10,000 Reasons

Over the past couple months Kevin and I have been super busy trying to do a balancing act with youth ministry, holiday events and travel, and of course our adoption. It has been hard to sit down and think long enough to organize our thoughts on our adoption and just life in general. It is just a few days before Christmas and I wanted to do a quick posting on what our hearts are feeling this Christmas. I have such an overwhelming feeling of gratitude and thankfulness for Christ. I cry EVERY Christmas when I think about Jesus coming to Earth by the way of a young faithful girl named Mary. The Christmas story is so incredibly beautiful. Imagine Mary. Mary had the privilege to carry the Savior of mankind in her tummy. It says in Luke 2:19 that Mary treasured what she was told by the angel about the child she would carry. Jesus came to Earth as a humble baby that needed to be cared for, fed, changed, rocked, and loved. As I pray for our child in Africa today I remember Jesus. I praise him for the 10,000 reasons we have to be thankful. Christ has already chosen the child that will be a Weldon. He has known for all of time that small baby in Africa would be part of Our family. Just like God knew for all of time that he would send a Savior to Earth by way of a young virgin named Mary. I may not be able to know what it is like to carry a child in my womb like Mary but I will know the same joy that Mary had as she sat and cared for the child that she was promised. Take the time today to thank God for sending Christ Jesus the Savior to save and redeem His creation.

Our little Christmas Tree! :)

Our silly Christmas sweater party on our youth Winter Retreat!

Home Study Meeting & Compiling our Dossier

Kevin and I had our first meeting with our social worker for our home study last week. For those of you who are new to adoption I will give you a basic run down on what a home study and dossier is. A home study is where adoptive parents meet with a licensed social worker and the social worker will compile a profile about you to submit to your country as part of your dossier. The social worker will basically look at what kind of people you are and what kind of home you will provide to an adoptive child. They will also make recommendations of the best age of child you and your spouse will be suitable to parent. A dossier is a set of documents that includes very detailed information about yourself. The dossier is sent to the country you are adopting from and is used to find a child that best suits your family. The dossier phase of your adoption is often referred to as the “great paper chase”. Your social worker and agency will provide you with all the help you need to get your dossier completed. Completing a dossier can range from 3-7 months. It can be quite overwhelming but just think of the beautiful child you are going to rescue! This is just part of the process. It will all be worth it and forgotten when you hold your dear child!

Our first home study day was crazy! By the time we made it to our meeting we were 15 minutes late and completely frazzled! Our meeting was scheduled so we could meet half way from where she lived and from where we lived. Our meeting was at 1:30pm and I worked till noon. Kevin and I had worked for hours on our questions from our social worker! Kevin went to his office to print everything off and get it all ready to give to our social worker and he could not find them ANYWHERE on our laptop! Somehow and someway, our 35 questions plus his 25 questions that he needed to complete on his own got deleted. So needless to say we were freaking out! But our social worker was very patient and gracious and allowed us to submit those questions later. Our meeting with her went awesome and we were relieved when we had completed the meeting. She was very nice and professional and knowledgeable. We have scheduled our next meeting to be in our home on December 26^th! She will look at our living situation and include a description of our home in her report. She will also be able to give us feedback on how we need to improve our home or make our home a better environment for our adoptive child. We are so excited about completing this step in our adoption process. Once we have a completed home study on file then we will be able to apply for grants and loans that will help in reducing the overall cost of our adoption.

Home Study & Dossier Tips:

*When searching for a social worker you need to check with your adoption agency because they will usually have a list of home study agencies in your state that they have used previously. Our agency provided a list of 5 or 6 agencies. We contacted each one of them. After speaking with these agencies we were able to look at prices, the process in which they complete the home study, and how we connected with the person we spoke with. You need to choose a social worker/home study agency that you feel comfortable speaking to and discussing your adoption. Our social worker was very professional and helpful and we felt full confidence that we made the right choice.

*Make several copies of everything you give to your social worker and your adoption agency. I have made several copies of our driver’s licenses/social security cards/marriage license etc. This will allow you be able to have access to all the documents just in case anything gets lost or needs to be resubmitted.

* BE ORGANIZED: buy a cardboard filing system so you will be able to place all your documents and copies for your adoption in one place. This will save you time and frustration when you are trying to mark things off your to do list!

* I have also printed our 53 page dossier guide and placed it in a sturdy 3 pronged binder so I can reference it easily and quickly.

*You will need to have many, many, many things notarized! Choose a notary that you will be able to easily access and whose notary commission doesn’t expire before your dossier gets sent to your child’s country. Our notary will be our church secretary so we will be able to get her to notarize something every week if we need it!

I hope this information helps you in understanding the process and I hope this helps those of you who are in the adoption process!

Paperwork, Passports, and Provision

We wanted to post an update on what has been going on over the past few weeks! We have begun working with a social worker out of Clarksville. We have mounds of paperwork that we need to complete for our home study. That paperwork includes 5 personal references, 35 questions to be completed together, 20 questions to be completed individually, medical examinations, criminal background checks, home safety checklist, copies of birth certificates/ marriage license/ social security cards/ proof of income, and fingerprinting. Right now, all of our references have been sent in and we have also completed all of our questions. We have appointments with a physician next week to complete our medical exams. Also, we have bought another smoke alarm, fire extinguisher, carbon monoxide detector, plug covers, and we have moved our medications to higher shelving. We have also turned in our passports and requested our birth certificates and we have completed 3 out of 10 hours of adoption training through our agency. Whew! It has been such a whirlwind of paperwork but each step we complete is another step closer to getting our child! I am glad to do paperwork and safety check our home if it means we can fill our extra bedroom with a smiling baby Weldon!

God has also provided another $1750 which brings our grand total deposited into our adoption fund to be 11555.05!! We have sent in our 2^nd payment to our agency of $2150 and we have gotten the okay to begin our 2nd and final step in completing our dossier. Another answered prayer is that God provided better vehicle for Kevin to drive. We were able to sell his current vehicle and purchase a bigger vehicle that will last us the next couple years until our family grows a little more! The family that sold us the vehicle was such a joy to meet and it was wonderful that we all shared a common faith in Jesus. They have a 2 year old son and are expecting triplets soon! We praise the Lord for his kindness and faithfulness to his children. Our God is such a wonderful Father and he loves to give good gifts to His children.

Kevin's "new" vehicle.

Over Thanksgiving we were able to spend time with Kevin’s family in Michigan. We were able to see our nephews and spend time with the whole family for dinner on Thanksgiving! It was a great trip and we miss everyone already! Praise the Lord for family and for his love! Now we are gearing up for Christmas time! We are excited to prepare to take our youth group students on their winter retreat December 16th-19th! Pray that God will bless this trip and that he will speak to each individual student!

This is the group of girls we brought on the Winter Retreat last year!

This is the group of boys we brought on the Winter Retreat!

We always have so much fun! It's my favorite youth trip of the year! Nothing like admiring the beauty of God's creation than by spending time in the
Smoky Mountains! :)

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

Jesus is ALWAYS Worth It

This weekend was our youth girls lock in with 32 girls in attendance! We had such a fun time dancing, playing games, and doing girly things! When I pulled into the church and I saw all these students standing outside I thought “Why are all these people at the church?” I had no earthly idea that we would have such a great turn out for this event. Needless to say I felt a little overwhelmed! Thank the Lord for Godly women willing to give up a Friday night to spend time with these young ladies.

Our pastor’s wife, Christy McCosh, gave a short devotional on being a girl that is set apart for Christ. Everyone was very attentive and willing to take a break from all their activities to listen to her devo. Afterwards, I had an opportunity to talk to a couple of young girls about my relationship with Jesus. Kevin and I have learned that so many of our students genuinely want to live for Jesus but they are bombarded by so many difficult influences that it is hard to choose Christ everyday. I told these girls that Kevin and I truly believe that Christ is worth it. If I didn’t believe that Christ was worth it then I wouldn’t have spent the last 7 years of my life serving the youth at Gum Springs!

 

My heart is overflowing with gratitude for Christ’s love for me as his child. We live our lives with gratitude and thankfulness that Jesus gave his life for us. He rescued me and redeemed me when I was far from Him. God continually reminds me of his provision and mercy through our circumstances. Since we have announced our plans to adopt from the Congo we have had an awesome response of support and encouragement from our friends, family, and church. We are truly excited to see how God works this all out for His glory. Romans 8:28 says, “All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” Praise the Lord that we have this promise! Jesus is always worth our time, our love, and our whole lives!

                                          Beautiful Young Women that attended our Lock In!

Mountain Getaway to Pray & Rejoicing in the Lord’s Kind Intentions

Last weekend Kevin and I decided that we needed to unplug from our normal life to pray for God’s provision and guidance about adopting. Kevin booked a cabin in Pigeon Forge and we hopped in the car after I got off work and we were off to our mountain retreat. God’s peace and blessing flowed freely during our prayer time and devotions. Our cabin was completely secluded and the weather was absolutely beautiful! Let me tell ya, Fall is my FAVORITE time of year! Kevin and I were able to sit on our cabin’s front porch and fill out Children of All Nation’s adoption application for the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As we clicked from page to page of this application we prayed for God’s favor and wisdom as we completed each question. Once we clicked "submit" we were submitting not only to our adoption agency's requirements, but we were letting go of any notion of our plans and submitting to God's plans! The Bible says in Jeremiah 29:11 that God knows the plans He has for us! God has a plan for Kevin and Debbie Weldon as well as that little helpless orphan on the other side of the world. It will be such a glorious day when our paths unite us as a family forever by His grace.

We are thanking the Lord this week because he has placed his favor on our application and we have been accepted into the adoption program for the Congo! We have received an agency contract and list of what to expect in the coming months! October 4th marks day 1 on our adoption journey and we are absolutely amazed and privileged to be used by God in such an exciting way! Subscribe to our blog to stay informed on our adoption journey! We need our friend’s and family’s support and prayers during these next several months!

Our Adoption Story...so far

What led us to Adoption….

Kevin and I have always discussed adoption as something that we would desire to do sometime in our future. I believe that we may have even talked about adoption on one of our “getting to know” you dates. Being a wife and a mother has always been the calling that I believe Christ has given me. In fact, on one of those “getting to know you” dates I actually told Kevin that I wanted to be a wife and a mother when he asked about what I wanted to do in life. I thought that I scared the living daylights out of that poor man. Instead, the statement that I thought scared him actually made him realize that he wanted to pursue me. Now here we are 7 ½ years later getting ready to embark on our next journey in life. Adopting a child!

Kevin and I have had the strongest desire to be parents for over 2 years now.  This desire has caused us to pray much about what God's plan is for our family. We have always had such a deep desire to raise children to glorify and love the Lord.  There have been some medical issues that have thus far prevented us from having biological children. We have certainly felt at a loss for what to do many times over the past couple years. Last November, Kevin and I discussed what our next step in life should be. Adoption kept coming up in our conversations. We teach our youth group students 3 questions to ask themselves when they are facing a decision.  Those questions are, “Does this glorify God?, Does this make me look more like Jesus? And Does this help others see God’s truth?” We took our own advice and applied those same questions to our situation.  No matter how we examined adoption we kept seeing that it continually lined up with God’s truth in scripture. 

As Christians, we all have our own adoption story. It is a beautiful story of how our loving God adopted us as his children. We are all adopted by Christ Jesus. We were orphans destined for death but Jesus chose us to be his children and he placed us in His family. Ephesians 1:5 says, “He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will.” Oh, the beauty of the Gospel. Praise the Lord for the kind intention of his will! We greatly desire to adopt a child into our home and life just as Christ has done for us.  There are 143 million orphans in the world. Children who are designed and created in the image of God are left homeless and helpless. Kevin and I desire to make that number One Less! One less hurting. One less hungry. One less fatherless. One less unloved.  God will make us a family forever by grace!