We're Facebook Official

It's a funny world we live in. Technology rules most everything. We text, facebook and tweet every detail of our lives in grand broadcast for the world to see...and if people haven't seen it in those platforms then they don't believe it is real. Seriously! Well, it's real my friends! We ARE adopting again! We are thrilled beyond belief and God is already making a way for these precious daughters of His to become precious daughters of ours as well.

We have been blessed by a fellow adoptive parent who has graciously offered us a fundraising opportunity with these beautiful hand-stamped copper necklaces!! They're $15 each and we get 50%!!! You can choose Africa or China and the placement of the star (or choose no star at all). 1" copper disk on an 18" copper chain. I will be submitting the order on Oct 18th. Payments can be made through paypal at the link below. Please specify Africa/China and star placement in the checkout process. Thanks so much for your support!

In addition to this amazing fundraiser, we have an online auction scheduled for October 21-November 3. There are currently OVER 70 ITEMS that have been donated and offers are still coming in! When the auction goes live, I will post a link. If you have a product or service you'd like to donate to help bring our daughters home, please email the auction coordinators at ghanakeepgrowing@yahoo.com. Thank you for your prayerful consideration of blessing our family this way!

Paper Pregnancy

It's been nearly 3 years since we began our first adoption process in 2009. I remember being so excited and yet so overwhelmed by all the information (and misinformation) available...and I was so confused. We prayed and began our process with an agency we found later to be the wrong fit for us. We continued along our way, believing fully that our child/children would enter our lives from the beautiful nation of Rwanda in Central Africa. A country very near and dear to my heart. God had other plans, and as most of you know, our son and daughter entered our lives from Ghana, West Africa. A country neither Sam or I had ever even HEARD OF prior to the adoption process! We are so very thankful that God led us to these precious souls. His plans are so much greater than our plans!

Now here we sit, gathering papers for our dossier to begin this adoption process all over again. While I do remember mounds of paperwork from our first run through this, I think my brain was happy to forget all the paper cuts! OUCH! Must be a similar physiological reaction to giving birth. There's no denying the immense amount of pain and discomfort that chauffeurs a new life into this world...but the moment you hold that precious child, the pain sort of melts away. The joy is so fulfilling that the discomfort is minimized...and over time, barely remembered fully. So it appears to be with adoption. The paper cuts will hurt for a few days like morning sickness in the grand scheme of child-rearing, but they will be long forgotten when first holding the child they labored for. The waiting in adopting is excruciating (far worse than the physical labor of childbirth in my opinion, because there is no definite time frame on when the wait will end)...but even that discomfort wanes as soon as the life you've longed for is being held in your arms on "gotcha day" or "forever day" or whatever your family chooses to label it. So for now, I will wade through the mire of homestudies and homeland security approvals and document notarizations with hopeful anticipation of the day that the morning sickness/paper cut phase of this adoption is finished and we can move on to the second trimester...renewed energy, eagerly awaiting a court date declaring them our daughters (and maybe a little nesting).

Man Plans...God Laughs

When Sam & I exchanged vows in 1999, we had no idea the life that was ahead of us. We were young & in love and all we wanted was to travel the world together. Neither one of us was in a hurry to start a family. When the time came, we knew that I never had a strong relationship with my only sister and Sam was happy as an only child, so we figured we'd probably stick to being parents of one as well...which was further affirmed after the tremendously difficult pregnancy that chauffeured us into parenthood eleven years ago!

Have you ever heard the saying "Man plans, God laughs"? Well that, my friends, is the story of our lives! We were content in our life as a young couple with one wonderful little girl...so we were SHOCKED when we learned we were expecting again! Of course, we can't imagine life without our precious little monkey. Then, God broke our hearts for the orphans of the world...leading our family to expand once again with the long-awaited arrival of our family's youngest two members, who joined us through the miracle of international adoption last year! Our minivan is near capacity, but that's ok! We've placed our lives in the hands of our Heavenly Father and He has provided for all of our needs.

We are so abundantly blessed to have four beautiful, adventurous, uniquely created children blended together to create our awesome little family. To say we are blessed beyond measure would be an understatement of exponential proportion. We are happy together (even on the days when life is just really, REALLY hard).

Where do we go from here? What does the future hold for our little fam? Well...God is doing some AMAZING (and unexpected) things in our hearts and we are excited to announce that our family will be expanding once again!!! We have answered the call to adopt...AGAIN! We are currently gathering all the updated paperwork needed for our dossier. We are moving forward in faith that God has called our family back to Ghana to bring HOME these amazing blessings...2 beautiful children who have waited, longingly, for YEARS for someone to say YES to them...and are trusting Him to provide for all our needs along the way.

We are so very excited to be beginning this journey again. Please keep our family (those under our roof and those waiting for us overseas) in your prayers as we take this enormous leap of faith. Thank you!