Our Great God

Yesterday we met with Sue, the director of our adoption agency, and God truly answered our prayers.  It went better than we could have hoped.  The Lord continues to pave the way before us!

Sue was friendly, and we had a comfortable, chatty, profitable visit.  She travels to Ethiopia December 1-13, then again shortly after that.  We hope this visit will really increase our chances of a referral in the next few weeks.   Praise the Lord for a timely trip to see family so that we'd be able to meet with our adoption agency too.  His kindness continues to amaze us.

First Ethiopian Christian

May our children have the same response to the truth of the gospel as this man from Ethiopia did in Acts 8:

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this:

“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter
and like a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he opens not his mouth.
In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.”

And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus. And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?” And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.

God's Timing is Best

We called the director of our adoption agency yesterday and found out that they've moved us from the top of the referral list down to number 5-7.  That's sad news to us.  Of course, they make the list and they can move people around at their discretion.  She also told us that every couple on the list above us each wants two children.  But she did say that they all apparently want one boy and one girl.  We emphasized multiple times that we would be completely happy with two boys, and she seemed to say that could move things along more quickly for us.  We're hoping to get together with the director soon to meet her face to face.  The great news is that she's planning to go to Ethiopia right after Thanksgiving.  She said she usually gets referrals when she goes, and we're really praying that a visit and talk with us next week would equal a referral after her trip to Ethiopia.

Bake Sale

We love our church family. The support and encouragement our friends have given us so far in the adoption process has been a true blessing from the Lord. They've been faithful to pray for us, experienced moms have given valuable parenting advice, and many families have donated generously to help bring our babies home. Dear ones, your excitement about our family plans and the picture that adoption is of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ has been so uplifting to us!

Three sweet friends organized a bake sale for us that was held this morning during our weekly church lunch, and it was a great success. We were amazed at how many people prepared thoughtfully and beautifully made items, then bought others' goodies with a generous donation. Here are some pictures of the love and generosity of our brothers and sisters in Christ:

The hard working event planners:

Some of the yummy goodies for sale:

A few of our generous customers:

We're reminded of I Thessalonians 1:2-3, which says "We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ."

Orphan Sunday

This Sunday, November 8 is Orphan Sunday. You can find details about it at orphansunday.org. What a great call to the church to "defend the cause of the fatherless" (Isaiah 1:17)!

You can watch the Nashville Orphan Sunday event live online and check out some of the videos on the Orphan Sunday resource page. I was especially moved by Just How Big is 143,000,000.

The Piper Adoption Story

John Piper is one of my favorite pastors (Mr. Philpot is my very favorite, of course). I listen to his sermons a lot, so I've known for a while that John and Noel Piper have a daughter that is quite a bit younger than their sons. But it was only a short time ago that I realized their daughter Talitha was adopted.  And it was only a few weeks ago that someone told me her biological parents were African-American.

A dear friend sent me an email today with a link to Noel Piper's blog, where she shares their adoption story (you can find it here).  May you be blessed and encouraged as I was!

Book Giveaway

Adoption 3:16 is giving away the booklet Helping Your Adopted Child by Paul Tripp. Just follow this link and leave a comment on the post saying you'd like to be entered in the drawing (which takes place Nov 6 - sorry for the late notice!).

Keep your eye on their site because they'll be doing more giveaways in November in honor of National Adoption Awareness month.