A girls gotta have some clothes!

I realized I never actually posted about the gender of the child we will be adopting. We went into this with no intention of specifying a gender. However, after some prayer and other factors that I probably won't blog about, we are officially adopting a little girl!!!! When this decision became official I just had to go out and get baby girl some clothes! Aren't those little jeans and that tiny bow JUST THE CUTEST!! :)

Oh Lance, you have no idea the world you are walking into!! But, such a cute daddy already!! :)

Why Ethiopia

Why are we adopting from Ethiopia of all places? Well let me tell you!

We went into this whole thing with the intentions of adopting from Uganda. I LOVE the people there and always imagined our family consisting of a Ugandan or two (maybe someday it will). Without going into too much detail we did a lot of research about Uganda and the children and came to the conclusion that, yes, there are thousands of children without families. There are children of all ages available for adoption with the majority of the need being kids over 4. I would sit on the computer and look at waiting child postings (not just in Uganda but here in Texas) and sob looking at the little faces dressed in their best clothes hoping someone would notice them and bring them home. A literally gut wrenching painful reality that leaves a knot in my stomach just typing it. I began to slowly have my eyes opened to a real life crisis not just across the world but right here in the US! And when I say crisis I mean CRISIS!!!

This is a bad thing y'all. I learned that there are about 147 million children that do not have a mom and dad to tuck them in at night. 147 million children that have never had a hug from mommy and daddy, never had a hot meal and never had a bed to call their own. 147 million children that have no sense of security, safety, our love! 147 million little babies that would do anything to have a mommy to squeeze tight at the end of the day and a daddy to show them off to his friends. 147 million innocent lives at risk of being victimized, abused, starved or worse.

As I looked at my precious little nephew and so many of my friends children I began to get angry at the harshness of this world. While these babies are being rocked to sleep in snugglie blankets and watching baby Einstein, 147 million others are starved for love and affection not to mention literally starving for their basic needs to be met. Just not fair!! So how could we help!? We don't really have much extra money. We don't have a big house. I drive a beetle, I couldn't even fit 1 baby in that car! Those were just a few of the things I was dwelling on. In reality we are rich compared to most of the world, we have a bigger house than most people in the world and we own two cars free of debt while the majority if the world doesn't even own one car! Not sure how I got so out of touch with reality but I'm glad God was able to bust through my shallowness!

So we are officially adopting but don't know for sure from where. We learn that it will be rather hard to get an infant from Uganda right around the time that we learn we are having some fertility issues of our own. I selfishly want to experience raising a baby and want Lance and I to go through that together. This is a very hard thing for me to admit b/c I often still feel like I am turning my back on the precious 8 year old girl in the red dress with matching red bows. If I wont be her mommy who will?! These things still leave me laying up at night. We learned that there are millions of orphans in Ethiopia as well, and that there are often young babies available for adoption. We did the initial interview with the Ethiopia people and I asked her if there was a bigger need in Ethiopia or Uganda and she said, "Where there is one orphan there is a need". So true! This was so good to hear and reinforced that it doesn't matter where of how you are helping as long as you are helping. We prayed for about a month about it and decided Ethiopia it was.

We are not changing the world by any means and aren't even putting a dent in the orphan crisis, but at least we know one baby will have a chance to know Jesus and feel like they belong! Ohhh sooo excited just thinking about squishing this little one!!! So there you have it. So excited to finally see the family that God has planned for us! So glad He has opened our eyes!! :)

If you say, "But we knew nothing about this," does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?"
Proverbs 24:12

New Job!!

I know I said I would do a post on "why Ethiopia" and I will be doing that soon! Hopefully tomorrow. We have been SO incredibly busy moving into the house and dealing with what we have learned is called the adoption "paper chase" and a "paper chase" it is!!! You would not believe the amount of documents required and it seems like each group we are working with (e.g., social worker, agency....) need the exact same things. I feel like I am repeating the same forms over and over. BUT it's ok!! We are HAPPY to do it! :)

The real reason for today's post is to share the exciting news that Lance got a new job. I haven't posted all that much about Lance's job journey on here, but in a nutshell, he has pretty much been looking for a job since he graduated with his Master's last May. He has been working as a fitness manager/personal trainer at 24 hour fitness for over a year and we are so grateful that he was able to do that. However, it was a highly commission based job with pretty bad hours, ok awful hours. We never saw each other and it was just not great.

Last week after a LONG year 1/2 of interiews he accepted a management position with the YMCA in Katy and will be overseeing all of their fitness programs. It is a fixed income type of thing so we won't have to deal with the unknowns of a commission based job anymore. This is particularly exciting for me b/c although I will still have to work a bit, it will give me a better idea of how much (or little hehe) I will be working once baby girl comes!

We are also working working working trying to fix up our new casa! We love the house, but it really needed some help to make "home". Without a lot of extra money to spend I will be hitting up pinterest a lot to see other peoples CUTE decoration ideas. Speaking of Pinterest, it won't let me on and I have to use Betho's account. I think they are full or something. Wierd!

So as you can probably see we are keeping ourselves pretty busy around here. Hoping we still have a few friends by the end of this year b/c we haven't had a while lot of time for socializing lately! Bear with us guys!! :)

Until next time.......

Our coffee site!!!!

Lance and I just set up our coffee site to raise money to bring little baby Agan home!!! The organization we are working with is called "Just Love Coffee" and they are awesome. They help support not only adoptive families, but also help to support the economy of third world countries where coffee is one of their main exports. We will be given $5 from every coffee sale and are hoping to raise enough money to pay our first agency fee of $2,900. This is yummy, good quality stuff! So, if you are a lover of coffee then stop by our page and grab a bag!! If you like it don't forget to tell a friend! Click here to go to our site.

Much love,

Kayla, Lance & Baby A :-)

Why Adoption? Why Ethiopia?

I'm sure several of you are wondering why in the world we are adopting a baby and why we are adopting a baby from Ethiopia.

Since I am a very forthcoming person I would be happy to share our little story with the blog world. I also want to document this so that when, God willing, we have our little one, we can look back at the journey.

So here we go, bear with me.

It all started in the summer of 2003 when I went on a mission trip to Uganda with my church youth group. At this point in my life I thought I was walking with the Lord, however my faith and relationship with God was less than ideal. It involved a lot of me asking God for things when I needed them and half heatedly hoping that maybe he heard me. I did not walk with God on a daily basis. All this to give you just a small picture of my small faith at that point in my life. However, I will NEVER forget the day when God told me I would be adopting a baby. We were on a safari after spending some time in a small village with lots of children a few days earlier and I heard God say to me (not audibly-but in my heart) that I would be returning to Africa one day to adopt a baby. Looking back, I am so thankful that God forced his way through my rebellious, stubborn 18 year old self to reveal one of his plans for me. Years went by and many life seasons, and spiritual highs and lows came and went. However, one thing never changed and that was that I was destined for adoption, and knew that Jesus gave me a tiny piece of his heart when it came to caring for those in less than ideal circumstances.

Fast forward 5"ish" years and I was now a year into marriage, with a hubby that is one of the most kind and compassionate people I have ever met in my life. I casually mention adoption and he isn't so sure. I decided that if God wanted us to adopt a baby, he would place it on both of our hearts so I silenced my mouth for the next two years or so and prayed. Sure enough, with no prompting by me, Lance told me that he thought adoption was a good fit for our family and that he would love to begin praying about whether or not we should adopt first or have biological children. However, no real answer was heard. We decided that we should have biological babies first and then adopt later. After a couple years of no babies, one surgery, and 2 different doctors giving me a perfect bill of health we decided that our infertility was not "infertility" at all. Around that time I began having dreams and hearing verses in my mind that I did not even know existed. Odd I know but it really began happening to me. I would find myself singing a verse I had never even heard before in the shower and 9 times out of 10 it had something to do with adoption! After lots and lots of prayer, tears, questioning, and just an overall desire to live out God's will for our life, we decided adoption it is!!

It is crazy how God's word is filled with adoption. He adopted us when we did not deserve it. He loved us unconditionally when we were unlovable and he accepted us when we were unacceptable. Jesus sought out the lonely, broken and different and calls us to do the same. What God has been telling me over and over the past couple of weeks is that our time on earth is short. Really, really short. It is our job to do the best that we can and show as much love as we can for the short time that God has allowed us to be here. This is the most important thing in life. We are here to show the love of Christ to others and bring him glory and honor through our lives. This we need to focus on first and make our main job. The rest will fall into place. :)

So there is the story of how we came to adoption. This is much, much longer than I anticipated so I will post on "Why Ethiopia" tomorrow.

Here are today's prayer requests:

1. Please pray for our babies first months of development if she has been conceived and for the health of her mother. Please pray specifically that her parents (specifically her mother) are praying for her and somehow come to know Jesus is they don't yet. Many Ethiopian orphans are orphaned due to death of their parents. I want our child to be reunited with her biological family one day in heaven! :)

2. Please pray for our initial paperwork and application fees. We know God will not let something like money get in the way of adoption, but it is a looming cloud right now.

3. Please pray for Lance & I to stay organized and on top of things. We also just closed on our house and are spending lots of hours working on that!

4. Please pray that the Ethiopian courts stay open. They close for the months of Sept & Oct and no one ever knows what will happen with adoption when they re-open.

Ok that's all for now.

Thanks for checkin in......

News!!

We are so excited to announce that we are adopting a baby from Ethiopia!! This has been something we have been praying about for a couple years now and after God doing a big work on our hearts, we are doing it!!

We still desire to have biological children and believe that we will in God's time. But we feel confident that this is exactly where we are supposed to be right now!!

We have chosen to give this 100% over to God and we have faith that we will be provided for and protected throughout this process. The more we learn about the ins and outs of international adoption, the more we realize that this is going to be quite the journey and we aren't taking any of it lightly. We know challenges lay ahead! However, we are ready and can't wait to grow closer to God and grow stronger in our faith.

God has already started giving us wonderful signs that HE is with us in this. We know that God loves adoption and we feel so blessed that he is choosing to grow our family by blessing us with a little munchkin from afar!!

Please check my blog frequently, as I will be posting prayer request for our little one. It is an odd feeling having NO control whatsoever over this child but it leaves us with no option but to put this little life, and its prenatal development and safety completely in God's hands.

I will also be writing more later on why we are adopting, why it's Ethiopia and all that good stuff.

We are super excited to get going on this crazy journey! Keep checkin in......

RADICAL

I posted a few weeks ago about a book I read, Radical by David Platt. If you haven't read it, I strongly suggest that you go to the closest book store or hop onto amazon.com a get this book.

In a nutshell, this book talks about how our faith, the commands given to us in the bible, and just how our overall relationship with God gets very mixed up in our "American" culture. It talks about the very real and often unavoidable struggles between the things of our culture and how it affects our Christian walk and purpose here on earth. Don't worry, it's not one of those books that says all wealth is evil and that we need to sell everything we own. However, it has definitely helped me refocus on what is and what isn't important and how I should be using what I have been given for the betterment of the world and people around me. Not only because that's what we should probably do as Christians, but because it is in fact what we have been COMMANDED to do. Its crazy how easily I forget things of such high importance!

It's awesome, encouraging and a must read!!! It has really encouraged me to get into the word and really hear and do what it says!! Read it and tell me what you think! I would love to hear how other people receive this book!!

On another note, I just LOVE my fam!! The Girods are here this weekend (Betho was here all week chillin with my Mom while my dad was out of the country) and Cody got here yesterday. We had a GREAT day today! They came over this afternoon, we headed to Barnaby's (my FAV) for lunch and then came back over here and put little Maxieboo down for a nap in my room. We created the coziest little nap time environment for him, consisting of 3 fans, 4 comforters for his palate, and then 2 baby blankets to cuddle with. I mean he was living in luxury. However, he did not see it that way and after a mere 20 minutes of snoozing his cute little head popped up and he was wide awake for the rest of the afternoon. He is a little sick with his first cold (break my heart-depressing) so I think he was a bit out of sorts. But that's ok, he joined our party. We made a huge spread of hummis, cheese, grapes, turkey, chocolate and chocolate wine and all watched football! We thought chocolate wine was going to be the best thing ever and it was, in our opinion, almost un-drinakble. It was so weird and I can still taste it lingering in my mouth! Gross!!

I just love them. Can't wait until they can actually move here and we can do this kind of thing every weekend. Having a twin and then having her marry one of your husband's best friends is just the best thing ever!! Once we get our house (which is is 2 weeks!) I am going to get a pack and play and a rocking chair so Max can have slumber parties with Aunt KK & Uncle L!

Tomorrow we have church and then small group lunch/football watching. It should be a great day!! I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!