Thursday, October 22, 2009

changing with the season

it's been awhile since we posted any new news on our adoption. it's been a crazy past few weeks along with being exciting and frustrating. over the past few weeks God has moved on brian and i's heart both individually and together. it's been an incredible ride so far and we can't wait to see what he has in store down the road.

we've decided to move towards foster/adoption. after the together for adoption conference we were really burdened for all the children out there waiting. we have room for them and enough love to go to as many as God will let us have. our adoption was never to "start" a family or "have a baby". we are adopting because God has laid it on our hearts to walk this road now. we have no idea what lies ahead but we're walking. for the past year we have walked the road towards infant adoption and now we are continuing to walk but now our focus is on foster/adoption.

there are roughly 500,000 kids in the foster system with around 200,000 available for adoption. why do we need to wait for the perfect baby? so in november we will start some more training classes that will be finished around the beginning of the year. once are classes are complete we will begin pursuing a sibling group (yes, you read that right). our heart is to adopt a sibling group. God has already laid on our heart a specific group but we cannot pursue them until our training is complete. selfishly i want them to still be available come January but at the same time i pray that they find their forever family before then. i cannot stand the thought of these children not having a loving mom and dad.

so this changes a lot of things for us, but nothing that is too big for our God. a sweet friend said something to us a few weeks ago at church "there is the conventional way of doing things and then there is God's way." we know that anything outside of how a family "naturally" progresses (starting with a newborn and one at a time) is crazy and we have to rely on God, so why not throw everything that is conventional to the wind and completely rely on God to provide and make things happen.

we are beyond excited about our decision. thank you all that have been praying for this without even knowing what decisions we were making. this isn't a "new" journey, it is just continuing the path we were on. God just used everything before to get us here. of course there is so much running through our minds. crazy to think that we could have kids in school next year. but again, we couldn't be more excited. a few prayer request we have are:
  • continued patience as we walk. with foster adoption we get to see pictures of kids we long to pursue and it makes it difficult not to already have them in our home and call them ours.
  • that we learn in our classes. these kids will come with a background and we want to do everything we can to love on them and share with them the love of Christ.
  • that God will just keep our children safe. we read an amazing devotional the other day that was talking about abraham walking up the mountain to sacrifice isaac and on the other side of that mountain a ram was walking up. we know our children have already begun to climb up the mountain. we will all meet at the top and it will be so beautiful.
  • with foster/adoption we will be working through the state so please pray we will be a light to all of them and that they would see Christ's love through us.
  • strength and rest as we add more to our plate with these all day saturday classes
we can't wait to see what God is doing and where he is bringing us. we will post more soon. we love you all!

4 comments:

k.mart said...

Brian & Audra,

We are so excited to hear about your decision! We will continue to walk this road with you and cannot wait to see what God has along the way.

Blessings,
Joe & Katrina

Holly said...

I just want to say that when you walk in the calling of the Lord, your way WILL be blessed. oh, that doesn't mean EASY or painfree but it DOES mean BLESSED. Because HE is faithful. He always equips the called.
Blessings,
Holly-Purpose Driven Family

Amy @ Literacy Launchpad said...

This is so awesome and exciting! We'll be praying!

Amy said...

I love you guys. :)