God's Not Dead...!

"God's not dead, He's surely alive! He's livin on the inside, roaring like a lion..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_OTz-lpDjw&feature=related
We love this song in our house, if you're anywhere near us on the road, you might notice that we crank up the radio and go bouncing down the street singing this song at the top of our lungs! It certainly has a fun, catchy beat, but what we love the most are the words.... "God's not dead, He's surely alive!" It is so powerful to be proclaiming these words!
Truthfully, it's probably because we are seeing God moving in our lives on a daily basis - and we're trying our best to remember and chronicle every movement we see, (and I plan to make a post of all the God Sightings along the way.) But, I can tell you of one such movement that had to do with money....
On Tuesday (June 19th), Nate and I had to write our first check to the adoption agency, as of Friday the week before we did not have the full amount in our adoption fun. I wasn't sure where we would pull the money from, but I knew we were on the right track, so God would provide. On Monday, we checked the account and the rest of the money had come in from unexpected places, wanting puzzle pieces, or just a donation. Nate and I laugh and think that this is how God just might handle this whole adoption process... holding out until the last moment! :-) That's ok, we believe He called us to Uganda, so He will provide the way... truthfully, I'm so thankful He does, and I don't have to worry about it. I just need to learn to accept the help and support and continue to say Thank You!!
I tell you what, say, "yes" to God, to whatever He wants, and you will see God moving in real, tangable and powerful ways... we're calling them God Sightings! :-)

HERE WE GO!

OK, let me give a little background....

From the moment we said "Yes!" to God about adoption, He has been directing our steps. We researched all kinds of agencies and were introduced to a smaller one out of Sarasota. We met some families from Lakeland that had recently adopted from Uganda (or are currently walking through the process) and it turns out that they also used this same agency. We met with the director and really felt like God had led us in their direction. However, because this is a small agency, they choose to only work with four families at a time (one thing I really like about them!) When we met with them in May they already had 4 families they were working with but 2 of them were in Uganda waiting to bring their children home.

At this point, Nate and I decided that our path was clear to work with this agency and we would wait until they had an opening instead of going with another agency.

While we waited, we completed our online adoption training, and applied for certified copies of all of our birth certificates and marriage licence.

Two weeks ago, I contacted the agency to ask where we were at in the process, if there was anything else we could do while we waited and to ask about a neat fundraising/ministry opportunity that we had been thinking about (more on that to come soon!) We were told that hopefully we would receive a phone call by June 15th with the "go ahead" to move forward with getting our homestudy and dossier (all the paperwork) completed.

It was a long two weeks while we waited, but we were busy with Classical Conversations Practicum and VBS, so there wasn't much we could do anyway. I joked with Nate that I "put the fleece out" for God (Judges 6:39) in regards to the agency we should go with. That if we received the call from our agency on the 15th, then that would be one more thing to make it perfectly clear what we should do. (I'm a little thick headed sometimes) :-)

Well, as amazing as our God is, we did indeed receive a call on the 15th from our agency! They are ready to take us on and help us get all of our paperwork ready, etc. We are ready to go AND we have our first homestudy visit THIS Tuesday!

As if God had not made it clear enough already we were recently introduced to a family that has adopted from Uganda (via e-mail through my brother-in-law.)  Upon learning about this sweet couple it turns out they had a hand in establishing the very agency that we are working with!

We're excited to finally "start" the process and so humbled by God's orchestration of events up to this point.  Many have offered their love, prayers and support and asked how they can help.  

First and foremost, we covet prayer, that the process will go exactly as God intends, that we will be patient through it all and learn all that He has to teach us through the process and ultimately that we will bring glory to God at every turn in the journey!  Secondly, as you probably know, overseas adoptions are not cheap; we've added a fundraising image on the blog to show where we are at in the process financially.  As you can see, we have already been blessed beyond words by the generosity of our friends and family but there is still a long way to go.  It's not in our nature to ask for help (one of the many lessons God is already teaching us) but frankly, we can not do this alone.  If the Lord is leading you to help financially, we'd love to add you as a "piece of our puzzle" (see previous blog post).  We will also be selling some items to help offset the cost of the adoption as well (Julie is working on that now).  

Thank you in advance. We so appreciate you!

Some Fun Facts about Uganda

Uganda is a safe and friendly land-locked country in East Africa. It has a well-developed tourist infrastructure with excellent national parks that showcase Uganda's wide variety of wildlife including mountain gorillas, chimpanzees and over 600 species of birds.

Uganda is slightly smaller than Oregon with just over 30 million people living there.
The DRC lies to the east and Kenya to the west, see map below
The captial of Uganda is Kampala (most likely where we will fly into to pick up our boys)
Language: English (official national language), but other languages are mostly spoken, such as, Ganda or Luganda, Nilo-Saharan languages, Swahili, and Arabic. (English being the national language is very good for the adoption process because our documents will not have to be translated into another language)
Religion: Roman Catholic 33%, Protestant 33%, Muslim 16%, indigenous beliefs 18%.
Climate: The climate is tropical; generally rainy with two dry seasons (December to February, June to August). Average daily temperatures rarely exceed 84 F.
Currency: Uganda Shilling - as of today: 1 US Dollar = 2,509.44 Uganda Shilling  - thank goodness Nate and his accounting skills are coming with us! :-)

Stay tuned for more FUN FACTS and some less FUN ones as well...http://goafrica.about.com/od/uganda/a/ugandafacts.htm

What's New?

Not a whole lot! :-) Actually, that's not really true. God has been showing up big time, and we are seeing it in all the people around us! Our friends and family have been so supportive and literally jumping on board with slogan ideas, encouraging words and fundraising plans. Speaking of which, the puzzle pieces are selling so well, almost every day I've been writing names on the back of the puzzle! It's so exciting, I can't wait to see it all come together! If you haven't had an opportunity to get your puzzle piece yet, there are plenty left and we added a new "Donate" button to the blog to make it easier. So you can go through PayPal if you like, don't forget to let me know the names of everyone you're getting a piece for, so I can add their name on the back!
Also, I want to tell you about something SOO exciting!!!
Our sweet friends, Nate and Ida Mundell have a photography business (which is just packed with amazing talent!) and they have offered to do a special set of mini-sessions to help support our adoption process. I will let them explain the details. However, you want in this - move quickly b/c the slots are filling up fast!
Thanks again, Nate and Ida, you guys are such a blessing to us!!!


"It's time for another round of mini-sessions and these ones are very dear to our family. In honor of Father's Day, we will be offering 10 sessions titled "The 68.5 Sessions". Why 68.5? Psalm 68:5 tells us "Father to the fatherless, defender of widows—this is God, whose dwelling is holy." Today, there are MILLIONS of children without a father, so this Father's Day we are partnering with our dear friends, Nate and Julie Adams, as they are adding to their family through adoption from Uganda! 100% of your mini-session cost will be given to the family to help meet the financial need associated with the adoption. We can make a difference! We can help give a father to the fatherless! Sessions will be in June. Dates to be released next week. Cost: $68.50. Your mini-session will include: a 45 minute, downtown session (multiple locations downtown), a disc containing 20 edited images and a print release form allowing you to print as many photos as you'd like, from wherever you'd like. Our mini-sessions ALWAYS book fast, so if you're interested please leave a comment with your e-mail address and we will e-mail you with dates before we release them to everyone. Thank you for partnering with us! (And please spread the word!)"

Nate Mundell Photography http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nate-Mundell-Photography/104262359605640

Pretty Cool, huh!?!?!?! Good Peeps!

Becoming a Piece of our Puzzle

As most of you know we have gone through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University and we strive to stay debt free. When we started the adoption process we made a promise to ourselves to do it without going into debt. Unfortunately, it is tough to do since international adoption can be rather costly. But with the help of the internet, we are finding many creative ways to raise the money without having to borrow! One of these ways is through a puzzle fundraiser! The girls love to do puzzles, so this is going to be so fun for us (and you too)!

Here's how it works:

For $5 per piece, you can sponsor a piece of our adoption puzzle.
We will write your name on the back of your piece(s) and add it to the puzzle.
Once all of the pieces have sponsors, we'll glue the pieces together and hang it in our son's room. We will hang it in a clear frame so he can see the 1000 people who loved and prayed for him before he was even here!

I know there are so many needs all around us, and Nate and I are thankful for your prayers and help in meeting the financial aspect of our adoption. We have already been so blessed and humbled by the excitement and prayers surrounding this journey. We can't thank you enough!


If you are interested in sponsoring a little piece of our puzzle, just email me, or you can go directly to PayPal and send to juliebadams9204@gmail.com. Thank you in advance!

New Beginnings

Welcome to our new blog! :-) For most of you this will be new information! :-)

In April of this year, Nate and I decided that we would add to our family again, only this time we plan to bring home a little boy, or two! :-)
It's not every day that you can control the gender of your children... but through international adoption, gender selection is possible! :-)
It has been an amazing journey this far, and we both believe that God has called us to bring home our boys from Uganda some time in the near future. He has already been guiding our steps, leading us to the people who have gone before, some that are on the same journey, and those that will walk along side of us. We are excited to see what waits for us along this path, and meet the boys we will call our sons!

Please pray with us for continued guidance, and wisdom and of course, peace and faith regarding the financial obstacles.
I plan to keep this updated along the way with new pieces of the journey and some ways in which you can be involved, if you would like... so , stay tuned! :-)