Just getting started...

Steve and I decided to start a blog to keep our friends and family up to date on this new adventure we have decided to take. Although we feel so very blessed to have Steve Allen, Elliot and Aleah, we have definatly felt a calling to add to our family through adoption. We (well mostly I have but...) talked a lot about adopting and if we thought we could or should add to our family.

Well about six months ago, I started really researching more seriously about all the different ways we could add to our family through adoption. Although I always thought we would adopt from China, I kept feeling a pull to Africa. After a lot of research, I started narrowing in on Ethiopia. Why, you ask, well because not only do they have over 4 million orphans but the required stay in the country when going to get your children is less than 1 week. Since we have children waiting at home, we did not want to be gone for a long time.

Steve and I had been church hopping again and Steve and my mom (separately) suggested that we go up to Harvest church which is close to our home and see how we felt. We had been to Harvest before but just felt it was so large that we wanted to go to a smaller church. However as the children are getting older, a larger church seems to offer more options for the kids, so that started the church hopping. On Saturday, April 4th we headed up to Harvest. Guess what the service was about...Ethiopia. We could not believe it. I was overwhelmed with emotion and found myself crying and shaking. Not just because of what we were hearing, but because to us, it was a sign that God was truly sending us in this directions. Seeing the conditions the people of Ethiopia live in day to day, the way they struggle to survive, how many sweet children are left orphans and how many parents choice to bring their children to an orphanage in the hopes of a better life, or even more devastating, the people who just leave the children in the trash or under a bridge to die because they could not care for them was so overwhelming. I know we hear about it but to actually see it, was to much. To see children hauling their families supply of water in whatever they can find, is more then any mother can bare. So needless to say, this for me was a seal the deal moment for me. The next day, Steve had a meeting with his business class team and went to meet them at their usual spot. He showed up a little early and since he was waiting for the rest of them to show up, he decided to start watching a little TV at the coffee shop. Would you believe that the show was about Ethiopia! Steve said that he knew that Ethiopia was were we were suppose to be headed. THEN he realized he was at the WRONG coffee shop! I just could not believe it! God had defiantly hit us over the head wit this one!

Sunday night Harvest was having a meeting to talk about what they wanted to do to help people through the adoption process and to meet with Christian World Adoption Representatives. The meeting was wonderful and just confirmed for us that we were on the right path to adding to our family.

So here we are, starting the paperwork for Christian World Adoption and all the paperwork needed for our home study. We are praying hard every day that God guides us, guides us to a way to finance this all and to keep the children that God already knows is ours safe and feeling loved until they are in our arms.

Please keep our family in your prayers as we start this long process. I will do my best to update you on everything, step by step because someday I will love to read it all and see all the steps we had to take to get through this. If I start thinking of all the things that need to be done, I am sure I would be overwhelmed. So I am taking one thing at a time, one step at a time, and one dollar at a time.