Adopting for Life Conference

We were privileged to be interviewed on Southern Seminary's campus yesterday by Crossway, the publisher of Dr. Russell Moore's book Adopted for Life. I had forgotten that this weekend was also the Adopting for Life Conference on campus. We didn't go, but I hope to be able to catch up on some of the speakers here.

We had two conversations before our interview that really struck me. One was with a girl from Boyce College who checked us in. She was adopted from the Philippines when she was about 3 years old. And she shared with us that she had an identity crisis around age 9. Her parents took her back to the Philippines just before she graduated high school and she was able to meet her birth parents. She said she was saddened to see their great poverty, but she was even more moved by how lost they were without Jesus Christ as their Savior. She told us that she is so glad she went, because now she knows for certain that her identity is found in Christ and not in her bloodline. What a sweet testimony!!

We were also able to catch up with some new friends who just brought home a 2 year old boy from Ethiopia. We asked how he was doing, and they said he's having some trouble adjusting. He has bouts of terror that can last for hours, which is very unusual for such a calm, happy boy. It was good for me to hear, because I want to be realistic and sensitive in thinking about our kids' transition too. They are about to be taken from everything they know -- the people, the cribs, the smells, the routine. And there will naturally be some grief over all those losses.

The whole conversation brought to mind a part of Dr. Moore's book that has stuck with me. He describes the day when he and his wife took their one year old adopted sons from the orphanage they had been in for their whole lives up to that point: "We walked out into the sunlight, to the terror of the two boys. They'd never seen the sunlight, and they'd never felt the wind. They had never heard the sound of a car door slamming or felt like they were being carried along a road at 100 miles an hour. I noticed that they were shaking and reaching back to the orphanage in the distance. I whispered, 'That place is a pit! If only you knew what's waiting for you...' But all they knew was the orphanage. It was squalid, but they had no other reference point. It was home."

It's really interesting to think about how much we can relate. How often do we who have been brought into the light and life of Jesus tend to reach back toward the darkness and deceptiveness of sin? And how ridiculous is it when we do that?? Dr. Moore goes on to say, "We get too comfortable with this orphanage universe...We're content with the world we know...'I know you think this terrestrial orphanage is home,' our Father tell us, 'but it's a pit compared to home.'"

May we learn more and more, along with our sweet children, to treasure Christ above all things and to find our identity in Him.

And Her Pictures

And here's our sweet girl! She looks like a great sleeper, praise the Lord!

New Pictures

I am so thankful for how many pictures and videos we've had all along of our kids!! We just got new pictures taken today of baby boy and we're hoping for some of baby girl too. Look how he's growing!

Birth Certificates

We just got copies of the kids' new birth certificates.  In Ethiopia, children take their father's first name as their middle name.  So right now the legal names on their birth certificates have hubby's first name as their middle names and Philpot as their last name!  How fun!

They put the kids at two days apart from each other in age, and the doctor had said they were two weeks apart.  We have some time to decide on what we'll set as their birthdays, if we change it from what's on their birth certificates.  Once they've been home for 90 days we'll be able to change their legal names and birth dates if we'd like to.

For now, we're just glad to see Philpot as their last name (and hubby's name as their middle name is pretty cool too!).

Family Baby Shower

Our sweet family threw us a baby shower this past weekend. It was a great time with them, and we received so many wonderful gifts for our children!

Our nieces and nephew are excited to meet the babies!



With the fam...

Plane Tickets

We just bought our plane tickets.  To go to Ethiopia.  To pick up our children.

Crossway Interview

The one year anniversary of the publication of Dr. Russell Moore's book Adopted for Life is coming up this spring.  At the Adopting for Life Conference later this month, Crossway (the publisher of his book) will do a video interview of a number of adoptive families to hear their stories and catch a few of their reflections on what parts of the book made a particular impression on them.

We've been asked to be one of the families that participates!

We're excited and humbled to be included.  Once there are clips available on the web, we'll let you know!

Church Baby Shower

Friends at church threw us a baby shower last week. It was absolutely wonderful! They had a jungle/safari theme, and played a trivia game about Ethiopia with Ethiopian coffee beans as the prize. We had such a sweet time. Our children have no idea how loved they are by so many!

With the party planners:

Updated Weights

We just got an email that says our baby boy weighs a little under 12 pounds and our baby girl weighs about 11 pounds.  That means he may be about 14 pounds when we go get them, and she may be about 13 1/2 pounds.

They're so little and precious!!  And he outgrew her already, even though he's two weeks younger!  Daddio says "He's a stud."

Changes

Our apartment is starting to look more and more like babies will live here...

We had to watch a YouTube video to figure out the Baby Bjorn, but I think we finally got it.

He Owns the Cattle on a Thousand Hills

When we first began this process, we had very little saved toward the total it would cost us to adopt our son and daughter.  In fact, we didn't realize then how much it would cost (and that was probably a good thing!).  But it's been truly amazing to see God's faithfulness to provide every penny we've needed all along the way.  In just five months, He has given us everything we've needed to pay the adoption fees, and we always had the money by the time it was due.  "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26).  Much of the Lord's provision in our lives has come from generous friends and family, and a large portion was from two grants we received.

So if money is holding you back from making the decision to adopt, don't let it.  If God means to add to your family through adoption, He will provide the way for you to do it!

Thank you!

We're so humbled and thrilled that the Lord has provided through your generosity to meet the entire $4000 matching grant from Lifesong and Louisville Orphan Care Initiative! In fact, you gave more than the amount we needed to be matched!! We can't possibly thank you enough. We're truly amazed at our great God, and at His expressions of kindness through you. In some ways we feel like these babies are yours too.

2 Corinthians 9:12 - For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God.

And we're excited to announce that God has given us ANOTHER grant as well! Show Hope contacted us to let us know that they approved us for a $4000 grant. Show Hope is an awesome ministry started by Steven Curtis Chapman and his family, who have adopted three girls from China.

When we heard the news about their grant, I fell on the floor and hubby said "God really wants us to adopt these children."

For a Snowy Day

We enjoyed looking through our most recent pictures again last night, and thought we'd share another one of our sweet girl and our muscle man.

Why Adopt?

Here's a repost from some friends of ours. We're adopting...

Because God cares for orphans, and one of the ways in which He exercises this care is through His church.

Psalm 68:5 says that God is “Father of the fatherless and protector of widows.” Christians, who are being transformed into the image of Christ live out His heart when they care for orphans. “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction” (James 1:27). As God cares for the fatherless, so we as His children care for them too. Our concern for the orphans is a tangible manifestation of God’s love that has been poured out into our hearts.

Because we have been adopted by God.

Jesus left heaven, lived a very humiliating life, ultimately dying for sinners so He could bring people into the family of God and call them His children. Christians from every tribe, tongue and nation, have been pursued by God and adopted into His family. In the same way we want to pursue those from another nation, not our own, and bring them into our family. We desire our family to be a little picture of this great Gospel.

So that these children will have the opportunity to hear of Christ.

“And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Believing in Christ is the only way to receive salvation and how will these children hear of Christ unless someone preaches to them? We, put very simply, want to adopt children, so that we can tell to them about salvation in Christ.

Because we have been given so much.

We want to give because we have been given the wealth of America, loving Christian families and most importantly spiritual truth. It is only by grace that we were born into such material and spiritual wealth, and we want to extend that grace to children who were born into poverty and little if any access to the truths of Scripture. We recognize that we are no better than those (now our kids) who were left on the streets without anyone to care for them. We have been blessed to be a blessing.

Adoption Movement

Two friends of ours started the adoption process within the last couple of weeks, and several others have asked questions as they think about it!  May many be motivated by our story to provide a family for orphans!!!

The Gospel

A friend emailed saying that he was looking at pictures of our children taken around their February 1 court date, and he was thinking about how they don't even know yet what has happened to them.  Monday was just like Sunday for them.  For all they know, they're still two friends who happen to be laying next to each other on a blanket.  They know nothing yet of our great love for them, all the efforts we've taken to make them ours, their new names...but they will spend the rest of their lives learning about and understanding what just happened to them!

We love how the gospel of our salvation through Christ is everywhere in this.  We were orphans, desolate and needy.  We could do nothing about our own plight.  But God took the initiative to make us His children.  And He paid an infinite cost to do it!  He sent His own Son, Jesus Christ to pay the penalty for our sins, so that in Him we can be reconciled to God.  Those who believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins, who trust in Him as their Lord and Savior, are brought into God's family.  God is now our Father.  He has taken us out of the land we once knew, given us a new identity in Christ and a new family in His church.

Praise the Lord that we and our children can be a picture of the great work that God has done in our lives!  As John Piper would say, adoption is magnificent because it reflects a magnificent thing.  It gains its magnificence from what it was modeled on and what it's pointing toward.

New Pictures!

We've been thrilled at how many pictures we've been able to see of our sweet children. Yesterday we were emailed a bunch of new pictures that were just taken last week. Daddy says our baby girl has kind eyes and our baby boy seems to be thoughtful and focused. They both look like calm babies. We can hardly believe God's goodness in giving them to us!

Incredible...

http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/02/03/adopted-for-life-and-death/

More Pictures

We couldn't post pictures until after our children passed court...so here are a few more we've received over the past two months since we first saw their precious faces.

Baby boy at just a few days old

Baby girl at just a few days old...they seem like good sleepers!

A big yawn from our little man

First check-up at the doctor

Brother and sister!

We passed court!

We just found out that both of our children's Ethiopian court cases passed!!  This means that the Ethiopian government has declared us their parents!  We are so thankful to our great God.  We've been absolutely humbled and amazed by His kindness and generosity to us!  A few days ago I read Psalm 9:12, “He does not forget the cry of the afflicted,” and couldn’t help but praise the Lord for hearing the cries of our baby boy and girl.

The soonest date we could be given to go pick them up would be just before March 11.  Our son will be 3 1/2 months old and our daughter will be 4 months old by then.  We're so excited to meet them and for our friends and family to meet them too!  We can't thank you enough for praying for us and our children.

We can freely share their pictures now, so here are some of our favorites for you to enjoy.  Please welcome the newest members of the Philpot family!