Our Announcement!

   We have done a lot of praying, planning, and talking for quite a long time. God has placed a calling on our hearts that we have recognized and acknowledged in our family, but have shared with only a few. I'm not sure why, except that we know people might think we are absolutely crazy. We might agree, actually, but that is a whole other post! You see, we are excited to add more Quiambaos to our family!!! We will be starting the process to adopt when Marvin gets home and we get settled into our next duty station! Right now, we are saving money so that we will not have to go into debt, and praying. We know for a fact that God has the children picked out for us, but we know nothing beyond that. We do know that we would like an older sibling group and that we would like to adopt an HIV+ child. Why? We have gotten some pretty big reactions to this news from people who love us and want to stand behind us. Let me explain the things that God has laid on our hearts that have led us here.
    First, our children are so very close. They are truly best friends. I love to watch the relationships that they have with one another. When Marvin and I both felt our hearts being pulled to adopt, we began looking into different ways to go about it. There are so many children, both here in our country and all over the world. We began looking at different agencies and getting information. It was clear that the the group who needed us most was older children. Our hearts were broken for these children so often overlooked. Then we found sibling groups with older children and we both knew that is where we needed to be looking.
     We had never considered bringing an HIV+ child into our home. We had thought like so many people, that it would be a danger to our own children. We want to impact the lives of these children, but we did not want to put the lives that God has already entrusted to us at risk. We never would have even considered it...until God changed us forever. Our friends went through the process of adopting and their child was HIV+. We did not know at first, but we prayed fervently for her through the whole process. God did something in our hearts during that time and I could never have seen it coming. He broke our hearts for that child that we had never met. Because of her and her very special family, we started looking into HIV and the statistics behind it. We were blown away by the things we found out and how much things have changed in the years since those terrifying words became real to us. How children with this disease can live very healthy, full lives on medications that are readily available here in the US. How those same children are dying everyday in Ethiopia because they do not have them. How not one case has ever been documented of a child contracting the disease from another child in day to day living. We were amazed at how the many things we thought we knew were just plain false. Yes, this disease kills, but medication can and does allow people to live happy, healthy lives. We have watched our friends' daughter flourish and bloom in front of our very eyes and cannot help but want that for every child. We cannot save every child, oh how I wish we could, but we can help save the lives of one sibling group somewhere in Ethiopia right now.
       We do not know who our next children will be, but God does. My heart as their mother yearns for them all day, everyday. I know they are out there and I know they are probably sick. It hurts deeply to know that they are there but I can't comfort them. I want to so badly. All I can do is ask God to wrap them in His love and allow them to know that I am loving them every single second from all the way around the world. This blog will be a place that I can record the ups and downs as we go through this long process. Made longer by the fact that we cannot even start until Marvin gets home and we are settled into our next duty station. We need to be somewhere long enough to get through the long process!