I was going to wait until we were completely done with our home study for my next post, but we are almost completely done with it. Our last step is to write our profile letter that will be shown to potential birth mothers. At first I was really kind of freaked out about writing this letter but as I sat down today to start it, I realized not only is it there to be shown so we can be "chosen" but when I started writing about my walk with the Lord and how important He is to me. I realized I could use this letter as a testimony to my Faith. So not only will she see it but other birth mothers my see it to who do not choose us to parent their child but it could be used as a tool to maybe one day to win them to Christ. Because I want to make it known that Christ is at the top of our priorities and without Him we truly have nothing. I want her to know that her baby will be raised not only in a loving home filled with our love but also Christ's love. This child will be a gift from Him that he has used her as a tool to bring him/her to us and I want to be the tool to potentially bring her to Christ. How amazing would that be!!!
I long for a close relationship with our birth mother. I know not a lot of people understand that. Trust me I didn't either before I started this journey. I realized with an adoption our son or daughter will have questions about their birth families and I want them to have answers to those questions. With an open adoption relationship the birth mother will be there to answer those questions I cannot answer.
We have had 4 of our 5 meetings with our Social Worker who is an amazing person BTW. Our last meeting is on September 24th. After that I think we just need to get our profile letter approved and wait for the fingerprints and backgrounds checks to be approved. Than we are in the next chapter of the process the waiting game and only the Lord can answer how long that process is going to be it could be 12 weeks or a couple of years only He knows.
More to follow in the next couple of weeks.
Waiting for you :)
Friday, August 31, 2012
Friday, August 3, 2012
What a great giveaway
I know the chances of me winning this awesome stroller is really slim but I have to try all avenues.
http://www.combicorner.com/promotionscontest.html . Click the link for your chance to win too.
http://
Thursday, August 2, 2012
My Testimony
I got woken up at 3:00 with a heavy heart to truly start living for Christ. I have been living the luke warm Christian life. I prayed and read my Bible but I just went through the emotions of it. Although I know I am a born again believer and I love the Lord with all my heart and soul. I have a hard time talking about it because I hate rejection but the Bible says in John 15:20 "Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also." So I know I will get made fun of and persecuted for sharing my faith and not everyone will like me for it but it has been on my heart lately so let me start off by writing how I came to know the Lord as my personal Savior.
I don't have one of those testimonies where the Lord saved me from Alcohol and drugs but he saved me from those things before I had a chance of getting involved with those things. I was blessed enough to be born in a family the truly loves the Lord and my parents had me in church 9 months before I was born. But as we all know just because we are born in a Christian home does not make us a Christian. We all have to come to that point where we realize we are sinners in our lives and need Christ to change us. (Romans 3:23- "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God;). For me it was one Easter morning when I was in 1st grade so I was around 6 years old. In children's church at the Anchorage Baptist Temple. Being Easter they talked about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. (Romans 6:23- For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.) Because of the fall of man in Genesis the punishment of sin is death but God loved us so so much he sent his one and only Son Jesus Christ to come and take that punishment for us so that we can go to Heaven instead of Hell when we die. (Romans 5:23- But God commandeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.) I believed at just even 6 years old of age that if I prayed to him he could and would change me forever. (Romans 10:13-For whosover shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.) So that day I chose to say the prayer and have my name written in the Lambs book of life. My story doesn't end there though because even when you accept Christ as your personal savior we are still sinners and yes the Lord does forgive us for our sins we shouldn't use that as a crutch to do wrong. Although I believed Christ saved me that day.
I went on my life to live like a normal 6 year old would. I grew up mostly in Anchorage Alaska but my dad was in the military and we got transferred to New Jersey when I was about 13 or 14 years old. I was so angry with the world and God for making me move away from my friends in Alaska. I completely rebelled. Not in the since where I went out and did bad stuff but in my heart. I was always a people pleaser and did not want anyone to think bad of me. But I had no interest in going to church (than God for parents who forced me to.) I just hated like that 13 months in New Jersey and I wanted my parents to know it too. I acted out with tantrums yes tantrums at 13 years old. I can honestly say I am sorry for that year I acted like that. But we needed that year in New Jersey so my dad could finish his schooling and he had the opportunity to meet with our pastor from Anchorage and was offered a position back at our home church as one of the assistant pastors there. So if we never went to New Jersey I would have missed out on so much on my life now. We did move back to Alaska in September of 1999. Where I started High School at Anchorage Christian Schools.
I was so happy to be at a Christian School. Even though I was in a Christian School I continued to act out at home. It was only at home though because I couldn't let anyone see me acting like this I had to let everyone on the outside believe I was perfect. But right before my 16th birthday my church a revival with Jamie Ragel and he talked about living for Christ all the time and not just to say the sinner's prayer as a Fire Insurance. I realized that night that is exactly what I did back in the first grade is I said a life insurance prayer. So that night I went up to the alter which was extremely hard because I led everyone believe I was perfect all the time and this showed them I am not. But I realized I loved the Lord and I didn't care what others think. So on October 31, 2000. I truly rededicated my life to the Lord and was baptized a week later which is the first step of obedience after we are saved. I know this is long but I had to share it because it was on my heart.
I shared it not to boast on me but to boast on the Lord and what He has done for me if he can save me he can save you from anything you are going through. Just read over the verses I have in bold and call on Him and I promise He will come into your life and change you too. This is the one and only way we can be saved and go to Heaven and we never know when we are done here. God can call us home at anytime and we need to be ready. Are you ready?
I don't have one of those testimonies where the Lord saved me from Alcohol and drugs but he saved me from those things before I had a chance of getting involved with those things. I was blessed enough to be born in a family the truly loves the Lord and my parents had me in church 9 months before I was born. But as we all know just because we are born in a Christian home does not make us a Christian. We all have to come to that point where we realize we are sinners in our lives and need Christ to change us. (Romans 3:23- "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God;). For me it was one Easter morning when I was in 1st grade so I was around 6 years old. In children's church at the Anchorage Baptist Temple. Being Easter they talked about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. (Romans 6:23- For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.) Because of the fall of man in Genesis the punishment of sin is death but God loved us so so much he sent his one and only Son Jesus Christ to come and take that punishment for us so that we can go to Heaven instead of Hell when we die. (Romans 5:23- But God commandeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.) I believed at just even 6 years old of age that if I prayed to him he could and would change me forever. (Romans 10:13-For whosover shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.) So that day I chose to say the prayer and have my name written in the Lambs book of life. My story doesn't end there though because even when you accept Christ as your personal savior we are still sinners and yes the Lord does forgive us for our sins we shouldn't use that as a crutch to do wrong. Although I believed Christ saved me that day.
I went on my life to live like a normal 6 year old would. I grew up mostly in Anchorage Alaska but my dad was in the military and we got transferred to New Jersey when I was about 13 or 14 years old. I was so angry with the world and God for making me move away from my friends in Alaska. I completely rebelled. Not in the since where I went out and did bad stuff but in my heart. I was always a people pleaser and did not want anyone to think bad of me. But I had no interest in going to church (than God for parents who forced me to.) I just hated like that 13 months in New Jersey and I wanted my parents to know it too. I acted out with tantrums yes tantrums at 13 years old. I can honestly say I am sorry for that year I acted like that. But we needed that year in New Jersey so my dad could finish his schooling and he had the opportunity to meet with our pastor from Anchorage and was offered a position back at our home church as one of the assistant pastors there. So if we never went to New Jersey I would have missed out on so much on my life now. We did move back to Alaska in September of 1999. Where I started High School at Anchorage Christian Schools.
I was so happy to be at a Christian School. Even though I was in a Christian School I continued to act out at home. It was only at home though because I couldn't let anyone see me acting like this I had to let everyone on the outside believe I was perfect. But right before my 16th birthday my church a revival with Jamie Ragel and he talked about living for Christ all the time and not just to say the sinner's prayer as a Fire Insurance. I realized that night that is exactly what I did back in the first grade is I said a life insurance prayer. So that night I went up to the alter which was extremely hard because I led everyone believe I was perfect all the time and this showed them I am not. But I realized I loved the Lord and I didn't care what others think. So on October 31, 2000. I truly rededicated my life to the Lord and was baptized a week later which is the first step of obedience after we are saved. I know this is long but I had to share it because it was on my heart.
I shared it not to boast on me but to boast on the Lord and what He has done for me if he can save me he can save you from anything you are going through. Just read over the verses I have in bold and call on Him and I promise He will come into your life and change you too. This is the one and only way we can be saved and go to Heaven and we never know when we are done here. God can call us home at anytime and we need to be ready. Are you ready?
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Update on life
I know I am doing a really horrible job on keeping everyone updated. That has kind of been on purpose though. After my last blog we went to our ADOPT Parenting class and we learned that it is our child's story to tell so I am sparing details and when our baby gets old enough he or she can tell their story to who ever they want to. I really enjoyed our weekedn in North Platte NE. It was a long drive but we got to meet some great people going through the same thing. The ADOPT parenting classes got me really excited about choosing and open adoption. To be honest, before the class I was agreeing with it just because I knew it would be easier to adopt through open adoption. But after hearing from birth mothers and their relationships and the adoptive parents. I found out you can really build friendships and life long relationships through adoption. Its like not only are we getting a baby but we also get some extended family here in Nebraska. It would be like a aunt uncle relationship to our child. I have focused my prayers to allow God to not only give us the baby he sees that will fit in our family but also to bless us with a birth mother who will be willing to have a family relationship with us. Like any new found relationship it will not be easy no relationship is. They all take work if you want them to last but at least our son or daughter will have the chance to get all his or hers questions asked by us and his or hers birth family. Right after we got home from the ADOPT classes David and I took the time over the weekend and prayed about it and we both agreed we were ready to move forward and we finally start our home study process August 6th! That in itself will not be an easy road but we are finally moving forward with our family growing! The LORD is good all the time!
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
It's been a while
OK so a lot has happened since my last post. It's been several months.
First of all I wanted to start with our intake interview. We had that back on May 7,2012. That went well. It was a lot more detailed than I imagine. We just went over David and I's life story on how we met and talked about the adoption process. We were told to start reading some books about adoption and open adoption. The first book I read was "20 Things an adopted Child wish their Adoptive parents knew." This is a must read for anyone who has adopted or even thinking about adoption. It real puts you in your child's feeling. The next book I plan on reading is " The open adoption experience".
A few days after that we left to go on our Orgeon trip for 2 weeks. I really enjoyed that vacation and it was a MUCH needed one. I really enjoyed seeing family again, It had been 5 years since we were in Oregon. The last time we were their my sister in law Sally was pregnant with my neice Kassidy who is now 4.5 years old. I LOVED spending time with Kassidy she was so much fun to hang out with. I also went down to Roseburg and spent a week with my grandparents and my mom went to so I got to spend mother's day with her. I loved it but it was nice to come back home. Then a week later my dad, his sister and his parents came to Nebraska from Ohio to spend the weekend with us,
On June 4th David and I celebrated 7 years of marriage. How in the world have we been married that long already. Time is just flying by. It feels like I just walked down the aisle and here we are 7 years, 2 dogs, 3 houses and 2 states later, Its amazing what God can do in just 7 years.
OK, now back to the adoption. We just received our invitation to the Parenting Classes with the agency on July 12 & 13th. This is all the way in North Platte NE which is four and half hour drive one way. So we are going to have to make a mini vacation out of it. Which will be nice for David and I to spend some good quality time together and maybe meet some other adoptive couples too.
First of all I wanted to start with our intake interview. We had that back on May 7,2012. That went well. It was a lot more detailed than I imagine. We just went over David and I's life story on how we met and talked about the adoption process. We were told to start reading some books about adoption and open adoption. The first book I read was "20 Things an adopted Child wish their Adoptive parents knew." This is a must read for anyone who has adopted or even thinking about adoption. It real puts you in your child's feeling. The next book I plan on reading is " The open adoption experience".
A few days after that we left to go on our Orgeon trip for 2 weeks. I really enjoyed that vacation and it was a MUCH needed one. I really enjoyed seeing family again, It had been 5 years since we were in Oregon. The last time we were their my sister in law Sally was pregnant with my neice Kassidy who is now 4.5 years old. I LOVED spending time with Kassidy she was so much fun to hang out with. I also went down to Roseburg and spent a week with my grandparents and my mom went to so I got to spend mother's day with her. I loved it but it was nice to come back home. Then a week later my dad, his sister and his parents came to Nebraska from Ohio to spend the weekend with us,
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| My dad and I at the Sand and the City which is a NCHS fundraising event |
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| David and I at the most beautiful waterfall |
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| David and his dad |
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| David and I with his brother and his wife at the Soccer Game |
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| Shopping with our niece Kassidy |
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| Me and my beautiful Mama! |
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| Us with my dad and aunt and Grandparents |
On June 4th David and I celebrated 7 years of marriage. How in the world have we been married that long already. Time is just flying by. It feels like I just walked down the aisle and here we are 7 years, 2 dogs, 3 houses and 2 states later, Its amazing what God can do in just 7 years.
OK, now back to the adoption. We just received our invitation to the Parenting Classes with the agency on July 12 & 13th. This is all the way in North Platte NE which is four and half hour drive one way. So we are going to have to make a mini vacation out of it. Which will be nice for David and I to spend some good quality time together and maybe meet some other adoptive couples too.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Forget my last post
You can forget my last post. I signed up for classes to attend Liberty Online and then we found out it was going to be over $1000 a class a total of $30,000 a year. David and I prayed about and decided this was not the right time for me to go to school. After doing research on what I could be making and what I make now. There wasn't a whole lot of difference in salary. So for now I am not going back to school. Disappointed yes but was it the right decision yes. I mean when the LORD does decide to bless us with our little blessing, my hope is to be able to stay home anyway so David was right this time its just not worth the debt. We are so close to being out of debt and I don't want to take another step backwards.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Going Back to school
What am I thinking? I decided I miss school so I decided to go back to school? This is something I really want to do but I am really nervous about it too. Not nervous about the school part. but nervous about the money. Can we really afford for me to go back to school? I applied for loans and everything but we are really wanting to get out of debt but for something like school is it really worth it? I am so glad I have such a supportive husband who is willing to let me do this even though he wants us to get out of debt. He really doesn't want to take on any more loans but he is willing to do it because this is something I really want to do. I love him so much! We both want me to stay home when we have kids so he really doesn't see why I need to go to school but I would like to have the degree under my belt just in-case I do have to work. I love the job I have now but its kind of hard to move up without a degree of some sort.
I decided to go with elementary education because I want to home school my kids and I want them to have the best education they can have. In order to do that I need to know what I am doing so to me it just seems right to do elementary education even though I may never actually become a real teacher but who know the LORD may be using this as a tool for him to open some doors in the future. Right now I am happy with the job I am at and it helps pay the bills. Who where the LORD will bring us but I know he will provide faithfully to us if we are faithful to him. He already has blessed us so much in the last 2 years we have been in Omaha. I can't believe we have been here 2 years already.
Don't get me wrong I miss Alaska and part of my heart will always be there but it feels so good to be in the will of the LORD. You know how you know it is the right decision to make but you just not sure if it is what you want. That's how I felt about moving here 2 years ago and the Lord mad everything fall into place with our condo selling in less than a month in this economy being able to afford a single family home in a quiet suburb in Omaha. Finding a wonderful church family that treats us like we have always been there and meeting wonderful friends here that treat us like we are apart of their family. Its been a hard but a good move and I think that is how school is going to be we will run into our challenges with it and may run into some financial binds especially bringing a baby into our family probably within the next 1-2 years whenever God sees fit. But I am ready for the challenge and I really miss school and I am going to a wonderful Christian University in Lynchburg VA called Liberty University online. I am so blessed to be doing this. I wish I would have gone in 2003 when I graduated from High School but now just seems to be the right timing.
I decided to go with elementary education because I want to home school my kids and I want them to have the best education they can have. In order to do that I need to know what I am doing so to me it just seems right to do elementary education even though I may never actually become a real teacher but who know the LORD may be using this as a tool for him to open some doors in the future. Right now I am happy with the job I am at and it helps pay the bills. Who where the LORD will bring us but I know he will provide faithfully to us if we are faithful to him. He already has blessed us so much in the last 2 years we have been in Omaha. I can't believe we have been here 2 years already.
Don't get me wrong I miss Alaska and part of my heart will always be there but it feels so good to be in the will of the LORD. You know how you know it is the right decision to make but you just not sure if it is what you want. That's how I felt about moving here 2 years ago and the Lord mad everything fall into place with our condo selling in less than a month in this economy being able to afford a single family home in a quiet suburb in Omaha. Finding a wonderful church family that treats us like we have always been there and meeting wonderful friends here that treat us like we are apart of their family. Its been a hard but a good move and I think that is how school is going to be we will run into our challenges with it and may run into some financial binds especially bringing a baby into our family probably within the next 1-2 years whenever God sees fit. But I am ready for the challenge and I really miss school and I am going to a wonderful Christian University in Lynchburg VA called Liberty University online. I am so blessed to be doing this. I wish I would have gone in 2003 when I graduated from High School but now just seems to be the right timing.
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