Big News

So I know I have been pretty quiet on the adoption front recently and it's been mostly because plans that we were hoping for fell though and we have felt like we were back at square one. So let me recap a little:

When we returned home from our trip last September, one {special} little boy that we met and cared for during our trip was weighing heavily on our hearts. Through prayer, we decided to pursue adopting him but after about 7 months into the process his caregiver felt that our family dynamic was not the best fit for his specific needs. This was something that was hard for us because we had grown to love him and prayed for him often as a family, but we were able to be at peace and trust God with his plan in it. We were so thankful to be a part of his story and we will continue to love him, pray for him, and look forward to seeing him again when we are in Uganda.

After this door closed we felt like we were a little lost as to what to do. We started praying specifically for direction with our adoption and we sent an email to the other orphanage we had established a relationship with in Uganda but we learned our contact there was on leave until the end of the summer. We prepared ourselves that it could be months before we got word on which way to proceed and started praying about domestic adoption again and hoped God would show us which way He wanted us to go. Then after only about 2 weeks a door opened unexpectedly and here we are. From a dear friend we learned of an adoption agency that was looking for a family for a little boy who is living in an orphanage in Uganda. He is about 16 months old, is HIV+, and desperately needs a family. When we heard this we immediately knew it was an answer to prayer and we knew we are meant to be his family. When we felt God calling us to adopt from Africa we wanted to meet a need and provide a family for a child who would otherwise not be adopted due to their special needs, health concerns, or age. A friend encouraged us early on in this process to open our minds and hearts to the possibility of adopting a child who was HIV+ and as we did research on what this would look like for our family we quickly realized that our views of this condition were very outdated and incorrect. In the day we live in a child with HIV that has the opportunity to receive good medical care and a healthy diet can be expected to live a long, healthy life and have every opportunity as anyone else. Check out Project Hopeful on more information, we also welcome ANY questions or concerns from family and friends. 

So what does this mean exactly? Well first we will be switching from Independent Adoption to working with an agency which increases our costs significantly and because of his health needs and that he needs to be in a family ASAP things may go more quickly than we expected {Lord willing}. Just a week ago we thought it could be months before we knew the direction God wanted us to go and now we need the first half our adoption costs {half is approximately 8-10k} in the next 2 weeks and we could be traveling in a few months!  

That's where we are asking our friends and family and even strangers with a heart for the orphaned to step up and support us. We need some BIG prayer warriors and straight up we need some big funds to make this happen. We are cancelling our summer vacation, cashing out our pension plans (will take about 6 weeks), filling our grant applications (many take more time to get than time we have) planning a car wash (this Saturday!), selling more magazine beads, sending out support letters, and making plans for some kind of big raffle! Please pray and seek God on how you can be apart of bringing our son home to his family. 

Thank you, 

Christen and Josh

I can't help but think of this video message by Eric Ludy because this is how I feel. Desperate to get to our son who has never known the love and care of a family and I am humbly asking for your help .