Defend the fatherless

"Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rebuke the oppressor; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow." Isaiah 1:16-17

The Lord stirred in our hearts and developed a passion for missions and kids. Together, that makes caring for His orphans! We have complete our adoption training and are beginning our foster care training. We look forward to serving the Lord in this way.

What can you do for the orphans? Pray that families who love the Lord will step up and take care of them, financially support an organization(s) you believe to truly be helping, encourage those who have adopted and/or foster parent, provide items (i.e. clothing, furniture, etc.), provide babysitting (or respite) services so parents can rejuvenate, provide a meal when parents feel overwhelmed, communicate with families and most importantly with the Father. There are so many ways people can help; this is not an exhaustive list!

The local agencies we're working with are Antioch Adoptions (adoption) and Olive Crest (foster/adopt). Please join with me in praying for them, the sustenance of their ministries, the social workers who tirelessly and selflessly give of themselves, and that they would not lose sight of their missions.

Thank you to our friends and family who have prayed for us, sent kind words of support, consistently ask of our status, and just love on us. We love you and appreciate your friendship!

PRIDE Training....Check!

We survived the mandatory PRIDE (Parent Resource for Information Development Education) adoption training required by the State of Washington. We were in class for 34 hours spread over 3 days! It was grueling at times, but oh so worth it. We learned lots, were inspired by families that shared their stories, and bonded with others going through the same process.

We serve such an awesome God. This weekend was such an encouragement to us! We're getting excited and look forward to having babies, raising boys and girls that strive to glorify God in all that they do.

Our next step on this wonderful journey: Post-PRIDE training classes. These are a series of 6 more classes that we'll take on upcoming Tuesday and Thursday evenings. We'll also need to get re-certified in CPR/First Aid/Bloodborne Pathogens, take a Baby Basics Class from a local hospital, and tour the PICC. In addition to all of this is another mountain of paperwork! Yay! {Okay...maybe a little sarcastic, but we're getting used to it. They can't place these kids with just anybody!}

As always, we covet your prayers for us and the spiritual warfare we face, as well as our baby! God may be knitting him/her together in the womb right now!

{No time for stamping lately, but I hope to do some soon.}
Much love,
Whoop!

Bummed

I'm totally bummed right now. This afternoon we received an email saying that our adoption PRIDE training was postponed yet again to "sometime before July." I'm so disappointed, as I was really looking forward to the weekend away with others in our same shoes. We both were.

Part of the disappointment lies in the fact that I postponed my schooling to the summer quarter because of the classes we needed to take after the initial training. I have sent an email asking if we can take the PRIDE training after these classes, so I'll wait to see what I hear. However, most of the disappointment lies in not being able to get this process started until later. This has been canceled twice (in January & now March), so we're both pretty sad.

Thanks for your prayers, friends.