Still Waiting

Well, they say "no news is good news" but in this situation, it sounds rather appropriate to say "no news is no news". (see sad smile) We've had a few leads but nothing so far has come from any of them. We're still trusting and praying for the little one or ones that God has planned for us. Some days it's just harder than others to wait on His timing (when my own timing has already come and gone! lol)

Our house is really quiet these days. Our son has gone on to Job Corps and he is having a wonderful time! We visited with him this past week-end and had a great time! It does a parent's heart good when we hear our children talking about how things are going and how they are using things we've taught them. I was so worried about him, but our visit set my heart soaring for him again. It was wonderful!

There is a little noise going on in our house during the day. We've had some repairs done to our main bathroom and tomorrow we're getting a fresh coat of paint and new baseboards! I'm super excited about this! We've picked out a lovely bright green color that we thought was so cheerful! I can't wait to see it all completed!

I'm really looking forward to fall this year. I love the cooler weather and I've been visiting pinterest a lot, so I have some awesome ideas for decorating!

Chris threw a big birthday bash for me a couple weeks ago. It was so much fun! There were lots of people and tons of food and even a purse cake & photograph booth and great stories of my past! My cousins from Wichita came up and we had such a great time! He really knows how to throw a party! I'm such a blessed lady to have him and our son in my life!

Tim & Katie (Chris' brother & sis-in-law) are getting closer to having their twins. We had a big scare a couple weeks ago and she is on bed rest for now. They are hoping she will be off bed rest in the next couple of weeks and that the babies will stay put until at least November 1st. After that, the doctor will be more than excited to have them arrive. We are all patiently awaiting their healthy arrival, too!

Thanks for stopping by to visit today and especially thank you for your prayers. It's been a rough couple of months, but God is good and He always helps us see when we need to turn our focus back on Him! Have a blessed September!

~Helen

Praising Him in Our Darkest Hour

Things have changed, a lot, since I last posted! We had been pursuing the adoption of the 2 little boys who's birth mother picked us, however we have pulled out of that adoption. After pulling out, we found out that neither of the children really are up for adoption, because the father is in their lives still. He has rights to them if he is supporting them and we fully understand and respect that. Our hearts are breaking, but we know that God is STILL in control. He will do nothing to harm us in anyway. We are still planning to adopt, but these little ones just weren't for us. I'd like to share with you something that I emailed a friend earlier today. It shows some of the growing that God has allowed us to do during this time.

 

Prayers have been our life support! I have learned so much in trusting God during this process! The other day I learned what "praising Him in your darkest hour" was all about. I got up on Thursday morning, I'd been struggling with things for days and said "so, this is what you mean about praising you in my darkest hour" and it made so much sense! And it helped me to see what He wanted me to see. God is good, no matter what, even if we don't feel it at the time we're going through our trials. We learned about patience the other day in our Sunday School class, too. It was quite humbling. Growing hurts, but once that phase is over I'll look back at all this and know that He was good to me the whole time. Thanks, again, for all your prayers & support. They mean so much to us!

 

I also wanted to share this with you. I found something similar on pinterest the other day and so I used the words to create my own. It's kind of our motto right now.

 

 

We truly want to thank you for your prayers, love and support during this time of our lives. We could not make it through this time without them.

 

Love, Helen & Chris

Update & Prayer Request

Adoption prayer warriors... I wanted to give everyone an update what our adoption. As with anything in life there are ups and downs, peaks and valleys, this adoption process has those as well. Here is where we are with the adoption of our baby...We have found out that the birth mother had what we believe is inaccurate information for the due date, which we were told July 8th. We believe the date i...s actually an August date now. Also the birth mother's phone has been disconnected, which means we have no contact with her. We fully believe that this baby is ours, and we beleive God has prepared us for this, however our faith does get tried through this. Please keep us in prayer that we will remain strong and grounded in faith as we go through this. One question that has been asked is our we sure there is a baby, the answer to that question is yes. We do have someone that we know and trust that was in contact with her before she went "dark". I will keep everyone updated as we find out new and exciting information.

~Chris

And your life changes in an instant

We were finally patiently waiting on God's plan and His timing, when BAM! out of the blue, we get the call! They called to see if they could show our profile to a mom and then they called to say she had picked us! We've spoken with the birth mom and are ready to move forward! We will have more news for you soon, but for now, we need to get figured out our trip to CA to pick up these little guys!!! Please keep praying for all of us and for our transition. I promise not to make you wait too long to hear more! lol

Have a blessed day!

~Helen & Chris

Our Anniversary

Good morning, friends! I just wanted to stop here and say what a wonderful 8 years it has been since we've wed! Our journey so far has been nothing short of amazing. We've learned and grown so much together! God gave us each other and we're so blessed by Him each day. Through trials & triumphs, heartache & victory, tears & laughter we make each day successful.

We're so looking forward to the rest of this journey He has planned for our lives!

God bless you!

Happy Anniversary, husband, I love you!

~H

An update & prayer request from Chris

I wanted to update everyone on our adoption process. Our home study is complete, he has given us the green light that he fully intends on recommending to the court that we are fit to be parents without any apprehensions. We also found out through a friend of a young mother that is going to have to seek adoption. Our friend is going to give her our information. Please pray for her for God to give her wisdom and if it is God's will, that we will be shown very clearly that this is our baby. Many of asked questions and some have stated they weren't sure what to ask or if it is ok to ask, so I thought I would share with everyone what are thoughts are. Since we fully believe that God has given us our journey, and one part of the journey is we feel very strongly that we are purposed to help a mother in desperation, and for that reason we are not going through an agency. We are looking for that special person, through our efforts and our friends and family and for that reason we are very public about what we are doing. If you have questions about what we are doing please ask, if you have a lead of a potential mother/child please give them our information. We welcome any encouraging thoughts and success stories. The only thing we ask is for the stories to be positive. One question we get asked a lot is, how long does the process take. The answer to that question is as long as it takes for God to prepare us and a birth mother. We of course would like the process to already be complete, but we do know that the time will come, when the time is right. One final thought, keep us in your prayers, because while we know the timing is going to be the perfect time, sometimes we need to be reminded of that.

~Chris (& Helen)

Home Study is DONE!

We had our last home study visit on Saturday! We spent 2.5 hours with the Social Worker, answering questions, listening to his "rough draft" of our lives. It was quite entertaining at times! Well, when he got done, he let us know that he's working on the final draft this week and will get it to us as soon as he's done. He also said that he is recommending us for approval!!! I was so relieved and excited that I broke down and cried after he left. God has carried us this far, I know He's going to carry us the rest of the way.

 

Now, it's time to be patient and find our little one!

 

Have a blessed day!

~Helen

The paper work is all turned in!

Good morning friends! Today our social worker will receive the last bit of our paperwork for our home study in the form of 2 adoptive parent reference letters. For some reason the postal service lost one and so we had to ask them to write another one and in the meantime, we had asked one other person to fill one out and we got it yesterday, too. What a blessing these people have been to us to write these letters for us! Thank you, from the deepest parts of my soul, thank you.

 

I'll also share with you, again, how God will tell us we're ok. So I've been having some doubts while waiting on these letters to come back that maybe we're not doing the right thing because it's taking so long to get them. Maybe this wasn't God's will, but mine that we're pursuing. Just my thoughts. When it gets really bad like this I have to stop and say, "Ok, God, I want this, but what I want more is for my desire to be alined with YOUR will and not my own." This is when He speaks to me. He says, "My child, chillax! I've got this one!" lol Well, on this very Monday morning, I was going through this and I went home for lunch and I checked the mailbox and one of the refernece letters was in there. It was the only thing in the mailbox. It was with that one letter in the mailbox that I was reminded that I didn't start this journey, but rather God started this journey for us. Now, a little twist to the story...when we got home from work on Monday, there was a lot of mail in our box. There isn't an explination as to why this particular letter was there at lunchtime and none of the other mail had been delivered yet, except to say that God knew what I needed and in His infinite wisdom, He reassured me that I am living in His will. You could come up with a logical conslusion as to why that letter showed up in our mailbox when it did, but regardless, I needed Him to tell us we're ok.

 

 Now, it's more waiting. I can't belive this process only started 5 months ago! It seems like it's been a year already! Please continue to pray for us and if you hear of anyone looking for an adoptive family, think of us. Our information is on the sidebar and you can feel free to pass it along.

 

Have a blessed day!

 

~Helen

Nothing and Everything

I titled this post "nothing" because I sometimes just don't know what to say! I wanted this blog to be about our journey, but it's turning out that I only want to post when something positive has happened regarding this adoption process we're going through. I want to apologize for that. If we're writing this blog to help someone else while they're enduring the same kind of situation we are, then we have to be honest and tell it like it really is and not try to be so cheerful and upbeat all the time! Well, I must say that most of the time I am tha way, because it's who I want to be, but there are times when I get frustrated. I think the process takes too long. I don't know why I can't just have a baby. I don't understand why someone else who isn't the kind of parent I think they should be can have one but we can't. Why would someone just give me their baby. Why can't it just happen, NOW. Why aren't people spreading our information around so someone who is interested in giving a baby up for adoption will have it and contact us. Does that unhappy pregnant teenage girl walking down the road want to share her baby with me and how can I meet her to find out. I just want to cry till I get what I want. Am I not good enough. What am I being punished for. Why do I need to learn patience.

 

Seriously, all these things have run through my mind and some of them still do from time to time. But do you want to know what keeps me going and keeps me "sane" during this season of my life? A promise from God. He said He has a plan for us and that He would never leave us. It may not seem like much to those who don't understand how God works (as if any of us REALLY know) but He is carrying my burden, not me. I can go about fulfilling my promise to Him because He is carrying the weight of my heart on His shoulders.

 

By now I've changed the title of this post to "nothing and everything" because though I don't know what to say somtimes, He gives me the words that are needed. He is everything. Jesus is everything. It's not my plan, but His. He gave me this desire and He will fulfill that desire in His time and through His plan. I have nothing to worry about because we're all in His hands.

 

Have a blessed day.

~Helen

Good News

We received a little bit of good news this week! Part of our paperwork has already been processed and we're getting closer to being approved! We still have a little bit of paperwork to fill out and get to our social worker, but the stuff that usually takes a longer time has already been processed and cleared! That is such an awesome thing! We'll post more as soon as we know more!

Please remember to keep us in your prayers, that God will continue to keep His hands on us and that we will continue to walk in His will.

Have a blessed day!

~Chris & Helen

The Home Study has begun!

Well...our Home Study has begun! Yeah! We met with the social worker yesterday at our home and began filling out the encessary paperwork. He left us with a mountain more paper work as "home work" (I thought I was out of school! lol) We began filling out the "home work" and are a little over half way done already!

 

The meeting was rather nice. We visited with the social worker about the process he will be going through and we've decided that it's rather neat that someone is kind of writing our "biography". This will take a few weeks to process, so we will be patiently waiting. Once he is done with his writing, we will get together and review it and then he will begin the process of presenting it to the judge to gain approval for us to adopt. Having this part already done will make it easier and quicker for the adoption to be finalized when we do have our little one.

 

Now, today, we're getting new carpet! What a wonderful, busy, this week will be!

 

Thank you all for your love, encouragement and prayers! They mean so much to us!

Have a blessed day!

 

~Chris & Helen