Thankful

There have been so many blog posts the last few days titled Thankful, but I could honestly think of nothing else to title this post, so here it goes....

We had a whirlwind of a week starting with the celebration of my oldest daughters' 11th birthday!  To say that we are Thankful for Evie Jo and Lucy would be the biggest understatement.  Their humble beginning came on Tuesday, November 20, 2001.  They weighed a COMBINED 2 lbs. 6.5 oz. and were the tiniest things we had ever seen.  Why God chose to allow them to live, thrive, grow to love Him and allow us to have the privilege to raise them, we will likely never know.  But we are Thankful!  We started the day horseback riding with Evie Jo's amazing violin instruction, Ms. Emmie.  They decided on Melting Pot for their birthday dessert and ice skating for their activity the following day.  We all had a blast!  Happy Birthday my precious Evie Jo and Lucy!

We are also Thankful for all of the donations that were given for our "Garage Sale for Orphans."  But, what good are donations if no one comes to shop?  Which leads me to yet another reason to be Thankful...garage sale shoppers!  Between the generous donations and the shoppers, we were able to raise more than $1000 (wowzers!) to go towards bringing 3 orphans home to their forever families.  THANKFUL!

Our life is going to be CRAZY the next couple of weeks!  The oldest girls are in their first theater production, The Little Mermaid Jr., and we have many nights of rehearsals and early calls on show nights.  But as this Christmas season approaches, I pray that I can take time to reflect on the true reason for my Thankfulness, my Savior Jesus!

Team Melott

Today was the 3rd annual Chosen Marathon for Adoption.  This was my third year to run the race, but our first year to have a team of our own.  Although I LOVE the family that I have run for in the past, there is something different, amazing, indescribable, priceless when you are running to bring your own child home!  When I crossed the finish line and saw Scott, I burst into tears.  The emotion was too much to hold inside.  Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you to Team Melott (minus a few who had already left or were still out on the course):

These fine, fine friends and family all ran in support of our family.  Isn't that amazing?  We serve a mighty God who places the desire on people's hearts to defend the orphans of the world and help them find their forever families.  The proceeds from this race will go straight towards our adoption costs.

And, since the national bird of Ind*a is a peacock and since I love an excuse to "dress up" a little, a few of us wore these fun little tutus for the race..we couldn't resist.

Fun, right?

So, next time you think you CAN'T run/walk 13.1 miles, just remember the orphans of the world and I'm willing to bet that HE can get you through it.

Blessings,
Jessica

Distracted

I need to get this out because I DON'T want to forget HIS goodness!

I know it has been way too long since the last post.  I hardly know where to begin.  It is no fun blogging when I have nothing new on the adoption home front to report.

BUT, we FINALLY have something to report.  OUR HOME STUDY HAS BEEN APPROVED BY Journeys of the Heart!!!  I was honestly beginning to wonder if I was ever going to be able to say that.

I must confess though, that we have gotten distracted during this long wait for home study approval.  We know God called us to this adoption and we know that He is in control, but we had gotten a little off path.  He is so faithful though to nudge us back onto the right track.

A couple of weeks ago we had an adoption fundraiser (Applebee's Flapjack Fundraiser) that was an overwhelming success.  And by overwhelming, I mean that my emotions were so fragile by the end of the weekend by all of the generosity from family and friends that all I could do on the Monday after was cry.  EVERYTHING had me in tears.  I was overwhelmed by His goodness and by the goodness of His people!

But, aren't we so easily distracted?!?  Why is that?  Why are we on such a high with HIM one day and the next day we forget where He is leading us?  I have read time and time again His directives in Deuteronomy about not getting forgetting the Lord Your God and then I go and do it...ugh!

We found a house, "the house" as it were.  I mean I found it THE DAY that we had reached a financial milestone that we had set concerning adoption funds.  I showed Scott, he agreed that it could be the house, and we asked our realtor to set up a showing.  We fell in love with the views, the deck, and the adorable guest cottage.  It had everything that we "wanted."  We made an offer, went back and forth in negotiations, couldn't agree on a price and had to walk away.  We were OK with having to walk away but the seller called back the next day with another offer and we said YES.  How exciting, right?  Our prayer the whole time though was for God to SHUT THE DOOR on this if we were not suppose to do it.  We were distracted for sure, but we didn't want to flat out get in God's way.  After the inspection revealed that this would be a high maintenance house (and if you know Scott and I, you know this is laughable) we felt that God was whispering to us that this was not the time.  We needed to be concentrating on bringing our child home.  So, we backed out of the house.  We called our realtor around 1:30pm on Friday and let her know.  Y'all, it was not 4 hours later that we got the call that our home study had been approved!!!  We had been waiting since July 26th for this approval.  We are so grateful to HIM and we don't want to miss His hand in this!

I pray that we can stay the course without too many more distractions.  Now, on to the next adoption phase...US government approval.

"Take care lest you forget the Lord your God....." Deuteronomy 8:11a

Another step!

I just saved our file of the education questions that we had to answer for our 10 hours of Hague accredited education.  The file was 11 pages long...ugh!  As soon as Scott gets home to sign the form, we will send it off and check another step off our long list of 'adoption things to complete.'  We learned a lot of interesting information from the DVDs!

My children have watched lots of movies over the past week as we have tried to get this stuff completed.  I am hoping to redeem myself this week by spending hours at the river with Grandmomma.  Ruthie is heading to her annual 'Grandaddy and Kimmie Camp' and is beside herself waiting for Tuesday to be here.  Since quality time is her love language she thrives on this individual attention from them.

We have one other BIG thing to celebrate today....my man started his new position as District Sales Manager with YB today.  So proud of him and his willingness to work hard for our family!  He will be such an encouraging leader and I expect that big things will happen with the New Braunfels team under his leadership.

I'm off to gather swimsuits and get away from this computer for awhile.  I hope the next update will be announcing our approved home study!!

Home Study Complete

We, and by we I mean all of my AMAZING friends and family, spent DAYS cleaning, mowing, painting and organizing to prepare for our home study today.  And can you believe that Denise did not even ask to see the inside of my refrigerator that I cleaned for over an hour?!?

The experience today was so easy and laid back.  Denise came in with cake pops from Starbuck's for the girls.  There is really not a better way to Ruthie's heart than some form of dessert :-)  We chatted for a while, had lunch and then off she went to talk with the girls.  I really could not believe that she did not ask to look around our house.   I now truly understand that our home study agency wants us to succeed in our adoption.

She has been gone for about three hours now and I have already moved on to printing out all the forms for the next stage in this journey...today provided me a new sense of urgency!  I'm ready to have our son or daughter HOME!

My dear friend Gayla read a passage out of Ezekiel yesterday that was a great reminder that HE does all things for HIS glory and not ours (mine.)  Lord, I pray you were glorified today......

Testing

Since I have become slightly obsessed with adoption blogs, I figured I would join in and blog/journal about our journey to adopt from Ind*a.