Birthday Surprise

Happy Friday friends! I have tried to write this post all week, but as you know, life sometimes gets in the way of our best made plans. But, here it is finally. And this post is about how we told our parents about our decision to adopt. I think I have been promising this post for about 3 weeks now. I might not be fast, but I do follow through eventually right?!?! :-) So without further adieu, here we go....

As Mike and I started the application process for international adoption we couldn't decide when to tell our parents and extended family. Would it be better to just tell them now when we don't have a lot of answers? Or would it be better to wait until we are little further down the road so we have plenty of answers?Thankfully, the decision was made for us when the application specifically said please make sure you tell immediate family members before turning in the application. So, we started to plan.

Even though we weren't physically pregnant, we wanted to have a fun way to surprise our parents with the announcement. It is the surprise of a child no matter how they enter our family so we wanted to make it special and we wanted them to be together if at all possible. Yay for timely birthdays!

My birthday is on February 1 and this year that day happened to fall on the weekend. We had to do a little coaxing and planning, but both sets of parents decided to come celebrate my birthday. They thought they would be surprising me with gifts, but we had our own Birthday Surprise up our sleeves.

My birthday fell on Saturday and the plan was to just hang out at our house, open gifts and then go have dinner. So, the moms said it was time to open gifts and as usual they spoiled me. All while opening them though I was getting that nervous excitement right before you tell someone happy news. As I finished, Mike went upstairs and grabbed two gifts as well. Only these were for our parents.

We decided to have the moms open a gift. Inside the gift was Russell Moore's book Adopted for Life. This is a great book and I would recommend it for not only those thinking about adoption but for all church members who should know why supporting adoption is so important. I love this description of the book, "The gospel of Jesus Christ—the good news that through Jesus we have been adopted as sons and daughters into God's family—means that Christians ought to be at the forefront of the adoption of orphans in North America and around the world. Russell D. Moore does not shy away from this call in Adopted for Life, a practical manifesto for Christians to adopt children and to help equip other Christian families to do the same. He shows that adoption is not just about couples who want children—or who want more children. It is about an entire culture within the church, a culture that sees adoption as part of the Great Commission mandate and as a sign of the gospel itself." You won't regret purchasing this book!

So, when we handed them a gift on my birthday they were a little confused. Thankfully (more liked divinely in my opinion), they were sitting next to each other on the couch and the dads were close by watching it all unfold. The moms unwrap the gift and see the book title and Mike and I could see a small glimmer of understanding, then they opened the front cover and saw this inside...

That was when we could see all the lights come on in full understanding and the moms first started crying and then my favorite part...and I wish I had a video...the moms both jump off the couch and jump up and down and start hugging each other shouting "we are going to have grandchildren close by!!" (Keep in mind that each of them have two grandsons, but my moms are half way around the world and my mom-in-laws are in Oklahoma). Meanwhile, the dad's are trying to figure out what just happened :-) We quickly filled them in, they decided to hug us and not jump up and down like school girls....that would have been an even better video!

Thus began the questions and explanations and a fun day of being excited about the future. We are so thankful for our parents and their support through this decision. We already know what wonderful grandparents they are and we know they will welcome our child(ren) with open arms...and spoil them rotten in the process :-)

Well, that is it for another installment of adoption info. There will be more to come. Please continue to keep Ukraine in your prayers. There is still so much unrest there. But there are adoptive triumphs as well. You can read about a family who was stuck in the middle of it all here.

As you can guess, I have done a great deal of reading about adoption and of course read many articles and blogs about it as well. This blog was a great reminder for people to be cautious with the questions and remarks they make to adoptive families both before and after they bring their children home. People don't usually say these things with a mean spirit, they are just a little ignorant sometimes. Sadly I have heard some of these and thankfully I haven't heard many of them. Just wanted to share for those interested so you make sure your filter is in place....don't we all need a little more of that!

Thank you all for your support and love...we are truly thankful for your prayers. Hope you have a great weekend friends! Love from the Forest!  

Crazy Week Wrap Up

Hi friends! What a week it has been. Mike has been gone every night this week and I have been gone three nights this week. Needless to say, we are exhausted and will be sleeping late tomorrow morning. Ok, Mike won't since he is an early bird, but I will!  I will be up in just enough time to see a new episode of Pioneer Woman :-) I must enjoy these small joys now before we head to Ukraine!

Speaking of Ukraine...brief update on the adoption front. We had what is called our "Welcome Call" today. Basically that means that the agency has researched us enough to know we aren't completely crazy and they are willing to continue on in this process with us :-) Next comes more paperwork and our first interview. This will take place over the next couple of weeks. The agency will also begin to contact our references...hopefully they will be kind :-)   So, we should have another update for you in a few weeks. Please continue to keep Ukraine in your prayers. The country has a long way to go to reach stability. Things are still open where adoptions are concerned and we want to continue to pray they stay that way. Thank you for the continued prayers and support. They mean so much to us!

Another fun event happened on Monday night of this week. It was one of our late nights, but thankfully we were together :-) A bit of history before I elaborate. Back in November, Mike got me tickets to see Les Mis on February 13. He knows me well! We were going to make it a Valentines date and have dinner downtown, the whole works.  I waited for 3 long months and was so excited because the time had come....then the snow made a rather bold appearance. Don't get me wrong, I love snow but not when it disrupts my Les Mis viewing pleasure. It is my favorite after all! Long story short, our reservation for dinner was cancelled because the restaurant was closed that day due to the weather and they cancelled our show. Thankfully though, they moved our show to Monday night which is their usual night off.

So, our plans were back on and we headed downtown for dinner at The Pit Authentic BBQ (super yum...you must go if you come to Raleigh!) and then to see Les Mis!  We had great seats in the front middle section back row. Here is a pic of the stage from our seats. Sorry it is a little fuzzy.You can see where the red seats end and the stage begins as well as Les Mis logo on the stage.

The show was great as always! This was my third time to see it live and this was Mike's first time. He had only ever seen the movie. The movie was great, but you just can't beat the live singing and acting. The two stand out characters for me was the man who played Jean Valjean and the young girl who played Eponine. This girl is a senior in high school and we will all see her name in lights on Broadway one day...she was that phenomenal. Needless to say we had a wonderful time even if we did get home at 11:00 and had to be up early for work the next day. It was worth the wait and I am thankful my husband feeds my love of musicals and live performances :-)  If you ever have the chance go see this show. You won't regret it!

The last part of this crazy week wrap up is the really cool opportunity I have been given through both work and church. Dr. Danny Akin just celebrated his 10 year anniversary as President of Southeastern. The 10 year celebration will be taking place while our Board of Trustees is here March 31 and April 1. As part of the celebration, Keith and Kristyn Getty will be here on campus for an exciting concert. They have asked local churches in the area to form a mass choir to sing with them. It is a blessing to have FBC Durham be a part of this choir. It has given me the joy of seeing what I love about my job join together with my ministry in my church. We had our kick-off event this Tuesday and it is so great to meet fellow Christians in the area who are excited to sing as well.

If you don't know much about the Gettys check them out. They are modern day hymn writers and have beautiful gospel-centered theologically sound music. We sing their songs at church all the time. You can click on the link below the picture to read more about them on their website. Needless to say I am excited!

Keith & Kristyn Getty

That is about all the excitement we can take for this week :-) Of course that doesn't include all of Mike's school related excitement. Keep him in your prayers as he juggles 3 classes, work and church commitments. I know I promised you the story of how we told our parents about the adoption. I haven't forgotten!  It is coming to a blog near you next week :-) Have a great weekend friends! Love from the Forest!

And then there were 3...or maybe 4...

Michael and I are happy to announce that our family is expanding! Now before you jump to the pregnant conclusion I will let you that I am not currently with child :-)  Our family is expanding through the precious gift of adoption. Our future child(ren) will be joining our family from Ukraine.

I'm sure there are many questions running through your head right now so I will do my best to explain how we arrived at this point in our family and what the future process entails.  I have written this post in question and answer form. These are the questions we have been asked the most and hopefully this will provide some answers and give you some insight into this exciting process.

Question 1: What made you decide to adopt?
When Michael and I were dating we of course had the "how many kids do you want" talk. The Lord had already worked in our hearts as single people to give us the desire to adopt one day. That desire made the "kids" talk that much more exciting as we spoke about adoption and our hope to adopt one day. This is a desire that the Lord has grown in us over the past 4 years of our marriage. There have been a few times in the last 4 years that we have said "ok let's start the process."  But for whatever reason (I like to think of it as divine intervention) we would put it off.

As many of you know we had the wonderful opportunity to visit my sister and her family back in December. That trip gave us some wonderful quality time together as a couple and I think also gave us such a great perspective on the world and how we can be globally minded even in our own family here in the US. January was the month we said "let's do this" and it has been truly amazing to see how God has thrown open so many doors and we have already been surrounded by such love and excitement.  

We also firmly believe that God has called us to adopt as we have read scripture. We ourselves are adopted into the family of God and feel called to welcome a child or children into our earthly family just as God graciously invited us into his through the death and resurrection of Christ. We believe that adoption is such a beautiful earthly picture of what Christ did for us spiritually. There are multiple passages in scripture that helped us in this decision. Here are just a few:

Romans 8:5 - For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

Galatians 4:4-7 - But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son,born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Jesus speaking in John 14:18 - I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

James 1:27 - Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Question 2: Why Ukraine? Why international?
Amazingly enough this was a very easy decision. Once we chose the agency we wanted to use (see next question for those details) we looked at the international countries they offered for adoption. We felt led to eastern Europe and Asia. As we read the various descriptions for each of the countries listed, our hearts went out to the many orphans in each of these countries. But when we got to Ukraine, we just looked at each other and knew that was where God was leading us without even saying a word.

The majority of the girls and boys in Ukraine who are not adopted enter the ugly world of prostitution and drugs. When I say majority, I am talking around 70-80%. This broke our hearts and we knew that we had to at least save one if not more from such a life.

Some of you may ask why we chose international over domestic. I can't say that we have a definitive answer to that question other than we felt the leading of the Holy Spirit directly to Ukraine. We believe that international and domestic adoption are both so very important and we applaud and cheer families who do both. For us, we know our future child(ren) are in Ukraine waiting to be brought home with their forever family.

We have the opportunity to adopt sibling sets in Ukraine. We are very open to this which is why we say child or children. We are excited to see where God leads with this. The minimum age of adoption in Ukraine is 5. If we get a sibling set we could get a second child that is older or younger than that.

Question 3: What agency are you using?
The agency we have chosen is Lifeline Children's Services. This agency does both domestic and international adoptions. Their main office is located in Birmingham, Alabama with multiple branches in other states including North Carolina. Lifeline is a gospel based agency whose mission drew us in immediately. A quote from their website states:

Lifeline is here to help the Church respond to the command in James 1:27; “to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” We acknowledge the church is the Bride of Christ, and while our Staff, as believers are discipling, equipping, and engaging people to care for the fatherless, it will ultimately be accomplished in and through the Bride of Christ- His Church. Lifeline seeks and prays for missional families who understand that this journey is so much greater than our own plans, time frames, and desires, and who ultimately want God’s Glory in the end.

After speaking with people who have used Lifeline and with members of their staff, we knew Lifeline was the agency God had placed in our path for this process. 

Question 4: How long will it take?
The adoption process for Ukraine can take anywhere from 12-18 months. This includes the home studies, creation of our dossier which is then sent to Ukraine and finally a trip to Ukraine to choose our child or children. We may be in the country anywhere from 30-60 days depending on what city/orphanage we are assigned to. Once all the paperwork is filed we then get to come home with our new family! We wish it could be faster, but this will not be a sprint; it will be a marathon and we will need your help. 

Question 5: How can we help? (At least we hope you asked this one :-))
First and foremost you can pray for us! Pray for both of us as we enter this journey that will have many bumps along the way, that we will have patience and continue to rely on God. Pray for the staff we work with at Lifeline as they seek to do their job and help us in this process. Pray for us as we raise the funds for this adoption...it isn't cheap :-)  Pray for our future child(ren) who are most likely already on this planet and living in an orphanage even as I type this. Pray that their heart(s) are prepared to be adopted and ultimately to be adopted as a child of God. And if you think of anything else...pray for that too...we aren't picky :-) 

We will also have some fundraising events through out this process. We will keep you posted on that front because we will definitely need some help!

Ok, so that was a long post...I'm sure your eyes are tired, I know my fingers are :-) Hopefully this post gave you an insight into this journey we have just begun. We look forward to sharing more and more with you as we proceed. Thank you already for the prayers I know so many of you will lift up on our behalf. We are truly grateful! 

Our next post will be about how we told our parents. I promise that one won't be as long :-)  Love to you from a very cold Wake Forest!

Leaving on a jet plane....

Did you think I would never get around to posting about our trip to Asia? I was beginning to think that too! December and January have turned out to be a complete blur and the daunting task of writing a large post about an unforgettable trip didn't help much. But, here it is at last for those who have waited with baited breath....anybody....Bueller?

To help you better understand the month of December, I am listing a short time line to give you an idea of when these events took place. It is probably more for me than anything...that way I don't get lost.  Also, please note that I will not be listing the country or city we visited. If you leave comments please don't list it either. So, without further adieu please join me and the hubby on our trip to Asia!

December 4- drove to Atlanta and left out little fur ball Lincoln with mom and dad
December 5 - Boarded plane to Detroit, then 2nd plane to Asia
December 6 - Boarded 3rd plane to my sister's city - beyond exhausted at this point!
December 6-14 - Hanging with my sister's family
December 14&15 - Boarded 4 planes with an overnight layover in Boston to finally reach Atlanta
December 16-17 - Christmas in Atlanta and then journey back to Wake Forest

**Please note that there are no pictures of me and Michael during the 26 hours of travel. We didn't want to scare anyone with crazy hair and bloodshot eyes :-)

This precious cutie was waiting for us at the airport with a sign when we arrived. I couldn't wait to get my hands on the whole family! It was rather late at night so I think he was a little dazed and confused :-)

This is one of my favorite pics my sister took. This was the first time I met Grady in person and I was a very happy Aunt T that he snuggled right up to me. Of course holding his blanket and dog might have had something to do with it. 

Isn't he just the cutest?! Like any other one year old, the kid loves a good box to play in. Grady reminds me so much of Tara at this age. I just love the face he is making!

We got to have Christmas with the family and had mom and dad there via Skye. Here is the cute red footie pajama family. 

Caden loved his new Big Buzz from GaGa & CoCo (my mom and dad) and Grady was happy to play with boxes and wrapping paper and waddle around :-) 

Tara and I got to have some fun sister time while we were there. There was one day where we left the boys with their daddy and Uncle Mike and off we went to explore the city with Tara playing tour guide. We rode the bus and a taxi. My blond hair got me stared at and talked about in the local language quite a bit :-) Here are two pics of us that were taken outside of 2 different malls. We also got to have coffee at a local shop and Tara even ran me across a busy intersection...diagonally. Apparently that is ok where they live.

I think one of my favorite memories was when Tara spotted the "Opening Soon: Burger King" sign. The girl seriously had an out of body experience. It was great fun to witness her excitement. When you only have Pizza Hut and KFC to choose from I can't blame her for being excited! 

We have always had a tradition of watching White Christmas together and we were so excited to watch it together this year after a 2 year hiatus. We had to watch it on the laptop but the sisters did what they had to! We may or may not have sung all the songs :-) 

We really enjoyed our cultural experiences in the city. We had some yummy local cuisine. I think our favorite were the dumplings. The next two pictures are at 2 restaurants we went to. The pork was yummy! Mike and I even got pretty good with using chopsticks. 

Tara and Britton and the boys took us to several beautiful parks in the city. This first one was very large and had a tunnel you had to walk through to get to the other side of the park. On our walk over we went by several groups that dance on the plaza. I loved watching these ladies use their fans as they danced.

On the other side of the tunnel we came to another plaza where there were people flying a remote control plane of sorts. Britton went over to talk to the local people to find out where the device came from. If you look closely at the picture on the right side you will see the airplane. I was quite happy with my picture taking luck :-) 

We also decided to get a group shot at this pretty spot in the park. When we asked some locals to take our photo I got a small glimpse into what celebrities feel like with paparazzi. You can't see it, but there were about 20 people standing behind the person taking our picture and they were all taking our picture with their phones and even shooting videos. At least we got a good group shot out of it! 

Me and Mike had to get one too! 

There was also a ride in this park called the toboggan. Caden was happy because he got a chance to ride with both Aunt T and Uncle Mike. 

I love this picture! I just think it so epitomizes the culture. This was the structure at the top of the park we visited. We rode a gondola up to the top of the mountain and then stood at the top of this building for an incredible view of the city. 

Here is a shot of me and Mike at the top

On another day we went to a park that is in the heart of the city. It was so cool to see the old unique buildings right in the heart of the city with all the high rise buildings. You will be able to see the contrast in the next 3 pictures. I totally stole the first one from my sister's blog :-) 

Another thing I loved about this park were the artists. They would work right inside one of the little plaza's making banners and fans. We wanted to buy one but they are quite pricey, even in US dollars!

And of course we had to have the always important group shot. We did it for mom :-)

Only a few pics to go!  On the day that Tara and I went out for our girls day, we eventually went home and picked up all the boys so we could go out for dinner. Unfortunately the restaurant we went to was closed. So, what does any good American do, they go to the KFC...ha! We visited a newly renovated KFC and got to have the Asian experience. I personally think it was better than here :-) I was glad we went so I could see Grady try his first corn on the cob. I think he was a fan. 

We decided to walk home since it was a pretty nice evening. Despite being tired from the day, I was really glad we did because we got to see this beautiful bridge. I love visiting other places just to see unique things like this. 

Last 3 I promise :-) First is me and Caden at a playhouse in the mall. A padded playhouse is exactly what that crazy nephew of mine needs to get all his energy out. Second is a pic of Grady in his UGA pajamas me and Mike gave him. I think he is the cutest little Bulldog there is. And last is a group shot in front of Tara and Britton's Christmas tree.

We had a wonderful trip to visit them and can't wait for them to come home for a visit in September. So thankful to have such a wonderful family who is willing to serve! 

Stay tuned for more blog posts. I promise I will get back on a better schedule. Might even have another one this week. Have a blessed week friends! Love from the Forest!