Welcome

On the advice of experts in the area of adoption, I have decided to set up this blog in order to keep friends and family updated on where we are in our journey. I'll start from the beginning........

Jason visited China last October and brought home precious memories, pictures and videos of places he had visited and people he had met. Over the course of several weeks of looking at pictures of different things, God began to stir my heart for the countless children in China who were living their lives in orphanages. At first I believed it was just my motherly instinct kicking in, hurting for these children who were starting their lives without the love and security of their own family. But as the weeks passed, I realized it was something more. I began to pray about the idea that perhaps God was indeed stirring my heart to do something. I finally brought up the idea to Jason. We committed to pray about it-which we did, and did, and did, and did. It seemed like God wasn't speaking to us about it.
Then one day Jason and I had the conversation that brought us to the point we're at today. He said that perhaps God had already moved and we needed to move to. He compared it to the days when the Israelites were wandering in the desert. The last chapter of Exodus described the completion of the tabernacle by Moses and the profound events that followed. Exodus 40:33-38 says, "And so Moses finished the work. Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out-until the day it lifted. So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel during all their travels." Simple faith. When the cloud stayed, the people stayed. When the cloud moved, God moved-and so did the Israelites. So maybe God had already started on this journey-it was now time for us to pack up our tabernacle (our baggage and our fears) and get going. In order to hear Him, we needed to follow Him. So we did. We took a step of faith and the results have been amazing. To see how God has already worked through this has been incredible! We are so excited about the rest of the journey that is yet to come..........
So here we are. We are in the process of adopting a child with special needs from China. Currently we are filling out paperwork to get our homestudy started. It is overwhelming and I imagine my fingers will never be the same from all the writing and typing I'm doing to complete everything, but it will all be worth it when we bring our sweet child home. I know that God has a perfect plan for our family in this, and we are so honored that He chose us to do this.