IT'S A BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Isaiah Juvenson

Hi, Guys! I am the newest little family member! My sisters are so excited they can hardly stand it!!!! My mom and dad...well, let's just say they can't believe they have a son! They thought all along that it was going to be another girl. God had better plans! I can't wait to catch frogs, play in the dirt, and drive trucks. Mommy can't wait to smooch my cheeks! Daddy can't wait to play ball with me! My Haitian name is Juvenson, and the Lord gave my mom and dad the name Isaiah for me when He confirmed in their hearts that I was to be their son. Thanks for all of your prayers! I am 2 1/2 years old and dream of coming home before my next birthday in December. Please pray that the Lord paves a way for me to come home as quickly as possible! Until then, I will stay here at the orphanage where my nannies will take good care of me. Mommy and Daddy will send $100 a month to the orphanage to help cover the costs of caring for me and feeding me while they wait as patiently as possible.

Please keep praying for me!

Love,

Isaiah

Here is a picture of my sisters getting the surprise news of hearing that it was a boy. They had to close their eyes and mommy had my photo behind her back. When they opened their eyes, they were looking at me!!!! Mommy thinks their expressions "tell it all"!!!

Another God revelation...

Here is another great story of God's greatness in revealing Himself in the most unlikely ways!

We had not yet told our elderly grandmothers of what the Lord was doing in our family. We understand that the idea of biracial families is a harder concept for that generation to embrace. We were waiting for the Lord to lead us to the right time to share. We did send our announcement email out to the rest of our extended family. Well, last week, Matt's dad received a phone call from his mom. She said she had just read the letter from Matt and Laura about their plans to adopt. Grandma lives in a duplex with her daughter, so she probably had seen her letter. She was calling to tell him that she decided she needed to come alongside us and give some money to us for this adoption. That in itself was very encouraging, however she called him back later that afternoon. He was thinking that she was probably forgetting that she had already called him that morning and was going to repeat the story all over again. No, she said she had been thinking about it even more and decided that it wasn't enough what she was giving...she wanted to double it!!! WOW! She then asked where the kids would be coming from. Matt's dad said they would be Haitian. She said, "Asian?!?!" He said, "No, mom, from Haiti...H-a-i-t-i!" She said, "Oh, so will they be black?" (again we were prepared for the idea of a biracial family to be something very hard to understand for some) He said, "Yes, they will be." She said, "Ok...just let them know how I am going to help."

Oh, God is just so amazing in using some of the most unlikely situations to confirm His will to us. Here she is willing to generously give of her limited finances to support God's will in our lives. When these things happen, it gives us the strength to carry on. The weekend was hard as you know from Friday's post. I realized that I was fretting...and I needed to just let God be God- in all of His Majesty in my life. He already has this completely figured out. I just need to continue trusting Him. As I have said, this is modern day walking on water. I feel like I had allowed the storms of decision to swirl around me and had taken my eyes off of Him. The circumstances started to blur my vision of Him! Did my feet get a little wet with the doubt I allowed to seep in, yes, but God in His wisdom knew how to get my focus right back on Him.

Oh Lord, thank you for blessing us with such an incredible family!!! Thank you for giving me what I needed to see You in this at this time. Forgive me for taking my eyes off of you! Oh Sovereign God, with the power of your Holy Spirit in me, allow me to keep on walking...keep on trusting You! Thank you for being Our Provider! Thank you for using your children to bless us with their finances to make this adoption a reality for our family. Oh, Lord, bless them in an abundant way for their obedience to You. God, you are so Good! We are so humbled by Your continued patience with us. God, we do not deserve the miracles that you are performing in this journey. Oh Lord, may You use us as Your instruments for Your will to be done. Lord, may You manifest Your glory in our lives...and receive all the glory, honor and praise that is due to You, our Great God and King! Oh Lord, how I love you!

well...

Today is a little bit of a bummer day, granted we haven't been feeling well this week. The kids have had a stomach virus this week, and now I ended up with it. That means the house is now a huge mess, and the kids are not caught up on their school yet today. Our oldest dd, bless her heart, did make everyone pancakes for lunch. She, and her sister, cleaned the kitchen in order to be able to make the pancakes...now it is a big mess again. At least everyone was fed! :)

I guess since I have been open, honest and vulnerable with you all so far, I will continue and share what is heavy on our hearts today. This whole identification process in adoption. There is just something that feels so "strange" about choosing your children. During pregnancies, you could guess what you were having and how another girl or a boy would affect the family...but now you have a say in that decision. Our Adoption Coordinator explained it in terms of choosing your spouse. God shows you who the right one is. It was helpful to view it in those regards. I know that God already has the child/children that He wants for us chosen! I just don't want to let any of my own ideas get in the way of following Him in this. So if you could please pray for us...we would greatly appreciate it! This is a huge, life altering decision and we need your prayers! God is Sovereign and He will be faithful to show us at just the right time. There is just so much that goes into this decision! Thanks for your support!

Money...

The other day one of my younger dd came to me asking, "So does money really grow?"

Laughing I said, "Yeah, you mean like money grows on trees." At this point, I have a flash back of my dad saying, "Laura, money doesn't grow on trees, you know."

Well, my dd continued, "No like money grows up from the ground."

Now I realize that she seriously thinks there is a very good possibility that money grows like a plant on the ground. (I shudder to imagine our economic situation during a drought if this was a fact...we are studying the Great Depression right now. It is so hard to imagine such difficult times. Can you imagine if we were completely dependent upon harvesting money from the ground?)

Back to the conversation...I tell my dd, " No money doesn't grow up from the ground. Where did you get that idea?" Oh, it is from an old Mighty Mouse cartoon they have been watching.

Just goes to show how impressionable our little ones are, and the power television has in shaping their minds.

Then I started imagining if money did grow on the ground...we would be in luck for funding our adoption. The girls, however, would be subject to cruel and unusual punishment while we worked from sun-up to sun-down harvesting money. :)

So that was one conversation about money...here is the other. I guess it isn't technically a conversation! Last night in the middle of the night, Matt blurts out "We don't have enough money!" (Don't know what he was dreaming about.) I however, was disturb enough by the comment that I couldn't get back to sleep. I know we don't have enough money, but does he really have to startle me out of my sleep with that declaration! ;) Besides God knows where every cent for this adoption is coming from...so I rested in that knowledge!

Oh, Hallelujah...God is GOOD!

Guess who just called!?!? It was the lady from the agency in the next state! Oh, God is so GOOD...He heard the prayers, the confusion we were having and answered us. We will be going with that agency to do our home study. She has committed to getting as much as we possibly can done before the actual certification from the state comes to them. If for some reason, they do not get their certification, they will give all of our information to an agency in our state that can complete the home study for us. She promised they will make it right if something unforeseen should happen along our way.

She also committed to helping us put our dossier together, and to help us with each step of the way! Their family is getting a daughter from Haiti this spring, so she has current and direct experience in preparing a dossier for the Haitian government. She has someone that can do the translating for us. She also said she just had a report that the time frame of dossiers getting through the Haitian government has been reduced. They are moving through more quickly. Can you believe it!?!? She also said that because she has been to this country and seen the children, she knows their desperate need. She knows that if we are being led to Haiti, it is God!

I tell you I continue to be amazed at how incredibly real God is in our lives. In every step of this process, we want to make sure that we are walking in obedience. We our laying everything continually at the feet of Jesus and waiting on Him. We have followed God's will for our lives in the past, but there is just something so tangible about this journey. God is literally walking us down this path holding our hands! I know He has directed us in the past, but this is just such a new revelation of His "realness" in our lives. I am so in awe of my Lord and Savior!!!!!

YIPPEEE...

I just received the email from the Director, and we have been approved!!!!! I am so excited!!!! We can now begin the process of identifying the children the Lord has for our family. Please pray for the Lord's hand to divinely direct this decision process. I can not imagine what pure bliss I will feel when we get the message that we can go get our little ones from Haiti.

I will go to sleep with a smile on my face tonight!

What to do...

Well, here is a big prayer request for you! We are so torn between what who to go with for our home study. We live on the border of two states. There is someone in the state next to us that is waiting to get the approval to begin doing home studies in our state. They have gone through many adoptions, and are actually getting a daughter from Haiti this spring. They are hoping there approval from the state comes in the coming weeks. The other option is a very qualified social worker in our state. She has over 30 years experience and knows this state. They both have such pros and cons. We are completely torn as to what to do.

We are praying that the Lord will make it clear to us. It is just so hard to not be doing something at this point. I know that the wait will be the hardest part of the whole journey. I am prepared for that part of it...well, as prepared as one can be. I am an optimistic person, so I will keep looking at the wait with optimism!

The problem is at this point in the process, we should be doing something, KWIM!?!?! Please pray that we will know what to do. They are both great options. We just want to be obedient to God in each and every step of this journey...even down to this detail!

Paper Pregnant...

Man, this whole "paper pregnant" is such a fun way to experience life! I totally feel pregnant in the terms of it always being on my mind...dreaming of what the children will look like...will they be boy or girl...how my heart longs to hug them and love on them! The greatest part is that I can actually think about these things and feel great! My pregnancies have always been so miserable that the sickness overshadows the pure delight. I told Matt over the weekend, that it is so fun to experience the anticipation and the excitement while feeling well! The time line isn't as predictable as the 9 months of pregnancy, but that is okay. This whole thing is God's plan, and He makes all things perfect in His time. I will continue to seek His face each day and rely on Him as my source of strength.

As I wait, I will look at the pictures every day and watch the videos. Oh, how those videos tug on my heart and give me goosebumps. I have them memorized, but I still get tears in my eyes. So your assignment for today is to click on the link on the right hand side of my blog under Adoption Facilitator and watch the short video! You will be blessed! Then let me know how it touches your heart in the comments section!

Grab your Kleenex and click! ;)

Quiet Time lessons...

Here is an excerpt from something I wrote to my mil. I just wanted to share it here, to further explain how we are feeling. The magnitude of what God is doing, can not necessarily be described. All of last week's Bible Study was on being obedient to God, it was like it was written specifically for me for this time. Then God confirmed His will for us to go forward, and now this week's lesson has been on surrendering control of our lives to God. The title of the lesson that I am referring to below is called God Often Works in Way We Don't Understand. Once again, I feel like this lesson was written just for me!

Here are some things that wowed me this morning in my quiet time.

*God's ways often don't make sense in human terms.
*Why do God's ways at times seem unreasonable or even foolish to people?
*God wants us to surrender everything to Him and allow Him to direct and control our lives.
*When God is in charge, He does things differently that we would.
*The miracles of Jesus often demonstrate that God's power far exceeds man's best efforts.
*When we choose to trust God even when we don't understand what He is doing, we will find Him faithful to meet our needs in every situation.

I totally relate to what she was saying, because that is exactly where we are at. We are surrendering everything to Him. We feel like we are riding a wave of belief in God that we never anticipated being on. Matt stated in our application to the Adoption Outreach that he has never felt as close to God as he does now. We can not explain it any other way. God is doing something unbelievable in our lives. This isn't about us!! We talked about adoption many different times throughout our marriage, but it is just like all of a sudden God said, "Will you trust me with this right now?" We struggled with what God was asking us to do over the past few weeks. He has done some amazing things within our hearts. We do covet your prayers and are so grateful for your willingness to support us in that way. It means a ton! We truly are overwhelmed with what God is doing in our lives, and the lives of our children through this adoption process. He is revealing Himself to us and through us, and we are humbled.

First of many...

Today was the first of many trips to the post office for our family. We received the reference letters we needed to complete our application. Matt headed out early this morning to send off our complete application package. We were so excited to get it in the mail!

We received the dossier instructions and checklist this week. I have begun working on it. I have our letter to ISBER written. This letter expresses our desire to adopt from Haiti and our intentions on adopting from their country. We need to find someone who is fluent in french and is able to commit the time to translating our numerous documents in French for the Haitian government. Please pray that Lord will lead us to that person, so we can begin that step.

We continue to pray each day for our children in Haiti. We can not wait for the day that we see their faces and the Lord confirms that these are the children for our family!

Covering the cost

Here was one of our first funnies!!!

The girls were asking how much the adoption was going to cost and we told them over $25,000. Our second dd said, "Ok, I'll come up with the 25...you come up with the thousand!" We all had a good laugh about it! I responded, "Umm, I guess I need to do a better job teaching math!" :)