“Great is Thy faithfulness!” “Great is Thy faithfulness!”
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided—
“Great is Thy faithfulness,” Lord, unto me!
As you read last night I was in a hard place. All day just struggling. On the spin bike, driving down the road, at a friends house.. Lord where are you? Please help us? I know your there.. I know you've called us! We believe!!! It was a dreary day here, and so was my heart. Crying out to the Lord, but also standing on his promises and clinging to those. We went about our day, and this afternoon was helping a friend who recently suffered a loss. I was literally sucking up a spider with the vacuum when the phone rang. My dear neighbor said it was from Alabama ,and I said oh the agency, I'll take it. On the other end was my sweet social worker Emily. Emily is just about the most dear, soft spoken person you've ever talked to.
"Hey Brittan, it's Emily. Did you have a good Thanksgiving, I'm so glad to be back in the office. I'm so glad to hear that you had a good Holiday. Listen I have some really good news for your family. ( at this point I'm fully expecting her to just say that we are DTC as we are expecting our paperwork to be back any minute now). Brittan I'm so excited for your family I'm grinning from ear to ear! ( at this point I'm thinking it's a little better then just news of DTC but still had NO idea) Brittan, a family called today and made an anonymous donation to your family. ( wow I thought! Maybe it was for the payment of $2900 that we didn't have! Wow this is awesome!) Brittan, I'm thrilled to tell you that it was for $20,000.00!!!!! Your adoption on the agency side of things outside of travel expenses is likely paid in FULL!"
Wow, blown away doesn't even to begin to describe what we have been going through this evening. I love so much about this and I'll list the reasons below.
1.God gets the glory! I was begging him and telling him Lord, YOU, it's you and I want folks to see you through this.
2. God hears our prayers.
3. God will never leave us or forsake us..
4. What God calls you to he will fulfil. Folks thought we were crazy for stepping out again and adopting Wills. The beginning of our process was hard and we had some serious bumps in the road. There was a lot of time to ask, "Lord are you sure this is what we are suppose to do?" We prayed and continued to stand on his promises even when it seemed less then hopeful.
5. Folks watching us receive this amazing gift brings them the HOPE that God can do it for them also. We believe that so many more would step out if cost was not an issue. Friends, the Lord is faithful and he will provide for you to adopt if you feel led. We are proof!
Tonight as I prayed with our 4 children here and finished our advent readings I was so taken by the words used to describe our Lord in Isiah 9:6 " For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Prince of peace.. just what we needed..
This Advent season as we wait for Wills just as we waited for Molly last year we give THANKS for the gift of you all who have donated to us this go around and last. Listening to Molly exclaim "Baby Jesus!! While we were reading her book and Hartley asking if we could call God to ask him who gave us this money and Thomas saying, maybe it was God mommy.. and West pledging his tooth fairy money once again for the fund, makes me realize this adoption stuff is so much more far reaching then just bringing a child home. You ALL are making an eternal investment in the life of not just Wills, but also my family. This has once again been an incredible journey to take with you all and we are so thankful for each of you and especially the extreme generosity of the family who gave today. What a wonderful example you are to us all. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you again..
Where do we go from here. We'll we have a little bit more work to do but not much! One things most grants won't pay for is travel. The matching grant now through Lifesong will pay for our in country money that we'll need but we still need about $10-12k to make up what the flights will be and also there may be a teeny amount still needed to Lifeline depending on what our in country cost will be. With Molly is was $13k and I'm guessing $15K since the whole family is going this time. We have several things going on, soaps, tshirts and donations for the matching grant. We had also planned an event here with a fab silent auction, live music and food in February called "A night of Hope" I hope with all of these things we'll get pretty close to being funded. Maybe we'll throw a garage sale in there or a birthday party for Wills turning 3 in January? One thing I do know though is that we have not one reason to worry. Our God is more then able to do immeasurably more then we could ask or ever imagine!
Tonight we give THANKS!!!
Hello. We are Rudy's sponsor family. We have loved him so much. I have visited him twice in China and have many pictures of him to share with you. We have two other children from Harmony House, one with Spina Bifida. You can find me at Nihao6 on Instagram. Congratulations! He is a real sweetheart!!
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