Exciting news!

I had been waiting to share some awesome news, but I'm getting too impatient to wait any longer....We were matched with a little girl!  We were actually matched May 8th with our little girl. 
We were planning to wait to make our public announcement till after court because there is a chance you can "lose" a referral.  During the court process there is a period where they find all known family and make sure they know about the adoption.  There is a 30 day period where any family can come forward and claim her.  Obviously we would love for her to be reunited with her family, but we would also love for her to join our family especially now that we have grown so attached to her over the past 3 1/2 months.  We originally thought we'd be through court in August, but the Congo courts have had some delays - I won't go into that right now.  All that to say, we would love to cautiously announce we do have a little girl.  We would appreciate prayers on her behalf.  She is so beautiful, and I can't wait to say more once she is officially a Bray!  :)

We still have a long way to go.  There have been some MAJOR changes at the US Embassy in Congo and on the Congo side of things that have added many more months to the process than when we had officially signed on.  We had hoped to have her home by January, but it's looking more like spring now.  We are disappointed, but not crushed.  Everyone told us to expect setbacks when it comes to international adoption...we just didn't really think it would happen to us.  :)  It is good to know that our little girls is being well cared for by a foster mama until we are able to get her.

For those interested in how the court process works...

The lawyer gives all our documents to the court to schedule our first hearing to present the case to the judge.  (What happened this week).

 

At the first hearing the lawyer presents judge with all the info know about our little girl.  This is when the CONA period starts (where family is given 30 days to come forward and reclaim her).  The court will do their own investigation to locate any know family members to ensure they are aware of the adoption.

 

Once the investigation is complete the attorney will have a second court appearance where the judge will either ask more questions or issue the adoption judgement. 

 

It can take several weeks for the judgement to be printed - it is the document that will state she is now a Bray!

After that we will go through all the paperwork and hoops for the US side of things where they will also do an investigation.

 

Troubled

Well, it's almost midnight, and I can't sleep.  It has been a whirlwind of emotions the past couple of days.  We got a call on Wednesday that our home study was finally finished and ready to be picked up Thursday.  When we went to get it Thursday, it turns out the wrong license was printed for our social worker so she was going to mail us the correct one (I'm hoping it will be here on Monday).  The h.s. took a couple extra weeks longer than we thought, but I'm sure this is only the first of many hang-ups we'll encounter in this process.
On Friday I couldn't help but thinking "It is well with my soul..."  My soul was over flowing with thankfulness.  Our church has agreed to let us have an event to raise support and awareness about adoption along with our other friends from church who are adopting.  On top of that, I found out there are about 6 families that I know of who live around here that are adopting from Congo.  Thursday I met with 3 of the moms, and it was so nice getting to know them!  I'm sure this will be the first of many get togethers I'm sure we'll have.  I found out a bit ago that my cousin is adopting from Congo!  She lives about an hour and a half away, and I've really enjoyed talking with her about all this.  It will be so wonderful for our daughters to grow up together!

Right now some ladies from our agency are in Congo to meet with foster families, lawyers, and others involved in the process.  They are also delivering supplies and care packages to orphanges and children who have been adopted through them, but are still waiting on paperwork to be complete.  It is awesome to see the excitement of the parents' on our private group seeing several pictures of their children being loved on by these ladies.  But a deep part of my soul is also saddened because there are also MANY children in the pictures who do not have a parent waiting on them.  The things we read and saw brought both Zac and I to tears.   I can't post the pictures because they are not mine to post, but this is one we've been told we can repost...mostly because none of the children are currently being adopted.  While it seems to be one of the "nicer" orphanges (compared to pictures of some of the other ones), still there was not enough food for all the children.  Their meal was a chunk of bread, and it was only given to the younger ones because they ran out.  The older ones are fed last because they can survive longer without food. Thankfully they were there so they bought more bread for the rest of the kids to eat that day. 

One lady was posting about their visits today (yesterday), and mentioned how overwhelmed she was with how bad things are.  This is when it gets a little harder to keep singing, "it is well with my soul".  Don't get me wrong, I look forward to the day when there is no more suffereing, but my heart breaks for these kids who are dealing with disease, starvation, abandoment, etc right now.   Is a large house, fancy things, and big nest egg/retirement worth it at the cost of these children?  For a long time we were content giving 10% of our money to God, but do we really need the other 90%.  While I was rocking and loving on my boys a little more than normal tonight it just really sunk in what a great life we have, and made me think what more can I do to make someone else's life a little better.  Anyway....that's enough rambling.  It is WAY past my bedtime. 

Eyes Opened

I hate sad movies and books!  I do not like to waste time and money watching/reading something depressing.  I feel like life is hard enough as it is so why fill my free time down in the dumps.  So for awhile that's the approach I took on the starving orphans in Africa and around the world.  Deep down I knew they existed, but I just didn't think about them.  Part of it was out if sight out of mind, part of it was how can I even begin to make a difference, and part of it was just me not wanting to think about them and their daily struggles.  But I praise God that our eyes have been opened because this isn't just a movie or book.  This is real lives - precious, innocent lives - and real souls that need to be filled with a parent's love and the Father's love. 
Not only that but as Christians we are called to take care of the orphans.  I always considered myself a good, caring person, but to be completely honest, my way of "taking care" of an orphan was buying him/her a Christmas gift every year.  I don't think that's what God has in mind at all.  I looked up orphans (fatherless) in the Bible concordance a few months back, and I was amazed at how often they are talked about particularly in the old testament.  (Is. 1:17, Ps. 82:3,4) The Israelites were commanded to leave a portion of their crops for the orphans in addition to what they were to "give" to God (Deut. 24:19-21).  God was concerned about their well being then, and I know he is still today. (James 1:27)  Personally I think what I do to help the poor, orphans, or widows should be part of my everyday life and  separate from what I also give to God. (Matt 25: 35)

Congo alone has about 5 million orphans.  While that may seem too big to tackle, I know that I can make a difference for at least one.  Then hopefully I can encourage someone else to do the same, and they can do the same, and then before we know it hundreds-thousands of children's lives have been changed.  Katie (Kisses with Katie) and her life has changed (directly or indirectly) the lives of hundreds if not thousands of lives.  There are no limits to God's power to change lives through us. 

There are three main ways each person can help the orphans.
1.  Bring them into your home - foster or adopt
2.  Resources - sponsor a child, give to families trying to adopt, donate items to a child or orphanage
3. Time - be a mentor, reading buddy, etc to an orphan

I read that 30% of Christians have thought about adopting, but only 1% do.  It is also said that if only 7% of all Christians adopted an orphan there wouldn't be anymore. 
Satan - the source of pain and suffering - doesn't want that to happen.  He will distract us or fill us with all sorts of reasons that keep us from helping, but it is our prayer that more people's eyes will also be opened.  It is time for action!

"Don't try to avoid responsibility by saying you didn't know about it.  For God knows all hearts, and he sees you.  He keeps watch over your soul, and he knows you knew!  And he will judge all people according to what they have done." Proverbs 24:12 NLT

BTW family we posted pics of our boys a couple days ago (see below) in case you missed it.  :)

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.