Short Adoption Announcement Video

We received this video from our dear friend Justin Kelly. It was such a surprise and great blessing. We saw him recording as we were posing for pictures, but we didn't realize what he was doing. Kevin kept making fun of him because we thought he was just being silly recording our conversation. Little did we know, he was putting together this beautiful video and documenting this special time for us to keep forever. Just another keepsake to save for baby Weldon! We are so thankful for good friends with so much talent!


If you have any trouble playing the video here, you can also view it on youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PUG_wD43zc

Our Adoption Pictures

Last weekend Kevin and I went to Dayton, TN to spend time with our good friends, Justin and Hannah Kelly. Hannah is very gifted at photography and we were able to take some pictures to document this exciting time in our lives! We wanted to have pictures for our child that will show them the love and complete excitement we have awaiting their arrival. Have you ever seen pregnancy pictures? If you have, then these adoption pictures are sort of the equivalent! My husband is so sweet and supportive and was willing to spend his Saturday wearing matching colors with his wife and smiling for about 100 pictures. It also helped that we were amongst friends so he was able to laugh and goof around with Justin while Hannah and I chatted and giggled about our pictures and my future brown skinned baby. I hope that these pictures are an encouragement and a joy for you to see. I know that my heart leaps for joy imagining where we will be on our adoption journey one year from now. Hopefully we will already have our child and we fill that open chair with a smiling Baby Weldon! 

Kevin and Debbie :)

Waiting on a Weldon!

Growing in my heart, not my tummy!

Jesus unites orphans with families forever by grace!

One day this chair will be filled with a smiling Baby Weldon!

Adoption is a beautiful picture of the Gospel.

God is Our Provider!

The testimony of God's faithfulness continues to amaze and astonish us as each day passes in our adoption journey! We recently completed our agency's contract and sent in our first payment of $2838. Our first package from our agency should arrive any day with information on our home study requirements and paperwork to complete for our dossier for the DRC. It's so exciting to see God's absolute providence and provision through our adoption! Believe it or not but God has provided us with about $8400 through generous donations from our families and from our faith family. We have been completely been blow away at the donations that have been anonymously given. There have also been families in God's kingdom that have sacrificially, joyously, and generously given us money they earned. Students in our youth group have given their allowances or portions of their paychecks. My heart becomes so full of gratitude, thankfulness, and love for God's people. Just like Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 1:2 “We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers.” I thank God everyday for the wonderful people he places in our paths. This process has taught me exponentially about God’s love and care for his creation. I dream of holding my little brown skinned and brown eyed babe and telling them of all the beautiful things God did to bring them home to my arms. I may not know who they are, what they look like, or what their laugh sounds like but God does. And that's enough for me. Just like Christ went great lengths to save us and bring Kevin and I into his family, we will do the same for our little one in Africa. Gods love knows no bounds. Pray that God will protect our child until we can rescue them and bring them home to the loving arms of a mommy and daddy.

Photo Sessions for Fundraising

I believe that I have the best and most wonderful friends anyone could ask for! My wonderful friends Julie Sliger and Hannah Kelly have decided that they are going to do private photo sessions to help raise money for our adoption! These two ladies are the most creative people I know and they are very talented at photography! Please check out Julie Sligers blog for detailed information! http://thememphissligers.blogspot.com/

Not Plan B

Kevin and I have been blessed with such a wonderful response of support by God's people since we have announced our plans to adopt a child from the Congo. We are delighted that people have committed to pray for us and support us financially through this adoption process. God continues to confirm His Will through our daily lives. I rejoice in God’s faithfulness and love towards His children. Scripture proves over and over that God IS faithful and God IS Love. From the beginning of mankind, God had a plan. His plan was not thrown together at the last moment because He saw that something needed to be done to save mankind. God is the Alpha and Omega, who was, and is, and is to come (Revelation 1:8). We see at the very beginning of scripture in Genesis 3:15 that God’s plan was to send a Savior. Sending Jesus to save sinful man was God’s Plan A.

Rescuing and saving our precious little one is our Plan A. When we view our adoption through the lens of the Gospel then we see that this is something God has had planned for us all along. God has orchestrated the events in our lives to point us towards His will for us to adopt a child. Although those events have been difficult and heart breaking at times, we have learned so much more about God’s love, comfort, and faithfulness then we ever would if our plans had worked out as we saw they would go. We feel absolutely privileged to be part of God’s Plan A. Please continue to pray for God’s provision during this process. We deeply appreciate your support and prayers as we work towards bringing Baby Weldon home.

Weldon Adoption Open House

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! God has been so faithful to us! Our Adoption Open House was Thursday, October 20th. We had a great turnout of over 70 people. The support was overwhelming. I had the opportunity to present the what, when, where, and how of our adoption process. It was very touching to be able to share our desires and longings with a group of supporting people. The presentation, which we videoed and hope to make available soon, centered around how our adoption of children displays God’s adoption of us as children. As Debbie and I grow to learn more about the adoption process, we are really growing to know our Lord better. His adoption of us was so costly! Imagine, the life of His Son to adopt us! Why wouldn't we be willing to adopt a precious young one into our family?

Our family!

Our guests were so gracious and wonderful!

Going into the Open House, our adoption account was right around $400. A small portion of the $5000 we needed to get started ($2900 agency fee & $2000 home study fee). We prayed for God to provide and He is faithful in answering our prayers! At the Open House, we sold a few fair trade items, t-shirts, and buttons along with accepting donations.

Fair Trade Gifts Table

When all was said and done, we raised over $800, bringing our total fund to $1200+. Well in the days following, the donations kept coming in and today we are thrilled to say the our adoption checking balance is now at $3400! We have enough to send in our initial agency payment! We still have a long way to go in our fundraising efforts, but this is a small step in bringing home baby Weldon. Like I said before...Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Thanks for all your support!

Be Imitators of God

Since Debbie and I announced our plans to adopt from the DRC, we have been overwhelmed with kind responses. Some have congratulated us as if the baby were already here. Many have promised to pray diligently and support us faithfully throughout the process. A few, and this fills our hearts with joy, have even began to consider adopting a little one into their own family! Most of the responses have been very positive, but many people still ask the question “Why?”. Now, they don’t always ask this with words. Sometimes they ask with their tone of voice or facial expression, but they ask it all the same. It’s an understandable question. Why are you adopting? Is there something wrong physically preventing you from having kids? Why Africa? Are you crazy? All of these questions are legit, and yes, we just might be crazy! Questions like these are one reason we wanted to have an Adoption Open House early on in the process. This Thursday night at Gum Springs Baptist Church, we will try to answer these questions and give everyone the details on how God is leading us. Until then, here is part of our thought process.

Supplies and decorations for the Open House! Buttons will be given to those who are willing to donate!

Ephesians 5:1 “Be imitators of God”

When I became a Christian, one of the first verses I was pointed toward was Ephesians 5:1. There scripture says, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.” I memorized this verse and thought about it over and over in my mind. From my spiritual infancy, I knew that God wanted me to be more like Him. So I started with what I knew about God, and then I tried to obey. The idea of imitating God is not foreign to us. We know that we should be more like Jesus. This is God’s goal for our life; to conform us the image of His Son (see Romans 8:29). Ephesians 5:1 has always maintained a special place in my life. God is holy, so I want to be holy. Jesus loved, so I want to love. Jesus forgave, so I want to forgive. And so on. In the past two years, Debbie and I have walked through some difficult times. God has used these difficulties to build our character, strengthen our marriage, and teach us about faith. God is in the habit of using suffering to sanctify us! (see Romans 5:3-4, James 1:1-2). He has also been revealing more of His heart to us by teaching us about Holiness and Redemption. God is holy, so we want our lives to be full of holiness. God is also redemptive, so we want our lives to be a living example of how God rescues the lost. God being Holy and Redemptive is what makes the Gospel so amazing! We also want our lives to be a picture of God’s redemption.



Congolese children eating in the orphanage.

John 14:18 “I will not leave you as orphans”

Another verse has become very special to us and it is eternally linked to Ephesians 5:1. This verse is John 14:18, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” Now if you go and read some adoption blogs, you are going to see this verse plastered everywhere. We are not the only couple that has been melted by the display of love found in John 14:18, and I think that is a good thing. It means we are not crazy! We are not out of context. Jesus spoke these words directly from the heart of God and it resonates with His people. Jesus said these words to His disciples just when they needed to hear it. In the previous chapter, Jesus told His disciples that He was leaving them and where He went, they could not follow. Jesus was going to the cross to die, to the grave to be resurrected, to heaven to return again victorious. The disciples did not fully understand everything Jesus was going to accomplish for them, but they did understand one thing...He was leaving them! They were going to be alone. Jesus spoke love and hope into their situation with a promise, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you”. Through Jesus, God promised not to leave His children alone, confused, fatherless, hopeless, and lost. God is growing Debbie and I to see that being an imitator of God means not leaving little children alone, confused, fatherless, hopeless, and lost. God has gone to great lengths to rescue us, free us from the curse of sin, and make us his children. God’s rescue of us was costly and extravagant. We want to be wiling to go to extravagant lengths to rescue a child (or children) in need, no matter the cost. A child is worth it! Our God is worth it!

                   

                               

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” - James 1:27