What a whirlwind these few months have been, but oh so incredible! After many, many hours of paperwork and education, we have completed our Home Study! Yes, COMPLETED!!! Our next step in this amazing journey is an appointment with USCIS (Immigration). We have really been praying that we would get in soon. God has answered that prayer! We got our appointment scheduled! That is a blessing in itself. Most of the time, it takes weeks upon weeks to get an appointment through them. We know that all of this is in God’s timing and it is requiring MUCH patience on our parts. He’s definitely growing us!

      God has been providing in so many incredible ways! One two different occasions, our pastor has received large donations for our adoption. It has been so amazing watching His provision over us in this time. There has been lots of fundraising going on. We have sold many cheesecakes and t-shirts. Also, The Venue (our church home) put on a yard sale for all the families in the church adopting. It was a great success, raising $2800 to be given to six different families! Speaking of those six different families… what an incredible adoption community the Lord has given us at The Venue Church! It is so exciting to live life with people who have adopted or are in the process! Would you continue to life these families up in prayer as well? These families are adopting from Ukraine, Ethiopia, and Uganda. It is going to be an amazing picture of people from all nations and tribes worshipping the Savior together!

     We are beginning to get the room set up for our precious one little by little. Out with the Queen bed, in with the Twin. It’s been so fun doing little things to prepare for our little one’s homecoming! From painting furniture to picking out sheets, more and more excitement is building for our child to be home. And can I just say, pictures of little Ugandans has always melted my heart. Now, seeing a little Ugandan child is on a whole new level of heart melting!!! Many days I just sit and think what our little one could be doing right now. Is he/she being cared for well? Is he/she getting hugs that mommy and daddy so desperately long to give? We pray that our little one feels the arms of our Savior no matter what circumstances they are in. We know that our God is a God who cares so much for orphans and widows and we know that He is watching out for our sweet one. This child is His. We pray that God continues to prepare our hearts to be mommy and daddy for the child that the Lord is entrusting us with.

     These lyrics have spoken so much to me as we have been in this process and I leave it as a challenge to all of us to live every day, loving “the least of these”:

Little hands, shoeless feet
 Lonely eyes looking back at me
Will we leave behind the innocent too brief
On their own, on the run
When their lives have only begun
These could be our daughters and our sons
And just like a drum I can hear their hearts beating
I know my God won't let them be defeated
Every child has a dream to belong and be loved

Boys become kings, girls will be queens
Wrapped in Your majesty
When we love, when we love the least of these
Then they will be brave and free
Shout Your name in victory
When we love, when we love the least of these
When we love the least of these

Break our hearts once again
Help us to remember when
We were only children hoping for a friend
Won't you look around
These are the lives that the world has forgotten
Waiting for doors of our hearts and our homes to open
If not us, who will be like Jesus
To the least of these