Life is wonderful here in Tanzania. We are finding out the more we lay down our lives and ways we think we should be doing things,  and submit fully to our Heavenly Father and His ways.... there is peace. Now that does not mean we don't walk through hard things. It instead means that He carries us through hard things. These past few weeks our hearts have broken together as a family as we grieve the loss of someone so dear to our hearts.

After trying and pursuing our sweet Glory girl for the past two and a half years the door has finally closed for the last time on us adopting her into our family. This came as a big shock to our family as we had finished everything here with our social welfare, had filed in the high courts for her adoption, and were literally just waiting for the phone call to be able to go and pick her up. Instead we got a phone call saying this would not be happening. I won't go into all the details but the door closed.

The hardest part was telling our kids. There have been lots of tears and lots of working through emotions. It has been a good opportunity also to be able to have some great deep discussions with them about forgiveness and also about trusting God and His ways. We also know this was not all in vain. We were able to help her biological mother get out of an horribly abusive situation and find a great job with a pastor who we know and trust. Her bio mom is doing incredible and has since accepted Christ as her Lord and even is leading Bible studies at times. We know God works all things together for good and we are excited to see how that plays out for little Glory's life.

We are so thankful for everyone who has been asking us about her adoption. It means so much to us that people who have never even met her care about her and have been praying for our family. So a big thank you.

As far as us adopting again, we are totally open to what God has for our family. We believe we will be adding more children in the future through adoption and cannot wait to see who they will be. We are in the middle of Kamila's adoption with our courts here and everything with that is going well. Kamila will be turning TWO in October and we look forward to celebrating her life and the precious gift that it is. We have completely fallen in love with adoption and the miracle it is and would encourage anyone who has felt led to adopt but has been to nervous or hesitant to do it to JUMP ALL IN! It is such a beautiful process, and although not easy at times it is totally 100% worth it!

We love you all and are so thankful for your friendships, prayers, and support of all kinds! We are busy busy here and seeing God move in mighty ways! Be looking for our next newsletter soon and if you are not on our mailing list and would like to be added send me a message on Facebook.