The hardest part.....

Throughout our journey to Jadon we have had a lot of times when I would say "this has to be the hardest part". All the paper chasing in the beginning for a home study was hard, working all the fundraisers was hard work, waiting on particular pieces of information to come in the mail was hard, keeping faith that God was going to work everything out was hard. All of these things were forgotten when I got to meet, hug and hold Jadon in my arms. He was real, in the flesh, not just a picture, not just a figment of my imagination but real in my arms. All of the "hard parts" are so worth it. God has entrusted this handsome little boy to be my son. I am so not worthy of this gift God has chosen to give us.

After spending 4 great days with Jadon it was time to say good-bye for a few weeks until we could return and bring him home, I said once again to Cindy "this has to be the hardest part".

Since returning home it's like I'm not really here. I cannot focus, my mind constantly goes to Jadon, what is he doing right now, I wonder if he misses us, I wonder if he thinks we will be back for him, I pray he is not hurt or crying or lonely or sad, I pray he is eating. I know he is in good hands . The wonderful people at the transition home take great care of all the children, but Jadon is our son, we should be taking care of him now.

We are uncertain of the date we will be traveling back to Ethiopia to bring Jadon home. Initially we were to bring him home on Christmas day, now that may be moved back 2 weeks. As I write this it has been 3 weeks since we have seen or talked to our son and as it looks it will be 3 more weeks before we get to see him again, 6 weeks! I wonder how much our little guy has grown in 6 weeks, we certainly do not want to miss anymore time of his youth.

We are being held up by our Father, He is the only way we are being able to function, but I must say this 6 weeks has to be "the hardest part". We can only imagine how Abraham and Sarah felt having to wait so many years for the fullfillment of God's promise of a son!

In HIS Grip,
David

Hebrews 11:1 - "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see"

Never say "Never"

Wow what a week! Our roller coaster week has had me reflecting on many times that I have said "Never" in recent years so I thought I would share some of those that I'm glad I said Never and God said differently. Here goes and not necessarily in this order....

Never say "Never will I fly in an airplane" so "Never will I leave the USA"
God said " We'll see about that... Sent me to Costa Rica on a mission trip for my very first time flying!

Never say " Because I have never flown and I have never left the country could I ever adopt internationally"
God said " We'll see about that.... I have a Big Brown Eyed Beautiful Ethiopian Prince waiting for your family"

Never say "Ok I can rely on God for strength to travel to Africa for one trip but I will never take the very very long direct flight through Ethiopian Airlines"
God said " We'll see about that... You will actually travel TWICE within thirty days and on the second trip Cindy, you will have my strength to do the very very long direct flight through Ethiopian Airlines"

Never say " We would love to add to our family through adoption but we could never afford it"
God said " You can't but I can"

Drum Roll Please....
God has officially and COMPLETLY provided for us to adopt our Jadon David Henok Scott!
God has provided around $32,000 for our adoption journey in about 16months time! We always believed God would provide because he had clearly called us on this journey but we really had NO idea HOW and WHEN! We really had to have FAITH LIKE POTATOES!

This is how this week started: Denied by two organizations for grants/interest free loans to help us with the $7000 we still needed for the minimum to get Jadon home. We had exhausted every possible fund we had just to get to this point so we didn't know what we were going to do now in such a short time. We decided to pray for guidance, trust as we had been doing for the last 16mths and know that HE is God and he had a plan! God of course had a plan .... He provided a way when there seemed to be no way! (Thanks Susan H. for reminding me of that truth). In 48hours we went from only having 10% of what we needed to having a way to fully pay for our tickets for ALL FOUR of us! Yes Lily is going to Africa with us to be united with her brother she has been praying for! AND we have received through your generous donations the remaining amount that was needed to pay for our accomodations in ET and all outstanding Final fees with our agency. That is a total of $9591 in funds provided in 48hours!

A good sized portion was provided through an anonymous Interest Free Lender so if you have donations in route to us or still want to be a part of this journey through a donation we would still greatly appreciate it. All donations from this point forward will help us pay back that loan as quickly as possible. But the main thing at this point is JADON IS COMING HOME TO TENNESSEE!

Here are just a FEW of the MANY unique ways God has provided:
One donor wanted to donate but didn't have the money so she donated her Plasma for money to donate to our adoption fund.
Baby Bottles - $1500
8 Yard Sales - $5500
Zumbathon - $ 800
Fun Shaped Pasta $400
T-shirts
2 Purse Sales - $400
Car Wash - $600
2 Online Prize Raffles - $1700
Photo Sessions
Note Cards
Many donations from friends, family, strangers
Cleaned someone's house for a donation

There are way too many to mention but we are SO SO SO very grateful to EVERYONE for all your prayers, encouragement and donations.

After ELEVEN years of praying to add to our family we could not be more full of Joy in our hearts to be welcoming our son to his new home in just a few short weeks and on one of the most special days in the year... Our Savior's Birthday!

With much love on behalf of our whole family of FOUR,
Cindy

Psalm 115 1 Not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness

"Henok is YOURS"


These are the best words we have heard since "It's a girl" more than twelve years ago! Basically that was our "It's a boy" moment. WOW, what a week is all I can say. November 17th was our precious "Meetcha Day"! For months we have been talking about what we would say to Jadon and questioning will he even understand or know who we are. We even wondered will we recognize him immediately because he has been growing so much and his hair was always different when we would receive updated pictures. So THE day was finally here and we were so excited! We were picked up after breakfast and taken to the HOH. We had no idea how we would be introduced to him. Would he be in a crowd of other kids or would we be taken to a special room for him to be brought in? We pulled up in front of the gated doors to the HOH, the driver toots his horn, the guard peeks out and then proceeds to open the doors and as soon as they opened I saw my precious brown eyed, curly haired son jumping up and down smiling and pointing at our van! Unfortunately David missed that moment because he was trying to get our cameras ready because we didn't know to expect him greeting us like that. I started screaming there he is! There's our son! One of the orphanage directors was riding with us and sitting next to me. I just about pushed him out of the van because I couldn't get out quick enough. As soon as I got out Jadon ran straight to me! He became a little shy (which is to be expected) but he was wearing his photo book across his shoulder so I pulled it around in front of him and pointed to my picture and David's telling him we were his mommy and daddy! He also knew who his big sister was and could say her name perfectly! He then quickly gave me a hug and kiss as well as his daddy! This moment was so much more than we could have ever imagined! We then went into a special room they have for visiting families to spend time with their kids to bond. He bonded right away with us! He is so beautiful and this mommy is already wrapped around his pinky! He knows how to work those big beautiful brown eyes! He is so stinking cute and very smart! He is full of energy too! We were able to visit with him twice a day for about 3 to 4 hours each visit. We were able to call Lily during our afternoon sessions just as she was waking up for school. She got to talk with him a few times so you can imagine she was very excited about that especially because he talked back a couple of times. He can't carry on a conversation in English but he could understand a lot and he could repeat English words very easily. Jadon was very ready to come to America with us. He told the HOH director the week before we arrived that he was ready to go to America but if mommy and daddy are not coming soon then take him back to the orphanage where he had been living before the HOH. The HOH is a transition home ran by our agency. While we were there he climbed in the our van and told the driver he was going to America (in his language but we understood the "America" part.

Almost every time at the end of each session he would cry or pout as we left. This was so hard on this mommy and daddy because we knew that Saturday was coming and we would have to say good bye for a few weeks! At the end of our last morning session I was walking him to his little "dining room" for lunch and he was pouting so badly. Our driver was running a little late so I peeked in the room to check on him and he was sitting in his little plastic chair crying the biggest crocodile tears I have ever seen. I went in to wipe his tears and hug him and then joined him in crying! It was heart breaking because I knew that afternoon was not going to be easy when saying goodbye for the last time. We were blessed with being able to go back to the HOH a little earlier than usual so we got almost an extra 2 hours with him on the final day! Also as many of you know my birthday was Sunday so a sweet adoptive couple that is staying in ET currently until their embassy date brought in a cake for me and another girl who was there whose b-day was Saturday. So I got to split a piece of yummy chocolate cake with my sweet boy and then Sunday I got to celebrate with my beautiful daughter who made me my favorite cake ...yellow cake with chocolate peanut butter icing!

Our translator did talk to him and explain what would be happening earlier in the day and he seemed to handle it okay. The dreaded time came for us to say our final good bye but it went better than we expected. He didn't cry but his behavior was different. We could tell it was just his way of handling it. I think he wanted to prove he was a big boy and could handle it. We had been praying for us all three to be strong in that moment and through God's strength we kept it together...atleast in front of each other. I completely lost it once we got in the van and pulled away. His Daddy had lost it the night before when we watched another family say their final good bye and he watched Jadon crying and me crying. Even the Nannies were crying watching all of us crying!

It is so hard to be torn between your kids in two different parts of the world. We so badly missed Lily but we hated having to leave our son! It is good to know he is in good hands. We know God is watching over him and has surrounded him with the most loving people in Ethiopia to take care of him!

We are expected to be back in ET on Dec. 20th at which we will take custody of him and then attend our embassy date of Dec. 23. We would then leave ET on Dec. 24th arriving back home on Dec. 25th! What a Christmas present!

Although it is final we still have some work to do to get him home. Our adoption fund is dry and we need to book tickets asap before the prices keep creeping up as we get closer to the holidays. For David and I to go and bring him home we are looking at about 7k. For Lily to go it would be an additional 2500 for a total of 9500. As much as we would love for Lily to experience this priceless moment in our family we know that it is up to God's will for her and we will trust in him to make that clear one way or the other. We are basically just concentrating on the 7k because what matters most is us getting him home as soon as possible. We realize that it is close to the Holidays but are asking if you would pray about whether you could spare $5, $10 or more to help us get him home. Maybe pray about sharing our story with family and friends and see if they would like to participate in the work God is doing in this precious boy's life... Jadon is no longer an orphan. God has blessed him with a family and now he just needs to be united with them forever. Little is much when God is in it!

Thank you all for your continued prayers and support!

P.S. Please excuse the typos and anything that doesn't make sense - it's the jetlag!

Nine Days!

We were approved to travel as planned! God is so good! We leave in about 9 days to meet our son! I can't tell you how excited we are! In celebration of meeting Jadon soon we have extended our online drawing for one more week! Receive an entry for every $10 you donate until 11/12/10 for a chance to win a painted bdrm or bath valued at $500 or a chance to win a P90X Workout package valued at $250. Both could be given as great Christmas Gifts. See our post below for more details and pictures of Erica's painting work. You can donate via paypal on our site or email us at godforgives@bellsouth.net for our address to mail a check. Any amount is greatly appreciated. All donations will go toward our travel expenses for the second trip ($9K). Little is much when God is in it!

Almost time to meet Jadon!

I know its been a long time since we updated our blog on what's been going on. We have partly just been busy with everyday life and preparations for leaving in just a couple of weeks to meet our son! We unfortunatley received a phone call from our agency a little over a week ago that is out of the ordinary for them to have to make. The organization that reviews the paperwork to write the letter of recommendation to the judge in ET was requesting more information due to a document that was poorly worded from a government organization here in TN. Without going into a lot of detail the document they are requiring from us has proven to be impossible to provide. We were able to come up with something that we hope will work. It's basically just a difference in understanding our culture and how our government operates. After 2.5days of stress, running around, and $292 later we were able to send off our documents. We did receive confirmation that the new documents arrived and were placed in the hands of the organization Friday afternoon. Now we are just waiting. We are hoping to have good news on Monday or Tuesday at the latest on whether or not they accept what we have sent and let us move forward. As of right now no travel dates have been changed. We are trusting in God as we have this entire journey. We know he has a plan to get Jadon home just when he wants him here with us. On the current schedule and provided all goes well this week and the week we are there for court, we should be arriving home Christmas day with Jadon! What a wonderful Christmas present that will be for our family!


Many of you have asked how our fundraising is going for all of our travel expenses. Our first trip is paid for completely including shots! Praise the Lord! We are now working on the second trip which we anticipate to be $9000. This includes Lily traveling with us. We are praying for God to provide for her to go and be a part of Jadon's Homecoming since this BIG Sister has been praying for her little brother for so long! Tickets for the second trip are looking to be anywhere from $2200 - $2600 each plus Jadon's ONE WAY ticket home that will be about $1200. We will have very short notice to purchase our tickets once we are confirmed to travel and it is the week of Christmas so that is why the tickets are so much more expensive for the second trip. We are waiting on two Grant organizations to let us know if we will receive any assistance. We will know about one of those this week hopefully and the other we are suppose to know by the first of December. Neither are a garauntee but we are hopeful for something.


If you would like to make an anonymous donation you may email our friends Robbie or Dana for instructions on how to do so at butler.dana@comcast.net. Otherwise you may make donations via our paypal or email me for an address to mail a check to at godforgives@bellsouth.net.

Currently we are running our drawing until November 5th for any donations made before then. You will receive an entry for each $10 donated for a chance to win one of the prizes listed below in the blog post http://lilysprayer.blogspot.com/2010/09/online-raffle-is-back.html.

We are grateful for any amount you are compelled to donate toward getting Jadon home. Little is much when God is in it!!!

Please pray for the following:
1. ET document situation to be smoothly resolved and no delays in us attending court and getting Jadon home by the end of the year!
2. Jadon to continue to be healthy and safe.
3. Us as we prepare to travel across the world to meet our son for the first time!
4. Financials to come together to finish this journey out of getting Jadon home to his Forever Family!

We are so unbelievably excited to be nearing the end of this long journey to bring Jadon home and even more excited for the next journey that will begin when he joins our family on the same continent!

Just a couple of more weeks and we should be able to introduce you to Jadon through pictures finally!

Blessings.

Area rugs

This is a a picture of a high quality flat weave carpet remnant that can be made into the following custom size rugs:

(2) 9x7 Rugs retail value $299 or more - Asking $180 for each.

(2) 9x12 Rugs retail value $399 or more - Asking $280 for each

Our friend who custom makes these is donating 50% to our adoption fund. So that is a potential of $460 donated to us.

These rugs can not be shipped so you must live in the Middle TN area.

Please email me if you are interested at godforgives@bellsouth.net. You can pay through our paypal on the website with a debit or credit card if that helps.

As you can see we are trying EVERYTHING to raise money to get our son home!

Thanks for keeping up with our journey and supporting us with your prayers and donations!! We are almost there!

Online Donation Drawing - Updated 10-9-10

UPdated 10-9-10: WE ARE GIVING DOUBLE ENTRIES TO THE FIRST 50 DONATIONS. For example: $20 will now give you two entries, $40=4 entries!


Our Online Drawing is back. We are in the home stretch of getting Jadon home! We have about $9000 to go and really need to raise it by the end of November. Please check out the details below on how to enter and share with all of your family and friends!

Erica of Signature Finishes has offered her services again as a "raffle" for helping us raise money for the adoption. Also Christina Richardson, a BeachBody Coach has donated a P90X package for the raffle. Christina is also our grandprize recepient from our spring raffle!

Here are the details

Enter to win a Bathroom or Children's Room painted by Erica of Signature Finishes, Valued at $500 or a P90x package valued at $250. The package includes the following, P90X pack, chin up bar, push up stands, and a $50 gift card for Dick's Sporting Goods. For every $20 donation made to our adoption fund Starting September 29th thru November 5th you will be entered in the drawing for a chance to win.
$20 =1 entry, $40 = 2 Entries,$100 =5 Entries, etc. You get the idea! To be eligible to receive the Painting service package you must live in Middle TN or know someone you can give the package to as a gift in the Middle TN area. The P90X package can be shipped anywhere within the United States only. Neither package is redeemable for cash.

Below are a couple of pictures of Erica's work. You can make your donation through the donation button here on our website or contact us for an address to mail a check (godforgives@bellsouth.net). We will post the winners on our blog November 6th.

Please send this out to all your family and friends! We would love to meet a goal of 100 entries! Little is much when God is in it!
Spring Online Winner

Working at the Car Wash!!! - UPDATE 9/29/10

UPDATE- We raised almost $600. All Glory to God! Thank you to everyone who helped at the car wash and thank you to all who came out to get your car washed! We are very grateful.


I always laugh when I see a dirty car and someone has written the infamous "WASH ME" on it. Well this Saturday from 9AM-2PM we will be washing those dirty cars to raise money for travel expenses. Please come by the Chik-fil-a in Hendersonville on September 25th to have your car washed. We are asking for a minimum donation of $5.00 but we will accept more. Your support is appreciated and you will be smiling that you have a nice clean car to roll in and that you helped bring our son home.

In HIS grip,
David

Antiques For Sale.........

We have been blessed with some unique items to sale to raise money for travel expenses to Ethiopia. I have posted them below with a brief description and asking price. Please take a look at these items and pass them along to anyone you know who may have an interest in them. I will be glad to take more photos for anyone with a genuine interest in an item. Please e-mail us at lilysprayer@gmail.com if you would like to purchase any of the items or if you need more photos. If you live outside the middle Tennessee area shipping costs will be applied.

We appreciate all your prayers and support. Please feel free to make a donation using the paypal buttons.


Horse Clock in good condition...has no. 315 on the back.....$50.00 obo


Churn Stamp with a pineapple design for the stamp in good condition....$50.00 obo




Old Coffee Grinder... has ARCADE on the lid....$75.00 obo




Mirror.....$50.00 obo



Trunk....needs work on the latch........$40.00 obo



Rocking Horse.....50+ years old ...$50 obo




Nice picture frame...not sure what the wood is but the frame is solid and detailed...$75.00 obo...SOLD



Front......we have 4 plates like this one, one has a chip on it, one in very good condition, 2 in fair condition....$12.00 for all 4 plates. Back of plates below.




1 plate..Double Phoenix, NIKKO Japan 7 1/4" plate...$7.00




7" plate..front above...back below....$5.00




Ceramic Pipe........$10.00 obo




This was my great grandfathers dinnerware...these were made in the USA... 40yrs+ pic to the left is everything I have. 6 cups, saucers, bowls, 5 plates, 1 serving plate & 1 large bowl.


This pic is of 5 complete sets together....$40.00 for complete set obo





In HIS grip,
David

87 Days to Go

We have a court date!!! I received a totally unexpected call from our case worker on Thursday morning. I heard the words "Would you like a court date?" I of course screamed "I would love a court date!". Words can not express how excited we were to receive our court date two weeks after court had closed. We weren't expecting this phone call until the end of September or early October. We will get to meet Jadon in about 87 Days! Our court date is November 19th. That is just a couple of days before my birthday! What a wonderful Birthday present!

Our case worker said they would be doing everything they could to rush getting us in for the last embassy date before the end of the year for our agency. That date is December 23rd. That means we will be spending Christmas most likely in Ethiopia or in airports trying to get home. It doesn't matter to us because we will all be together as a family of four for our first Christmas! God is with us at all times and will be with us where ever we celebrate HIS son's birth! Jadon will have a forever family for Christmas and We will have the long awaited new addition to our family! What an awesome God we serve!

Another huge praise is that having such an early notice has helped us get a very reasonable airfare for the first trip. We have just enough money to cover purchasing our tickets at the end of this week! Praise the Lord. Now we will have to raise about 2200 to cover our shots, our accomodations while in ET and some miscellaneous expenses. We are planning to have a HUGE yard sale in September (possbily indoors).

We did receive a ballpark estimate for travel expenses for our embassy trip in December and since it is around Christmas it is going to be more expensive. Also Lily will be going with us especially now so that she is not left alone on Christmas! The figure is coming in around $9500 for our second trip.

We know that God has not brought us this far to forsake us now. We have total faith that he will provide for Jadon to come home in December. Please continue to pray for Jadon and our remaining journey! If you feel led please feel free to donate via our paypal button or contact us for our address. Any donation amount is greatly appreciated. Little is much when God is in it!

Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

A Year in Review

Give God a year and look at what only HE can do! Wow. I have been reflecting a lot about what has transpired in our lives over the last twelve months. I am truly AMAZED. It has been almost a year since God began stirring our hearts toward adoption for the third year in a row. The first 2 years we said no, last August we finally said yes and look at what a journey HE has taken us on. So many of you have been a huge part in this journey and we are so very grateful for each and every one of you. We have been truly humbled by your generosity to show your support through giving toward our fundraisers, yard sale items, and your prayers. God is not finished writing HIS story yet and we can not wait to see how the journey continues.

Jadon was born three years ago and it was three years ago that God began calling us to adopt. Although it was three years ago that we began having serious discussions of adoption we have been praying for this child for ten years now. We have had this love for him long before we knew who he was and long before he existed. There have been many seasons of depression, grieving, questioning and longing for another child. We've told Lily so many times over the years that "God will bless us with a child all we have to do is keep praying". Never did I imagine God would answer our prayers through adoption BUT I am so glad that HE has. HIS timing is so perfect too. Jadon did not become eligible for adoption until the week we became officially eligible to adopt!

Have you ever bought your child the perfect gift for Christmas but there was a problem with it? It wasn't anything he had asked for specifically, so you began to "help" him desire that perfect gift by dropping little hints over time. It's Christmas morning and little Johnny opens his new bike that he didn't know he wanted and says "I love it. It's just what I wanted!". That's what God had to do with us! HE had to take us through some dark valleys, HE had to show and teach us some things, HE had to reveal HIS plan slowly to us so that our hearts would desire what HE desired for our family when the final call came in to adopt.

Our faith has grown so much over the past year and God has used this journey to grow the faith of others around us. It has been so cool to see God at work. He is always at work in our lives and the lives around us. We just sometimes don't stop to join HIM. We have prayed throughout this journey for God to use us for raising awareness for adoption and we now have been given the opportunity to speak at two different churches! We are so excited to join God and give HIM ALL the praise and glory!

41 days til Courts open! We are praying to have the first trip's expenses in place by the end of September because we will most likely not have a huge notice for when we will leave for court. The first trip if we are lucky will be about $5k. We have about $1900 already of that money. Our second trip will be more expensive because we have to stay longer in country, we would love for big sister to be able to go with us and we will be paying for Jadon's visa and plane ticket as well. We are looking at $7-8K for the second trip . We have applied for grants but haven't heard anything yet and one particular grant takes four months to process for a decision. We applied at the end of July so it will be most likely early December before we know if are receiving any grant money which could be too late for either trip!

Please continue to pray for Jadon and the remaining of our journey to bring him home! We can't express enough how much we love this little guy and are so anxious to have him here with us!

Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Lily's Thoughts

GOD IS WONDERFUL ,AWESOME, AND AT WORK!!!!!! I was overjoyed when i found out that we would be getting Jadon! I may not know him yet but I LOVE HIM WITH ALL MY HEART and am proud to call him my brother. No matter what people say , what he does, or what color he is I will always love him and be proud of him!! HE may be different from me but to me he is just the same and my WONDERFUL little brother!!!
I think its amazing how GOD has had me meet several new people who are adopting and go through the same things. This past week I meet a wonderful college student whose family just got her two year old little brother. His name is Kadon it was oringinally supposed to be Jadon. Isn't it funny how his name is spelt the same way except with a K? GOD works in funny ways. They may seem funny how it works but in the long run it really helps you understand what GOD has in store for you.
Also I believe that GOD put her in my life to encourage me. I've had a friend who said adoption stinks it doesn't rock. That made me mad but I didn't stop trusting that GOD was going to have it work out just fine. (which it did!) She went through something similar to that. There will be hardships through the time he gets home probably until the day he dies or JESUS CHRIST comes back but until then GOD will help us through it.
This past week on the middle school mission trip GOD called me to ministry. I don't know what kind of ministry yet but just maybe it might be the adoption ministry. Isn't it crazy how GOD works?
We were on the list for 13 days and got a referral when most the time it takes 9 months. Isn't that crazy?
This summer i have grown in my spiritual walk with CHRIST which has helped me decide to conquer my fear of flying to go get my little brother(who i can't wait to see). I trusted in GOD! Through this adoption process I realized if there is something your scared about trust in GOD! I was scared when we started the process to be honest i was scared we were going to get matched with a child and then lose him I'm still scared about it. But I am trusting GOD is going to have it work out fine.
Today I found out that if Jadon hadn't been put in an orphanage and he was my age he would be working or he could possibly be married. It broke my heart. That is why I am so excited and grateful that we are getting Jadon or he would live in poverty for the rest of his life or could possilbly die. 12% of children die before age 5. That song Hosana says break my heart for what breaks yours today GOD did!
I AM VERY PROUD TO SAY JADON IS MY BROTHER!


LOVE,
LILY

P.S. GOD IS AMAZING! AND LOVE GOD MORE THAN ANYTHING!

Speechless

We are so speechless at how God moved such a huge financial mountain in twelve days. I never want to loose the "awe" factor with God. We were able to send off the signed papers and check on Monday. Our agency received it Tuesday and we are moving forward to bring our sweet boy home. It looks like we will not travel for the first time until October. We are praying that it will be early October to give us better chances of bringing him home before Christmas. Please pray for Jadon that he is being well fed and loved daily until we can get to him.

Thank you all for your continued support!

Blessings!

ALL GLORY BE TO GOD!

P.S. I'm still emotionally and mentally trying to process what God has done in our lives over the last couple of weeks and hope to write a more "deep" post soon.

Blessed Beyond Belief

Can we just say that we have the BEST family, friends and yard sale shoppers ever! We are BLESSED BEYOND BELIEF! Thank you to everyone who has donated $$, donated yard sale items,prayed, posted our story on Facebook, Twitter, and/or your time helping with our gazillion yard sales we have had! Most of all we are raising some praise for our awesome God, a.k.a our provider!

A summary of the recent events to quickly catch everyone up....

We finally after about nine LONG months of paper chasing etc. we make it on the waiting list to be expecting a child from Ethiopia June 18th .as #47 out of 48 waiting families. We were expecting to have the next six to nine months to fundraise for our referral fee ($8235).

Thirteen days later we have a referral for our son Jadon. Never expected this so quickly but very grateful. When we hung up with the agency we knew we needed $5800 of the $8235 to secure him as our son. By the end of the day God had dropped that amount to $5500.

After much generosity from many people, family, friends and complete strangers and a last minute yard sale God has reduced the amount to $1000 that is needed for this huge step in getting Jadon in process to come home.

Our agency sent us the official referral packet and forms to sign this past week with the official request to send our $8235 within 5 days. This means our signed paperwork and payment to accept Jadon is due by Wednesday.

Please help if you can by donating any amount you are able. Little is much when God is in it!

Many have asked what is next after this step. Once we turn in the required paperwork and payment this week they will begin preparing our paperwork in Ethiopia and working on requesting a court date. We wait and continue to raise money for our travel expenses for two trips. Due to courts closing in Ethiopia from August through early October, we don't expect to travel until mid to late October for the first trip. After the first trip we will come home for 4-6 weeks before traveling the second time to actually bring Jadon home. We have a small window of being able to get Jadon home before Christmas but with God anything is possible!!! Keep praying for our journey and for Jadon especially!

F.R.O.G (Fully Relying On God)

Jehovah has heard

The name we have chosen for our son is Jadon. It is a Hebrew name that means "Jehovah has heard". Jehovah has heard Lily's prayer and ours. We have raised around $1000 since last Wednesday! God is so good. We know that he is in control and will provide for a way for Jadon to come home to his forever family. Thank you to all who have dontated. We are so grateful and feel very humbled by everyone's generosity. We still need about $4500 to complete this next step in bringing our son home. Please watch our video and ask all your family and friends to check it out as well. (No picture in this video represents a picture of Jadon. We are not legally able to post any of his pictures.)

Help Bring Home Jadon

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

IT'S A BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After only 13 days on the waiting list we became the proud new parents of a three year old son! Imagine the cutest little three year old boy in Ethiopia and that is our son! Our God is so awesome! We can't legally share too much information about him or show pics yet but we know this is the son God has planned for us! Most importantly the little brother Lily has being praying for. What a blessed little guy to have such a wonderful big sister! We can't wait to get him home! However, we were not expecting this referral until 6-9 months from now so we did not have enough time to fundraise or apply for grants for this next step. To officially secure our referral we have to send in a big fat check for $8235 which praise the Lord we now only need about $4800 of that amount. This whole journey has been completely about putting our trust in God to provide what we need just when we need it. He has been faithful everytime. I know a lot of people think we are crazy for embarking on such a long, difficult, and expensive journey but we know this is God's plan to add to our family. We have been praying for 10 very long years for this moment of adding to our family. God has heard our prayers and answered according to His plan and not ours! His plan is always better than ours!

God has soaked us in his grace and mercy in lots of ways but especially through the generosity of others through prayers, volunteering and/or donating for yard sales, and financial donations etc. We are so grateful to have each and everyone of you in our lives and participating in this journey. We are now at crunch time and need your help to get through this next step to bring our son home. Lord willing..We might possibly be able to bring him home by Christmas. Please pray about donating to help bring our boy home to his forever family. We will take whatever amount you are able to give $5,$10,$25,$50,$100 etc. Little is much when God is in it! Please feel free to use our paypal donation button or email me for an address to send a check to (godforgives@bellsouth.net).

Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

We Are On The LIST!!!

We are officially a waiting family. We got our e-mail from our agency late yesterday afternoon that we are officially on the list of waiting families to adopt. We are so excited, we have waited so long to hear the words, "you are expecting". Although the words came to us as "you are officially a waiting family" the meaning is the same, we are expecting(waiting for) our child that God has for us. Cindy and I are expecting our second child and my sweet Lily is officially a Big Sister in waiting.

I'm sure Cindy will have more to post later, but I wanted to just shout it out now. So this is an excited Dad shouting: THE CHILD GOD HAS FOR US IS ON THE WAY!!!!! All praise be to JESUS!!!!

David

Waiting to be WAITING

I can feel it... This should be the month we officailly become expecting parents or as some call it, Paper Pregnant. We have been waiting many many years to be expecting parents again. I really never thought it would be this kind of expecting but I am so glad that God's plans are different than mine. He saw long before us and we wouldn't have it any other way now! We are finally at the end of the paper chase stage. We are waiting on one document and then we will be able to get all of our documents state certified and mailed off to the agency with a big fat check for $4100!!! We received word this week that we should have that document sometime in the next week.

God has been so faithful! He has provided every step of the way just what we need just when we need it. We know he will continue to do so through the rest of this journey as well. To HIM be ALL the Glory!

Now we begin to prepare for the next step which is just WAITING and Fundraising...NO more Paperwork for a while! YAY!

Here is a list of our current fundraisers again:
1. Photos by Pamela Ferguson for a $50 donation for outdoor pics and you will be given the CD to print as many pics as you would like. email me if you are interested godforgives@bellsouth.net

2. Want to get healthy and help an orphan? check out www.findtheburn.com. When you order items on this website excluding the heart monitors, and apparel, we will receive 25% of your order. When you place an order please email me your confirmation so that I can forward it to Christina for us to receive the donation. godforgives@bellsouth.net

3. Fill a baby bottle with your spare change and give it to us to cash in! We are randomly passing these out so let us know if you want one or use your own if you have one already! We also would appreciate any donations of bottles that you may have left over that we can use to put labels on and pass out. We have already raised $468 in spare change!

4. Note Cards - $12 per set (set includes box of 10 cards and envelopes) Email me if you would like to order some (godforgives@bellsouth.net). Additional $3 is required if shipping. More designs to come.






5. Fun Shaped Pasta - see details on the side of the blog. Spread the word.

God is so Good!!!

The yard sale on Saturday was a success. A special THANK YOU to all of those who helped us last week in preparation, Saturday during the sale and those bakers that made the baked goodies. (Mickie, Amanda P., Neal, Pamela, Molly, Rhonda, Amanda H., Dana, MawMaw, PawPaw, Nana, Pa) A big shout out to all of those who donated items, your donations were greatly appreciated.



We have "Fun Shape Pasta" for sale. This pasta salad was a big hit at the yard sale, we had samples for people to try. Look to the right on the blog for information on how to order. Check it out – there’s something for everyone! There are meal gift bags available and each pasta comes with its own seasoning and three recipes. And the prices are affordable – you can support our adoption with prices ranging from $6.50 to $11.00.

We stand in awe as we witness God at His work all around us, ALL Praise and Glory to His Name.

David

Fun Shaped Pasta is Back!

We have several fundraising opportunities right now. Here's a recap before sharing the latest:

1. Photos by Pamela Ferguson for a $50 donation for outdoor pics and you will be given the CD to print as many pics as you would like. email me if you are interested godforgives@bellsouth.net

2. Want to get healthy and help an orphan? check out www.findtheburn.com. When you order items on this website excluding the heart monitors, and apparel, we will receive 25% of your order. When you place an order please email me your confirmation so that I can forward it to Christina for us to receive the donation. godforgives@bellsouth.net

3. Fill a baby bottle with your spare change and give it to us to cash in! We are randomly passing these out so let us know if you want one or use your own if you have one already! We also would appreciate any donations of bottles that you may have left over that we can use to put labels on and pass out.

4. Note Cards - more to come on this later.

5. Attend our yard sale on May 8th. More details to come.

6. Our latest fundraiser that is more time driven is Fun Shaped Pasta - see below for details. Spread the word.

Right now Lily’s Prayer is fundraising with a great company called “Fun Pasta Fundraising”! We are working hard to raise money to bring home our child from Ethiopia as quickly as possible and we would appreciate your support. Here’s how you can help.

They offer a wide variety of fun and delicious pasta products…Here are just a few of the pastas offered: Cat lovers, Dog lovers, Girlfriend Pasta, Tailgate and Celebrate pasta, Slapshot Hockey Pasta, Soccer, cheerleading, basketball, baseball, Gobble it Up Thanksgiving pasta, Halloween Pasta, Christmas Tree pasta, Cheesy Farm animal pasta, Chili kits, Chicken Noodle pasta(noodles are shaped like chickens) and for Football season there are 27 different College Logo Pastas (Big Orange UT Pasta)!

Check it out – there’s something for everyone! There are meal gift bags available and each pasta comes with its own seasoning and three recipes. And the prices are affordable – you can support our adoption with prices ranging from $6.50 to $11.00.

If you are a local family or friend you may email your order to us at godforgives@bellsouth.net. Be sure to include which items you want, and your quantity. We will then send you a confirmation of your order, your total due and where you can send your check. If you are not local or it would be easier for you to have it shipped directly to your home, you have an opportunity to place an online internet order with Fun Pasta Fundraising. Each order placed sends 40% of your order total directly to our adoption account (excluding the shipping cost for online orders and taxes for TN residents). 40%!!!

So, please go to the link below and have some fun shopping. Make sure if you are ordering online that you don’t forget to enter our account # at checkout so we get the proper credit.

We are taking orders for the next 4 weeks so send this on to all of your family and friends and help us bring home our child! Just think every time you cook a delicious bag of fun shaped pasta you’ll be reminded that you helped with bringing an orphan home to their Forever Family!

First click on the following link to check out the fun pasta for sale

http://www.funpastafundraising.com/images/stories/brochure.pdf

After you have made your selection(s) either email your order to us or

GO TO: www.funpastafundraising.com

Click on the link “CYBER SALES-Support Your Group”

At CHECKOUT, please input our ACCOUNT # LP10

Thanks so much for your continued support!

Haircut and Style Winner is....

Thanks to all who donated for our recent raffle for the $45 gift certificate to Miracles and Thank you Brittany for donating the certificate! The winner is Gretchen Mason! Can't wait to see your new haircut and style!

Thank you to all who donated items to our most recent yard sale and to those who shoppped at our yard sale. God has blessed us beyond belief and to HIM we give all the glory. The yard sale was a huge success. We are now gearing up for our next one on May 8th. We are hoping to blow it out! We are doing a baked goods sale, hopefully face painting and maybe a few other special surprises. We sold out of most everything that was packed in our two car garage so its time to fill it back up. Let us know if you have any items you would like to donate to us and we will arrange to pick them up. We especially want any Kids backyard toys if your children have out grown them. You can email us at godforgives@bellsouth.net. Also if email us if you would like to donate baked goodies for the sale.

Keep praying for us. We are getting closer to being on the waiting list which means we are getting closer to bringing our child home!

What's up with the Scott Family

We are so sorry we have not updated the blog in a while. It's been crazy busy the last couple of weeks. So in a nutshell I will try to summarize what's going on with the Scotts:

We received our Approved Home Study in the mail on 4-2-10. Praise Jesus! We can begin moving forward.

On 4-3-10 we mailed our I-600A to the United States Citizenship Immigration Services in Memphis along with our $830. We now have to be approved by their office to officially adopt internationally. This process can take anywhere from 4-8 weeks. We are praying for 4 rather than 8 obviously!

We are about 75% done with our Dossier paperwork. We hope to have it all completed in the next few weeks so that we are prepared when our I-171H Form arrives. This is the form that has to come from USCIS.

Current Fundraisers!

We are having our first yard sale of 2010 to help raise money for the adoption this Saturday, April 10th 7:30 - 2pm in the Glen Oaks Subdivision follow the signs. We have a ton of new items. Thanks to all who have donated! If you are thinking "Oh man, I forgot to call the scotts about my stuff I have I wanted to donate!". It's okay. We will have another yard sale May 8th when our subdivision does the big one. We have a ton of kids toys. We are running a special on clothing... Fill a Kroger Paper Bag with as much clothing as you can for $5. We have a ton of miscellaneous items, table set, bedding set, Home Interior pictures of Exotic animals (very nice stuff), and lots more.

Pamela Furgeson is currently offering a photo shoot for $50 min. donations or whatever amount above that God may set on your heart to donate for outdoor pictures of your kids, pets, family photos etc. She is currently raising money for her mission trip to Haiti this summer and has offered to donate a portion of the proceeds to our adoption fund as well as another family adopting! How cool to help out three really good causes and have great photos of your family. She will give you the CD to make as many prints as you would like. If you are interested either email Pamela at mommyandmeembroidery@yahoo.com or myself at godforgives@bellsouth.net.

I have a gift certificate for a cut and style valued at $45 donated by Brittany at Miracles in Hendersonville. I have been going to Brittany for several years and she is very good! We are taking $5 donations for entries to win this gift certificate. Just like our last raffle an entry will be made for each $5 donation. So if you donate $10 that will give you two entries and so forth.

Things to pray for: Our child waiting, the funds to be in place each step of the way, Dossier preparation to go smoothly and for us to be on the waiting list by the end of May.

Congratulations to the Kingsbury's on getting their call this week that they officially have a little boy and little girl sibling group waiting to be brought home to their forever family!


God is good ALL the time! ALL the time God is good!

The Winners are.......

Thank you so much to all who donated to our raffle! We are forever grateful and humbled by everyone's generosity. Please excuse our very unprofessional video below announcing the winners. Lily has provided a little comedy and our dog, Abbey, decided she wanted to put in her two cents as well! A huge THANK YOU to Erica Mierop of Signature Finishes and Allen and Vickie Beckner of Jump On It Inflatables! Congratulations to the winners. I will email the winners with the contact info to redeem their prizes. A little tip...you will need to scroll down to the bottom of the blog to pause the music before clicking play on the video.

Ethiopia now a 2 trip Travel Adoption

Wow! If adoption wasn't already expensive enough! Today news broke that Ethiopia will now require adopting parents to travel twice before the adoption is completed. The first travel we will meet our child and attend the court hearing. This was not required before today. We will have to leave our child behind and wait for our Visa appointment with the Embassy to return to bring our child home. This has a lot cons but has pros as well. We will get to meet our child a little sooner and we will not be required to re-adopt our child once bringing them home to the united states. This is the same process that Haiti required so we are familiar with this process but Ethiopia is much more expensive to travel to being that it is so far away compared to Haiti. This now adds about $6000 to our total of $19,000 we still need to raise. The first trip we will both be required to travel but most likely the second trip only one spouse will be required so worst case scenario David will travel alone to bring our child home. Yes I said David because most of you know me well enough to know God is stretching me to make the first trip! (ha!ha!) Basically, we are not worried about it at this time. We know that God is totally in control and he is in the details. We'll just have to be patient and continue moving forward to let God continue writing HIS story through our adoption journey!

Please be in prayer for our home study to be wrapped up and approved in the next couple of weeks. We are right there at the end of it trying to cross every T and dot every I. We have a deadline for a grant we are applying for that is due April 15 and we can't apply again until October 15 if we miss it. We have to have the approved home study in order to apply.

Only six days including today remaining for our current Donation Raffle. If you've been meaning to donate for an entry please do so soon before time runs out! We are at 53 entries! God is so amazing! We give him all the glory for how far we have come on this journey! Please spread the word and help us reach 100 entries by Monday March 15th.

In HIS Grip!

Two weeks left!

There are only two weeks remaining for our donation raffle. We are still praying for a total of 100 entries by March 15th. We currently have a total of 33 entries. As for the 40 entries we were praying for by the end of the week, God continues blessing us and we are only 13 entries away from meeting that first goal. We are praying for 13 more donation entries by Wednesday.

We've noticed we have many readers from all over the United States and wanted to give a big THANK YOU to you all for following our journey! We've had one reader as far as Australia - totally cool!

Enter to win a Bathroom or Children's Room painted by Erica of Signature Finishes, Valued at $500 or for a chance to win a free day's rental from Jump On It Inflatable For every $20 donation made to our adoption fund Starting February 15th thru March 15th you will be entered in the drawing for a chance to win. $20 =1 entry, $40 = 2 Entries,$100 =5 Entries, etc. You get the idea! Services must be redeemed in the Middle TN area and are not redeemable for cash. See our post titled "Enter to Win" to see pics of Erica's work and our post "Donation Raffle Update" for details on the rental. You can make your donation through the donation button here on our website or mail us a check made payable to Cindy Scott at 1015 West Kirkland Ave, Suite 202, Nashville,TN 37216. We will post a short video of Lily pulling out the winning name for each prize on our blog no later than March 20th. So brown brag your lunch for a week or skip Starbucks a few times and donate to have a chance to win! How cool to make a $20 donation to help an orphan come home to their forever family and have a chance to win an awesome painted room worth $500 or have the coolest yard toy in the neighborhood for a day!



Blessings,
Cindy

Lily is Twelve today!

I can not believe that my baby girl is twelve years old today! God has truly blessed us with an amazing young lady. We are so proud of her accomplishments and are so honored that God chose us to be her mom and dad. She is so full of life, dreams and has such a huge heart for God. I wished that at her age I would have been half as wise. As I've mentioned in our very first post about our journey leading to Lily's prayer, she has been a prayer warrior since the age of two. It has officially been a little over ten years now that she has been praying to be a big sister. She has not once let go of that dream. She has always shown great faith in believing that one day God will answer her prayer. She too is growing so much on this journey along with her mom and dad. She is learning that God does answer prayers but its in HIS timing and sometimes HIS answers are packaged different than our answers. My prayer for her going into this next year is that she will have her little brother or sister by her next birthday! We know our God is BIG and HE can and HE will move mountains to bring our child home soon in HIS perfect timing.

Please pray about helping us answer Lily's prayer by making a donation even if it's five dollars because as I say all the time....Little is much when God is in it! We are still praying for 100 entries by the 15th of March for our raffle. We are currently 69 entries away from that goal. God has been so good through the generosity of many people already this week. We only need 15 more donations to reach our goal of 40 by the end of this week.

Thank you all so much for taking a moment to read and keep up with our journey!

If you can, please take a moment to post a Happy Birthday wish to Lily! She would love that!

Blessings,
Cindy

PRAYING for 40+ donations by the end of the week.

We still need to hit a goal of 100 entries for our raffle but are praying that 40+ will come in by the end of this week. Why such an urgency you might ask? We were hit with the final invoice for our home study last night about two weeks earlier than we anticipated (1,173.00). We have had that money set aside for quite some time. However, we have had to use it this week to meet our deadline of paying our first of many payments to our agency. Basically to get our home study completed we have to first contract with the agency so that they will review the home study prior to its official completion. So we are trusting in God with the details and we are praying with expectancy that through the generosity of others and our current Donation Raffle that he will provide just what we need to get through these next few steps. After our home study is officially approved we can then start completing grant requests to hopefully get us through a few more steps. We can't thank each and everyone one of you enough for your prayers and support. Without you allowing God to use you in our journey whether through prayer and/or financial support we wouldn't have made it this far.

We love you and most of all our Mighty God loves you too!

Little is much when GOD is in it!

Blessings,
David, Cindy, Lily and our child waiting to come home.

Donation Raffle Update -

We have added another great prize to our Donation Raffle...
Jump On It Inflatables has offered a One Day Free Rental of the following:
13x13 Princess Castle or 13x13 Red Balloon Adventure
Monday through Thursday, with available schedule.
This is a $100 value
www.jumponitinflatables.weebly.com

We are so grateful for the many of you who have shown us such generosity throughout this process. Thank you for allowing God to use you in such a mighty way. Please share this donation raffle with all of your family and friends. Thanks for being an advocate for our child to come home. We need about 90 more entries to reach our goal of 100 by March 15th.

All donations from this raffle will help us finish paying our home study and help us to send in our CIS Form that takes several weeks to process and has to be completed before we can finalize our dossier. Once our home study is complete we can begin applying for grants to help with some of the costs going forward.

As always thank you for continued support as God continues to prune our family tree. We especially want to give a big shout out THANK YOU to Erica Mierop of Signature Finishes and Allen and Vicki Beckner of Jump On It Inflatables.

ENTER TO WIN!

Erica of Signature Finishes has offered her services as a "raffle" for helping us raise money for the adoption.

Enter to win a Bathroom or Children's Room painted by Erica of Signature Finishes, Valued at $500. For every $20 donation made to our adoption fund Starting February 15th thru March 15th you will be entered in the drawing for a chance to win.
$20 =1 entry, $40 = 2 Entries,$100 =5 Entries, etc. You get the idea! To be eligible to receive the service package you must live in Middle TN or know someone you can give the package to as a gift in the Middle TN area. It is not redeemable for cash.

Below are a couple of pictures of Erica's work. You can also sign up for her fan page on Facebook under Signature finishes to see many more pics of her fantastic work. You can make your donation through the donation button here on our website or mail us a check made payable to Cindy Scott at 1015 West Kirkland Ave, Suite 202, Nashville,TN 37216. We will post a short video of Lily pulling out the winning name on our blog no later than March 20th. How cool to make a $20 donation to help an orphan come home to their forever family and have a chance to win an awesome painted room worth $500!

Please send this out to all your family and friends! We would love to meet a goal of 100 entries! Little is much when God is in it!

Detour

We have prayed for wisdom and our Heavenly Father has answered our prayers. Our journey to adopt has taken a detour. We are now pursuing to adopt a child from Ethiopia. Why Ethiopia? Why not? Seriously, the plight of Ethiopia is the same as Haiti it's just a lot farther away. Also, we have already been through the trans-racial questions and counseling so it only seems natural to continue with a trans-racial adoption. We know that God has called us to adopt an orphan and that calling has not changed just because Haiti adoptions are closed. We don't want to stay focused only on Haiti where we currently can not adopt and not give another orphan a chance to have a forever family by the end of this year.

There are so many blessings that we see now during our recent months leading up to our detour. We had not contracted with our former agency yet due to the lack of funds and now that has allowed us to change agencies without losing a great deal of money. We have been able to switch to an agency that specializes more in Ethiopia. Also because our home study was complete she can easily switch it to Ethiopia without a lot of extra work. God always has a plan for us and sometimes HE doesn't always reveal all the “whys” when something detours our journey. Duet. 29:29 “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.” We are trusting the secret things are with God and moving forward to the plan He has revealed to us.

At first when we were told by our former agency that we should look into other adoption programs it was really hard to swallow. I did want to ask a lot of whys. Why can't we have another child by natural conception... it sure would be easier than this roller coaster? Why did the “baby boy” come into our lives for only a short period to only leave us heart broken shortly after? (read our very first blog last August). Why can't we adopt a child from Haiti? So after throwing myself a short pity party, it all started becoming clear to me again. It's God's story not mine and I have to let HIM continue being the author of this adoption story. God is stretching us and growing us and preparing us for the child he has for us. Everyday I am learning to Trust Him more and more. Here is something that I read this week on a friend's facebook profile that really opened my eyes: “When God takes something from your grasp, he is not punishing you, but merely opening your hands to receive something better.”

Please continue praying for us. We have submitted our new application to Children's Hope International and should hear back from them next week. To get started with this agency and move on with the I600A we need to raise about $1800 which is about half of what we were needing to continue with the previous agency. Praise the Lord.

Our God is so Big and that's why we know that he can still bring our child home by the end of 2010!

We need 75 people to donate $25 to help is get moving forward again. Please pray about sponsoring our child to come home.

Spring is coming so when you start doing your spring cleaning please let us know if you have anything to donate for our spring yard sale.

God is good All the time! ALL the time God is good!

Praying for Discernment

First off what a beautiful morning with all of the snow! I loved being able to spend some time with my Heavenly Father and being able to gaze out the window looking at his beauty he has blanketed us with! What a wonderful symbol of God's purity! On the flip side when we start playing or driving in the snow it begins to look dirty and loose that purity. This to me is a reminder of how our lives can appear when we don't let God captivate our thoughts and then our actions begin to reflect our behaviors and the purity fades. The great thing is that God's mercies are new every morning and his love endures forever!

I've been guilty of not letting God captivate my thoughts lately regarding our adoption journey. The Haiti adoptions have been closed for now. It is unclear when these adoptions will be open again. If I can be real here... I have had to deal with some hard emotions about this. I have let my human nature of trying to understand captivate my thoughts instead of Christ. David, Lily and I all are yoked on the fact that we know God has called us to add to our family through adoption and we were very sure HE had called us to adopt from Haiti. Now it is unclear of when God wanted us to adopt from Haiti. It seems that God may want us to wait a couple of years and in the interim adopt a child from elsewhere. We've been praying to be open to adopting more than one child so maybe both children aren't coming from Haiti. Maybe a child from here or Ethopia and then a child from Haiti. So as many people keep asking us what does this mean for our adoption, we are seeking wisdom for discernment on that very question ourselves. Many articles we have read and interviews we have watched about the adoption situation in Haiti state it could be 2-3 years before they will open it back up.

As I stated in a previous blog that the realization that our child probably just became orphaned is still in our hearts and could mean that we adopt here in our own country while we wait for that child to be deemed "orphaned" and not just "displaced". Really at this point of our journey the only truth we know beyond a shadow of any doubt is that God is on HIS throne and HE is full of Goodness and Love. Romans 8:28 "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

For now, we are going to keep moving forward with raising money for our adoption fund. We want to be ready when God says Scott family move! We want to be ready whether that means Haiti or another country or domestically! Our home study is almost complete but the completion of it has been put on a temporary hold as we wait upon the Lord for direction. We are going to research possible domestic adoption avenues and look at other countries as we seek HIS will for our family. We want to be prepared to meet any opportunity that God may present to us in the coming days ahead. We will continue to serve as we wait upon HIM.

We are still selling our Adoption Rocks T-shirts. Adoption still Rocks no matter where the child is adopted from... can I get an AMEN! We still need to recoup the money invested in the shirts and we still need to raise money to bring home our child from where ever he/she may be right now. As before, if you do not want a shirt but want to donate please feel free to do so through the donation button. If adoptions from Haiti were to open back up in a short period of time or if HE tells us to move in a different direction, we would need about $3,000 to keep moving forward.

Keep praying for God to bring our child home in 2010.

In HIS grip,
Cindy

Trusting....

As I write this words can not express the heaviness our hearts feel for the people of Haiti and especially the orphans. Many people have asked what does this mean for us and right now we don't know the answer to that question. What we do know is that as I stated in our last blog “We know that God has gone before us and we can trust in HIM for what the year has in store for our family.”. We know that now more than ever the need for adoptive parents for Haiti will be even greater. There were already about 380,000 children in orphanages pre-earthquake and now that number is expected to grow tremendously. David has actually said a few times in the last months that he didn't think our child was at the orphanage yet and the realization has set in that our child or children may have just now become orphaned. Last Monday night we were working on some paperwork for the adoption and I was having a bit of spiritual warfare going on because our process seems to be going slower than “I” would like for it to go. Then Tuesday just a couple of hours before the news of the earthquake I was listening to a christian radio station and the gentleman on the air stated “Do not let the enemy steal the seed God has planted in your heart”. That statement was so profound to me because of the way I was feeling the night before and then it became even more profound when the news of the tragedy in Haiti broke out across the media. I then realized that is why I was in the car at that exact time to hear that exact statement. We as a family know that God planted this seed in our heart to rescue a child or two from Haiti and we are not going to let the enemy take that from us!

We have realized that our slow paperwork process has been part of God's plan because all of it would have been lost when the administration building went from a five story building to five feet of rubble. Our plan for now is to PRAY, TRUST and OBEY. We are going to be still and know that HE is God and HE has a plan. We know it is no coincidence that we are already on this journey to adopt from Haiti. We are praying that this will open the awareness and possibly cut out some of the process to move things a long more quickly to help those sweet children find forever families.

Please pray for Mike and Missy Wilson who many may know or have seen on the news lately. Mike is in Haiti trying to bring home their daughter Tia. They were only lacking her passport and Mike is trying desparately to bring her home to the US. Please also pray for the orphans of Haiti as they have no mom or dad to fight for them to have food and medical care. You can keep up with the Wilsons at www.bringtifihome.com.

In HIS grip,
Cindy

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
Proverbs 13:12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

2010 - The Journey Continues

Happy New Year everyone! We are so excited for the new year. We know that God has gone before us and we can trust in HIM for what this year has in store for our family. Forgive us for not blogging much in over a month or so. I've sat down many times to blog but never seemed to post anything. I have always enjoyed journaling but never really imagined I would journal for the world to read well... for a few friends and family to read =) Journaling can be so therapuetic but it is hard sometimes for me to be an open book as I am usually a private person. I am hoping to overcome that some in order to blog/journal a lot through out this journey so that our child will be able to read about the wonderful ways God provided and changed our lives in the process of bringing him/her or them home.

Here's a brief update on our journey:
We made a trip to Chattanooga at the first of December to meet with our social worker. It was a good trip and good meeting. She met with David and I alone and then with Lily. We should have one more interview this month and then hopefully by the beginning of February we'll have our official approval. We have not sent off our contract to the Agency yet but we did find out that there are lots of things we can be doing in advance of sending our contract that will hopefully speed things up a little. Really there is not a lot of update to give at this time. We kinda took a break from paperwork, fundraising and such during the christmas holidays but we are ready now to put our hands and feet to the grind to get our child home. We know ultimately our process will go according to God's timing but our human nature can't keep from wanting to hurry as much as we can. I have been trying to get in a habit of imagining doing things with two possibly three total kids. I am so excited. Yes... we are still praying about whether we'll adopt a sibling group. I know our lives are going to be totally rocked by just adding one but adding two will absolutely rock our worlds in such a great way. I look at several of my friends who have two or more kids and I admire them so much. I know they at times seem overwhelmed and even stressed sometimes with the day to day of raising that many children but from the outside looking in ... I see the blessings, the craziness, the laughter, and would love to have that multiplied in our home. I see beyond the now and see the future big family gatherings and watching them raise families of their own and so on.

God gave me a glimpse this week of how great a big sister Lily is going to be and how her little sibling(s) are going to adore her. We were with some friends whose grandson was with us and he was hanging on to Lily and hugging her constantly. She was loving it.

Please continue to pray for the following throughout this year and journey:
1. Praise God for all the wonderful things HE is doing and will be doing in ours and your lives.

2. Pray for our child(ren) who waits for us in Haiti. We do not know who they are yet but we know that they are in God's grip. Also pray for their current caregivers.

3.Pray for us (David, Cindy and Lily) as we continue to walk this journey. Pray for us to stay strong, trusting in the LORD especially on the days it seems impossible.

4. Pray for an unbelievable speedy process with the paperwork and especially the financial funds so that only God can receive Glory! We are far from our goal of atleast 25k for one child.


Four out of Five People in Haiti live on less than $2/day. We are so blessed in our country that most of us spend that on a cup of Coffee or a coke per day. Wow.. that's $60 per month. So basically if a little over 400 hundred people sacrificed for only one month their daily cup of joe, we could rescue our child and give them hope of a brighter future. Problem is we don't really know 400 people! So what if we had 100 family and friends donate an average of $20 and then all 100 family and friends asked 10 of their friends or family to donate an average of $20... we would have 22k in no time! I have had many strangers ask if we were really bringing a child home or just sponsoring an orphan. This made me think what if our child was sponsored by monthly givers... of $10, $20, $30 etc. until they come home. Really in our culture most families spend $30-$40 on eating out a week. What if that money was donated to bring an orphan home and they ate sandwiches at home that one night for one week. God could do a lot with that don't you think!

Little is much when God is in it. Let us know if you'd like to purchase a shirt or bookmark handmade in Haiti!

Thank you all for your continued support.

Blessings,
Cindy on behalf of the whole Scott Family (all four or five of us!)