I can't help but see so much of Christ in this parenting gig. Not only does He love us as a daddy, but also with a perfect love we can search for all of our days on this earth and will never find. Oh how He loves us! And to think in the mere sense of the gospel that our almighty God gave His ONLY son to come below for me?! Oh the mercy. I am hopefully not going into this completely blind sighted. There will be hard and painful days and I'm going to mess up a lot and I hope on those days I can point their eyes and their hearts up to the one perfect and true thing in this life.
Okay, now for the fundraising update that was the whole point of my writings. Sorry for the rambling, welcome to my mind as of late :). You all have rallied, you have shared, you have given of your hard earned money and we are literally at a loss for words. As I mentioned in our previous post, we had raised close to what was needed for a single adoption and to our surprise with our now Schwoch sisters the fees increased dramatically. Our agency was gracious with us and gave us a week to come up with a majority of the fees while allowing us to pay the remaining by the end of November. In our helplessness He is our help; in our dependence He is the one who we can depend on. Not only did the impossible happen, but far more than we could have fathomed. Through a garage sale, T-Shirt sales & selfless donations by the end of the week we had raised the exact amount of money needed for our first payment. God continues to teach us to trust in Him and His providence. A verse that has been a key verse in the vision of our church as a whole this past year is from Ephesians. It states this "Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen" 3:20-21
We can't wait until the day we can share with our girls all those who said "Yes, I'm in, lets get these girls home." & "Yes, God is good praise Him" and were on your knees on their and our family's behalf.
I wish we could literally go through and share each of your stories and how you have cared for our family, but for now I would love to share with you a few that stood out this past week...
-To the people over at Orangebloods. This is an organization Luke has loved being a part of for the past 8 or so years. As the name implies they in a hypothetical sense bleed burnt orange and love them some longhorns. So many of you have donated and want to help a brother out, thank you!
-To the people over at #standforlifemovement. This is a group who after the recent planned parenthood videos were released said "what can we do to bring light to the issue and be a platform for people to share their stories of choosing life in all sorts of circumstances?" I am proud to call them friends and have been overwhelmed by those who stepped up and shared their stories, check them out.
-To our neighbors and specifically their 2 elementary-aged children. Adoption is near and dear to them and shortly after celebrating our news with them received word that the kids had been waiting to donate their box from lent to a special cause and chose our adoption and have also started planning a trunk show and a bake sale.
-To all of you who wear your shirts proudly around this city, state and country and share its story
-To my Noonday sisters, specifically my pal Cherese and her hostess whom I've never even met, they hosted a show and decided to forgo the goodies to donate towards our adoption.
-To high school buddies, college friends, co-workers, our beloved families and those who have been there for literally every step of the way
THANK YOU ALL!!!!
This new season of the waiting presents a longing and a yearning for our daughters. There are lots of forms to sign and hoops to jump through and we have begun nesting in a sense. In these sleepless nights and long days we hope and pray that while we may not be with them to care for them that first and foremost they are His. If I could hire anyone to babysit I think their heavenly papa will fill those shoes quite nicely ;).
This is not just a pretty print. If you have been following our journey for quite some time you know we take our monthly adoption selfie in the kitchen with this calendar. To our surprise several months back we discovered this beautiful print. Our desire and hope is that this phrase remain true in our hearts. We can't wait to hang this print in the girls' room as a constant reminder once they are home.
