Yesterday we were blessed yet again when many of our family and our friends got together to throw us an adoption shower. It was a beautiful day filled with a lot of laughter and a lot of tears. I want to say a deep and sincere thank-you to every person who came to share this day with us. And a thank-you to those who couldn’t be there, but who loved us from afar. Here are some pictures….

 

 

I have gotten so many questions about the number of children we are adopting. Is it 3? Is it 4? Why don’t you know about the sister yet? I love the fact that people are so interested in our story. I love the fact that whenever I run into someone I know in WinCo or Target or at the gym, they inevitably congratulate me and tell me how excited they are for me. I love the fact that the ripples from God’s providence in our lives have spread and touched so many.

We have to be very careful with the information that we share about our children. First of all, we believe that much of this is their story to either tell or to keep private and we are trying to respect that. Secondly, especially with this 4th child, we were given very strict rules about what we could share and what we couldn’t. We are not even allowed to post their names yet. What we can say is this…the oldest sister of our foursome is eight years old. We know this and we know her name. We know very little else. In our hearts we have named her Naomi. She is now a part of our family too. We will most likely not know if she will become legally ours until we are in the courts in Ethiopia. But, even if the courts tell us no, our children will have still have this sister! She will just be living in Ethiopia. And just because she is living in Ethiopia will not make her any less of their sister. We will do our best to love her from afar. But it is our hope and our prayer that we will be able to love her in our home and with our family surrounding her.

One of the beautiful touches at our shower was that our friend Amanda looked up how to make a very common Ethiopian spice mixture called Berbere.

Here is a list of ingredients that go into this mixture….

• ¼ teaspoon ground allspice
• ¾ teaspoon ground cardamom
• ¹⁄₈; teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
• ¹⁄₈; teaspoon ground cloves
• ½ teaspoon ground coriander (optional)
• ½ teaspoon ground cumin (optional)
• 1 teaspoon ground fenugreek
• ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional)
• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
• ¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
• 4 -6 tablespoons of a combination ground cayenne pepper (red pepper, dried chile peppers, or red pepper flakes) or 4 -6 tablespoons paprika (red pepper, dried chile peppers, or red pepper flakes)
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 teaspoon fresh ginger (peeled and grated)
• 2 tablespoons onions (optional) or 2 tablespoons shallots , finely chopped, omit if making dry berbere (optional)
• 1 teaspoon garlic , minced, use dried garlic if making dry berbere (optional)

When she gathered all the ingredients and mixed them all together, the result was a fragrant and tasty mixture that flavors many foods in Ethiopia. For some reason, this has made me think of our family. I think of how we are all so different from each other. My husband is the patient, long-suffering, easy-going guy. I am the spicy, outgoing, type-A personality. My son is the tender-hearted peace maker. My daughter is full of life and personality and laughter. I wonder what personalities my new children have. Are they leaders or followers? Are they deep-thinkers or free spirits? Do they laugh easily or love deeply? How will their addition to our family change us? What will the new dynamics be? And then I think about how God has ordained this. How He chose those children to be mine and placed them in our hearts forever. And I know that when we are all gathered in one place and mixed together, the result will be a fragrant offering to our God.

Blessings!

Natalie

We get to send our kids a package! This weekend, someone is going to take this package to our kids and introduce us to them. Our children will get to hear about their new family. They will get to see our pictures!

Here are the rules for the package….

*One small toy

*One outfit

*A photo album

*And it all must fit inside one gallon-sized ziplock bag

How do I fit that much love inside of a ziplock bag? How do I squeeze in everything I want them to know and feel about our desire to have them in our family? How do I make them feel special and wanted?

After much debate (and almost 2 hours inside Target), this is what we came up with….

For Abigail

For Micah

For Levi

I am sending along with these items our hopes and dreams and prayers. And I am sending Kisses In the Wind. Here is a beautiful poem I found online that expresses exactly how I feel!

KISSES IN THE WIND (The Waiting Child’s Lullaby)

I hold you in my heart and touch you in my dreams.

You are here each day with me, at least that’s how it seems.

I know you wonder where we are… what’s taking us so long.

But remember child, I love you so and God will keep you strong.

Now go outside and feel the breeze and let it touch your skin…

Because tonight, just as always, I blow you kisses in the wind.

May God hold you in His hand until I can be with you.

I promise you, my darling, I’m doing all that I can do.

Very soon, you’ll have a family for real, not just pretend.

But for tonight, just as always, I blow you kisses in the wind.

May God wrap you in His arms and hold you very tight.

And let the angels bring the kisses that I send to you each night.

— Pamela Durkota, written for Josh

And lastly, we get to send two short videos of our family. Here is what Abigail, Micah and Levi will see the first time they see our faces.

 

Blessings!

Natalie

So tonight I am mostly just going to share with you this video about our adoption journey. We asked our friend Alex to put this all together for us earlier in February. I gave her all the pictures and the music and she brought us the finished product. Then….2 days later….we got our referral!!! So, she had to edit it just a bit and add something on the end 🙂 Keep watching and enjoy!

Blessings!

Natalie

One of the many blessings that I have received through this journey is watching my children grow in their faith. This past year (and this coming year) will change them forever. They will always remember the lessons they learned while we waited and prayed and tried to hear God’s voice. They will always remember the joy and the tears and how their hearts were softened.

When we first started talking about adoption, we presented the idea to our children and started praying together as a family. They have been a part of the discussion and the decision-making from the very beginning. And my son Joel very strongly agreed with me that our absolute limit was 3 more children. Any more than that and we just might all go crazy!

So when God presented us with this opportunity, he also presented us with a challenge. First He had to work on changing my heart. After that, He had to work on changing my son’s heart. On Sunday, February 26, we took him out to coffee (stop judging me all you health-nut parents….it was decaf!) and we told him for the first time about this sister. We explained exactly what the circumstances were and we asked his opinion.

He very logically explained why this would be a bad idea. First of all, he reminded us, we were already worried about money. Didn’t we know that we would have to buy an extra plane ticket? And remember, we would have to pay more fees both to the government and to our adoption agency. And besides that, we all wouldn’t fit in our car! We would have to go out and buy a bigger car! And where would she sleep? We hadn’t prepared enough beds for 4 more children.

And we told him he was right.

Logically, this didn’t make any sense. And then my husband (who I just have to say here is the most amazing man I know. He always takes the time to REALLY listen to our kids and REALLY talk to our kids. And, he is like this spiritual giant or something) reminded Joel about the story in Matthew 14 about Peter walking on water. He told Joel that if Peter had thought through it logically, he never would have stepped out of the boat. I mean, logically, it just made no sense at all! But sometimes God requires us to step out of the boat without having a safety net to catch us if we fall. Sometimes God wants to see our faith in action first, before we understand how everything is going to work.

Then we asked Joel to just pray about it with an open heart and an ear turned towards God’s voice.

This was actually kind of a test for me. I had already had a discussion with God about it. I told Him that while He had done the work to convince me about taking this next step, that I really needed Him to do the work in my son’s heart too. My specific prayer was “Lord, prepare Joel’s heart to receive this news. You need to have him fully endorse this idea.” Joel has always been kind of like his daddy – you know, a spiritual giant. He really has a soft heart towards the things of God. He really desires to do what God wants him to do. Not to say that he always obeys or is this perfect angel boy or never teases his sister, but his heart is in the right place.

So on that Sunday, Joel’s response was – “OK. I will pray about it. But if you made me decide right now, I would have to say no.”

And on Monday – “I am still praying about it.”

And on Tuesday – “Mom, I am still praying.”

And on Wednesday – “MOM, I will tell you when I am done praying!”

And on Thursday – “Well, if you made me decide right now, I would probably say yes.”

And on Friday – “You know what, for some reason I think that this sister and I are going to be really good friends. You know, like we will probably like to hang out together and stuff. I think you should tell our adoption agency that we are going to do it. Try to go to court and bring her home too.”

I LOVE THIS BOY

And then he asked if he could have a copy of the pictures we had received of our children. And he thumb tacked them right over his bed. And when I asked him why, he said it was to remind himself to pray for them every night before he falls asleep.

Blessings!

Natalie

 

So here it is! The story of our referral! The story of our children….

We got the phone call on Thursday, February 23. We got an email with medical files and pictures. We looked at our children’s faces for the very first time and felt our hearts sliding into love.

We are not allowed to post pictures or their names on any public forum so you will all just have to wait to see those beautiful faces until after we pass court and they are officially OUR CHILDREN. But let me tell you, you will love them too. We are keeping their Ethiopian names as their middle names. So I can tell you what you will all know them as….

Abigail (this means her father’s joy) – age 7

Micah (who is like God) – age 6

Levi (joined together) – age 4

These 3 are paper-ready and will become a part of our family soon. But here is the twist….

They have another sister.

Our adoption agency said they have never had a situation like this before. Through a long and complicated story, most of which we are not allowed to post here, the older sister is not “technically” ready or available for adoption. When we talked to our family coordinator she said to us, “What you do about the sister is completely up to you. You can just bring home these 3 children. Or you can petition the courts to let you bring home all 4.”

Complete honesty here. My first reaction was, “3 children is enough! If the sister isn’t available for adoption, then she isn’t available for adoption.” If we don’t petition the courts, then that is the end of things.

On Friday we had our friends Chris and Jessica Matos over for dinner. Well, we had our friends Chris and Jessica (and 6 of their 7 children) over for dinner. You see, the Matos family has adopted MANY children. In fact, we jokingly tell them that our adoption journey is all their fault. Adoption is contagious, you know!

As we were visiting over dinner and with the shrieks and laughter of all those children in the background, Chris talked a little about when they adopted their last 3. They already had 4 children. They had just bought their first house and while it was plenty big for a family of 6, it really wasn’t cut out to hold a family of 9. They weren’t planning on adopting any more children!

And then they got a phone call. 3 children who they had fostered and returned to the birth mother were back in the system – this time for good. Would Chris and Jessica consider adopting them? If not, they would be split up and put into other foster homes. And they had a whole weekend to make this life-changing decision! Chris said that on Saturday morning, while he was making pancakes for his brood of 4, and while he was praying, this is what he thought – no one would ever fault them for saying no. After all, they had already adopted! Their house was too small. Yes they loved the Lord and were involved in ministry (Chris is a youth pastor), but there were so many logical reasons to say no. But in his heart, he would always know that God had provided this opportunity for them and they had turned away from it.

It struck me then. No one would ever fault us for only adopting 3 children. In fact, people would probably give us all kinds of accolades. They would think we had gone half-way around the world to bring these 3 children into our family. Aren’t those Putnams just so great? Look at how the Putnam Family serves the Lord!

But we would know. In our hearts, we would know that God had provided this opportunity and we had turned away from it.

I went to bed that Friday night praying about this. It scared me! Did we really want to get involved in a whole separate court process in Ethiopia? It might affect our timelines for the first 3. It would cost more money. We wouldn’t even get to see a picture of this sister or find out anything about her until we got to Ethiopia. We wouldn’t know if she would become ours until we were already in country. But as I prayed, I felt God tugging at my heart. If I were sitting in the same room as this little girl, watching her go hungry for the second day in a row, watching her clean houses instead of go to school so she could afford to eat, watching her miss her sister and brothers, would I really just turn away and say no because it might be an inconvenience to me?

And then on Saturday morning when I got up, I found out that my husband had stayed up late to register a blog site for me. He had been encouraging me to start a blog for quite a while. And of course you know what he named this blog… Our Great 8….hmmmm. I guess he felt like we should go out and get this little girl and add her to our family. Bringing the grand total up to 8 Putnams!

And then on Sunday morning, our pastor preached a message that I am pretty sure he prepared just for us. I mean, he even used the story from Acts 8 about the Ethiopian Eunich! His main thought was this….

Always be willing to do the next thing that God is prompting you do.

We didn’t have to be ready, we just had to be willing! With God on our team, we didn’t have to worry about all the details. We could just leave those up to Him.

I will write a little more about this in my next blog because God still had some work to do on my son’s heart in convincing him that adding 4 more kids to our family was a good idea. But I do want to say one more thing. You know that crazy wonderful Matos Family? The family of 9? The family that is supported by their Dad’s job as a youth pastor (which we all know people don’t get into for the money)? The family that is trying to save up for a bigger house because God blessed them with more children than they had room for? As they left our home on that Friday night, they gave us a beautiful card filled with comments from each of their kids about our adoption. And enclosed in that card was our very first donation! And it came with hugs and tears and their commitment to invest in eternal things, not the things of this world. We used that donation that very week because we owed our adoption agency another payment upon acceptance of our referral.

And of course, we were accepting our referral. We were accepting this opportunity that God had provided for us.

So as we plan our trip to Ethiopia to bring home our babies, we are planning on returning with all 4 of them. This is completely in God’s hands. We don’t know the outcome yet, but we know that He wants us to try and that He is prompting us to take the next step. So we are!

Blessings!

Natalie

I am going to skip ahead in our story just a bit. Here is the timeline….

February 14, 2011 – We sign the first round of paperwork. The next months are filled with seemingly unending paperwork. Here is a picture of Scott with most (not all!) of our paperwork.

July 22, 2011 – Our paperwork is complete! Our dossier is translated and sent to the Ethiopian Government. This is our official DTE(Date To Ethiopia). We are put on the waiting list with all of the other families who are DTE. We wait for our turn to be matched with our children.

2012 rolls around and we are still waiting. Honestly, up to this point, we have been waiting fairly patiently. With the unexpected cancer and death of our dear friend Peter, we were focused more on healing and recovery during the summer and fall of 2011. But as the calendar changes, I felt a quickening in my heart. I started to feel that everything was moving faster, that all the pieces were coming together. I had no reason for feeling this way, at this point we were still number 87 on the DTE…86 other families were ahead of us in line! But I felt like we were getting close to our referral!

I had been praying that we would receive our referral and be able to travel to Ethiopia during the summertime. In fact, I felt so strongly that it was coming SOON, that when I took Joel and Hannah in for the dentist appointments at the end of January and they tried to re-schedule us for the next cleaning in 6 months (which would fall at the end of July), my response was, “Oh, I think we are going to be in Ethiopia then! We better schedule it later in the year.”

Of course, my husband looked at me as if I was slightly crazy!

Of course, I AM slightly crazy 🙂

Mid-February comes around and we haven’t moved up that darn DTE list at all! So I started to get impatient. I felt like it was going to be happening soon, and yet, I didn’t wait on the Lord to make that happen. I decided to take matters into my own hands.

There are several Waiting Children Lists online. These are websites dedicated to orphans who need homes. These are orphans who are currently available for adoption, but are hard to place. Many of them have medical problems. Many of them are older. (By the way…did you know that in the adoption world, anything over the age of 3 is considered an “older child”? There are millions of “older children” who need homes!) And many of them are sibling sets of 3 or 4. I decided to look around on these websites and find our children myself!

On Monday, February 20, I saw a picture that made me smile. It was a sibling set of 3 children, waiting for a home. Twin 7-year-old girls and their baby brother. I pulled up their profile and read the few bits of information on the website. I emailed and asked for more information. The adoption agency who had listed these children emailed me back. They gave me more information on these adorable children and asked if we wanted to place their file on hold. When you place a file on hold, it means you have 5 days to look at everything (pictures, medical information, family history) and make a decision as to whether or not you are going to adopt these children.

So on Tuesday, February 21, we placed their file on hold. We sent their medical information in to be reviewed by a doctor. We looked at their pictures. And we started praying!

You see, these children were listed for adoption with a different agency than the one we have been working with. What that means is that you have to re-file most of your paperwork with the new agency. We would re-send in our dossier to this new agency for approval. We would also lose about $5,000 that we had already paid to our current adoption agency. But to me, none of that was insurmountable! If these were our children, then I would do it in a heartbeat!

On Wednesday, February 22, we filled out the paperwork to apply with this new agency. That night before we went to bed, Scott did a little bit of research about this new agency. What he found made him feel unsettled. They didn’t exactly have a perfect track record. Several families who had worked with them had gotten caught up during the court process for months at a time because certain documents were not ready to go when needed. So we prayed! That night before we fell asleep, with the paperwork completed and ready to send in to the new agency the next day, we prayed this….

“God, we are going to walk through this door unless you close it! Please close it if this is not what we are supposed to do!”

Thursday, February 23….I go to teach my Zumba class and I am completely distracted! When I am done teaching, I am going to be heading over to Scott’s office to fax in the new paperwork. I am praying and dancing at the same time! When I walk out of my class and turn on my phone, I had 3 missed calls, 2 texts, and 1 voicemail from my husband. He said to get to his office as quickly as I could. We had an important phone call to take and we both needed to be there for it. Our current adoption agency, the one we had been working with for the last year, was trying to get ahold of us.

I raced over to his office, we closed the door, we emailed our agency that we were both there, and then the phone rang.

Even now, as I type this, I am crying. I can not believe sometimes how amazing and wonderful our God is.

It was Elise, our sweet family coordinator who we had talked to numerous times over the last year, who had answered our questions and calmed our fears and prayed with us over this whole crazy process, and she says….

“I am so excited for you! This is your official referral call.”

WHAT?!?! Our official referral call? The phone call that we had been waiting on for over a year? The phone call that according to our estimations, and the DTE list, and our human calculations we figured would be months away? The phone call that would tell us who our children are and that it is OUR TURN to travel to Ethiopia and become a family. And it comes the VERY DAY that we were going to file paperwork to switch agencies to try to make this adoption thing happen under our own power.

Why do I ever doubt my God?

We could have received our referral call the week before, or the week after, or next year. But He waited until Thursday, February 23 to teach me a lesson.

Wait on me, my child. My timing is perfect. My plan for you is better than any plan you could make for yourself.

Oh and by the way, I love you.

Now go and get these children whom I picked out for your family.

Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. Isaiah 43:5

Blessings!

Natalie

When we decided to adopt, we opened up our family and our life and our home for scrutiny. We had to be fingerprinted and have our background checked. And we had to be interviewed by a social worker several times to make sure that we were fairly normal and mostly sane and could be approved to raise children!

During the interviews and home study process, the social worker has to approve you for a certain number of children that they feel you are capable of adopting. And they have to approve the age range of the children you can adopt. And they have to specially approve you if you want to adopt any children with special needs or medical problems.

So during one of our first interviews, we were asked how many children we would take.

Scott said 4.

I said no! 2 children…maybe 3 if push came to shove.

Then they asked us if we were open to special needs or medical problems.

Scott said yes.

I said no! We had to be realistic here about what we could handle.

Then they asked about the maximum age of the children we would be open to.

Scott said anything up to age 10.

I said no! More like age 5 or 6….definitely want to maintain the birth order here.

I won! We were approved for 2-3 children, between the ages of zero and 7(you have to go at least a year above your desired age in case things get held up in court and the child turns another year older during that time), healthy with no major medical problems.

Then we started getting ready for these coming children. This included setting up a new bedroom for them. Here are some pictures of that process.

And while we were preparing our home, God was using that time to prepare our hearts.

We were required to do several hours of online parenting classes. And we were required to read several books on adopting and parenting. One of the books that especially touched both of our hearts was There Is No Me Without You by Melissa Fay Greene.

God used this book to open up our eyes to the HIV crisis in Ethiopia. During our interviews with our social worker, one of the questions they ask when you are adopting from Ethiopia is if you are willing to accept an HIV+ child. We said no. Then we read this book. And we started researching exactly what it means to be HIV+. We read articles and joined chat groups. We called our local HIV/AIDS clinic (YES….we do have one in Redding!) and asked our millions of questions. We realized that we, like most people we know, were completely misinformed on the issues regarding this disease. Did you know….

*HIV is now considered a chronic but manageable disease…not a death sentence!

*When controlled with medication, HIV is undetectable in blood tests. That is how little of the virus is present!

*There has NEVER been a case of HIV being transmitted by casual day-to-day contact which includes hugging,  kissing, and sharing drinking cups.

*If you were to take a syringe of blood from an HIV+ person whose disease is controlled with antiviral medication, and inject that blood into another person, that person only has a 2 percent chance of contracting the virus.

*HIV+ people can get married and have children.

BUT….

*In Ethiopia, over 1.5 million people are HIV+

*And in Ethiopia, due to lack of medical care, HIV is a death sentence!

After much prayer and research, and after listening to God’s prompting, we called our social worker and asked to be approved to adopt an HIV+ child. We were no longer scared about the medical complications, we felt prepared to handle that. But we were scared about the social stigma attached to this disease. So we didn’t tell anyone about this decision. Not even our parents. We figured that if and when we were matched with an HIV+ child, we would sit our family down and discuss the statistics we had learned. We would educate them on exactly what this would mean. But we were concerned about all the people out there who we couldn’t educate. People who would hear through the grapevine about our HIV+ child and then decide not to be on the same soccer team as them. Or ask to sit at a different lunch table. So we decided not to be an advocate for the spread of the truth about HIV/AIDS, but instead to protect our child’s story until they were old enough to decide for themselves what they wanted to share.

The reason I can talk about this with all of you is because in the end, we were not matched with an HIV+ child. All four of the children we are heading to Ethiopia to bring home are healthy!

So why did God lead us down this path? Maybe it was so that we could help to spread the truth! So we could talk about this disease and be an advocate for those children who need it, because it won’t affect our children’s story anymore. Please take a moment to watch this video regarding the truth about HIV/AIDS.

So in the end our home study looked like this….”approved for up to 4 children, ages zero to 10, including HIV+ and other medical needs.”

I guess Scott won after all.

Or actually, in the end, God won! And He won over our hearts in the ways that only He can.

Blessings!

Natalie

So I mentioned in another post about my husband’s best friend Peter. Here he is…

Peter is a funny guy! He is outgoing, the life of the party, compassionate and he has this great head of hair! Peter and Scott spent time hiking and camping and fishing and praying. They prayed together for God to reveal His heart. They prayed for God to make them more like Him. And partly because of those prayers, God placed this crazy idea of adoption on our hearts. Peter was such a huge encouragement to us during those early days when we were filling out paperwork, meeting with social workers, having our lives scrutinized and having our background checked!!

Well, in May of 2011, only months after we started this journey, Peter was diagnosed with cancer. He was a 35-year-old healthy guy. He had a nagging cough for several months and by the time the doctors figured out what it was, he had tumors throughout his body. Tumors in his lungs, his spine, his brain.

I could dedicate pages and pages to Peter’s story….but let me just say this. It all boils down to a story focused on God’s grace and provision even in the toughest of times. Peter loved to say, “This is all for my good and for His glory!” And it was. Peter’s story touched so many people. People who might not have otherwise taken the time out of their busy lives to think about what is really important. People who paused for a moment to wonder how this guy, whose body was ravaged by cancer, could still have a spirit filled with joy.

Here is a video taken in July….only 2 months after Peter was diagnosed.

On August 21, 2011, Peter met Jesus face to face. We are so thankful that he got to participate in setting the foundation for our adoption journey. We are so thankful that he was our friend. One day we will celebrate our eternal adoption into our FOREVER FAMILY and we will see Peter’s smiling face again.

Blessings!

Natalie

On February 14, 2011 we sent in our first check to our adoption agency. This check was for $300. This would be the first $300 in a journey that would end up costing around $50,000. It breaks down roughly like this….

$15,000 due in the first 6 months to your adopting agency, home study agency, and for miscellaneous expenses

$15,000 due upon referral to your adoption agency, governments, and for visas and miscellaneous expenses

$20,000 for travel (2 trips required) to Ethiopia

In our family, I am the spender and my husband is the saver. I am the optimist and my husband is the pessimist. I am the spice and my husband is the sweet. Money doesn’t really concern me or worry me or stress me out, but my husband feels the pressure to provide and if our finances are un-happy, he is un-happy. So within the first few weeks of filling out paperwork and talking with our adoption agency, my husband wanted to sit down with a spreadsheet and the financials and figure out exactly how we were going to pay for this adventure!

Well, upon crunching the numbers, we quickly realized that we weren’t!

Going to be able to pay for this adventure, that is.

We just didn’t have that $50,000 sitting in the bank. And even if we cut back on spending, and didn’t buy new clothes or shoes (my husband’s suggestion), borrowed money from our business (my suggestion), and had garage sales and bake sales (our children’s suggestion), we still weren’t going to come up with that much money.

The night we realized this, my husband had his papers and his spreadsheets out, we were sitting in bed discussing this, and quite honestly….he was getting stressed. He got to our bottom line and threw up his hands and basically said, “We can’t do this!” Not that he didn’t trust in God, but he wanted a plan put down on paper for exactly how we were going to cover that first $15,000 that would be coming due very soon.

There was nothing we could do but pray about it. So we did. We put away the spreadsheets, climbed under our covers, turned out the lights, and prayed that God would clearly show us that we were supposed to go forward in faith, even not knowing how we would pay for this thing.

So…..backtracking a little bit…..in November, 2005, Scott was in a car accident. He was driving along when someone ran a stop sign and smashed into him right on the driver’s side door. Looking at the pictures, we realize he should have been hurt much worse than he was. He was in physical therapy for a while, but really, walked away from the accident miraculously safe!

After the accident, we turned all of our paperwork and medical bills over to our attorney. We had to wait for Scott to finish physical therapy, and then wait a while longer to make sure there were no more medical issues that appeared due to this accident. Every so often we would hear from our attorney with updates or questionnaires or deposition forms. He was working with the insurance company trying to reach a settlement. After more than 5 years though, we hardly ever thought about it anymore. The last time we had talked to our attorney about this case was more than 6 months before our adoption journey began.

Can you guess what happened? Do you know that we serve a BIG and AWESOME God?!?!

It was the morning after we put away our spreadsheets and gave up on trying to figure out the finances for our adoption.Did you hear that? THE VERY NEXT MORNING….THE MORNING AFTER WE PRAYED AND HANDED THIS PROBLEM OVER TO GOD!!! The phone rings. It is our attorney. Now remember, we hadn’t heard from him in over 6 months. We had no idea that the settlement talks with our insurance agency were progressing at all. (I want to say here, that we had a FANTASTIC attorney. He was working on our case the whole time. But we had told him we were in no big hurry and to take his time to try to settle for the best possible amount.) And our attorney says, “We have reached a settlement agreement. I need you guys to come down and sign the papers. You will be getting your check soon!”

Now this check didn’t cover the $50,000. But it did cover what we needed for the next steps of our journey. Really, what more can I say about this? Our God is amazing. Our God loves us. Our God gave us the confirmation that we needed that this was indeed His plan for our family and He would be the provider.

Blessings!

Natalie

Let me introduce you to our beautiful children. Our son Joel is 10 years old. He is smart, loving and very tender-hearted. He is the PEACE-maker in our family. If there is conflict, he is the first to beg others to get along. If his sister has done something to earn a punishment, he pleads her case for leniency. We love this boy and are so blessed he is ours!

Our daughter Hannah is 7. She is funny, loud and full of life! Whatever Hannah feels, she feels it 110%! Her laughter is contagious and her tears can start at the drop of a hat. She brings JOY into our family and makes our hearts smile.

These two children are such blessings! I know everyone thinks that about their children, but I promise you, God blessed me when He gave me these two precious hearts to take care of.

So how to introduce the idea of adoption to these 2? Well…we just went for it! We sat them down and told them about what God had been doing in our hearts. We asked their opinions. We answered their questions. And we asked them to start praying about it. We told them that nothing had been signed or set in stone, but that we were going to start researching adoption options and we wanted God to speak to their hearts about the direction our family was going.

Let me just pause here and say that a child’s prayer is a powerful thing!! We have always included prayer in our daily lives, from mealtime, to bedtime, to hard times, to thankful times, to anytime! And our children know how to talk to God…so they prayed and we researched.

And God confirmed in our hearts what we had heard from Him already.

Our children started to get excited about this! They shared their fears – having enough time with mom and dad, having enough money for toys for more kids 🙂 – and they both came to a place where they fully endorsed our family’s decision to adopt!

During the next month or so we researched domestic versus international adoption. We researched countries. We researched adoption agencies. And I will condense all of this research and just tell you the outcome…..God was very definitely calling our family to adopt from Ethiopia. As we read about the critical orphan crisis in Ethiopia, our hearts were moved. As we looked at the pictures of the children in the orphanages, our hearts were yearning to bring them home to us. Did you know….

*Ethiopia is about twice the size of Texas, and there are over 4.3 million orphans.

*Between 60-150 million children live on the streets.

*1 in 6 children die before their 5th birthday.

*1 in 10 children die before their 1st birthday.

*1 out of 3 people are HIV+, the average life expectancy is 37.

*Half the children will never attend school, 88% won’t attend high school.

*82% of the population survives on less than $1 a day.

*24% of the population has access to safe drinking water.

*There is one doctor for every 24,000 children.

So on February 14, 2011, we signed the very first round of paperwork and sent in our very first (of many) checks to our adoption agency. We started the process that would change our family forever!

Blessings!

Natalie