6 Days

In just 6 days I will see my beautiful Ruth for the first time!

Our baby girl's birthday will be 5-13-13 :) and we couldn't possibly be more excited.



This week will be full of organizing, cleaning and packing as we prepare for our adventure to Florida!  Miss Ruthie's bag is packed and ready!

Don't worry, her diapers and wipes and bottles are in her other bag ;)

Here's our plan:

Saturday morning, after Turner's soccer game, we will head to Grammy and Gramps' house in Pawley's Island.

Sunday, bright and early, Niles and I will leave the boys in Pawley's and head South for approximately 10 hours to FL. That evening, we will meet the amazing people that are going to lend us their home during our FL stay.  Then we will travel 30 minutes to meet "B" in person for the first time at her home.   We ask that you cover us all in prayer during this time as it will be a highly emotional time for us all (and it will be Mother's Day of all days)... we pray specifically that she will feel our love and admiration for her and that she will know and not doubt the abundant love of our Lord as well.

Monday, bright and early, we will meet "B" at the hospital.  I will then have the absolute honor of witnessing the birth of my soon-to-be baby girl via c-section at approximately 8AM.  Again we ask for your prayers.  Specifically please pray for a safe and delivery for "B".  Please pray for her heart and her body as both will experience great difficulty and pain...  Please pray that the God of all comfort will be near her, especially as she says good bye.  It breaks my heart to even write that... and yet I believe that the Lord WILL "cover her with his feathers and shelter her with his wings.  And his faithful promises WILL be her armor and protection."  I ask again that you lift her up in prayer as often as she comes to mind.

In the hospital Niles and I will likely be given a room to care for and stay with our baby girl for the two days she is in the hospital.  

Wednesday, we expect Ruthie to be discharged and begin our wait to come home!

When can we go home?

We will remain in Florida pending permission from "ICPC" authorities to leave FL and return to SC.  The "Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children" is a federal law which establishes uniform legal and administrative procedures governing the interstate placement of children.  The ICPC is premised on the belief that children requiring out-of-state placement will receive the same protections and services that would be provided if they remained in their home states, and further that all legal requirements are observed. In furtherance of this goal, the ICPC gives the sending state the opportunity to conduct home studies and evaluate the proposed placement. It allows the prospective receiving state the opportunity to determine that the placement is in the child’s best interests and it guarantees both legal and financial protection.

That being said, we are praying that this process will be a speedy one!  We have been told to prepare for a minimum of 7 BUSINESS days from the time papers are signed (which will be on Tuesday).  We ask that you pray for both FL and SC to efficiently review and approve our paperwork so that we can come HOME and introduce Ruthie to her big brother's!

We are overjoyed to be so close and are ever so grateful for your prayers and excitement.

We truly believe that "He has made everything beautiful in its time..."  Ecclesiastes 3:11

To our God be all the glory- forever!

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 :).

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.