the nursery

so some people have been asking about the baby's room. well here are a few pics we took when we put the bedding on. it doesn't look like this right now but will as soon as he comes. a funny story about the bedding we chose. from the start brian really wanted to go with Tarheel's blue and brown, but i was having such a hard time finding anything i liked in those colours. then we started looking and all the jungle print beddings were so cute but then i thought "of course the girl from africa would have jungle animals in her baby's room". so i had to scratch that idea. well then we came across a managers special for the bedding below and got an AWESOME deal and it was perfect. what baby boy wouldn't love it. the sad part is that because we are in a rental home we can't paint the walls or anything. so we are relying heavily on pictures and art to hang.

Hope Martins, we would love one of your beautiful drawing to hang in the baby's room. :-)

Here are a few pics...

a gift from one Dad to another

i have a story to tell you. as you know on Sunday our small group put on a bake sale for us at our church where they raised over $700. this left us with around $325 to go. i started text messaging family and friends about how well the bake sale had gone and what little we had left to raise. just shortly after that i got a message from my brother saying he had a check with our baby's name on it. wow! i couldn't believe what God was doing in such a short time. so then i was talking to my sister telling her how much we had left after I got my brother's message and she said "you don't have any money left because i just wrote a check for the rest". another wow! i was so overwhelmed. in one day we got everything we needed. so you're hearing me now. WE HAVE ALL OUR MONEY!

but it only gets sweeter. with everything happening so fast we didn't have time to update our blog or anything and then we got a message from some sweet friends that had donated the rest of the money on our blog. another wow! God went above and beyond and he used family and sweet friends to bless us tremendously. i couldn't imagine a sweeter Father's Day gift for a soon-to-be daddy that this gift from God.

we are so thankful to everyone who has participated in all the fundraising no matter how great or small. it counted. we pray God will bless you ten times over for your generosity and love. all we have to do now is pray and wait.

Bake Sale Pics

Wanted to share a few pics from the Bake Sale from Sunday (thanks Kelly). More to come later. It was such a blast and we are so thankful for our small group who has supported us so much. We love y'all

$326.55

you might say what a weird title to a blog post. well it is more than weird, it is amazing!!! that is the amount we have left to raise to meet the financial responsibilities of our adoption agency. God is so amazing; He did above and beyond what we thought capable today at the bake sale at our church. He tends to do that, do more than we deserve. i cannot think of any reason that audra and i should have all the money we need other than God has called us to this and He wants to make it happen. what a way to see the love of a Father on this day of celebrating fathers. God, we love and thank you for who you are and what you are accomplishing.

brian

Bake Sale

can i just start this post by saying we have the most amazing small group ever. Kelly, Katrina, Raschelle, Amy, Angie, and Amy, i love y'all so much. y'all have supported us and cheered us on during this entire adoption process. God has blessed us beyond our wildest imaginations. i just want to give each of you a shout out and say thank you from the bottom of my heart.

so the reason our small group is so awesome is because they have done so much for us during this adoption process. they have helped us with movie nights, yard sales, chick-fil-a "spirit nights" and now we are having a bake sale.

tomorrow from 10:30am-11am we will be having a bake sale at Grace Chapel to help us reach our financial goals for our adoption. today my mom and i baked dozens of cookies and countless brownies. i baked more in 5 hours then i ever have in my entire life. but because it was with my mom it was a blast. so if you are in the area head out to leipers fork and buy some yummy desserts for Father's Day. there is plenty for the entire family to enjoy.

the fight is not against the flesh

i know it has been over 2 weeks since i have posted. brian has been posting the updates with all our finances. i'll be honest. the past two weeks have been a struggle for me. i thought that maybe God was waiting for us to be chosen to be parents until we were "ready" to have a child in our home. so i thought God would just allow life to get better and better while we waited. brian and i would draw closer in our marriage and really prepare to be parents, our jobs would be amazing making it so easy to transition into being parents, and everything like that. well lately it seems like the more time we spend waiting the more of a foothold satan is gaining. i'm finding myself so anxious that sometimes i'm not sure i really want to do this. i wish that i could express what is in my heart. i'm so exhausted that sometimes i don't even know whether to sit, stand, fight, yell, scream, cry, laugh, love or whatever. i'm struggling so hard to know what it means to "be still" and wait on God. is it a literal stillness? am i supposed to just sit and do nothing? for those of you who know me know that i am very impatient and when i want something i go after it. so needless to say this waiting for a birthmom to choose us stuff is not very easy for me.

last night i was reading in Ephesians 6:12,13 where it talks about fighting wars not against flesh and blood but in a spiritual sense. i know that each day is a battle against the enemy and each day i feel like God is allowing me to recognize the enemy. but honestly, these past few weeks it has really been hard to fight. so last night i was so comforted when i ready verse 13 where it says "therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." stand. i think i can do that. i don't know that i have the strength to fight right now but i think i can stand. i am blessed to have amazing friends and an amazing husband that sometimes they are the only thing holding me up. God really is that good. i would never want to walk this road without them. i'm thankful that my God is big enough to handle all my emotions, frustrations, anxiousness and tears. he's still there holding me even tighter.

so there is my heart for the world to read. God is good. I know he is good.

Bad Math

What a surprise it was to Audra and I when we sat down and looked at how much money we had towards our required $12,000. We are using an account for both our adoption money and our savings. I had actually counted more money towards savings than we actually had. So as you can see on the thermometer to your right, we actually have only $984 left to raise before we can be ready at a moments notice to bring our son home. God is so good.

Final Total

Good Saturday morning to everyone. I just picked up our check from Chick-fil-a this morning. Can I just say that God's children are so amazing. With the donations and all the food eaten, Audra and I are $472 closer to our goal for bringing our son home. We cannot say enough about the outpouring of support. You guys rock the house!!! We love you all.

brian

And did you eat mor chikin?

Yes you did. Audra and I cannot say enough about the outpouring of support we saw last night. When we left it looked as though almost 150 had signed the roster for the evening. If that is not amazing enough, when I talked to the manager he said that these type of nights usually fizzle out around 65 or so. God is sooooo awesome, and we love to see how He uses His family to support each other. What a testimony to what He is capable of. As you can see in the pics, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

As of now we only know what was given in donations: $272!!! Hopefully we will find out today what Chick-fil-a will be able to add to our total. Just one more time, YOU GUYS ROCK!!! GOD ROCKS!!!

Eat More Chicken!!!!!!

Everyone is invited to come out to Chick-fil-A in Cool Springs on June 11 (THIS THURSDAY) between 5-8pm. We will be doing a fundraiser for the remaining $1900 we have left for our adoption. There will be a sign up sheet on the door and we must have 100 people sign it in order to receive 10% of the sales in those 3 hours. PLEASE COME AND SUPPORT! Brian and I will be there and we can't wait to see you. Bring your friends, family, small groups, youth groups, church, anyone you know. Let's eat all the chicken we can and raise some money in the process. Thanks so much for the support you've already shown. We will see you there.

nesting, waiting, and my thoughts about it all

over the weekend i think i finally started nesting. my house just can't seem to get clean and clutter free enough. i vacuumed, mopped, dusted (all those thing i'm so bad about doing on a regular basis), and even went through all the piles sitting on the floor. i made brian go through stacks of magazines to see how many we can recycle. we actually went through quite a bit. i still have the guest room/office/collect all room to do tonight but i'm on a mission. i still have found a lot of stuff i want to get rid of to help clutter free our house. we will get there but like i said, i'm on a mission. i've never felt this sense of urgency to get my house clean and orderly. i think brian is enjoying it.

i'm sure as any pregnant women can attest to during your last trimester you just get anxious and are ready for the baby to come. that is exactly how i feel. i'm so excited to sit back and watch what all God is doing but i'm anxious for the waiting to be over and my baby to be in my arms. we did find out last week that our adoption profile is now online for all the birthmom's out there to view. and the exciting thing is that putting "brian and audra" in the alphabetical order list means we are close to the top. we are on page 1 in tennessee and page 6 or 7 for the entire country. pretty sweet and exciting.

i really do believe this baby is coming sooner than later because i'm recognizing Satan trying harder and harder to distract us from focusing on God. at first i just thought brian and i were just getting exhausted with all the waiting and it was getting harder to stay focused but God opened my eyes to see that it was Satan distracting us. i already feel such a burden to constantly be praying for our little child and his birthmother. i know without a shadow of a doubt that God has special plans for this child so i can't imagine that the birthmother's pregnancy will be easy. but as i've been reading James 1 this past week i'm reminded to "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when faced with trials..." i am thankful for the trials. i am thankful for the waiting. i'm thankful that life isn't easy. i'm thankful to have to fight for my territory. i'm thankful that Satan thinks I'm worth fighting against, that my household is something he desires and wants to own, and that my marriage makes him quiver and shout. It's great to have the devil's attention because that must mean that God is doing something awesome and Satan is doing everything he can to destroy it. i'm thankful for a Saviour who claims the victory over my life every day. i'm thankful that the battle is already one. i'm thankful for the love of my Father. i'm thankful that even right now God is whispering into my son's ears and holding him close. i'm thankful for all the people who have made this journey happen. i'm thankful. so thankful.