Something Very Cool

Ok I am just putting out a teaser that I have something cool to share with you but I can't tell you for a week or two. But it's pretty awesome what God is doing and how he is bringing people together to go on this journey. I am very excited about being a part of this so stay tuned!!!

Why Adoption?

The answer to this question is very important to me and I am excited to share it with you and others who have been asking it lately. There are 3 basic reasons.

Reason #1
It's no secret that we can have children biologically (please dont say, "You can have children of 'your own'" or you might see a side of me that might scare ya!) We really feel that this is part of God's plan for our lives. Adoption is not natural. It is not natural to take something completely different and bring it in and make it the same. But that is EXACTLY what God did for us. He adopted us as His children. Wicked, sinful, and not deserving. But God took us in, washed away our sins, and called us His own.

Because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are Gods' children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ., if indeed we share in his suffering in order that we may also share in His glory. Romans 8:14-17

Even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? As he says in Hosea: "I will call them 'my people' who are not my people; and I will call her 'my loved one' who is not my loved one," and, "It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them 'you are not my people' they will be called the 'sons of the living God'." Romans 9:24-26

Reason #2
Orphans are close to God's own heart.

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. Psalm 68:5

He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. Duet 10:18

For in you, the fatherless find compassion. Hosea 14:3

But you, O God, do see trouble and grief, you consider it to take it in hand. The victim commits himself to you; you are the helper of the fatherless. Psalm 10:14

Reason #3
He commands us to look after the widow and the orphan. We want to serve God and surrender our lives to Him so that He may work through us to give Him the ultimate glory. We feel God is working in us through adoption.

Learn to do what is right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. Isaiah 1:17

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after widows and orphans in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27

Our Story

It started for me eight years ago sitting next to a girl in keyboarding class my sophomore year of high school. We got to know each other over a few weeks and one day she told me she was going on a mission trip to Romania, WITHOUT HER PARENTS! I was completely in awe. I had no idea you could just get up and leave everything you knew, (and your parents!) and travel across the world to serve God. As you can probably tell, I was a very new believer and had no idea about a lot of things. So long story short, my new friend and I spent the summer in Romania sharing God's love with the people and working in the orphanage.

God lit a fire in my heart that summer for children that don't have families. Being a teacher, I have always loved kids and it broke my heart seeing babies that were never held, much less loved. God was doing something in my life but I wasn't sure what. I kept asking Him why he was showing me these things and what I was supposed to do with my life to serve Him. The Lord didn't give me an answer so I just kept what He showed me in my heart and knew He would reveal things to me as time went on.

So fast forward four years, and I marry the most wonderful man on the planet. I seriously don't know where I would be without him. God sure did know what he was doing when He allowed us to meet. We talked about adoption back then but neither of us were sure that was what we wanted to do first and decided to put it on the back burner for a little while.....

Then last year, lots of things were happening. I was about to give birth to our first son, Jackson., and our very good friends, Daniel and Whitney, were beginning a journey to bring their daughter home from Guatemala. God has shown us, through them, what the journey He was calling us to, might look like. We needed that tangible thing to allow us not to be scared and to step out in faith and follow Him.

And that is just what has happened. Over the past year, through our walks with the Lord, He has interwoven our desire to care for orphans. He has shown us over and over to Follow Him to see what He has in store for us. We hope to use this blog to inform you about where we are in this journey and to document exactly what God has laid on our hearts so that we can look back and see His hand in this. We are so excited and covet your prayers for this new member of our family. I will let Paul write his side of the story soon:)


"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." John 14:18

Who knows where?!?!?!

Ha! Well here is my first attempt at our Adoption Blog. Hopefully, in the next few days it will have a pretty layout and maybe even some thoughts that will, at the very least, be entertaining to read.

Why start a blog?

1. Blogging is the new, hip, cool thing to do and I just can't be left out, now can I?

2. A good friend of mine has been pressing me to start a journal of everything that God has been sharing with me about this Adoption/Orphan Ministry so that I can look back and see how awesome He is. I totally agree.

3. Blogs seems to be the way the adoption community stays in contact with each other, and I am sure that only my family wants to read our current blog about our 1 year old son, Jackson.

So there you have it, "Following God To" is born. Hope that you join us on this crazy journey and are blessed along the way:) More to come, I promise!