I have a Secret

"I have a secret." I said to my friend.
"What?"
"I want to adopt!"
"Jill! That's not a secret!"

So I guess I don't have a secret! :) From the time I was little, watching Little Orphan Annie and adopting Cabbage Patch Kids, to when I was old enough to babysit and work in preschools and getting my degree in Early Childhood Education... I've always loved kids. Especially kids who need extra love. Then Kevin and I had baby Joshua who was so sick and we were told to abort him. Love that son of ours. We had him with us for two months and have never regretted it. Along the way, we've had four more of our own, we've checked into adopting a little girl with a cleft lip/palate in Kazakhstan whose picture we saw online, and we've filled also out a form for Holt International wondering where that might lead...? Nothing came of it. But we did end up heading into missions and here we are in Armenia. Is it possible that we were lead here "for such a time as this"? I'm not sure, but we are open to the possibilities and checking into things here. We found an agency in Carolina that works with Armenian adoptions and got tons of papers from them this week! Super exciting and faith building! As another friend put it, it's like stepping out of the boat!

Ruth asked me to read that Bible study for devotions today. (Each week, each of the kids gets one day to pick the family devotions...) Peter walks on water because he dares to trust Jesus! Crazy! I also heard the story of the miracle of the 5,000 fish today, too... Andrew saw the possibilities of what Jesus could do when he saw the five loaves and two fish!

The kids were all on our bed the other morning (imagine the scene from Cheaper by the dozen...) and we were talking about the possibility of adopting. Elijah says we should adopt 100 babies and give 100 kisses! Ruth says she wants to adopt somebody in a wheelchair! Hannie says when she grows up she wants to adopt... And Benjamin, our almost 11 year old, says something like... isn't it expensive? Heh. So we got into a good discussion about how God provides and if He directs us to do something according to His plan, He can provide above and beyond. We'll have to pray and trust Him. Yeah, they know He provides but this is big (feeding 5,000 or walking on water big!).

Then we went out to have breakfast and devotions. We read stories of Elijah and Elisha (guess who's day it was to pick the devotions...). We read three days worth since they were each short stories. So we got three "Thoughts for the Day":
-Blessings come from God.
-God's ways are not our ways.
-God provides for us as we show faith.
Awesome. I love it when He speaks and we hear!

Psalm 68 talks about how God sets the lonely in families... so our prayer has been that He would do just that! That He would bless our family as He sees fit and prepare us for it!

Now you know my not-so-secret secret! :)