"kNOw MORE Orphans" was amazing!!! and a new song

I am so sorry that it has taken me so long to post about our Saturday night fellowship but it has been a very busy week. Furthermore, I am still trying to process the many ideas swarming in my head about where to go from here. Let me explain a little of what took place. A few months ago I had an idea to have a fellowship for families in our area who had adopted or were interested in adoption. I set a date and asked a few friends to help out. Soon that turned into me also inviting families who did not feel "called" to adopt but did want to be involved in orphan care. Since we began our process of adoption, I could not tell you how many people have said to us, "I didn't realize how many orphans existed and that we (the church) were responsible for their care". We can relate..... we felt the same way. I'm embarrassed to say, we were clueless. Then I thought, what if we invited a few families that do foster care, and our dear family friend who works at a local children's home. I posted about it, inviting local families and the RSVPs started coming. We knew that God was up to something much greater than what we were planning. As it turned out, we had around 40 adults and almost that many kids. After dinner, we sat around (stood, sat in the floor and in kitchen chairs) our den and shared hearts and dreams.

Here's a little of what that looked like. Several families had already adopted or are waiting on children to come home now or knew that they would adopt in the near future. We had families here with foster babies in arm sharing their hearts on how they had been willing to step outside their comfort zones and do something radical in order to give a needy child a family to love and care for them. There was a total of 7 church congregations represented and many desired to challenge their church body to get involved in orphan care. Then, we all heard the vision that a very sweet friend and mentor of mine has to organize a city wide orphan care ministry. How cool is that?! Are you seeing why the LORD planned this thing to be much more than what I had planned? I love that! He knew that we needed foster families, adoptive families, ministry resourceful families, and those that are ready to get involved and do "something". Because, that's what it will take to make something this huge work. It will take believers with different callings and gifts BUT with one passion. And that's what I saw sitting around my den; a houseful of people in different places in their lives, ALL with the same passion..... to bring justice to the orphaned.

So what next? Lots of prayer! I have already had many e-mails and phone calls this week as everyone is beginning to process the idea of an entire city forming an alliance for orphans. We know that God is sovereign and His plan will unfold. Many of you prayed for our fellowship and I ask you to please continue to pray for God to do a mighty work and awaken the hearts of the "church" to care for "the least of these". I am praying that we will soon, (have) "kNOw MORE Orphans".

Sorry that I don't have pictures to share. My oldest daughter was supposed to be the photographer but she quickly turned into a child care worker : )

On a final note.... please check out the story behind this new song and then you can download it on i-tunes. A friend sent this to me today but when I jumped on blogger, I saw it everywhere.... should be a hit!

One Less by Matthew West (The Story Behind The Song) from emicmg on Vimeo.

My Random Saturday Thoughts!

Can I just say, "I absolutely love being a member of the body of CHRIST!"? I can't wait to do a post and let you guys know how the fellowship goes tonight. Please keep us in your prayers because it appears that God is up to some pretty amazing things with this group of believers. Pray that we allow HIS agenda to unfold tonight as opposed to ours.

In the meantime, check out THIS blog and watch the video from her post on September 23, The Final House Reveal. This is our dream ministry. Shawn and I have been praying about doing something like this for a couple of years now. It's called Ordinary Hero and I keep their button on the sidebar of my blog at all times.... I encourage you to follow along and pray for their efforts. We found these folks about a year ago and they are truly being the hands and feet of Jesus. Enjoy and be inspired!

Hope everyone has a great week-end!

"kNOw MORE Orphans" Fellowship!

If you are interested in hanging out with several families that are all about "adoption" and all about "caring for the needs of orphans"..... join us at our house on September 25. This is not just for families who have already adopted OR are in the process of adopting. If you feel that God is tugging at your heart to just "do something" to help care for the 147 million orphans in the world..... then, you need to come. We will eat, hang out, pray and fellowship with the overall theme of the night being all about our desire to "kNOw MORE" orphans.

The month of November is Orphan awareness month and November 7th is actually "Orphan Sunday". You can click HERE to learn more about that. If your church doesn't currently dedicate this day or month to orphans, we would love to share some ideas on how to get that started.

If you are close enough to join us for fellowship, we would love to see you. We will get the night started at 6:00. Kids are welcome! I'm thinking dinner will be a mexican buffet but who knows that could change in the next week and a half. If you are interested in joining us or you just have questions, please e-mail me at pollybice@aol.com

Together, we can all "KNOW more" about our responsibility to the fatherless, so the orphaned can be "NO more".

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27

Never Under-Estimate the HEART of a Child!

I'm not sure I've seen many things sweeter than this!

I've shared from the beginning of our adoption journey that very early in our "praying about it" stage, God confirmed to us that "He funds what He favors and He was in favor of this adoption, so we could stop worrying about how WE would pay for it". He still reminds us all the time that WE won't fund it, but HE will! Well, the LORD has brought people to our door with money, sent checks in the mail, used store clerks to hand us checks, had friends offer to do fund raisers for us and lately He has been sending lots of t-shirt orders. Thank you Jesus! (I am NO salesman, thank goodness, God handles that part too. I just want to give away every shirt.) He is using His people as vessels to bring a fatherless child home to our family.

Please let me introduce you to a "precious vessel" that just helped us get one step closer to Esther!

This is Madyson (on the left) with Maggie. Madyson recently turned 10 and like most kids, she had a birthday party. A pretty cool one I might add. They swam, designed funky hair styles and stayed up way too late having loads of fun. However, there were no gifts for Madyson at the party. She asked all of her friends to please bring a monetary donation for the "Bice's Adoption" instead of gifts for her. Is that amazing, or what? What a blessing! I know Madyson's heart well enough to know that we weren't the only ones that received a blessing from this...... I know she did too. I can't wait to put our precious baby girl in Madyson's arms and say, "here's the little lady you helped give life to". Madyson, please be in the front of the line at the airport my dear..... YOU will get some of the first kisses on her!

These are the sweet friends of Madyson's that partied, swam, acted silly......and helped us bring our baby girl home!


My heart is blessed today because of these 6 amazing "young ladies" who call serving others........FUN!

I pray that God blesses each one of these girls with a future of caring for orphans, and to HIM be all the GLORY!

I love you GIRLS!

Anyone want a cool t-shirt?!!!

Our new adoption t-shirts are here! We have enjoyed sporting these all week-end. The neat thing is, it doesn't only give us a chance to share our story but because of the design on the shirts, it opens the door to tell people how many orphans are in different parts of the world and exactly how God feels about that. It breaks HIS heart.

The shirts are dark gray. The front says "BREAK OUR HEARTS FOR WHAT BREAKS YOURS" in red with the outline of the world in black. The number of orphans is printed on each continent. On the back are the names of many children who are no longer orphaned because a momma and a daddy adopted them. In bold red print is the verse John 14:18, "I will not leave you as orphans, I will come for you".

The shirt comes in three styles:

-soft, slightly fitted sizes S-XL

-heavier cotton, regular fit sizes S-XL

-youth sizes S(6-8), M(10-12),L(14-16)

The price is $20.00 for all styles with $4.95 for shipping. Obviously, if you are in Birmingham, please contact me by e-mail at pollybice@aol.com so I can deliver your shirt to avoid paying shipping.

I have set up "buy now" buttons on the side bar of the blog to purchase them using a credit card and having them delivered to you. If anyone would like to mail me a check, you are welcome to e-mail me your order and address and I will be happy to stick it in the mail to you. The pictures on the sidebar are not very clear so I will add new ones a bit later. I hope you can view the shirt below and see the details well.

We have already had several orders and people are loving the shirt. Thank you all for your support. We are currently on a mission to raise $8,600. in a hurry! We know that is nothing for our Father. We are trusting HIM to do great things.

Look what came in the mail today.....

The last item on the list for Dossier documents just arrived in our mail box..... our passports are HERE! Well, they are sorta the last thing. Our home study has not been written yet but that is out of my control. However, we had the most amazing social worker ever and he asked us to give him 2 weeks from now to get it written. That's pretty quick from what I hear, so of course we said, "that sounds great". We had an immediate connection with him and it was a friendship from the first few minutes of the first visit. I was a bit concerned that we would need to convince a social worker that we weren't out of our ever loving minds for wanting to adopt a baby when we already have 7 bio kids. No need convincing this guy..... he totally "got us". He has adoptive children so it just makes sense to him. Such a God thing! Although, I do need to thank my sister-in-law for hooking us up. Thank you Sonia!

So, we should be mailing off a Dossier to Ethiopia very soon! I will keep you all posted. In the meantime, thanks so much for all of your prayers. Today we are one step closer to our Esther, and for that I am so grateful. As I am praying for her, I often repeat the words of Jesus found in John 14:18: "I will not leave you as an orphan, I will come for you". We are coming for you sweetheart!

BTW, shirts are HERE!.... and they are awesome. As a matter of fact, that verse I just mentioned above is on the back of the shirt along with the names of many children who have not been left as an orphan because a momma and a daddy came for them. We will be posting pictures by tomorrow.