Dossier Keeps Moving!

One of my favorite things is hearing about how God is working in the lives of others. Our testimonies are such a strong testament about God's character, and how real and alive His Holy Spirit is in us when we choose to believe and trust in Him as our Lord and Savior. If you have a testimony of God's work in your life, share it...often!

We had the privilege of being refreshed this past weekend on an annual camping trip with friends from church - and as we were hearing about God at work in their lives, God was continuing His work on our own lives. We returned home, and sure enough, our dossier was sitting in our mailbox. Praise God for yet another answer to prayer!

 This week, we made copies of everything we needed, met a nice young man at Walgreens who loved helping us with passport photos and family photos (which were mostly taken in other countries - love it!), and took months of paperwork gathering and stuffed it into an envelope.

We celebrated with ice cream of course!

This is it...our dossier is now in the mail to our adoption agency. As of Monday (when our tracking says they should get it!), we will be on a list waiting for a referral!!!


So, what's next for us? We actually still have paperwork to do. We have several federal forms that need to be completed, and we are applying for more grants. But, this doesn't sound bad at all. Why? Because we ARE ON THE LIST!!! :-)

We are now in full-swing fundraising mode. We are boldly asking God to provide the necessary funds for us to adopt from Thailand. Asking others for money is an incredibly humbling experience and a huge step of faith - it's us publicly saying, we can't do this God, please show up! It's an awesome experience for others to step up along side us and say "We want to be on mission with you, we'll support!" Everyone who supports is not only providing us the opportunity of our desire to be parents, but it provides them the opportunity to partner with God's mission of bringing a child who has no home to a home that will share the Gospel with them. It's bringing the nations to our home, our family, our church, our neighborhood.

We have set a goal date to raise funds by, and that's October 18. The overall adoption will cost around $30,000. This is a God size goal, and we have already been overwhelmed by His hand in this process, we can't wait to see what He does next!

If you would like to partner with us, please visit our "Support Us" page.

Couple other ways to be involved:

• We're having a live online facebook Jamberry Party on September 17th. Order online (choose Stephens Adoption) and 30% of each sale goes directly towards our adoption! Order today.
• We're having a Garage Sale on Saturday, September 20th! If you have any donations you planned on dropping off at Goodwill, can you please donate them to us? Email me today.

We are incredibly grateful for all the support we've received. I can't wait to share with our child(ren) one day the path that God was creating to bring our family together!