Where are we at...

It is an expected question.... Where are you at in the adoption process.  Well it has been weeks since I have updated our blog.  I have sat down to write several times and it is like the words just won't come.  Which is odd because writing is my outlet and normally, when I get the chance to write my heart just overflows.  This is the way I express myself and most the time it makes at least a little sense.  Especially when you compare it to me just talking.  I tend to be a passionate person.  I think sometimes I get on most peoples nerves, because I just get so excited about things.  Todd and I will have a conversation like this at least once a week......
Todd, "I just wish you would talk normal."  Me, "I am talking normal."
Todd will then say, "No you are yelling, please stop yelling".  I usually conclude our epic dialogue with something like this "I AM NOT YELLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!".  :} Anyway, back to making sense and me not being able to write....
It isn't that I haven't had anything to say, it just wouldn't pour out.  I needed to really be able to process where we are and what the Lord would have us do now.  A few months ago, we had a really hard conversation with our social worker about our home study.  Our income is not enough to get approved by the U.S. immigration because we already have 4 children.  The days following that conversation were really painful and I cried a lot.  So, where do we go from here.  We were so certain that the Lord called us to care for orphans......
Well, He has.  Actually the Lord has called all of us to care for orphans.  We are all suppose to be loving the hurting, suffering, those the world counts as invaluable and the least.
Here is where we are:  We can not move any further in the home study process unless something changes for us financially.  Though that sounds like our ability to help an orphan is halted, it really is just the beginning.  In the desperation I felt knowing we couldn't move forward, God began to stir in my heart.  Deep stirrings and longings to help not just one orphan but as many as I could.  So, we joined with some awesome friends and we had a garage sale for orphans.  Coming together with all of our excess, cleaning out our closets, selling things we wanted but could live without, and giving the money to build a safe house for orphans in Haiti.  The garage sale for orphans, charged me.  I felt so full, overflowing with smiles.  We did something for the hurting.  Why does it have to stop there.  This Sunday our family is running in a marathon together, to raise money and awareness of the 27 million slaves that are living in bondage throughout the world.  They were not born into a life of privilege like you and I, but they are just like you and me, so many children just like my precious kids.  Shouldn't I be bothered that they are suffering?  What kind of life can we say that we lived if we did not live with the constant drawing to want to help them.  Todd and I are at such a liberating place right now.  We have surrendered all that is next in our lives, to Jesus.  Hungry to look back and know that ten years from now our lives were spent for His glory.  I don't want to settle for a religious experience, and find that in the end it was all nothing.  Nothing but a watered down faith, constructed around a god that in the end was myself.  Right now we are seeking the Lord's leading and we both know that we are called to live in ministry, pouring our lives out for others.  Todd chose not to renew his teaching contract and at this point nothing is holding us back.  We are willing and waiting for the details of our next assignment.  We don't know where or when, so now we are just going to serve those around us and help in any way we can with orphan care, right here where we are.  I am reading a book called "True Religion" and in it he says, "When you set out to change the world, you end up changed".  It is true.  You are able to see from a different lens.  I challenge you to determine to help those with no voice, the people that will die and never have their story told.  Injustice shouldn't only matter when it effects those closest to you.   Get involved in the lives of the suffering, feed them, house them, adopt them, love them, give your life away for them.  Anything less is a religion we have all made up, and in the end the brazen image will have been yourself.

I also want to take a moment to talk specifically to everyone who has invested in our adoption so far....
We have kept it all in a special savings, and it will either be used for our adoption or returned to you.  We always always want to have integrity and honesty with those that the Lord has so graciously drawn along the way to be apart of this journey.  So, please feel free to ask very openly about any of that. :}  Hugs. Jess