Courageous

I had planned on seeing the movie Courageous with my wife but life happened and we never made it to the movie. Instead we decided to read the book rather than wait for the movie to be released on DVD. Honestly, I usually enjoy the book more than movie anyway (I won't be able to judge this book until it is released on DVD). This book was an eye opener. Every family would benefit from reading it. There were so many parts that had me close to or in tears. I know that I want to be the kind of husband and father that won't let go of that wheel. In order to do that I know I need to make God a higher priority in my life and my family's. Since reading this we have gone back to eating at the kitchen table instead of in front of the TV. We are also doing daily family devotions and spending more time together. I know that these are small steps but we are moving in the right direction. I would like to see our church do the bible study that goes along with this movie but until we can start that I plan on going through the questions in the back of the book and hopefully blog about each one. I truly feel that a lot of the problems in the world today could be fixed by men stepping up and being what God intended us to be!!

Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us the ultimate instruction guide the Bible. In it is all we need to know in order to be the men you want us to be. Please help me to spend more time in your word and to be the husband and father that you want me to be. I know I can't do this on my own so please walk with me and guide me. Amen.

IT HAPPEND!!!!!!!!!

We were chosen by an expecting birth mother last Tuesday. I know I said I would try and post quickly with this one but I decided to wait until we had let everyone know in person or with a phone call if we could. we did not even post to Facebook until Friday. The baby is due June 15th and no we do not know the sex of the baby. Both birth parents and we decided to wait until baby is born to find out!!!

Getting excited!!!!!

This is a quick update on our adoption process. This week a friend of ours "Jody" met with an acquaintance of hers "Linda". Linda asked Jody if she would be interested in adopting their soon to be born child. Jody said she and her husband were not interested but she knew of a family waiting to be chosen, US!!!!
I will give a little back story on Linda and her boy friend "Matt" and where they are at with the whole process. Linda is 40 years old (I do not know the age Matt). She and Matt do not want to start a family at this stage of their lives. The baby is due mid June and they do not know the sex of the baby. So they are pursuing adoption. They had a couple bad experiences with agencies so they were leery of using one but we really wanted to continue with Bethany. It turns out they had never heard of Bethany and were willing to give it a try. Jody met with Linda over lunch and told her all about us. She said Linda was very interested in choosing us as the parents of their child. My wife called Bethany and by that afternoon there was a date set to meet with Linda and mark over lunch so they could meet us. That meeting is this coming Tuesday the 10th of May!!!!!! My wife and I are getting super excited. It will be hard to think about anything else. Thankfully we have a pretty busy weekend planned. Hopefully I will have good news on Tuesday and maybe that will get posted quickly.

Not This Time

We just heard from our social worker that we were not chosen this time around. It was a hard thing to hear. we are working through the disappointment. The biggest thing we need to work through is the question "why weren't we good enough?". We know that there are a lot of wonderful families out there waiting for a child and it has to be a very hard decision for the birth mother to make. We need to remember that this will all happen for us in God's time. I know He is using this process to work in our loves. Right now He is teaching us patience and to rely on Him and Him alone to get us through this.

"but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint."

—Isaiah 40:31

"Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer."

—Romans 12:12

"I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry." —Psalm 40:1

Please keep us in your prayers as we work through hearing this news.

Adoption Update!

We will be having our profile shown to a birth mother this Friday the 18th of March. We have known since last Tuesday that it would be shown. It was a tough decision to have it shown since the birth mother wants to name the baby. That is something we were hoping to be able to do. It is easier for me to let go of this than it is for my wife. I know she is still struggling with this decision. But she is strong and will come to terms with it. Right now we are struggling with not getting our hopes up. We know so much info on this baby that it is hard not to start planning for the chance that we might be chosen. Please keep us and the birth mother in your prayers. We know that God has a plan for this child, we just hope that it will be to come home with us!!

Recreation

So I have been trying to figure out what I want to do for recreation. I have dabbled in so many things that I recently decided to try to pick just a couple that I can really focus on. Playing XBOX will always be something I enjoy. I tried to give it up once and got sucked back in. I have recently decided to try to get back into backpacking. My wife thinks this is a great idea and may even do a little backpacking with me. I did a little packing when I was younger so I know what I am getting into. I don't know if I will ever be more than a weekend warrior but I need to start somewhere. I have been doing a lot of research on equipment and I believe I have picked out what I want as far as the essentials go and I hope to start purchasing them at the end of March. My goal is to have my first trip planned for some time in the end of April or beginning May. This year I will probably stick to the Black Hills and Badlands but may venture over into northern Minnesota. I plan on blogging about my trips and hope to have pictures to go along with the posts.

Worst Blogger Ever.

I just realized how long it has been since the last time I blogged. I have to be the worst blogger ever. There is not a whole lot new on the home front. We are in the waiting stage of our adoption so there is not any news there other than we are starting to get the nursery ready for the new little one when he or she comes. We hope every one has a wonderful new year. My wife and I are expecting this one to be a great one!!!

Adoption Update!!

Our homestudy is done!!! Our profile is online with Bethany!!! Now we wait on God's timing. We will need prayers for patience, but we are so excited to be entering this stage of the adoption. We feel we can begin readying our home for a baby. We want to thank all of you for your support and prayers so far and we know we are truly blessed to have friends and family like you. I will try and keep you all updated more as the wait goes on.

Some People

My wife and I recently had our e-mail hacked. This person also hacked into my facebook account. They sent a email to everyone in our contact list stating that my wife was in Europe had had been mugged and all her money stolen. They then proceeded to erase our contact list and any emails in our inbox were forwarded to another account. This was a complete nightmare to try and clean up. We needed to create a new email and then let everyone know what it was. We then had to go into every account that we used that email for and change passwords and logins. It was also a hassle to get back into my facebook account. I makes me angry and sad that there are people out there that feel they need to do this to others. I don't know if they were just trying to get money out of our friends and relatives or if they just needed to feel validated by hurting someone else. I will be praying for the individual that did this in hopes that he/she will realize that there is a Savior that loves them and that they don't need to do this stuff! Needless to say it makes us very paranoid now about our accounts. I am constantly checking to see if our new one has been compromised. Some people!!! The one thing we got out of this is that we realize how many of our family and friends really do care about us. It is good to know that if we really are ever in trouble that we have them to help us out. We love you all!!!

It's Been Awhile

Can't believe it has been almost a month since I posted last. Here is a quick update on where we are at with our adoption process. All our paper work is turned in and we have finished 3 of our Homestudy interviews. We will have our last interview this Thursday at 12:30PM. Our social worker will be coming to our house for this one. The Homestudy thing was pretty intimidating at first but has been pretty painless so far. I will have a more detailed post after this Thursday.

Quick Update

We just sent in our self study questions!! It is a huge relief to have those sent. Now we don't have to hound each other to get our questions done. We are supper excited to have this stage of the adoption process done!! Now we wait to hear from Bethany on when we will start our home study. This is one of those high points on the roller coaster ride. :)

Our Family Choices

In May, my wife and I decided to take the adoption route for starting our family. This decision was not made easily and I will give you a little bit of back history so you understand where we are at.

At the time of this decision, we had been married 9 years. For the first few years we had the attitude that if we got pregnant, we got pregnant. We have never used any kind of protection whether that was condoms or the pill. About 3 years ago we decided to really start trying to have kids. Nothing happened. My wife, bless her type A personality, started researching what we needed to do to help the process. She was taking her temperature daily, on pre-natal vitamins and so on. After a year or so of this we decided we needed to talk to a doctor. There was blood tests, semen tests, surgery for my wife and all kinds of medication for her. Through this whole process we were watching our friends and family starting there families and seeming not to struggle at all. Now don't get me wrong, we love our friends and family and are extremely happy for them. We have 8 wonderful nephews and a beautiful niece not to mention our friends' kids who call us auntie and uncle. It is just really hard when we want children so bad and can't seem to make any head way.

That is our story to this point. We were super excited when we made the decision to adopt. We felt we could finally start moving forward. It has been, as a close friend that has recently gone through this process said, a roller coaster ride of emotions. We are excited to start a family; scared to start a family ( I know everyone goes through this) and stressed about the lack of control we have through the whole process. We have wonderful families who are very supportive and an awesome church family that has been behind us through this whole process. Without their support we would not be able to handle this. And we know God has a plan for us and that this will are work out the way HE wants and has planned. We just need to learn to let go and wait on Him. That is probably the hardest part for both of us.

We are going through Bethany Christian Services for our adoption. They have been awesome to work with and we can tell they really care about the families and kids they are working with. We have finished most of our paperwork and they have received both backgrounds checks and everything is okay. All we have left before we can start the home study is the 60+ self study questions. We have set a deadline of Thursday the 26th of August to have these done, it looks like we will make that deadline. As of this post I only have 11 questions left!! WhooHoo!!

I am just so glad that I have my loving wife (she is also my best friend) to go through this process with. She has been absolutely wonderful and patient with me.

That is where we are at now and I hope to keep the updates coming regularly. Please pray for patience and strength for us as we make this journey.

Starting Over

Hello All,
 This is my second blog. My first was erased do to my ignorance in deleting a google account that had been compromised. I hope that I will be more attentive in blogging from here on out. In this blog will be my musings on life and faith. I will hopefully blog about things like my faith journey and our adoption process. I don't have a lot to say at the moment. I just wanted to say hi!!