GREAT NEWS! We have received a referral for our son!!! I wish I could share a picture with you, but because of security reason I will not be able to post any pictures until he is home. He is a cutie that is for sure! Stop either Jason or I at church or where ever you see us and I'm sure we will have a picture with us!
God works is mysterious ways. Even as I think about the on goings of the last few days I am blown away at how He sees the big picture. We thought that we were not close to being able to accept a referral because in our heads we needed to wait to have the money to accept referrals for BOTH our son and our daughter. A picture was sent...somewhat early and after figuring all the numbers we realized that we at least had enough to accept the referral being offered to us. Our son is beautiful and I can't wait to hold him in my arms and be his momma. I can't wait to watch Caedmon have a brother and "teach him how to pick on the sisters" as he puts it. Uh oh!
Two days ago I got a phone call from one of the organizations that we are receiving a grant from. Originally this organization only gave out grants once your child is home, but recently the board members had decided to change that and they now give out grants at time of referral! I told her that that was so great but that we did not have a referral yet. An hour later I went to check my email and there in my inbox was a email from our agency asking if we wanted to accept a referral of a little boy, picture attached. After crunching numbers and included this specific grant, then YES we would be able to accept the referral for our son!
Now we get our butts in gear sending in our dossier and praying for God to provide the money we need to be able to accept a referral for our daughter and money to get them both home fast! I wish I had time to tell every story since then. Jason has had some great response from his "second family" at work and many desire to help us raise the money! This is such a great opportunity to share the whole reason why we are adopting and to also open eyes to the orphan crisis in our world.
We ask you all to keeping praying! The adoption road is long with many highs and lows. God has brought us further in this process then we ever could have on our own strength. There have been SO many times that we have selfishly doubted Him or been ready to quit. I am ashamed that I often questioned His leading but just like THE loving Father that He is, He continues to guide us and correct us and show us His power. I am SO grateful that He gave us the picture of our son. I know that He could easily take our boy away from us just like He could do with our other children. But just like my heart is invested in our biological children, I am already invested in our son who we have one picture of. God knew that we needed a face to put with this process. It's like our ultrasound picture. :) And any hurdle we must jump through is like labor pains. Labor pains are good and bring us closer to meeting our babies.
My friend, Jen Lee, who has three kiddos adopted from the same country we are was praying this verse over us as she was waiting to hear whether we could actually accept our referral or not.
Romans 8:32
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
God loves us enough to temporarily turn away from His own son, Jesus, and allow Him to die in order to save us. I can imagine that this was maybe the saddest time of God's infinite existence and yet He still allowed it to happen in order to save us nasty sinners. So happy that He has not left us without a Father and graciously delights in us enough to give us much more then we deserve!
