Our Busy Week

We have some exciting things going on this week with our adoption stuff. That coupled with our already busy schedule makes for a pretty crazy, but good week!

This Wednesday is our first home-study date! We will meet with our social worker to discuss some details of our adoption. We aren't totally sure what that will include yet. Originally we were going to meet at our agency's office, but we got an email from her today asking to meet at our house. You saw the pictures of our spare bedroom in our last post, so we are hoping that she doesn't mind the mess that we have made in there. I (Stephanie), have learned that I need to be more flexible. My type A personality keeps wanting to come out, but I have to suppress it, or I will never survive through this process sane:) We are a little nervous about this first visit. Pray for calmed nerves and good communication between the social worker and us.

Friday night we will be preparing for our yard sale...hopefully we will be able to organize the madness. We will also be baking some goodies to sell at the yard sale. We heard that selling baked goods is a good way to earn some extra money.

Saturday is our yard sale day! We will be starting bright and early at 7am. Come out and shop at Harps Mill Road in Raleigh. Just follow the neon orange signs off of Capital Blvd. (close to 540's entrance). Tell all of your friends to come out and support. We look forward to seeing some of you there! Pray for good weather and a good turn-out.

God is so faithful! It is so easy to forget to completely trust in Him. We are overwhelmed by how much he has provided for us so far in this journey and He continues to surprise us. When we tend to worry, He proves himself again and again! Just look at these updated pictures of our extra bedroom. It is even more filled with stuff that people have donated to us for the yard sale and this isn't everything! God is faithful to provide!

Yard Sale

As most of you probably know, most types of adoptions aren't cheap. So we are planning our first (of probably many) fundraising event. We will be having a yard sale! Last weekend we went through our whole house and gathered items that we could sell in our yard sale. Our guest room, soon to be nursery, is slowly getting filled with stuff we hope to sell. We have had some wonderful friends donate things/find things that others were willing to donate. We are really grateful for everyone's willingness to help out with it. Our great friends Ryan and Kelly have offered to host our yard sale despite the fact that they are putting their house on the market that same day. It is coming together quickly, which I guess is necessary considering that it is only a week and a half away.We are confident that God will provide the financial resources to make this adoption happen, hopefully we will make a little bit of money at this yard sale to offset the costs.

Here are a couple pictures of just some of the stuff we have collected.

We need you! We most of all need your prayers. Pray specifically for this yard sale. Pray that we will have good weather and a good turn out. Pray that people will be generous. Also pray that we would have opportunities to share Christ's love with others through our adoption story. We also could use more donations of items you are willing to part with for a good cause. We would love to have a large selection of items to sell. So if you are in the area and would like to donate anything, please let us know. We can come pick it up. Last but not least, we would love to see your smiling faces on Saturday, October 30th. Please stop by to say hello and possibly even purchase something. We should have a great selection of things especially if you come early. We will post more on specific items later. We will even be selling some baked goods and hot coffee:)

The Details:

When: Saturday, October 30th 7am-12pm

Where: Harps Mill Rd. Raleigh, NC (email or facebook us if you need specific directions)

Who: Anyone who wants to come

Why: To support our adoption

Some Details About Our Adoption You Might Want to know

So there are a few details you might want to know about our adoption process.  We are adopting an infant domestically which means from the United States.  We chose to adopt domestically after a lot of time spent in prayer and researching.  We found out that there is a need to adopt in the USA for families who are willing to adopt inter-racially.  Often times when non white birth-mothers try to seek adoptive parents there are very few families for them to consider.  We know that there is a great need for all of the many types of adoptions (ie. International, Older child, Foster to adopt, etc.).  This is just where we felt God leading us.

We are about to have our first home study October 27, one week from today.  This is where our social worker gets together with us to evaluate our family situation and discuss how we plan to care for our child and incorporate him or her into our family.  We are excited about this, but also a little nervous.  You can definitely pray for our home study.  Pray that God will help us to articulate the goals and directions of our family well. 

Big Announcement

Well, our big announcement is that we (Anthony and Stephanie) have decided to adopt a child.  This is a very exciting time in our lives.  We desire to adopt a child to be a tangible example of the love that God bestowed on us.  There was a time that we both were orphans.  Not orphans in that we did not have earthly Moms or Dads.  But, we were spiritually orphans.  God adopted us as sons into his heavenly family (Ephesians 1:5).   Having received our adoption in Christ, we feel that a good way to serve as an example of Christ is to adopt.

This is a daunting task.  It is much bigger than us.  God has already worked so much in our lives to help us begin this process.  We are starting this blog to share with our friends and family the way that God is moving through this process and to help keep everyone informed.  Stay tuned to here more updates as things progress.