this i know for sure...

...adoption is not reserved only for those with fat bank accounts.

How do I know?

Because JD has said to me recently, "I'm (we're) as sure that we're supposed to adopt as I'm sure that God is God, He is alive, Jesus is His Son and He's my Savior"...

...and we don't have a fat bank account.

So why would God prick our hearts to adopt without the means to do so?

Because He is God and He shows Himself through situations like this.

And He is showing Himself through our adoption journey. Eventhough...

...somewhat to our surprise because, you see, we had this all planned out...

...we learned last week that we will not be receiving funding assistance from the Abba Fund.

Wow.

We had this all planned out. We felt that God was going to use the Abba Fund to help us with our adoption. We just knew that this was the course for us. I have to laugh at all the times in life when we just 'knew' something was supposed to go a certain way and it went a different way. And then the way it worked out was better than our way would've been.

We make plans and God watches. Sometimes I think He might giggle like the Father He is because He knows that He's already set the course. Just like we, as parents, sometimes giggle at our children's all-knowing attitudes and strong positions on things. Sure, sometimes our course is the same as God's course for our lives, but sometimes it's not.

Not for one millisecond have JD and I questioned whether this news from Abba Fund is a sign saying that we're not supposed to adopt. That's so comforting to us. To the core of who we are, we know this is what God desires for our family. Do you know how very sweet that is for me? To be in God's will is an amazing feeling. It's amazing because I know well how it feels to not be in His will -- that's my default position in life.

So, 'What now?' you ask.

We're trusting that He who began a good work in us will bring it to completion (Philippians 1:6). Whatever that may look like. Perhaps we'll fundraise. It's certainly been done and is being done by many, many adoptive families.

God sure has been teaching me some things through this process. One of which is humility. I'm humbled by the need to ask for help. Humbled because we're having to trust God's ways. Humbled because I used to feel a certain way about adoption fundraising and now I'm in those very shoes. I used to feel that there are a lot of people with great means by which to give to causes like adoption and those very people's generosity might fund ours. Now, I've learned that many times the funds that help others adopt are greatly funded by adoptive parents themselves who are paying it forward in the small ways that they can because they know what it is to receive help. It's sowing seeds. And God multiplies them. This is a biblical truth. Think about how He fed 10,000 with just a bit of fish and bread. I'm getting it. I'm seeing that much of God's might is through the efforts of multitudes giving and serving in their small, individual ways that that very offering is multiplied into a powerful cause. It's not about a few giving large (although that does sometimes happen). It's about all of us just doing our small part and that is a sweet offering to the Lord.

The beautiful thing is that now, even in our place of need, God has revealed to us that we need to give in small ways to adoption funds we know of. It may not be much, but God will multiply it. How gracious He is to create in us a new heart. Like the widow, we're to give what we can and He honors that.

Now to practical matters...

I talked with our social worker at Wide Horizons last week. I'm sending her our medicals (the last thing she's waiting on) and the balance for our agency fees today. Once they receive those things, we'll be assigned a caseworker from the Ethiopia team and will then begin the dossier process.

By the way, I had no idea what in the world a dossier was when we first started this process and I'm still not entirely clear considering we haven't started it or done it yet, but here's the official definition:

dossier (noun): a file containing detailed records on a particular person or subject.

Helpful, huh? :)

Suffice it to say that we will have to get legal, notarized documents of almost every form to verify who we are: marriage license, birth certificates, proof of mortgage, more fingerprints, and a bunch of immigration paperwork filled out with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

At this point, we'll be eligible to receive a referral and finally find out who in the world our 'two little ones out there' are! :)

So, that's it in a nutshell!

I'll be making another post very soon because (no coincidence!), I just got an email response from a company that I had reached out to many weeks ago regarding the ability to sell their t-shirts as an adoption fundraiser. Kinda cool. I liked the t-shirts I saw and was so struck to see that part of their mission is to assist prospective adoptive parents with raising funds for their adoptions. I had inquired about it and just found out we were accepted as a family who can receive a portion of the proceeds of t-shirts bought in our name. Kinda a neat concept. Won't even touch the total we'll need in a couple of months, but every little bit helps.

Thanks for reading! And caring to keep up! Your love and support means more than you can possibly know.