Prince of Peace

Merry Christmas Family & Friends!!

We wanted to share a little more of our adoption journey with you this Christmas and how the long wait has impacted us.

Our church has been doing a four week series called Wish List focused on the question: What if God has a wish list for us this Christmas? Each week has looked at one of the titles the coming Savior is given in Isaiah 9:6: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, & Prince of Peace and asked what would it look like to receive that gift this Christmas.

To go with each message, our church has captured the story of a member of our community that focuses on the theme each week. Andrea and I were asked to share our journey of choosing peace while we have been waiting for our son. Here is a link to the video of our story: https://db.tt/HYfKXYdB

You can hear our pastor's entire message on the Prince of Peace here: http://www.wearemission.com/watch/

We are grateful for your support and encouragement as we have journeyed towards our son! You have helped us to release our anxieties and find peace in this process. We hope and pray that this year you too may find peace no matter what challenges you may be facing.

Merry Christmas!

Mark & Andrea

Merry Christmas to us!!

Dearest Family & Friends-

We are SO EXCITED to share with you that we have our first official travel date.

That means that in a short time we will get to meet, hug and hold our son for the very first time! We cannot begin to describe our excitement and joy for this!! We are so grateful for your support and encouragement over the last 3 years as we have journeyed through this adoption process.

Between now and when we come home as a united family, we will make a few trips.

We cannot begin to express our enthusiasm to be at this point. While the road ahead is still many months long and there are definitely still uncertainties, we are so grateful to have a timeline before us as to when we will have our son home with us in our family.

Your love, support, encouragement and prayers have meant so much to us and carried us along on this journey. Thank you!!

We pray that this Christmas your life, just like ours, may be filled with the hope of the coming Son!

Mark, Andrea & Evan

God is answering our prayers!

Today we have received some great news!!!  

We have specifically asked you (our friends and family) to be in prayer with us for our son's continued growth and development.  He was extremely malnourished when he came into care at the orphanage last year and also not even scoring on the growth charts when we were matched in April.  

Well, today we received his correct and current measurements of height, weight and head size.  We are excited to share that he is now on the growth charts in the 40th percentile range.  This is truly an answer to our prayers!  Thank you to all of you that have been lifting him up in prayer!   
The last 6 months our son has been living with a foster family.  Mark and I are so grateful that he is in a foster family being loved on and cared for.  This foster family has been standing in the gap for us, giving him what he needs to grow and develop.

It is in these things (growth, development and foster foster family) we are so grateful for and find joy in as we continue to wait.

Thank you for your continued support and prayers!

Mother of prayer.

I am a mother of two boys.  My oldest is a people person, snuggly, silly, kind hearted, independent, he loves cars & army guys, he enjoys playing games, and play with his friends.  He is an amazing five year old little boy. 

My youngest son I have never met.  He currently lives on the other side of the world in Africa.  I know his name and I have a two month old picture of him.  I know a few details of his story, but mostly I only know the challenges he has had to overcome in his two years of life.  Challenges I wish no child had to experience!

I long to know him!  I long to immerse him with my love!  I long to have him in my presence to protect him, fight for him, and get him whatever he needs to grow strong and healthy!  But in this moment, I can’t.  I desire to be in control of this adoption process, to go get him now and bring him home, but that is not how it works.  I am not in control!  I must wait!

I have learned to shift my focus to prayer.  Trusting he is in the safe care of our agency partners, but most importantly trusting to my core, he is in the care of God.  I work to sit in a place of contentment.  Contentment and peace trusting in God – believing that my son is being taken care of, protected and loved by the foster family he is with.  That God is taking care of his needs to continue to grow and develop.  

Contentment in prayer is where I sit! Prayer is my connection to God, my connection to my son.  Through prayer I am connected to him.  I am able to protect him.  I am able to take care of him.

I am learning prayer is one of the most important thing a mother can do for her child. This realization causes me to ask the question, why don’t I pray more for my children?

This Mother’s Day I am challenged to control less and pray more.

Dear Family, Friends & Supporters-

WE HAVE BEEN MATCHED WITH OUR SON!!! After month after month of waiting we have the privilege of knowing who our Ugandan son is.  

Currently our son is staying with a foster family so that he can have focused attention and care to help him grow and develop. 

We still have quite the path ahead of us until we can bring him home to our family. Due to legal protections for children, the government processes, and courts it will most likely be 12 to 14 months until we come home as a family.

We will take 2 trips to Uganda. The first trip will be in 7 to 10 months and last for about 10 days. The second trip will be 4 to 10 weeks later and will will last 2 to 3 weeks. Evan will join us on this trip, on this trip we will get everything we need to travel back home as a family!

We cannot express our gratitude enough to each of you that have supported us through your encouragement, prayers, and generous donations. It would not be possible for us to bring our son into our family without you!!

[IMPORTANT NOTE]: Until we bring our son home we are not allowed to post his name or picture on the Internet. 

We are so grateful to be on this journey with all of you!

Love,

Mark, Andrea & Evan

Adoption Timeline

I posted our Adoption Timeline in the right column of our blog.  Check it out!

Waiting

Hello friends and family.  

We will soon pass the 6 month mark for our family being on the waiting list to be matched with our child.  We are grateful to have moved towards the top of this list, although there is a very good chance we will wait another 3+ months to be matched.  

Many people have asked, "Once you are matched do you travel right away to bring your child home?"  The answer is no.  We fill out and file more paperwork and then we wait for a court date in Uganda (this may take 6+ months).  Once we have our court date, we will travel to Uganda for our first trip followed by a second and final trip 4 to 10 weeks later. 

When we started our process to adopt I had the mindset that, "God has called us to adopt so it will be quick and easy."  Ha! I laugh at myself now, this process has been anything but!  I have learned firsthand that when God calls us to risk & follow Him, He does not promise it to be quick or easy. Instead He does promise to walk with us on the journey through the lows and highs--through the hard moments when we feel like we are waiting indefinitely and through the moments of excitement when we have reached the next step.  

Many days it is very hard to wait to the point of our hearts aching, but we try to focus on the things we are grateful for. We are so grateful for all of you to walk our journey of adoption with.  We truly cannot express how much your love and support (both financial and emotional) have meant to us so far on this journey. We find encouragement knowing that so many people are rooting for us along the way. 

Thank you all for waiting with us!  

Grateful!

Andrea, Mark & Evan