Out of the gate!!

So here goes... Have never tried one of these before. If you know me well you know that I'm really not that much of a talker, so you'd have to wonder why I'm starting a family blog. Well, I promise you it isn't so we can be a family of narcissists - we're certainly not any more interesting than the folks next door. But if you're interested in peeking behind our doors, here's your chance.

So, what are we doing? The coming week is going to be really exciting for us. We moved back from Los Angeles in July 2008. At the time we decided to move in with Steph's parents until we decided where to live. They've graciously put up with us for a whole year now - it was only supposed to be three months initially. God's timing was a little longer than ours though. We started thinking about building a new home back in December, and after a month or so we decided on a neighborhood. It's taken about 6 months for the whole process from start to finish, but we're finally coming to a close. This coming Wednesday we sign a pound of papers, and we'll be homeowners once again! As the closing date has gotten closer we've gotten more and more excited. For the first time in her life Ireland will have her own room! It's going to be so fun to slowly turn the 4 walls into a home.

But we've got even bigger plans in mind, which is partly why I've started this whole blog. Since we moved back to Indy God has been working on all of us individually - me, Steph, Keelan, and Camden - to adopt internationally. Wait - more kids? We have three wonderful biological children already, so why do we want more? The first thing that comes to mind is that we are so thankful for God's blessings. Three beautiful kids, a good job, our own house... God has been so good to us. There are so many sweet kids that don't have the same opportunities that we Americans have. It's been astounding to learn how poverty-stricken some nations are, and it's been equally heart-breaking to learn how many children are orphaned in those nations. Some of them are orphans in the sense that we traditionally think of - their parents have died and they don't have caregivers anymore. But in many countries it's common for families to reach a critical mass where the parents simply can't provide for all their children. Those parents then have to make one of the hardest choices imaginable - they have to give up one (or more) of their own children for someone else to raise. God has given us a really strong desire in the past few months to reach out to those children, and share God's blessings with them.

More importantly though, adoption is an incredible picture of what God did for us. We were stumbling along by ourselves in a hopeless situation, facing a bleak future that we were powerless to improve. But God loved us so much that He came looking for us, chose us, and gave us familial rights that we could never earn. Those us of who have trusted in Christ's redemptive work on the cross and have submitted to His leadership in our lives are now part of God's family! Nothing we did on our own gave us those privileges.

So that's where we are now. We're really just starting out on this amazing journey. At this point we haven't even finalized what country we want to consider. Right now we're looking at either Ethiopia or Ghana. Part of that decision process includes talking to a bunch of adoption agencies. Once we decide on a country and select an agency to guide us through the whole process, we'll be able to hit the ground running!

We want all of you to join us on this amazing journey. Stay in touch!