An Act of Faith

I almost don't have words to describe what I've been feeling for the past 2 weeks.  It's hard to explain sometimes what God has been telling you. What he has been telling the Moody family has had me taking a step back asking God...."are you sure?" 

You see when we made the decision to adopt Steven it wasn't that scary....it was pretty easy. I knew God was telling us to do it and when God provided the money right before our eyes (literally).....we had no other choice but to obey!!!!  I can honestly say that when I think about it....it seems to come pretty easy.  Doesn't really put me out of my comfort zone too much either...I mean what's adding one more child when you already have 3?  This time though, God is asking a bit more of us, and he is wanting us to be out of our comfort zone so that we rely totally on HIM.  "If you think you can do it all on your own, and live a totally safe, comfortable life, how are you glorifying ME in that?".  This is what I was hearing Him say to me. I was also hearing Him ask me...."Do you believe the Bible, and if you do, do you live like it?" Do you serve like it? Do you worship like it? I had heard David Platt preach this in a sermon series this past summer and then a couple of Wednesdays ago Pastor Kevin asked the same questions.

I was thinking about this really hard that night, and wondering to myself "am I living here on earth as though I think I will be here forever"? That thought got me thinking about something Josh and I had been discussing before:  adopting 2 children. We have said that we would probably adopt again, but for now we would just adopt Steven.  Well, I can't keep thinking we might have a next time and there might not be a next year to show another child the love of Christ that we have to give from our family.  The chance might not be there again to ultimately share the Gospel with another child just because we think there would be another time.  I can tell you the answer to the question....  "Did I believe the bible?"....all of a sudden became very real.

All this to say that He is asking, no, commanding us to adopt another child along with Steven.  Yes, I said we are going to adopt 2 children!! Ahhhhh!  We know that the first question that immediately pops into everyone's mind when they hear that we are adopting two children is "are you crazy"?  The answer to that question is.....yes, probably a little.  We are about to take our wild and crazy family of five to an even wilder and even crazier family of seven.  Can we afford it?  Not on paper.  Will we have to give up stuff?  Absolutely.  Will our lives ever be "simple" or "comfortable"?  Not a chance.  Will the eternal ramifications of showing these children and the world the love of Jesus Christ be worth it?  Without a doubt.

See, this is another one of those things that puts us so far out of our comfort zone that we cannot even SEE our comfort zone anymore.  But I think that's how God wants it.  We will never fully experience His power until we completely rely on Him in situations that are utterly impossible by human standards.  Jesus took 12 regular lower class men, and literally turned the world upside down.  I'm sure at times, they had their doubts too.  But they stepped out on faith and shook the nations.  Why can't the Moody "7" do the same thing?

So that's that.  We now have to have two beds, two car seats, two sets of clothes, and a whole lot of faith, and more Jesus than we deserve to make this thing work.  We have no intention of  "easing" into it.  We're following.....all seven of us....and He's leading.  We're good with that.  Now all we need are lots of prayers coming from people we know and love. 

P.S. I know you're all wondering who the second child is.  We don't know yet, but are praying that God reveals that soon and things line up just in time with everything else.  Only God can orchestrate this just right.

I just had to share this latest blog post from one of my favorite families I follow now. Of Oreos and Redemption is what it's called. I can't help but think God's plans are soooooo much BIGGER than we think and way better too!

http://www.goodtobecrazy.com/

We got our Biometric Fingerprints done! We were able to walk right in with no problem.  Soooo excited about this, because this means we are just waiting for the approval in the mail!!!! WOOOHOOO! Now that's out of my system I wanted to send a little message from the girls to little Stevie!

Fingerprints!!!

OK, so I'm a little too excited about this....but I don't care. It's Valentines and I got some wonderful news today! I've been waiting on these for quite some time and they came in today!!!! So they say to come in on the 23rd....big deal. Me and my man are going in the morning!!! That's right not wasting anytime here. The worst they can do is tell us to come back, and we're taking that chance. Oh yea, I was so excited  I forgot to tell you our finger print appointments came in the mail. We absolutely have to have these in order to show up early. PRAY they will let us in and get these done. This is the final step that needs to be done on our end. I am seeing the light and I can't be more excited!!!! It's Valentines and I really don't like Valentines, but the LOVE my GOD has put in my heart for my family is amazing. The love I also have for that special little browned skinned baby across the ocean that will be in our family before we know it..... it's so strong I can barely take it in!! We're racing little man as fast as we can! XOXOXO

A little Update

There hasn't really been that much going on and to tell you the truth I don't really like that. I've been busy in other areas of adoption business.... just not mine.  The other day however, we got a little glimpse of hope that things might be moving some and I wanted to keep you posted on the progress, mainly because we covet your prayers like you would not believe!!!! I asked Josh the other day, "wonder how long we should wait before we call Immigration and see if they have our home study?"  You see it was finally approved by Alabama DHR last week and sent off to Immigration and I wanted to know if it made it and when we were going to get our appointment for our 2nd, yes I said 2nd set of finger prints! I"m telling you one thing..... if they don't have every bit of information on us after this I don't know who does. Well, Josh called me 30 min later and said, "I called them and we have an appointment." They finally have all of our paperwork (Alabama DHR approved and sent them our home study last week)!!!!! Praise Jesus. We have our final set of biometric fingerprints scheduled for later this month, 2/23, (but we plan to show up at the place and try to get them done sooner......yes, you can do that). When he spoke to the Immigration Officer (who he said was very kind and helpful by the way), she said they are trying to have families processed and approved through immigration in 6 weeks or less. That would put us being approved toward the end of March. From there, our social worker puts together our dossier, gets it to their attorney in Uganda, and they begin trying to get us a court date. Our social worker said it's been moving very quickly and she has seen families travel within a month and a half of immigration approval. We are trying not to get our hopes up too much, but Claire (our awesome social worker) thinks having Steven home by late spring is a very realistic possibility. Again, we know this is international adoption and there are so MANY things that could happen to delay it. I also know that God's timing is oh so perfect and he will bring that sweet boy here on his time and not ours.  In the mean time we will keep praying that our little boy keeps growing (but not too much) and God takes care of him.   The girls can't wait and pray for his arrival everyday.