friday, March 12, 2010

And so it begins...

We have both prayed for sometime about adding to our family through international adoption. Well we have now officially begun the journey of adoption! We mailed our adoption application in today. We are so excited!
Many of you have asked where we plan to adopt from. The answer to that is a country on the continent of Africa. We are requesting an infant girl:)
This is a huge step of faith for us. We know that we do not have the resources to accomplish this task, but we believe that the Lord has led us here- so we take this step in obedience.
Our goal for our blog is to keep others updated as we journey along this road. We also pray that perhaps God will use our journey to lead others to adopt!
Please check back from time to time to see how we are progressing.