Working on a Party of 5! The journey begins!

Where it all began:

Ryan and I are so thankful for the path the Lord has taken us on.  From the moment we met, I think we both had the thought, "This is it!"  It was pretty immediate after our first date that the Lord had provided the spouse that we had been longing for.  Shortly after we were married we knew it was time to find a church we could join and serve.  The Lord led us to Living Hope.  Through that we joined a small group.  We do life with these friends.  They are like family to us.  Most of us in the group have been together for over 4 years now.  We've celebrated Zoey's birth with them, we mourned through 2 miscarriages with them, and rejoiced when the Lord blessed us with Evie Jo.  In between the birth of our girls, our dear friends began the adoption process of their sweet boy from Africa.  We've also had a cousin join Ryan's side of the family from Korea.  Our church has also began an Orphancare ministry.  Throughout all of these events, the Lord convicted our hearts to care for the fatherless.  Now in the beginning is wasn't through adoption and not necessarily financially either.  Most of you know that also during this time, I stopped teaching to stay at home full time.  We prayed for both of these families.  We tried to support our friends in our small group through as many fundraisers as possible.  We were on a very tight budget, but we knew it was what the Lord convicted us to do.  Now, however, he has stirred our hearts to something more, to begin the adoption process ourselves.

I hope you will continue reading the next few posts as I share mine and Ryan's heartfelt desire to bring a child home into a forever family.  Thanks for reading friends!