Matched. Accepted. God is Good!

Experiencing God.

By Blackaby, Blackaby & King - this is the Bible study I’m going through right now. It was gifted to me by a friend. Someone I met because she wanted to see our township reached for the Gospel, like me. A stranger at first, yet I felt welcomed the moment I walked into her home, because we were sisters in Christ. Anyways…

Yesterday, I was in the story of Isaac and Abraham, and seeing how Abraham came to know God more deeply through experiences. Then the question came to me, describe events in my life where I have experienced God.

As I look at my life, I have seen God as my Savior, my provider, as sustainer, as my comforter, as my peace, as my rock, as my guide, and so many more attributes He alone holds. I have seen this through the gift of my incredible husband, through our church, through jobs I’ve held, through our home. I have seen God in some of the deepest, most intimate ways through trials in my life. Blind to God’s plan at first, yet now seeing His perfect will as we waited years into now over a decade for children. Loosing loved ones, being stretched on God’s mission, training and loving a child born to another…I have experienced who God is, and I assure you, He is Good and He is with you in the hard places, and the good!

On July 3rd, we experienced an undeserved blessing from Him yet again. Months before we expected it, we got the call and were matched with our second child!!!

From Thailand (like our son), with a wonderful foster family (like our son), in the city of Bangkok (like our son), is our 20 month old DAUGHTER!!!

We will call her Elizabeth. A family name that has come down through many generations, and it’s meaning ‘My God is abundance’ is a perfect description of what this little girl is to us. So undeserving, a couple that knew our God was enough - with or without children, and now we have a second child! Her nickname will be ‘Lizzy.’

So what now? We have sent in all acceptance paperwork, sent her a welcome album for her to see our pictures and learn about her new family, and we are preparing ourselves and our son for the excitement, and extremely hard days, that are ahead for us. We are waiting for the Thai Adoption Board to approve our match. With the number of families waiting for their paperwork to be approved and the limited amount of meetings the board has, this can take a long time. We expect to travel 10-15 months from now. In the meantime, we will get progress reports and pictures of her every few months.

With her match, our hefty Thailand fee has come, and we are seeing that we are about $4,000 short of funds we will need going forward as we prepare for travel. We are looking into fundraising opportunities, but if you would like to play a small role financially in bringing our little girl home, we would be eternally grateful. Through Lifesong for Orphans, tax deductible gifts can be given to our family account here: Go to think LINK, Select Give to a Specific Need,  Adoptive Family, our name, and our Family Account number 7765.

We are overwhelmed with encouragement to many we’ve been able to share this with in person. We truly feel loved and know we are not alone on this journey!

(Lastly, the most common question we received: we cannot show Lizzy’s face on our blog until she is legally adopted. This will not be until almost a year AFTER we come home! So if you see us in person, please grab us and we’d love to show off our sweet daughter to you!)