A New Stirring......

Over the past week I have been in touch, via email, with our friend Amy Rodgers, who now lives with her family in Ethiopia. (For more on their story, check out their blog at http://www.lakelangano.blogspot.com/ ) God called this family to help run the Sports Camp at Lake Langano and I am trying to help coordinate prayer for them while they are there.

At Camp Langano, there is a clinic and a school that serves the community around Camp Langano. Amy will assist the nurse at the clinic in the baby area called the House of Hope, which is located next door to the clinic. The House of Hope will take in nursing babies that have lost their mothers and/or parents and would otherwise not survive. They will stay at the House of Hope until they are old enough to eat solid food and then will be reunited with their families.

I've been thinking and wondering what would happen to these babies if their parents were not able to take them back in.........

I'm not sure what God is up to and I don't know if He has us in mind for a child from this House of Hope but I am tuned in to his desires for us. My prayer is for these children to be ultimately returned to their families.

Here is an update!!! Hope Adoption Agency received our application on Good Friday and we are looking forward to beginning our home study in May!

Thank you to everyone for your love and encouragement. We could not go through this without ANY of you!

A New Start

Well....a lot has happened since I last posted. We hit our first (of many I'm sure) wrinkle in this process that shook us pretty hard. AGCI did not pan out to be the agency we hoped it would be. They gave us reason to believe we would not be good partners in finding our Ethiopian angel. Thanks to all of you who gave such Godly encouragement when we were questioning our faith and ourselves. During our saddest moments we even wondered about God's will for us to carry this through. It seems like such a huge mountain to climb when you are standing at the base thinking "do I even have the energy to do this?" The answer of course is NO! "We" do not have the energy to stand up to this mountain but God does! And, undoubtedly, this will be just the first of many times we'll question and lean on Him for the strength to do this.

2 Corintians 12:10 says That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

God did not set us on this journey just to leave us here! I have leaned on this encouraging verse Deuteronomy 3:18 "The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged."

Meanwhile a sweet family that goes to our church brought home their Ethiopian princess, "Kiki" on Christmas Eve. She is beautiful in every way and a huge inspiration to us. Thank you God for sending her when we needed that encouragement!

We also received a call from another agency we were interested in (coincidentally, the same one that K came home through) and were very excited for us to begin the process through them. So, this week we received all of our documents back from the original agency and we'll be getting off to a new start!

If you think of us, please pray for God to go before us and bind up anything that would keep us from the mission He has called us to. THANKS!