God's Amazing Provision

Sunday July 29th,
We enter the day feeling tired and emotionally drained. Shannon had looked up a church in the area and we both were needing some encouragement. Church was great! We were able to relax and enjoyed a nice lunch together afterward. Then we started trying to figure out what we were going to do next on our journey. We had our hotel room for Sunday night and were needing to decide if we'd stay there another 3 nights. We had already been there 9 nights and were getting a little tired of it and it was getting to be very expensive. I need to give a little backstory to show just how amazing this day ended!
Shannon has a couple people he has worked with over the years at Cargill that live in VA, only about 3 hours from where the birth mom lives. One night while they were out walking they ran into a family that has a summer home there. Come to find out they are less than 20 minutes from our hotel in Manassas. With only hearing our story they offer up their summer home to us to stay at. A nice quiet place in the mountains (which was sounding great with all the busyness of the city). The disadvantage was that it would be a three hour drive if the birth mom wanted to meet with us, and it would take us 3 hours to get to the hospital once we received the call. So here we are weighing out all our options, stay at the hotel 3 more nights or move to the mountains three hours away. Stay? Go? There were so many pro's and con's to both options. We decided we should talk to our social worker and get her opinion. So as we are about to call Shannon looks at his phone (which hadn't rung all day) and he has 2 voicemail messages. We listen to them and are completely floored. It's Andrea (the family with the summer home, and whom we met with on Saturday). At church she was looking for some way to help us out until the baby was born, she started sharing our situation and found a family who had a place for us to stay! Again only about 15 minutes from our hotel and closer to where the baby is going to be born! So once the shock of that call subsided we listened to the other voicemail, this one was from the woman Andrea had talked to at church. We made plans to meet her in a couple hours. She shared her story with us of how she was adopted! God is so good. So here we sit today, in complete amazement of God's great miracles and providing for us at just the right time! Thank you for your prayers we know none of this has happened by chance.

God is in control

Monday night we had another meeting with our birth mother and the birth father's mother.  We and the birth mom were very nervous about this one.   As usual though there were many people praying at home including our cohorts on the Hope Christian Church navigation team who were having a monthly meeting at the same time we were having dinner during our meeting.   Our social workers once again helped guide us through this and prayers were answered.   The birth father's mom had some questions for us and got right down to the point.  Fortunately many of the questions she had were things that we've been thinking about the last 7-8 months and the adoption agency has prepared us for.   The number one priority though for her was that we were a saved couple and believed in Jesus Christ.   She wanted to know that her grand child would be raised not just in religion but in Faith and will one day know Jesus herself.   That is most important to us also so you can see how relieved we were and happy to answer that question.

As our week continues our new normal for the next few weeks is anything but normal.   :)  We are adjusting to living out of a hotel currently and it has doubled as an office during the day for us.   We are both doing our day jobs from here remotely over the computer.   We are very blessed currently to have the ability to do that.   We have a huge thanks in that a Cargill co-worker, Randy, has been able to find us a place to stay and take care of our daughter once she is placed with us.   It just so happened that he ran into some neighbors while out walking with his wife this last weekend.   They have a summer home just down the road from him and are willing to let us stay there while they are away!!  We hope to meet up with them to find out there story of adoption in their family and to thank them for this huge blessing.  Now the timing of our daughter's birth is the main factor.  We know it is not by coinscidence that any of these things have taken place, but it is by God's divine plan.

We will make sure we know where the hospital is at and depending on traffic determine the best route to get there.   We will be getting together again with our birth mother this week to hang out more and get to know each other even better.   During her last Dr. appointment the baby was very low and she has been having some mild contractions.   We are getting very close to her due date of July 30th!  Please continue praying for everyone involved here.  We are seeing many miracles happen!

We're not in Kansas anymore

We are here! We left Friday morning from Kansas and drove to West Virginia! We talked with the birth mom while on the road Friday, and set up a time to meet her and her aunt. We are super excited and are praying continually about these next couple weeks. We are taking it a day at a time and enjoying all the blessings God is pouring out along the adventure he has started in our lives. Saturday we finished our long travel and got settled into our hotel just in time to leave and go meet our birth mom. The meeting went very well. We talked and laughed and are feeling very comfortable with each other. On Sunday we took some time to explore DC. We had a great time seeing the sites! Please continue to pray and we will keep you updated.

Love, 

Shannon and Emily 

We are matched!!

June 14th 2012  we got the call that has changed our lives!   We were presented a match that met our Adoption Planning Questionnaire (APQ) criteria 100%.   We were in disbelief that it happened so quickly.  The average wait time is 1 to 6 months through our agency and we figured we would be on the tail end of that.  And that friends is why our blog is titled Journey of Faith.  :)   God gave Emily a birthday gift she will never forget as the call was the day before her birthday, and we officially accepted the match on her birthday.  So since then we have been getting to know the birth mother through conference calls and emails.   Also the quickness of it all has brought a roller coaster of emotions, excitement, and holy cow we are going to be parents in a little over a month!!! So many prayers have been answered, and once we had heard the specific prayers that were said by our friends it was such a testimony to the power of prayer and our Awesome God!  As with all matches there is a chance that the birth mother could change her mind before signing over custody.   So your continued prayers are much needed right now.

If you have any questions please contact us and once again thank you!

James 1:17  Every good and perfect gift comes from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

The start of the nursery :)