Bring Orphans Home

God has been faithful in giving us blessings, large and small, along our adoption journey. In some ways, it seems like we've already been on this road for a long while. Sometimes, it feels like we've just begun. Each blessing that God sends our way is an extra little boost of encouragement that His hand is on our adoption.

The day that we announced to the world (via facebook: you know it's official when it's facebook official) that we were adopting, a friend from high school messaged me. Before I share her message, let me tell you a bit about Susan. Late last fall, I started seeing Susan's posts about her opportunity to participate in an orphan hosting program over the Christmas season. She and her family welcomed a sweet teenage girl (Anna) from Eastern Europe into their home and loved on her the entire time. I really enjoyed seeing her updates as she shared how God provided for this opportunity and as she experienced life with this girl. They shared God's love through the Gospel and everyday life. It broke my heart as the time came for them to send Anna back home. Although they wanted to adopt her,  they fell one year short of the age gap requirement. Since that time, I have watched as Susan has tirelessly sought to raise money to either host Anna again this year or to assist another family to actually adopt Anna. Through this entire story, God has laid it on another family's heart to adopt Anna, and Susan is still working to help this family. Wow. This is an excellent story of real religion--caring for orphans.

During this whole time, God had been already at work in our hearts about the possibility of growing our family through adoption. Each time I saw Susan's posts, it only made me more excited about what God could do through our family!

When Susan heard about our adoption, she messaged me to tell me how excited she was about it. She also explained that she would love to do whatever she could to help us. She continued on to say that she has an etsy site (Bring Orphans Home) where she sells jewelry that she makes and that she would be willing to help us raise funds for our adoption. While taking out only the cost of supplies, Susan donates the rest of the purchase price to adoption: the majority to our adoption and one part for her Anna. Susan took a graphic that I had already designed and did her magic transforming it into jewelry. There are three different choices for purchase:

            

If you'd like to support our adoption in a tangible way and have a constant reminder of both our spiritual adoption and the need of physical adoption, you can purchase your necklace here. Just over the last few days, we have already raised over $250 through Susan's site!

We are so grateful and incredibly overwhelmed with God's goodness to us in His provision in this way. Our friends and family (and even people we don't know!) have been very supportive in this process. We look forward to how God will continue to meet the needs to bring our little boy home.