Called

A few years ago my wife and I felt the call to adopt.  We knew that God was telling us to adopt, but we didn't do anything about it.  We would constantly run into people who had adopted or were in the process of adoption, but we kept putting it off.  The more we put it off, the more we felt God calling us to start the process.  Finally, after running from it for a long time, we started the process.  The adoption process with Henry felt hard and stressful.  We would go days without phone calls, and it felt like eternity.  About 4 months after we started the adoption we were placed with our beautiful son.

Fast forward a couple years... After going to the Philippines a couple of times on missions trips I started feeling the call again.  I was drawn to Filipino children, but I had heard that if we were trying to adopt from the PI we should not travel there, as it would hinder the adoption process (silly Hauge Convention).  I did not want to stop going on missions trips to the PI, so I put off adoption.  I LOVED being there and serving the people there.  I did not want to give that up (there are a lot of I's there, aren't there?)

Fast forward again, this time to a couple of months ago.  I had a dream about some kids that I know in the PI.  They were being adopted to a forever family.  Normally, this is a time of great celebration, but for some reason I was very sad.  These four kids were going home to their family, and I was sad.  When the youngest asked why I was crying, I told her that it was because I was happy for her, but I knew that was not the reason.  I was sad because someone else was adopting these kids.  These four particular kids were not even available for adoption.  They were living in an orphanage because their mother could not take care of them.  God is using them to get me to move.  I know that somewhere out there God has my kids.  They are waiting on us to move forward with the adoption.  So, we did.
     We put in our application to adopt with Adopt Abroad Inc the other night.  We are stepping out on faith.  We do not have the money together, but we know that we cannot wait any longer.  The application is in, and I will keep you all updated throughout the process.