The Lord Will Provide

At some point there may come a time when I am not surprised by the incredible ways God provides for our needs... but today I remain amazed.

Again the Lord has given us more than we could ask for or imagine...


First, we were able to close on the refinance of our home (that we have been working toward since January) last week.  This means that not only do we skip a month in payments (on the EXACT month we bring home Ruthie!) but going forward we will pay $200 LESS per month!   

Then, one day last week we received an unexpected check in the mail for $300 for the settlement of the townhouse we sold 2 years ago! 

Then, the grant that we applied for earlier and were notified about last week was confirmed yesterday- and it is $1,000 MORE than what we even hoped for!  


AND THEN today I go to check the mail and say to the Lord "OK Lord, what's today's encouragement going to be?" only to find a $1,100+ check from the bank from the escrows of our original home loan!  

Seriously?!?!?! 


When the Lord called our family to adopt, nearly 2 years ago, we knew that He would provide every single dollar we would need.  But it's one thing to "know" something and something all together different to "watch" something miraculous happen as we have these last weeks and months... our God is truly our JEHOVAH-JIREH "The Lord our Provider".  We are blown away by his generosity and loving kindness.


Our desire in sharing all of this with you is to encourage you that wherever the Lord leads you He too will provide.   Jehovah-Jireh will never leave you nor forsake you and he promises to provide for all your needs.  Be encouraged and take heart! 



One final mind blowing development- yesterday we found out that we will meet our precious birthmother on Mother's Day.  

  
I can't imagine a more appropriate day to hug her for the first time.





19 days and counting!



 

Grumpy but Grateful

This is the day that the Lord has made;
    let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24

One of the elders of our church encouraged our congregation last week to look at each day as a gift from our Lord.  He even cautioned us against having a bad attitude toward the dreaded start of the week... Monday...

Well my Monday attitude arrived a day late...  

2 weeks of an annoying stomach bug for my boys + poison ivy and too little sleep for Mommy= one grumpy me!


But in an effort to "rejoice and be glad" I am going to BATTLE my case of the Monday's with gratitude!


I am grateful because...

...we have received TONS of butterflies!

THANK YOU!  At last count there were 33 butterflies on our door!  

(If you'd like to participate check out this post for details)

...you fine people have ordered almost 20 shirts!  

Thank you all for helping us spread the word and for purchasing tshirts and onesies!  I can't wait to see you sporting your Ruthie T!  Every single shirt helps us raise the final funds we need.

...our travel arrangements for Florida are complete!

It looks like Niles and Ruthie and I will have the privilege of staying in a beautiful FL home of a friend for our entire stay! No HOTEL!!  And thanks to all the tshirts we have sold- we even have gas money :) yippie!

... our "Turner and Calvin" team is assembled!

We are so blessed to have family and friends that have stepped up to help us care for the boys while we are gone to FL!  You guys rock- and I KNOW my boys are going to have a blast while we're gone!  I am so grateful that one more item is off my mental list.

... our loan is approved!

The ABBA Fund has graciously approved our loan request today!  Another step closer to having every bit of what we need to bring Ruthie home!

... our birthmom is doing well!

I just received an email from her saying she is well and looking forward to meeting us :)!

Be encouraged!  Our God is at work and he is moving His people to supply our every need!

Now I'm going to sneak a nap for the next 15 minutes and all will be right with the world.

 

...that we might have strong encouragement

In the devotional I read yesterday (based on Hebrews 6:13-20),  John Piper says

God desires to "show"- prove, demonstrate, point out, represent, display, reveal, drive home - the hopefulness of our future.  He really wants us to feel this.  He goes the second (and third and fourth) mile to help us feel encouraged.  This is what he wants.  This is what he really wants. "...that we might have strong encouragement"

Well today these verses have seen fulfilment in my life!

Today the encouragement has come in huge waves...

...and I am joyfully drenched!




1) I received an email today (after two phone calls yesterday) from one of the organizations we applied for an adoption grant and it said:

On behalf of the foundation I am delighted to inform you that the board has approved your request for financial assistance!

 We don't yet know how much we have been awarded but we are so excited!  Every bit helps!


2) Just minutes after calling Niles to tell him that we were being awarded a grant the mailman arrived with a package I've been waiting days for- it included all of our official paperwork from the agency in Florida and about 20 ultra sound photos!


I am so, SO thrilled to share with you the first glimpse of our baby girl...

  

My beautiful, beloved, Ruthie B.

Oh how my heart sings at the sight of this precious baby! As if that wasn't enough for one day...

3) Just seconds after I opened the packaged I received a call from a dear friend letting me know that she had talked to her father, that "happens" to live within minutes of the hospital where Ruthie will be born, and he would like to offer us his home for as long as we might need it! 

PEOPLE, HEAR ME, OUR GOD ROCKS!!  

No germy hotels, or night after night of restaurant food during our stay!  We will be in a safe and clean HOME, with a kitchen AND POOL, in sunny FLORIDA!  

God desires ME to have STRONG encouragement- and he desires that for you too.  I pray that our story would never point to anything "good" that we are trying to do but would instead point to our Almighty Father that pours his love over his children.  He has done every bit of the work to supply what we need and sustain us during the journey with encouragement and faith. He delights in us and he delights in YOU.

As I close this most encouraging post I ask that you would pray for our birthmom,  "B".  Today "just happens" to be her birthday!  My prayer for her is that she too will feel drenched with the love and encouragement from our God and from her family today!

Here's one more shot of baby girl...

With her hands in her mouth- just like her big brothers :).

T-shirts for Ruthie!

I have said from the beginning that one of the ways the Lord has blessed us the most during our adoption journey has been in relation to our fundraisers.  Well our most recent fundraising effort has been no exception!  

After our adoption was unsuccessful in February (with birth mother K) I knew that in order to continue our journey we would have to again raise funds to recoup what we lost, plus raise additional funds should we be matched by an agency... lets just say I wasn't excited about the idea.  I KNEW that God would bless our efforts in a mighty way but I just had little momentum and couldn't really come up with an idea Niles or I were excited about.

THEN while doing some research I came across a fellow adoptive Mommy and brilliant graphic designer named Christine.  Christine adopted a gorgeous little boy in 2011 and decided she wanted to help other families follow the call to adopt.

Here is a little of what she says on her site:

We are convinced through God’s Word that caring for orphans is not a charity case or something for those that can’t have their “own” kids, but something that we as Christians are called to and a picture of what we have been given.  We have been adopted as brothers of Christ (Romans 8), we receive the inheritance as sons of God.  We are all called to care for orphans by adopting them ourselves, helping others adopt, foster care or perhaps feeding, visiting and sponsoring kids currently unavailable for adoption... I  want to continue to care for orphans now while we wait to bring our next one home, so I’m offering a few design services to help your family raise money.  

So she created:

 

As soon as I discovered her site I contacted Christine and applied right away!  

And then a couple days later, just 2 hours after we heard that our Florida birthmother "B" had picked us, we heard back from Christine saying she would be able to help us fundraise!  God is a most wonderful provider :)

So with all that said we are excited to announce our BRAND NEW adoption fundraiser- 

T-shirts for Ruthie!

 

Christine has helped us design 7 different Psalm 91:4 t-shirts in a variety of colors and styles for babies, toddlers, women, and men!

Here's a quick peek at one of the women's shirts

Front

Back

 

 Amazing, right??

We are so grateful to Christine for her help with this project and hope you are as excited about these shirts as we are!

We have several thousand dollars left to raise in the next 4 weeks- and every single shirt puts us closer to fulfilling that need.  We know that God is doing a mighty work in the life of our birthmother, our baby girl and in our lives- and we invite YOU to again be an important part of this most beautiful story. 

To help us spread the word please feel free to share this post with your friends and family!  If you'd like to share our fundraiser on Facebook we would MOST appreciate it!

 "Help the Ferguson's raise the funds they need to bring Ruthie home AND get a cool tshirt! The Ferguson’s have opened an online t-shirt shop to raise funds to bring home their baby girl- and you can help!  Visit their shop at FergusonsAdopt.spreadshirt.com and get your shirt today!"

  

We thank you all in advance for your support and can't wait to see you in your new t's!

I'll leave you with my absolute favorite item in our shop:

 

Can't wait to see my Ruthie girl in this!!

PS- If you would like to contribute to our daughter's adoption, but prefer not to purchase a t-shirt, we humbly say "thank you". 

There are 2 ways to give:

You may donate by way of check. If you choose this option, 100% of your contribution will go to us.

You can mail us a check to our PO BOX

Ferguson Family

PO BOX 1771

Fort Mill, SC 29715

OR

You can donate online with a credit card to our Paypal by clicking here then click the donate button and enter you desired donation.

We are MOST grateful for YOU for your support and prayers!

Something New

again

I want to remove the word "again" from my thinking...

That little tiny word has the power to discourage me and cause me to fear.  Adding "again" to the end of even encouraging and exciting news feels like a soggy, wet blanket... for example:

"We've been chosen by a birthmother- again."

Saying again  put this current chapter of our story on the same page as our two previous "chosen and disappointed" chapters.  I believe that tiny word is a tool of our enemy to steal my joy and cause me to doubt my God.  

Instead I will choose to trust that my God will work this chapter out for our good and I will hope that now God is "doing a new thing"!

My amazing Mom sent these verses last week:

“Remember not the former things,

    nor consider the things of old.

¹⁹ 

Behold, I am doing a new thing;

    now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness

    and rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 43)

In this passage the Lord is encouraging the Jewish people (that were in exile) not to live in the past but instead to look forward to his fulfillment of his promises...

I choose to do the same!  
I will look forward and not back.


To help us battle the "again" doubts that creep in we have outfitted our door with encouragements from God's Word.

And to remind us that the Lord is in the business of changing ugly things into beautiful creations,  the boys and I have added butterflies!  

We would LOVE to fill all the white space with butterflies... and we were wondering

would YOU like to help?

We invite you (and your kiddos!) to get crafty!

We would love and be hugely encouraged by your creations.

If you'd like to mail us your creation our address is:

Ferguson Family

PO BOX 1771

Fort Mill, SC 29715

We love you all and look forward to seeing your "new" creations!

Rejoicing in His Nearness

"Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning." Psalm 30:5

Friends, we are rejoicing!  A beautiful woman in Florida has chosen us to be the family for her baby girl.  But the most amazing part of the story is that the Lord was already doing a mighty work on my heart even before he made my "dreams" come true...

Let me back up.

The 2 weeks leading up to the phone call we had been praying about, I was feeling the Lord drawing nearer and nearer to my heart...  

• Consistently I noticed when I spent time reading my Bible I felt him meeting me there, teaching me about himself and his faithfulness... (that doesn't always happen to me).

• One evening Niles and I had an incredibly worshipful experience at a Bethel concert. We felt the Lord's presence and his love almost tangibly that night even when our hearts were heavy and distracted when the evening began.  One song in particular touched my heart entitled Show me Your Face LORD.  The last line of the song said "I could make it to the end if I could just see your face"... I realized then that that was something I was longing for- just to see God's face in all that was happening...

• I also began to feel a "lightness" that was returning... God was healing my broken heart and I only began to notice it when things "didn't" happen... for example when I didn't tear up when I saw a baby girl or when I didn't  feel sad and sorry for myself when I walked by our nursery... or when I didn't fall completely apart when I heard a fellow adoptive mommy was matched with a baby girl after a relatively "short wait" (note- there were tears, but much less than one might expect!)

• And then I noticed that my excitement for the baby God would bring us returned- it felt possible again that our Ruthie would come home one day and my strength to move forward and "do" what I could was renewed...

• And then I realized that even in my grief and weakness over the last month God was giving me daily doses of faith and restoring my trust in Him!  Praise Him for his gift of FAITH!

I say these things not to say that I was doing anything worthy of praise... God did all the work!  (I just put one foot in front of the other and survived).   I point out the events of the last two weeks to say that now I see that God, in His great mercy and in His perfect timing, has worked all things together for my good (Romans 8:28).

... even before I received the call that would make my dreams of a baby girl come true my GOD gave me what HE KNEW I really wanted most... I wanted to be near Him and He has given me the desire of my heart.

And now he has blessed us even more abundantly with the news that we will be the parents of a precious baby girl!  We couldn't possibly be more excited.

More on that story to come :).

For now, I ask that you pray for our most precious new friend, "B", and the baby girl she is carrying that we hope will be our Ruthie.

 May the Lord shelter them and give them peace.

 Amen.