Your Turn to Help

Here is a copy of the letter Liz and I sent to many of you.  In this letter, we wanted to express our need for your prayer support primarily.  We also included here the ways that you can help us in the adoption journey.  For anyone who did not receive this letter, I hope all the info is here for you to be able to pray for us and to help out financially if you are able.  We are at a point now where we need a little less than $5000 to move to the next phase of the process.  So, we are trusting the Lord to do great things; even it that means giving us patience to wait on His timing.  We love all of you and look forward to sharing more of this journey with you.

Adam and Liz<><

You should be able to use these links to get to our support letter if you are unable to read the jpegs below.  Feel free to contact us if you have questions.

Congo Support Letter (pg 1)
Congo Support Letter (pg 2)

Updated Prayer Requests

Here is the list of prayer requests we posted a few weeks ago and some of the answers we've received so far.  Thanks for your prayer support on this journey.

• that God would be the center of all of our decisions and progress 
• our motive and focus would be the glory of God in the gospel rather than some self-agrandizing, philanthropic endeavor
• that we would choose the right adoption agency - We were led to One World Adoption Services, Inc. out of Georgia.  A friend of mine who adopted from Ethiopia last year gave us this reference.  We have been more than pleased with all of their help so far.  
• that we would find the right home study agency - We are currently working with Adoption and Home Study Specialists in Louisville.  They are licensed to do home studies in Indiana and we were referred to them by Families Through International Adoption (FTIA) in Evansville, IN.  Thanks to those guys for the referral.  One of the families in our church (Mark and Ginger Hales) have adopted through FTIA and gave us their contact info.  It's amazing the pathway God uses to get you where you need to be.  A referral of a referral of a referral.  
• Patience (I [Adam] tend to be task-driven and the hurry up and wait will be difficult)
• financial support for the adoption (agency fees, legal fees, travel, etc.)

We would appreciate your continued prayers for the items without answers listed above.  Most of these will be continual prayer needs through the process.  Here are a couple you can add to the list.  

• Pray for swift gathering of documents for the home study, USCIS, and dossier.  These are sometimes dependent on the government agencies issuing the documents and can cause delays. 
• Pray that our fears about traveling to the Congo would continue to be calmed.  You can read Liz's earlier post about how the Lord has worked in her life in this area.  We do not want to be gripped by fear in this process.  
• Pray for the transition in our home with Noah and Tovah having a new sibling - and a very different one at that. :-)  

The journey continues...

A place of dependence...where we need to be!

As we pursue adoption in the Congo I feel God's sovereign hand sanctifying my soul as I slowly start to let Him carry me.  I would be lying to you if I said that I have been joyfully surrendering to the Lord through this whole process.  As the possibilities of us starting the process of adoption came closer I kept feeling strong fears in my heart (The heart is deceitful above all thing and desperately sick Jer 17:9).  I was consumed with negative thoughts and we were faced with so much adversity that I sometimes felt like I wanted to run the other direction. But the Lord has been so faithful!  I was allowing the adversary to distract  me from God's purposes in adoption, yet the Lord in his goodness sent so many people in my life to pray for me and turn my heart back to the truth of God's word!  The Lord cares for the orphan (James 1:27, Deuteronomy 10:18) and he cares for us because we once were orphans too until He adopted us into His family (Romans 8:15).  We are excited to see all the Lord does in us and in our family during this time of dependence on Him. We are seeking the Lord and trusting him as we continue to walk in faith.  <>< liz