We've got some exciting news!

A daughter is in the works...we are adopting!  It's pretty amazing how God has led us to the point we are now.  I first thought about adopting when I was in college working with inner-city children in Houston (Impact) for 3 summers.  After we got married Zac and I talked about it as a possibility, but nothing concrete.  Then God kept finding ways to bring it up in our lives.  One of our neighbors is a great Christian couple that has fostered and adopted many children.  The other old neighbor (who has now moved to a different neighborhood...we sure do miss you!) has 3 young children, and then adopted a baby from Ethiopia.  Then last year at a Christmas bunco I found out one of our good friends from church was thinking of adopting internationally also (which they are currently starting the process right now too).  This past year Zac and I read two books recommended to us by different people that really rocked our world and opened our eyes to the poverty and atrocities so many around the world are going through everyday ...A Hole in our Gospel and Kisses for Katie.  So after 2 miserable pregnancies we decided that we would definitely adopt our 3rd.  We planned to adopt from Honduras.  I spent 2 months there after college doing mission work, some friends of ours currently live there, I know Spanish and Zac is pretty good at the language, Mason is in a Spanish preschool...in our eyes it seemed like the perfect place.   But God had a different plan.  The Honduras adoption program (on their side of things) is at a complete stand still, and on top of that we found out even if we did get a referral we would have to be there 4-6 weeks when we picked up the child.  So we looked at other Latin America counties....again those programs were either currently shut down or required anywhere from 1-3 month stay which we can't do with our two young-ins.  We wanted to do a 3rd world country because the main reason we weren't adopting domestically was because we wanted to get a child out of the extreme poverty, disease, and exploitation that plagues so many of the other countries.  So before we knew it Congo hit us smack in the face.  While we hadn't planned for Africa, that is obviously where God had planned for us to adopt.  Again Kisses for Katie really softened our hearts toward Africa.  If you haven't read it you should...it is an amazing book! **  Also there is a large non-denominational church a few miles from us (where our old neighbors go) that has around 30 families that have adopted from Africa that could be such a great support to us and our baby girl.  Don't worry Robinson Avenue peeps...we aren't changing churches.  :)  So to sum it up we want to adopt a baby girl, and God has showed us there is a great need for children to be adopted in Congo.  PLEASE read this blog post. http://www.millionsofmiles.com/2010/02/lisanga.html?m=1    It was shared on a facebook group I have joined for families adopting from Congo.  It is written by a lady who has gone to Congo and visited an orphanage there.  It reaffirmed us that we were doing the right thing. 
We have no idea how we are going to afford this, but I have talked to many people that said it all works out.  They pretty much all said if you are willing to take in God's precious orphans, He will take care of the finances.  I heard SO MANY incredible stories of how right before each bill somehow the money came in (donor, grant, unexpected raise, etc).   I always thought that adoption could only be done by the wealthy, but what I'm finding is many of the people who are adopting are average middle class families who have a heart for God's children.  We know things will be difficult financially, emotionally, etc.  But we are willing to take a leap of faith, and we have no doubt our lives and the child's life will be better for it.

**Kisses for Katie is about a girl who after high school moved to Africa and God has done amazing things through her.  She is now 23/24 and has her own non-profit organization, adopted 13 African girls, taken in and saved hundreds of lives, shown and told of God's love to countless others, and empowered others to do the same.  I recently read another book - Anything the prayer that unlocked my God and my Soul- written by another lady who heard about Katie's story and how it changed the life of her and several other's in her church.