Last night on my Facebook page I posted the above picture as a little teaser to the news we want to share as a family. It was fun watching everyone’s comments fly in to a picture with no real context. So we want to share our joy with you today and invite you to begin to pray for our family as we begin making preparations to expand!

Here is a little Q&A

Are You Expecting? Yes! But Andrea is not pregnant. We are adopting a second boy from the nation of China. We started this process late in the spring or early summer and just received our “Log-In Date” or LID. This means we have officially been entered into the database in China as prospective adoptive parents.

Do You Know Which Boy You Will Adopt? No. We don’t. We wish we had a photo to show you, but we are working with our adoption agency for them to find a potential match for us. It worked real well with Malachi- and if it were left up to us, after looking through pictures you want to bring every kid home.

Are you crazy? Four kids? Two Adoptions? Yes we do, at times, think we are crazy. It is precisely this line of questioning that we know that this is something we feel strongly about. We felt called to adopt Malachi- a calling that was over a decade in the making. After adopting Malachi, we felt that God wasn’t finished writing our adoption story.

Wouldn’t it be cheaper/easier/more sensible to have your own kid? (In all fairness, only one person has ever asked us this question- but it still gets asked) There are no guarantees in life. We are not guaranteed the ability to conceive another child. But we know there are countless children domestically and internationally who need a family. Our decision to adopt again is rooted in our faith in Jesus Christ. James 1:27 says that “religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows…” When we read that verse, we have to ask ourselves “What is God asking me to do?” For us, it is to adopt. For you it might be to pray, to provide foster care, provide respite care, visit orphanages, or to financially sponsor someone who is adopting.

What’s Next? We wait, which is most of what the adoption process looks like. But the waiting is not a passive time. We will pray, prepare, and train for our new addition. We have money to save and to raise. We have plenty to do!

We have more to share in a post coming next week. We wanted to get the ball rolling with announcing the news and inviting you to be part of our team through prayer. Be on the lookout for other other post.

Thank you for your congratulations and prayers in advance. It’s going to be a fun journey!