Jumping In Again...

So, God has been moving in our hearts for quite some time now, and during the last few weeks, He's really been grabbing our attention...and we are starting over on another adoption! It's so different than last time, and yet so much the same. It's scary stepping out into the unknown, but it's not quite so unknown as it was in the fall of 2008. We've actually got almost a year of parenting under our belts this time around, but of course every child is different, so that may not mean much at all in the end. We've already been through the paperwork and homestudy part of it once, so we may know what to expect, but on the other hand, there have been lots of changes to the process since we went through it, the most obvious being that Ethiopia now requires two trips to adopt a child.

The biggest change is in our hearts. We aren't fighting with God going into this adoption - instead, we are looking forward with joyful expectation to see where He will lead. Our eyes have been opened to the great need of the nearly 150 million orphans in this world that we as Christians have been called to serve and care for. Our hearts have been broken by the contrast between our lifestyle and the ones we saw in Ethiopia last summer, and we cannot turn our backs on the fact that we have the room and the resources available to take in another child in desperate need of a family. We are thankful that God has called us so clearly once again to reach out to "the least of these," and we are looking forward to the day when we meet our second child.

Will there be difficult days ahead? Absolutely. The little boy or girl that God brings to us will have already dealt with some type of horrible tragedy in his or her life. There will be scars and pain to deal with. Satan will try his best to distract us from the Lord's plans, and there will be days when it feels like he is succeeding. The last time, his attack came in the form of David's disintegrating health at a very crucial time. Yet we know that "greater is He who is in us," and our Father will be there through every single moment - to pick us up, dust us off, and restore our faith in the beauty of His promises. He is faithful, and after all, He has already done this for us: adopted us as His son and daughter - in spite of the mess that we were in, in spite of the way that we fail Him, in spite of the way that we push away from Him at times. He loves us anyway - always and forever. If we are to be His reflection to a dark and dying world, how can we turn away from those who need His light so very much?

We invite you to pray with us as we embark on this new journey. Pray for our unknown child, for the family in Ethiopia that is perhaps being forced into unimaginable choices, for Yikealo and his acceptance of a future sibling, and for our courage and faith to stay strong. Most of all, we ask that you pray that the name of Jesus will be glorified!