November Guest Post #1

Today marks the first guest post for the month of November. Once a week throughout the month a family will share their adoption story, I am so excited to have these women sharing with you! They have been such an inspiration to me and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

First up, Alison sharing about their journey to Caroline Faith!

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I love November. I love that November is National Adoption Awareness Month. I love that two years ago this very month God began to stir my heart to international adoption. I love that at that time I had no idea that November was National Adoption Month! I love how God works!!!

Here is a little bit of our story...

Our family is on a journey. It is a faith journey with our heavenly Father that is going to change our lives and the life of a child…forever. This all began with a God-given season of "holy discontentment". I was no longer content to live a life of complacency, and I began to feel that God was about to call us to do something BIG! However, I was unsure of what His calling would be. During this time, God led me to the blog of a Tennessee family who had adopted a baby girl from Ethiopia. My first thought was, “They are so sweet to adopt, but we could never do that.”

Then I heard God ask, "Why not? What if I asked you to? Do you trust Me? Do you trust MY plan for your family?" And I sat at my computer and wept. He was breaking my heart for orphans, and I knew His calling was beginning to unfold.

In November of 2009, exactly 2 years ago, God revealed His plan for our family...to adopt a baby girl from Ethiopia! God had already chosen our fourth child...and she would have beautiful brown eyes, brown hair, and brown skin. But were we willing to take that big step of faith and trust His perfect plan?

At first, I was scared! I knew absolutely no one in our community, church, or the entire state of Mississippi that had adopted from Ethiopia! As I began to pray, I felt very alone and the doubts and uncertainties continued to creep in.

But God soon revealed something profound; we were supposed to be obedient to His calling to adopt from Ethiopia, no matter what! Whether or not our parents approved, our community accepted, our finances allowed, or another local family ever adopted an Ethiopian child...it really did not matter! God was leading us to this child, this was His will for our life, and that was the only thing that mattered!

As we continued praying, God began to blow us away. It was truly one of the most amazing times in our life. Confirmations from Him began to pour in, one right after another. As we started to move forward in obedience, all the fears and uncertainties were replaced with joy and excitement! With every step forward in the adoption process, we grew more confident in His calling. We claimed the following verse from Hebrews over our adoption journey: "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see."

We started off on our agency's (All God's Children International) Ethiopia waitlist at #93 for our baby girl, our Caroline Faith. Now, 13 months later, we are currently at #22 and hoping and praying to see her sweet face in the next few months! The wait has been long, but God has used it so much! We have grown so much in our faith, and we are learning how to wait patiently on the Lord and His perfect timing! We know that our daughter will be so worth the wait!!!

We are putting all our faith in God, believing that adoption is a beautiful picture of His love and redemption. He sacrificed His only Son, so we could become His adopted sons and daughters. Psalm 68:6 says, “God sets the lonely in families”, and we know He will one day set our baby girl into our arms…and into her forever family. This baby changes everything. Our lives will never be the same, and we would not want it any other way!

We are so THANKFUL to be on this journey to bring Caroline Faith home from Ethiopia! But we do not believe our journey ends when she is home. We know that God wants us to encourage others to seek His will in adoption and caring for orphans.

It has been so amazing to see how God has already been moving so much in our church and in our community by calling families to adopt! We now have a local adoption fellowship group that gets together monthly, and it's such an encouragement to have such wonderful families to walk this journey with! My prayer is that God would continue to call Christian families to adoption and orphan care.

I don't know when our daughter will be home, but I am choosing to trust the One who has all the answers. I am confident of this: God has a plan that is greater than ours, and it will bring Him glory! We are putting all our faith in Him and trusting His perfect timing to complete the adoption journey that He has called us on. And we can't wait to see the precious little face our Caroline Faith!

"...once our eyes are opened, we can't pretend we don't know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows that we know, and holds us responsible to act." Proverbs 24:12

Thanks for sharing Alison, you can visit her blog here!