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Please join our family in prayer during this season, as we find out if we will be blessed to call these two precious girls our daughters. We are ready for some good news and are full of peace and totally trusting God!
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
A look into our possible future....
Please join our family in prayer during this season, as we find out if we will be blessed to call these two precious girls our daughters. We are ready for some good news and are full of peace and totally trusting God!
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
A love that multiplies....
I had shared a few weeks ago how our family was starting the foster/adoption process here in Tanzania. We also have some exciting news on two little girls who will possibly be joining our family, and I would like to tell you a little bit about them. I was telling my friend last night I feel like I have guarded this information for some reason and I am not sure why. She told me it was probably because I didn't want people to think we are crazy, and it made me laugh because she was dead on. I am ok with being crazy though, because when you really think about it the love of God is a completely crazy thing!
The very first month we were in Tanzania we had to travel a little over a hour to go to language school for three weeks. I remember driving down the road our school was on and we drove right by a baby home called Cradle of Love. I recognized the name from seeing it on Facebook and told Brian I would for sure be visiting it while we were in school. I think it was the next day I walked to Cradle with Brian on one of our breaks from studying. We met the amazing director at Cradle, who has since become a dear friend of ours. I spoke with her about my passion for babies and was so thrilled to have met someone with such a kindred heart towards babies as well. She took us around Cradle and introduced us to many of the babies, whose ages range from newborn to three years old. In one of the rooms we met a little girl who at the time was about eight months, and her little life story broke my heart. I remember instantly telling Brian that I thought this little girl was our daughter. She was very shy, sullen, and didn't like to smile much. :) I don't remember what they told us her name was, but I held her and fed her and felt a connection with her I cannot explain. I was sad because I also knew that in Tanzania adoptions are not easy, in fact they have a reputation for being a horribly long and drawn out process. You also have to live in Tanzania for three years before you are supposed to be allowed to adopt. So here I am holding this little girl who I instantly fell in love with, knowing there is nothing I can do about it. The next day we went to see her and I found out they had started calling her Glory. I couldn't believe it. I had very much felt the Lord tell me a couple of months ago that we had a daughter named Glory waiting for us in Africa. When we met this little girl that was not what we were told her name was, and then it was. It was more confirmation for my heart. Language school continued and I tried to get over to see Glory every day. Then our three weeks were up and it was time to head home. It was heartbreaking to have to leave Glory for Brian and I, not knowing when we would see her again or how the future would play out. Over the next few months we were in contact with the director to see what we could do, if anything, to get Glory in our custody. Once we were in our new house and settled we began the process of fostering and told our social welfare there was a little girl in a baby home we were wanting to take in. The told us it would be fine to take here in once we were approved. We have seen such favor with how fast things have moved for us, and we are just now waiting on our background checks from America to be completely approved. My heart was still uneasy though, I was not comfortable taking Glory in without knowing for sure that she would not be able to be taken away from us. We want to have every single last detail in order, and because of Glory's background it is a little complicated. So yesterday we went to Arusha to meet with the social worker there who is in charge of Glory's case. He told us that he is going to look into what he needs to {as far as looking for Glory's birth mom} but he thinks that we should be able to have her in our custody for sure. I cannot explain how exciting this was for Brian and I to hear. We had been told multiple times that we would not be able to adopt Glory for one reason or the other, but Brian and I have both felt very strongly from the beginning that this precious little girl was ours, so we continue to press on. God is so faithful! There are many other details to Glory's story, but maybe another time for those. We love this little girl very much, as do our four kids. They love Glory and talk about her often. They have spent a good amount of time with her, and very much want her to be a part of our family. So will you pray with us please? That over these next couple of weeks we will continue to get good news and everything worked out for Glory to come and live with our family?
Then there is baby girl. We got an email from our friend, who is the director at Cradle of Love, while my parents were here about baby girl. Her story was very different from Glory's and at the same time equally heartbreaking. The email my friend sent said they were getting a newborn baby girl whose rights were going to be signed over, would we be interested. It is VERY uncommon for a family to just sign rights over in Tanzania, as shame is a huge thing in this culture and would be an ultimate shame for sure.It also makes the adoption much easier when the rights are just signed over. So we waited to see if the family actually brought her to Cradle, which they did. The aunt and uncle had been caring for her and they were the ones to bring her. They both agreed to signing their rights over and us adopting her, but we need the entire family to agree. So the entire family is getting together on Christmas and will be deciding whether or not they will allow us to adopt baby girl. We went and met her yesterday and she is absolutely precious. She was born on October 10th, so she is just two months old.
Now, I understand where some people may think we are crazy. Taking in an 18 month old and a 2 month old while we already have four young children at home?! We had always wanted to adopt two children at once, for many reasons, and now it looks like that may be happening, and YES we are a little crazy. :) This is who we are though, and we are 100% positive this is a part of our families call being here in Tanzania. So will you please pray for our growing family? We know and fully trust that God is in control and that brings us great peace. It amazes me to see something we have been talking about for over ten years now, to finally be playing out. God's timing is so perfect and He already knows every single member of our family. It is amazing to walk out this journey, as it builds our faith and increases our trust and joy in Him. We will keep everyone updated as we find out more!
The very first month we were in Tanzania we had to travel a little over a hour to go to language school for three weeks. I remember driving down the road our school was on and we drove right by a baby home called Cradle of Love. I recognized the name from seeing it on Facebook and told Brian I would for sure be visiting it while we were in school. I think it was the next day I walked to Cradle with Brian on one of our breaks from studying. We met the amazing director at Cradle, who has since become a dear friend of ours. I spoke with her about my passion for babies and was so thrilled to have met someone with such a kindred heart towards babies as well. She took us around Cradle and introduced us to many of the babies, whose ages range from newborn to three years old. In one of the rooms we met a little girl who at the time was about eight months, and her little life story broke my heart. I remember instantly telling Brian that I thought this little girl was our daughter. She was very shy, sullen, and didn't like to smile much. :) I don't remember what they told us her name was, but I held her and fed her and felt a connection with her I cannot explain. I was sad because I also knew that in Tanzania adoptions are not easy, in fact they have a reputation for being a horribly long and drawn out process. You also have to live in Tanzania for three years before you are supposed to be allowed to adopt. So here I am holding this little girl who I instantly fell in love with, knowing there is nothing I can do about it. The next day we went to see her and I found out they had started calling her Glory. I couldn't believe it. I had very much felt the Lord tell me a couple of months ago that we had a daughter named Glory waiting for us in Africa. When we met this little girl that was not what we were told her name was, and then it was. It was more confirmation for my heart. Language school continued and I tried to get over to see Glory every day. Then our three weeks were up and it was time to head home. It was heartbreaking to have to leave Glory for Brian and I, not knowing when we would see her again or how the future would play out. Over the next few months we were in contact with the director to see what we could do, if anything, to get Glory in our custody. Once we were in our new house and settled we began the process of fostering and told our social welfare there was a little girl in a baby home we were wanting to take in. The told us it would be fine to take here in once we were approved. We have seen such favor with how fast things have moved for us, and we are just now waiting on our background checks from America to be completely approved. My heart was still uneasy though, I was not comfortable taking Glory in without knowing for sure that she would not be able to be taken away from us. We want to have every single last detail in order, and because of Glory's background it is a little complicated. So yesterday we went to Arusha to meet with the social worker there who is in charge of Glory's case. He told us that he is going to look into what he needs to {as far as looking for Glory's birth mom} but he thinks that we should be able to have her in our custody for sure. I cannot explain how exciting this was for Brian and I to hear. We had been told multiple times that we would not be able to adopt Glory for one reason or the other, but Brian and I have both felt very strongly from the beginning that this precious little girl was ours, so we continue to press on. God is so faithful! There are many other details to Glory's story, but maybe another time for those. We love this little girl very much, as do our four kids. They love Glory and talk about her often. They have spent a good amount of time with her, and very much want her to be a part of our family. So will you pray with us please? That over these next couple of weeks we will continue to get good news and everything worked out for Glory to come and live with our family?
Then there is baby girl. We got an email from our friend, who is the director at Cradle of Love, while my parents were here about baby girl. Her story was very different from Glory's and at the same time equally heartbreaking. The email my friend sent said they were getting a newborn baby girl whose rights were going to be signed over, would we be interested. It is VERY uncommon for a family to just sign rights over in Tanzania, as shame is a huge thing in this culture and would be an ultimate shame for sure.It also makes the adoption much easier when the rights are just signed over. So we waited to see if the family actually brought her to Cradle, which they did. The aunt and uncle had been caring for her and they were the ones to bring her. They both agreed to signing their rights over and us adopting her, but we need the entire family to agree. So the entire family is getting together on Christmas and will be deciding whether or not they will allow us to adopt baby girl. We went and met her yesterday and she is absolutely precious. She was born on October 10th, so she is just two months old.
Now, I understand where some people may think we are crazy. Taking in an 18 month old and a 2 month old while we already have four young children at home?! We had always wanted to adopt two children at once, for many reasons, and now it looks like that may be happening, and YES we are a little crazy. :) This is who we are though, and we are 100% positive this is a part of our families call being here in Tanzania. So will you please pray for our growing family? We know and fully trust that God is in control and that brings us great peace. It amazes me to see something we have been talking about for over ten years now, to finally be playing out. God's timing is so perfect and He already knows every single member of our family. It is amazing to walk out this journey, as it builds our faith and increases our trust and joy in Him. We will keep everyone updated as we find out more!
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