HOUSEGUESTS LEAVE... MORE PETS ARRIVE

OUR 2 LITTLE PILGRIMS
9 NEW BABY BUNNIES... WHEN THE BOTTOMS MOVED WE DECIDED TO EMBARK ON A NEW LITTLE JOB FOR THE BOYS. WE TRADED OUT OUR PREVIOUS FEMALE RABBIT FOR A NEW MAMA... WE ADDED ANOTHER FEMALE AND A MALE. SO THE BOYS WILL HAVE A LITTLE RABBIT BUSINESS. WE FIGURED THIS COULD HELP TEACH THEM SOME RESPONSIBILITY AND HELP THEM TO EARN A LITTLE MONEY ON THEIR OWN... NOT TO MENTION THAT THE BABIES ARE JUST PRECIOUS. (WHEN THEY GET OUT OF THE HAIRLESS MOUSE LOOKING STAGE:)

THIS GO AROUND WE WERE ALL ABLE TO ACTUALLY WATCH HER HAVE THEM, IT WAS AMAZING. WE ALL PEEKED OUT OF THE BACK DOOR WINDOW ONTO THE BACK PORCH WHERE HER CAGE WAS... SHE IS A GOOD MAMA. ALL 9 ARE DOING WELL, SO FAR SO GOOD!

HERE ARE THE BIG BOYS MAKING A LITTLE RABBIT BOX, SO THAT ONE OF THE OTHER RABBITS CAN GO IN TO GET OUT OF THE COLD OR WIND. THEY CAME UP WITH THE IDEA ALL ON THEIR OWN AND DID A GREAT JOB. I AM SURE THAT RABBIT IS HAPPY, IT IS OUR COLDEST NIGHT TO DATE THIS FALL. THE CRAZY PART ABOUT THIS ALL IS, THAT I AM NOT AN ANIMAL PERSON AT ALL. I WILL ADMIT THEY ARE GROWING ON ME, BUT REALLY I AM FINE WITH IT, AS LONG AS THEY ARE OUTSIDE.

Well, all our house guests have left. Yep,that is right, all of them. The girl and her son that were to come on Sunday... did come, but only stayed about 7 hours. She said it had nothing to do with us. Really, I can't blame her, I can't imagine just having a baby, then giving that baby up, and then going to a complete strangers home to recover. She was very sweet, we had a really nice talk during the time that they were here. I don't think her mother was very supportive of the adoption and that is where she was going to stay... She did seem very solid in her decision to place the baby for adoption though. So that was good. The adoptive mom said it probably also had to do with the fact that we hardly get any cell reception at our house. She felt a little lost without the use of her phone. I said she could use our phone anytime. I think she just wanted to be in her own home. I know when I don't feel well, that is where I want to be. I just continue to pray that the Lord will provide what she needs and that seeds will be planted in her heart to turn to HIM. It was a bit of an up and down day, just gearing up to have them here and then for her to leave so soon. We are trusting that was how long God wanted her here.

It has been a busy week with company and all, but I loved it. The tree is up and really looks pretty, Walmart had some beautiful live trees this year... The kids really loved looking at all of their ornaments that they have gotten over the years and we all loved putting up all of Samuel's ornaments that we received last year.

Tonight was the choir program at church... this was where they have a couple and a baby come in dressed as Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. Last year that was supposed to be us, until Samuel died. It stung a little tonight. Even putting up the decorations put me back to what it felt like to put it all up last year. It had only been about a month since he had died. It is all kind of a blur, but I just remember forcing myself to put up a tree for the kids sake... I didn't really feel like it all. This year it felt different, it was actually nice, but it stung a little too. Oh, how I wish he was here to take in all the brightness of the lights or to pull on the ornaments. He would have been just at that age, where you know they are truly starting to understand when you say no. Putting up the tree probably would have been one of the first few teaching, training times. I miss that. I love seeing those sweet precious kids learn right from wrong... even if it would have just been training not to play with the ornaments. I know that sounds crazy that I would miss the training part of it, but I do. I miss so much about not having him here.

At the same time, I feel so much stronger than last year. I feel like I am able to face so much more. It still hurts incredibly, I think I am just learning to deal with that hurt. I still miss him tremendously, but I am learning to live life with a longing for heaven I NEVER had before. I am so thankful that God is walking beside us every step of the way. I am thankful for His sustaining power as we move forward each day.

WAITING FAMILIES WORKSHOP

We are all exhausted, but happy! We will be off to St. Louis tomorrow... still trying to pull together all of the packing....Yikes!

We had our Waiting Families workshop this past week for the ministry we will be adopting through. It was really great, but emotionally exhausting. We covered everything from the birth mother's heart, the hospital stay, trans racial adoptions, interrupted adoptions, the legal part of adoptions, drop off babies, etc. There were times throughout the weekend that I thought... How did we get to this spot, how did we arrive here at this point in our lives? It just seemed shocking, then there were moments of pure excitement, fear, and moments of feeling that this is really God's will for our family.

Let me explain part of the reason why we feel this is God's will for us...

We have always had adoption on our hearts (I will share more about that in a later post:) but after losing Samuel we thought maybe it was God's will for us now... In January we sent in our application and completed our homestudy and lifebook in February.

At the end of April, almost 2 months ago when we received an email from the director of CPO(Crisis Pregnancy Outreach), that they were in need of a host home (outside of the city) for a 15 year old pregnant girl. We felt the Lord tugging on our hearts. It was unexplainable. I have had so many emotions since losing Samuel which have made being in certain situations incredibly difficult, one of those difficult situations is being around pregnant women. (When there is a deep desire in your heart for that and it NEVER comes easily and sometimes comes with much help, you know that it probably won't just happen for you, like it does for most. Now I know this is all in God's timing... I get that, but that being the case doesn't just take away certain difficulties for me) I wondered how could I do it, have a pregnant girl living in my home, yet we felt led to let her stay with us. I even told the director that I wanted to be up front and honest... I didn't know how I would feel as she got bigger. I didn't know if I would be able to handle it. So we agreed to just do it for a time and see how I felt down the road a month or so. There have been a few rough patches but really it is by the grace of God that it has for the most part been a great situation having this young girl here.

So we opened up our home to this sweet, precious young girl about 2 months ago. She is a delight, and the day she came I told her and her mother that there was in no way any part of our minds or hearts that had her come here in the hopes of getting her baby. ABSOLUTELY NO WAY! Greg and I agreed fully that we had to just take her in and hope to love her and help her through a difficult time. We spent the first 2 weeks just getting to know each other. She is a sweet heart. We were able to have lots of great conversations and she was very open and honest with us. It was kind of fun to hear from a birth mother, her desires and heart.



Well, one evening a couple of weeks after she arrived here, Greg and I were sitting on the couch late one night. We were laughing because of all that this girl experiences with us. She sees us all disheveled when we wake up, she sees us discipline our children, she sees the kids getting at each other occasionally, the craziness of the kids, and she sees all of the love we have for our kids. She sees it all! We both agreed that there was probably NO WAY that she would ever consider us, and we were both totally fine with it.


Well the next morning at breakfast she just kind of blurted out... "Miss Sara, you know how you said you didn't mind having an African American child, well I would like you to have my baby." I was shocked quite honestly. In all of our conversations over the previous couple of weeks she had said that she was looking for a family with either 1 or no children. So I asked if she wanted to interview the other families that she thought she would interview, and she said no. I called Greg right away... he was just as shocked.

So we just kind of let it simmer for a week or so. She kept bringing it up and I spoke with her mother about it. After about a week she told me to let the director know that she had chosen us. We just mentioned it to the kids last weekend. Obviously we are all thrilled about it. But yet we are very guarded. Our hearts have been broken and we are still reeling from the loss of our Samuel, but could this be the answer to our prayers? The tough thing is... we just don't know.

I have been able to really share my heart with this young girl, letting her know we would be absolutely thrilled to raise her baby. The other side to that fact is that we just recently had a tremendous loss and hurt to our hearts... all of our hearts. Greg and I are so fearful for our own hearts but even more so for our children's. They have already lost a brother this year... could their hearts be broken again? Obviously there is always that possibility. But I have told this sweet young lady that if she is at all having feelings along the way that she might be changing her mind to please just be honest and let us know right away. I explained that although we would be thrilled... at the same time with all we have experienced with Samuel we are not ready to pull our all of the baby clothes again, baby blankets, the bassinet, the whole nine yards, we don't want to get it all out until we have a baby in our home. That is our hearts desire... another child in our home. But I am not sure that our hearts could survive packing it all up again. She has seen the daily struggle with our sadness over losing Samuel and our everyday joy of life as a family so I think for the most part she understands our situation.

We fully trust that God knows our future child or children, where they will come from, my womb or another woman's. We want the child that He has for us. So with that being said we know that if this is the baby God has planned for us we will receive it with extreme joy in our hearts and if it doesn't go that way... we will know that this wasn't our baby. I say that easily, but know that if that is the case it won't be an easy thing. So we guard our hearts, we are cautiously optimistic. For now, we want to continue to share God's love and our love with her. That is part of our ministry right now and if we end up with a baby at the end of it... that would be a HUGE bonus.

We know that in NO WAY would this baby replace our Samuel. We hope and pray that people will understand that this baby may fill our arms, but that we will still miss him tremendously and are still grieving the loss of our son Samuel and his place in our family.

So with all that being said we ask again for your prayers. Please pray for God's will to be done and that we can enjoy our summer and time with this precious birth mom. Please pray that the Lord will bless our relationship with her. It will be an open adoption should it all work out as planned:) Please pray for the Lord's protection over this sweet girl and the baby in her womb. Please pray for peace for our whole family as we wait and for wisdom for Greg and I as we go through this new experience with our kids. Thank you so much for praying!



So we wait... Will Anna be a big sister?

and will Louis, Caleb, Jojo and Samuel be big brothers...

to a sweet precious BABY GIRL this coming September?

Only God knows... and we trust in HIM!