How One Phone Call Changed Our Lives

My children have been trying to convince me to start a blog for weeks – maybe months – but I have resisted pleading a complete lack of spare time – and I don’t mean a spare hour, I mean spare minutes. However, we are in the midst of one of the most exciting adventures of our lives and in order to keep all of our family and friends abreast of our progress, I’ve decided to join the world of bloggers.

Several months ago I was praying and thinking about my life and how it seemed to be in a place of relative calm, relative because I am a homeschooling mother of seven, but things seemed to be ticking along quite nicely and it felt good. I began to ask God, “What more do you want me to do for you. What more do you have for my life?” I didn’t intend to give up what I was doing, namely loving my husband, homeschooling our children, and managing my home, but my youngest had just turned three I was about to graduate my second daughter from our homeschool and it just seemed that there might be more to consider.

Then on February 14th, my dear friend Emily called to tell me that they were in the process of adopting two children from Ethiopia. Little did I know that this conversation was the beginning of the Lord’s answer to my prayer. I could not get the conversation out of my mind. I began to read about Ethiopia and the incredible AIDS orphan crisis and my heart broke for the millions of orphaned children. Then Russ went on a trip to Mexico to visit his parents and while he was flying home he read two of the articles I had printed for him. You can find them here: What Will Become of Africa’s AIDS Orphans and Hope Lives Here.

We read more and researched more and shortly after Easter we made the life changing decision to pursue adopting our own little ones from Ethiopia. Although I was ready to jump right in on paperwork, I knew that once I started I would not be able to stop. So I set it aside, finished my school year, and planned a wonderful graduation ceremony for our daughter and her friend.

Once those events were over I dove into paperwork and for two weeks worked like crazy to accomplish as much as possible. God’s kindess has been evident every step of the way. It has been a help to live in a small community where people are easy to reach and glad to help. I’ve read of people who have waited two months for letters from their doctors, ours took one week. Others have waited a month for their criminal history check, again, ours took one week.

Thank you for reading. More to come.

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