Spring Photo Shoot Fund Raiser!

Quick Update

So, it's been a while!  I didn't realize I hadn't posted since October!  2 reasons: first and foremost, life has just been SUPER-busy, even more so than usual with the holiday season; and secondly, there just wasn't anything (good) to report. . .  I say good, because we did have some delays, but we are trying really hard to see those as gifts from God and not lament over them.  Every time we are "delayed,"  (I'm sure there will be MANY), I am trying to claim the truth that God is sovereign, and that all things work together for our good and His glory! (Romans 8:28)  Each time there is a set back, I am choosing to see it as a gift of time with the children that are currently in our home: time to focus on them and let them know how much they are loved, more time to teach them about God's heart for orphans, and time to prepare them for the challenges that may be ahead. . . .

Anyway, after having to re-do a few forms that had to be updated, we are now OFFICIALLY APPROVED to adopt from Ethiopia!!

The next step is scheduling our home study.  There are two families ahead of us, so I would expect another month or so.  From what I understand with our agency, since we are already approved, the main purpose of our home study is to give our case worker a chance to get to know our family and assess the "type" of child or children that are the best fit for our family.  Our goal is to be open to whatever children the Lord has already chosen for us: meaning we could have older children, or babies; healthy children, or children with special needs.  We know that God knows us better than we know ourselves, that He will equip us to "handle" whatever hardships we may encounter, and ultimately, that His plan is better than anything we can ask or imagine!

So, please join us in praying that we would continue to seek His will, have peace with His timeline, and that He would continue to provide us with ALL that we need: spiritually, emotionally, physically, and financially, for this part of our journey!

A word about the donate button . . .  It is linked to a paypal account that is set up specifically for adoption costs.  Our current estimate is around $38,000, it could be more or less depending on how many children we actually have and their condition, as well as how many times we have to travel.  We will begin "official" fund raisers after our home study has been completed, but, in the meantime, if the Lord lays it on your heart to donate, here's an easy way to do so! :) 

Rhema through a Megaphone! (Part 1)

When people hear that we are adopting, the first question, after "Really?!," is "From where?"  The answer: Ethiopia.  Then, "Why did you choose Ethiopia?"  Then I get to say, "We didn't choose, God told us."  This is SO cool, for SO many reasons!!!!  The most obvious being that I get to share what the Lord is doing in our family, and I get to share His heart for the orphan and His plan of adoption.  But, it goes even further than that.  I get to share how the Living God, Creator of the Universe, cares enough to speak to ME!  And, he doesn't just speak to me, He speaks to me so I can tell other people so that He can speak to them, too!

So, if you read the last post, you know that we knew we would adopt at the "right" time, but that was supposed to be in the distant future, when we had more money and our other kids were older . . . .   Well, God has other, better, perfect plans.  While I was content to wait, the Lord kept at me by building a community of adoption around me.  A few of my friends started an Orphan Care Ministry Team, and since I had no time to join it (yep, that's sarcasm), my good friend kept me updated on all that they were doing.  She went to a conference, learned a lot, had fun, met some neat people, heard John Piper preach, began hearing the Lord speak to her very specifically about her role in caring for orphans . . .   It was all great, and I was loving being a part of it by praying for her and thinking through all these things with her.  When it was time for the next conference (this past May), our other friend couldn't go.  The conference was for 4 days in Louisville, Kentucky, and she was planning to drive.  I sort of flippantly said, "I'll go!"  To me, it made perfect sense: we'd have a fun road trip together, I'm interested in orphan care and plan to adopt one day, and I will have some much needed time away!  (All very selfish reasons for going, I admit.)  Then when I started to really think about it, I knew I needed to talk to my husband, make sure I could get off work, arrange childcare, oh, and pay for it.  I told her I could only go if everything except my meals was covered, and that it would be totally okay if she needed to find someone else, most definitely thinking I would not be going.  She asked another girl . . . came back to me later and told me that everything was paid for (conference fee, hotel, gas, even my food!), could I go?  God was preparing the way!  Obviously, I went!

The Orphan Summit VII was amazing!!!!  I could write for days about all the great things the Lord is doing around the world!  I learned so much, and met some really great people!  But, more importantly, this is when I really started to hear the Lord speak very clearly about the "right" time for us to adopt.  There were many moments during the conference when I was emotional, and the stories tugged my heartstrings, but this was more than that.  Up until the very last sermon of the conference, I was still in my "one day" mode - constantly thinking, "Oh, I'll have to remember that when it's time for us to adopt," etc....  The last sermon was about our culture being a "Snuggie culture."  The pastor was speaking from John 21 - the third time in a month I had heard a sermon from this passage!  (I knew I really needed to get it this time!)  I wish I could recount the sermon in it's entirity; there were so many great truths!  However, the one the Lord really wanted me to hear was this, in our comfort-seeking (i.e."Snuggie") culture, we have tranferred our need for comfort to God.  We claim to  know that we are in God's will when things line up, make sense, and are easy.  (In His goodness and grace, He often does that for us.)  However, in John 21, Jesus first affirms Peter's sense of belonging by recreating the scene where he denied Jesus three times and gives him the opportunity to proclaim his love for Jesus three times, then He tells Peter that he will go to places he does not want to go.  The pastor talked about how Jesus told Peter He would build His church upon him, yet he would be led to places he did not want to go. (He was ultimately referring to Peter following Him in death by crucifixion.)  How can we, the church, expect anything different?  1 Corinithians 1:18 says, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God."  The rest of that chapter and chapter 2 are all about how different man's wisdom is from God's wisdom.  Likewise, man's will and God's will are not always the same, and God's will often does not make sense to men.  So, the challenge from this pastor was for us to consider if perhaps, being in God's will often is difficult, even something we don't really want to do, and defintely something that doesn't make sense.  WHOAH!  In that moment, I heard the Lord speak directly to my heart about how I was waiting for a "right" time, a time for it all to work perfectly and make sense - in my human eyes!  Even now, 4 months later, I have chills remembering how clearly I heard His voice telling me the time is NOW!

Why "Rhema"?

In my small group a while back, a very wise lady shared her experience with the scriptures above (Luke 4:4, Deut. 8:3).  She taught us about the word "rhema," and told us how she and her husband's eyes were opened to the truth in this verse.  They thought, well, we usually eat three times a day, does that really mean we can "hear" from God three times a day?!  So, they prayed that their ears would be opened and challenged one another to really listen and see if they could hear from God at least once a day.  And, guess what, on most days, when they were really listening, THEY DID!  In that meeting, we talked about how we have not only been given God's "logos" - his written word, but also His "rhema" - his spoken word, which is revealed to us by His Holy Spirit.  All we have to do is ask and listen!  So, I did! 

What do I mean by "the spoken word of  God?" Am I talking about an audible voice that booms from the clouds, no (though I don't doubt that can happen!)  Most often, it is just a sense of "knowing" something without obvious explanation.  Sometimes, it is a still, small voice that is so clear that I wonder if it was audible to anyone else.  Other times it comes through other people and situations that only God can orchestrate, or it is two people coming to the same conclusion without having any discussion at all.  It is the Lord laying a person on your heart - when you think of someone "out of the blue" and know that you should pray for them or call them.  It is something revealed to your spirit by His Spirit living in you.

Back to LIVING by God's word. . . in the words of my dear friend. .. "the essence of the teaching:  It's that God is speaking rhema to us all day long.  We don't catch it because we don't expect Him to be speaking to us all day long.  Our expectations are on the floor.  The teaching comparing rhema to bread, and the thought that we eat 3 times a day at least, revolutionizes our expectations on how often God WILL speak to us.  We don't expect Him to speak, so we don't hear Him speak."

Obviously, I am no where NEAR perfect, and there are definitely days that I forget to listen, but when I do, I hear.  Isaiah 55:6 says, "Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near."  and Psalm 145:18 says, "The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth."  Let God revolutionize your expectations; seek Him, listen for Him, and He will speak to you.  In the following posts, I will attempt to give testimony to God's rhema in our lives concerning our adoption.

*This is not at all to belittle God's Holy written word!  And, it should definitely be stated that rhema will never contradict logos!!