Friday, September 30, 2011

Please Journey With THIS Family!!!!


Many of you in blog world already know the Block family and have followed their journey for a while. If you do not know them, please let me introduce you.

The Blocks have 4 bio kids and 5 adopted sweeties and they have recently sold everything, packed up what was left and moved to the mission field full time. They are currently serving in an orphanage in Guatemala, called the Eagles Nest.

I am constantly amazed by their faith in God and their love for others. I have never met Amy, but she is on my list of "sisters I must meet". Please follow their journey and pray for them. They need us, but trust me, we need them. We need to be inspired and encouraged by their selfless hearts. They need us to pray for them and support the babies they are taking such good care of. Wait until you see the pictures of these precious babies..... you might just want to run get a few of them.

"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


Monday, September 26, 2011

She's HOME!!!!


Our little Korean princess finally made it home with her momma and daddy last night. All week, we have skyped and it's been so fun to get to see her every day via the computer screen, but it made me want to get her in my arms even more each time I saw her. Then last night..... that moment came when I finally got to do THIS!!!!
I did let her big brothers see her first and I snapped a couple pictures of them. They were smitten with their baby sister as soon as they laid eyes on her.
They had waited so patiently for the plane to arrive and I know Mom and Dad had missed these boys so much all week.

Then Sonia and I got to have that sweet moment together where we just held each other with Daria squeezed between us, and cried. Tears that represented joy, loss, gain, and answered prayers. God is so good, and we were holding one of HIS miracles in our arms.
Then it was time to head down the escalator for lots of friends and family to welcome this sweet family HOME!!!

My sweet Lilly waiting patiently for them to come down.

Cousin Lexie getting some love from our new girl!

Is this precious or what? She went right to her Pawpaw (Sonia's dad) and put her head down on his shoulder :)
Grammy, mine and Sonia's sweet mother-in-law, also got lots of love and hugs!
How about this one?!!! Daria has an instant BFF.... our dear friends Jason and Liz brought their baby girl, Hannah, home from Korea earlier this year. These two girls looked so adorable together.

After a full 24 hours of traveling with little to no sleep, Sonia and Brandon were so happy to head home. Maggie and I went to their house because we were not tired!

At 12:30 this morning, we were feeding the princess yogurt and her favorite, Gerber Puffs. Opening new toys and riding her on a pink pony. Then Sonia let Aunt Polly dress her in her pjs, feed her a bottle, get her to sleep and put her down for the night. For all of you BTDT mommas, we are well aware that we broke several Attachment 101 rules last night. We are praying for favor :)

To those of you who have been praying for this sweet girl, thank you so much. Sonia and Brandon have seen the hand of God all over Daria's life and I can't wait for Sonia to share some of those stories on her blog. Please continue to pray for them and follow their journey at HOME!

On a different note, I have not been blogging as much lately for a couple of reasons. Mostly because I have not had the time. My plate is more full now than it has ever been and I have recently had to lay it all on the table and ask God to prune what needs to go. I considered letting the blog go altogether but God showed me that was not the best option. However, my time on the computer is very limited and therefore, I can't justify blogging unless I have extra time. I'm hoping that as my time management skills improve (I'm praying about that and accepting any ideas from homeschooling mommas of a bunch of kids with more on her plate than she can do in a day...... got suggestions? please send them my way :), I will find a few days a week to set aside for the purpose of blogging. I need to figure this one out because one of the things keeping me busy these days, will actually have me blogging more in the near future.

As many of you know, and I've made mention here on the blog in the past, my husband and I, along with our great friends, Jodie and Eric, have started a non-profit called Altar 84. We are currently working on the website and blog and we hope for it to launch in just a few weeks. I can hardly wait to share some of the things we will be doing! Be on the look out because we will need YOU to join us in our efforts!

Last of all, I haven't blogged as much lately about our adoption because on one hand there hasn't been much to tell. We are still slowly moving up the wait list. On
the other hand, there has been a lot going on in our hearts during this time of "waiting". Just when we thought we knew what God was asking of us in the form of adoption, He began doing a number on our hearts again. I would love to share some of those things with you but we don't have it all straight in our own heads yet. If you've journeyed through this season of waiting during an adoption before, you can probably relate. If you've been there, please pray for us. Please pray that we would see and hear clearly from the Lord. We don't have it all figured out yet (then again, do we ever?) but we are certainly trying. We just want to be fully obedient and that's what we are praying for. I'm sure there will be more for us to share about that soon. For now, we are praying and seeking HIS face!

Thank you Jesus for the many families who are making much of YOU by caring for orphans.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

For this child, we have prayed!!!!


Many of you know my sweet sister-in-law and brother-in-law, Sonia and Brandon are adopting a beautiful baby girl from South Korea. We have prayed for this baby girl since we first laid eyes on her last November. We found out the day before Thanksgiving last year, that she would be a Bice..... How amazing that this year on Thanksgiving, she will be in our arms!

Brandon, Sonia and one of their sons, Mason, left early Friday morning for Korea. Sonia and I packed suitcases until midnight Thursday night while our hubbies were in charge of weighing the suitcases and shuffling the contents of them around until they got each one to weigh in at 50lbs. Sonia and I have spent many nights preparing for labors to be induced the following morning, but this was definitely a different experience for us. It was very surreal packing SO much stuff. It wasn't like the other times when I could simply say, "if you forget something, I will bring it to the hospital in the morning". So, we were trying to make sure we remembered everything they could possibly need. I'm assuming we did a pretty good job :)

Anyhow, I was hoping I would find the time this week to post a few updates of their time in Korea, but our dear friend, Liz had a much better idea. She set up a blog for Daria, and now Sonia can post pictures and blog about this amazing experience each day. Our communication with Brandon and Sonia is very limited. We can skype and use facebook, but no phone calls or texts. So this blog will be a wonderful way for us to see pictures from their trip and hear details. Please follow their journey HERE, as they Bring Daria Home. They will pick her up on Tuesday morning at 9:00 (Korea time) which will be 7:00 Monday night for us. Can't wait to see her sweet face! Please keep their family in your prayers this week.