Adoption miracle

Today we move from caringbridge.com to blogspot.  I wanted to catch you all up to date on what has happened in our family.  Sorry if this is long.  I've condensed it as much as I could.  Hope it's not confusing!  

Many of you know that I have been greatly troubled for a long time about some things.  The fact that there are orphans in the world is bad enough for me but the fact that they are suffering illness and starvation, lack of education and knowledge of Jesus Christ is unbearable.

Even though I wanted to share this with Blaine, I kept this pretty much to myself because with the state of the economy, business has not been good.  I didn't want to stress him out any more. I didn't want him to think I had an agenda.  I didn't.   

I really thought God could use me to speak to groups or do some writing so that others might be inspired to open their hearts and homes to the blessings of adding a precious child to their family by means of adoption.  So adoption, while near and dear to my heart wasn't what I was thinking about for us.

Finally, one night I told him.  I read to him what I'd written on the old caringbridge site about orphans, the poor and the widow being Jesus in disguise to us. 

We decided to each begin to pray that God would show us exactly what our next 'assignment' would be on behalf of these people whom Jesus told us love and care for.  So we did.

 

Maybe a year ago or so, I signed up with RainbowKids.com to receive emails with waiting kids in Africa.  I did this just for fun so I could see the kids who were available.  I never received a single email until last week.  There was an email from them on Tues. and one also on Wed.  Weird!  So Thursday morning I told Blaine about it (since we were both on the look-out for what God has planned).  I quickly showed him the email, we looked at pictures and he went to work.

Apparently, he went to work and looked them up again and did what they tell you not to do under any circumstances if you don't have a completed, approved home study...he fell in love.

Like we did the last time God spoke so clearly about adoption, we began praying.

He prayed with me that night that God would show us clearly if we were to pursue adoption and that this girl would get the right family for her, whether it was us or someone else.

 

The very next day, “We have the first round of God’s answer.”  He proceeds to tell me this story:

 

A man came into his office, asking to see some office space for rent.  He had looked at it 2 months prior, but Blaine hadn’t seen him since.   For Father's Day last year, I had made up for Blaine big 20x30" canvas pictures of each of the 4 kids for his office.  The way it is arranged takes up his whole wall and if I may say so myself, is stunning.  The man looks at Blaine’s ‘wall of children’ and says,  “Cool, where did  you have this done?”  Blaine told him.  He really liked the pics but clearly was wondering about the 2 black kids in the pics but he didn't ask.  

 

They came back to his office after relooking at the space to work up some numbers.  The man (Daniel) was sitting in a chair with his back to the pics but kept turning around and was obviously wondering about the boys.  Blaine finally said, “Those are all my kids and the 2 little boys we adopted from Ethiopia.”

 

Daniel’s face turned to shock, he stood up, tears came to his eyes, he grabbed Blaine’s hand to shake it and said, “God is good, God bless you, Thank you, Jesus.,” over and over again.  He said, “You have no idea what you’ve done for these boys.  Your family will be blessed…your children, your children’s children and for the next 100, 200, 300 years your family will be blessed because of what you’ve done.”

 

Blaine replied, “Yes, our family is blessed and God is good.”

 

Daniel,  grabbing Blaine’s arm, “I KNEW it!!!  You are a believer and brother in Chirst!”

 

They told each other where they went to church.  Blaine asked him where he was from.  He replied, “Nigeria.”

 

Daniel proceeds to tell Blaine that he was so blessed to come to America and therefore has an obligation to take care of as many people back in Nigeria as he can.  He has sent over a half a million dollars so far and supports over 2000 people there.  He has 40 sibs, his dad is muslim with 4 wives and he supports them all.  God just continues to provide for him and he keeps sending as much as he can.

 

He tells Blaine that some rebels cut half of his mom’s ear off, two of her fingers and almost took her hand off.  He was able to bring her here for surgery, which he payed for to have her hand repaired from it’s mangled state.

 

Blaine told him that we were actually praying about bringing another daughter  from Ethiopia to join our family.  He broke into praising God all over again!!

 

The then proceeds to tell Blaine, “I want to be in this building and I am ready to sign the lease.”

 

Blaine, “Ok, I’ll get it printed up for you.  Do you want to come back Mon or Tues to sign it?

 

Daniel, “No I want to sing it now.”

 

Blaine, “It’s rather lengthy and you’ll want to read it.”

 

Daniel, “I’ll wait, Go ahead and print it up.”

 

He waits, Blaine gives him the over 20 page lease and he asks where he should sign.  Blaine shows him.  He flips through it, signs the lease and hands him cash for a deposit.

 

Wow!

 

Unbeknownst to me, Blaine had been praying for 3 weeks that if God wanted us to adopt, that He’d show Blaine that financially we would be able to handle it.  The economy being what it is, they haven’t signed a single lease in 6 months. 

 

One  hour after Daniel left, the real estate leasing agent called and said, “Good news!  We have a restaurant  for Farmington.  They want to sign a lease Mon  or Tues and are very excited.  Also, a consignment shop wants to sign a lease on Mon or Tues, as well."   

 

We have waited for 3 long years for a restaurant for our mall in Farmington.  It will bring in other tenants as well because they are an anchor. 

 

Nothing for 6 months and then 3 leases in ONE DAY !!! 

 

Blaine called me right after all this happens and says, “God is working fast.”  Woah, understatement!

 

We get our income from leases.  This is the assurance God gave him to proceed.

Now we are praying that God would show us clearly which agency to go with.  This matters so much because we know that God has a child picked out for our family and this has been predestined from the very beginning of time.  So it’s just not random.

We hope to have this decided with God's direction by early next week so we can proceed with a home study.  

While God was busy moving in my heart over the last months, I would often tell Him out loud, "God, please tell Blaine not me this time."  I told Him this over and over.  While my heart was hurting for these kids and I felt like I couldn't take the burden anymore and I would say this out of exasperation to Him.  And what did He do for me??  He told Blaine this time.  Blaine is fired up.  Let me tell you, when hear from the Lord it gets you fired up!! 

I can't really say why God works so dramatically with us when it comes to adoption.  This doesn't happen with other things...just adoption.  Keep in mind that all this has transpired over the period of 4 days!  From not knowing what direction God had for us to go to getting that it was adoption and then getting such powerful confirmation.This is why I am confused when people say, "I don't want to be a Christian...way too boring!"  Are you kidding????  Anything but.

That's it in a nutshell.  Please pray for us that we'd continue to see God's direction toward which adoption agency He has for us.  

Thanks for reading all this!

Blessings,

Laura