I am a believer. It only took 4 years.

I contacted our financial guru today- our agency family builder fund has grown significantly since our last inquiry. At this point, any funds that come in as a donation to our adoption will help to offset our travel expenses and out of pocket expenses (flights, train tickets, hotels/host family payments, food, tips, orphanage relief $, visas, in country medical exams, etc.) Isn't that wonderful news?!!?! But it's not to late if you want to help with that. (Remember it's a tax write off! And the $ still goes directly into our account, but now it is issued directly to us at the time of travel instead of to Russia or CWA) Here is the link. Now I think of every dollar as "one night in the hotel in Moscow" or "One Borscht stew coming right up" Isn't that exciting?!?!?! https://www.cwa.org/DonationForm.aspx

I remember when Chad came home from a Steven Curtis Chapman concert about 4 years ago. He said that the proceeds that night benefited Shoshana's Hope (Now Show Hope, check them out at http://www.showhope.org/) SCC's adoption foundation. He told me about the amazing video clips shown throughout the concert and he asked me "what do you think about adoption?" I'm sure we talked about it and decided that we would love adopt "someday" but the financial aspect of it seemed beyond our capability. It's still sad to me that adoption costs so much.....I'm sure a lot of potentially great parents think this way too. I was definately NOT a believer four years ago.

Then the summer we met our dear friend's son, William, adopted from Ethiopia God nudged us again. Matt told us that if they could do it, we could do it. "Don't worry about the money" he said, "God will put the right people at the right time in your life and God will blow the doors off of your expectations." I still wasn't a believer.

Then we took the leap of faith and finally decided that this was the right thing for our family. We were absolutely overwhelemed and really had no idea how all the pieces were going to fall into place. In the back of our mind I thought, well, we might take the longest in history of adoption to come up with the funds, but we'll get their eventually. We had no idea if anyone would give at all (this is the WORST time in our country's recent history) but it was worth a try. We sent a letter. We linked up the donation site on our blog, we announced to our church that we were adopting. I only talk about money once in a blue moon (I know you don't like reading about this stuff that much, but it is a major issue surrounding our adoption and others too, so pardon the "shop talk" but maybe some "non-believer" just like me will read this and God will nudge their heart too- You CAN do it! I know you don't believe it, but just try it out, take Him up on his promises....)

Anyway- What a wonderful early Christmas gift. God is sufficient to meet all of our needs and gives abundantly beyond our expectations. He is so good and we are so grateful. I am a believer.