Saturday, November 26, 2011
Thanksgiving!
For a few hours on Thanksgiving day we were able to visit with Guerlens! He is an incredibly sweet and happy little guy:) He let us all hold him for a little bit but is very attached to Mallery of course;) He loved the girls and the play phone they brought for him, loving to put it in his mouth, like everything else:)
He is just a joy and we loved being with him. Today he will be coming over to our house to visit with Mallery and Frentz! We'll put up more pics soon of our visit. Kev got a lot of good ones of all of us that are on his camera and he still needs to get those to me...can't wait to share them!
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Tomorrow
Guerlens will be flying to MI tomorrow with Mallery and Frentz and Thursday morning we will see them all! Can't wait to get to know this sweet boy!
Monday, November 21, 2011
VISA!!!
This morning Guerlens was granted a visa to travel to the states for his surgery! This is indeed an incredible miracle and the tight timeline is even more a miracle! The travel papers are now needed and they plan to fly on Wednesday, so getting those papers in time will take another miracle. Our God is able!!!
If all times out well, we'll be spending part of our Thanksgiving with one of our sons!! We cannot wait!
If all times out well, we'll be spending part of our Thanksgiving with one of our sons!! We cannot wait!
Friday, November 18, 2011
Thank God for Skype!
Tonight we were able to skype with the boys! It was so wonderful to hear their sweet voices and to hear Caleb answer questions and sing Happy Birthday:) Guerlens was a busy little guy and so sweet sucking his thumb. Kevin brought up his guitar and played for the boys..Calebs eyes just lit up and we sang Jesus Loves Me. I just wanted to reach out and pick them both up! It was such an amazing gift! We are so thankful! Can't wait to meet them face to face!
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
The Story
So for those few who still follow this blog, there is now something more to read:)
In the post I wrote on Jivenson's birthday, I was wondering what God was up to in the places we couldn't see. Come to found out, He was up to something and now we see in part what that was.
To start at the beginning, Mallery from HFAP had posted a blog in the beginning of October and in it shared the names of some of the children who were available for adoption at Hope House. Two of them are brothers and I just started praying for an adoptive family for them, I even wrote something in my journal about them. Later we found out that the youngest one had some health issues, which we had found out about briefly when we were in Haiti in June, but no one knew quite what was going on with him. They suspected hydrocephalus, which in Haiti can be a death sentence. He had a CT scan done that ruled that out, thank God. But results showed that he has Saggital Craniosynostosis, which is the premature fusion of the sutures of the bones of the skull. It can create lots of complications. To make a long story short, a wonderful foundation created by Jorge Posada, a NY Yankee player, will be paying for his surgery and trip to the States! As soon as I found out that he was coming to the States I immediately asked Mallery if he needed a host family. The commitment could be 9 months to a year and Kevin and I both felt strongly about doing it, not even thinking twice. We have been thinking about moving closer to Kevin's work, near Chicago, but felt such a peace about delaying that move so we could provide a temporary home for this child and prepare him for his adoptive family. Mallery was hoping a family would come forward for him and I continued to pray that someone would, I was just waiting for that to happen, not thinking that it would be us!
We exchanged a couple emails about hosting and we just kept waiting to see what would happen with getting his visa to come to the states for his surgery. Kevin and I were hanging out on a Saturday evening and it was like a light went off in my head, why don't we just commit to this sweet boy for forever!? I felt like saying, "Duh?! Why didn't we think of it before?" We had a very brief conversation and Kevin pushed back on my idea a little and I felt discouraged. The next morning i went for my long run and the entire time I was in conversation with God about this child and Kev's push back. I cried and just asked God to help me let this go if this isn't what he had for us, if this was just all in my head or some emotional response. I was very quiet all morning, in constant prayer that God would help me release this because it was so hard. Kevin and I finally talked early afternoon and while we were talking and sharing about this whole thing, it was like something shifted in us both. We came to this place, really unexpectedly, where we felt God was showing us that we could say Yes to moving and going forward with our plans we had been thinking about for months now or...we could say Yes to Guerlens. We looked at each other and in a second our eyes filled with tears. We didn't even need to say it out loud, we both knew , without a doubt, that we wanted to say yes to this child. So we did.
We called Mallery and asked if he still needed a family, and she said yes and we told her we wanted to be that family. After we made this decision, we had confirmation after confirmation. It was just amazing!
We knew he had an older brother but felt such a sense of urgency for Guerlens, that we thought we'd get his adoption going first but very quickly realized that we needed and wanted to adopt them together!
We are thrilled that God is allowing us to be a part of this story and to be the parents to these amazing boys!
In the post I wrote on Jivenson's birthday, I was wondering what God was up to in the places we couldn't see. Come to found out, He was up to something and now we see in part what that was.
To start at the beginning, Mallery from HFAP had posted a blog in the beginning of October and in it shared the names of some of the children who were available for adoption at Hope House. Two of them are brothers and I just started praying for an adoptive family for them, I even wrote something in my journal about them. Later we found out that the youngest one had some health issues, which we had found out about briefly when we were in Haiti in June, but no one knew quite what was going on with him. They suspected hydrocephalus, which in Haiti can be a death sentence. He had a CT scan done that ruled that out, thank God. But results showed that he has Saggital Craniosynostosis, which is the premature fusion of the sutures of the bones of the skull. It can create lots of complications. To make a long story short, a wonderful foundation created by Jorge Posada, a NY Yankee player, will be paying for his surgery and trip to the States! As soon as I found out that he was coming to the States I immediately asked Mallery if he needed a host family. The commitment could be 9 months to a year and Kevin and I both felt strongly about doing it, not even thinking twice. We have been thinking about moving closer to Kevin's work, near Chicago, but felt such a peace about delaying that move so we could provide a temporary home for this child and prepare him for his adoptive family. Mallery was hoping a family would come forward for him and I continued to pray that someone would, I was just waiting for that to happen, not thinking that it would be us!
We exchanged a couple emails about hosting and we just kept waiting to see what would happen with getting his visa to come to the states for his surgery. Kevin and I were hanging out on a Saturday evening and it was like a light went off in my head, why don't we just commit to this sweet boy for forever!? I felt like saying, "Duh?! Why didn't we think of it before?" We had a very brief conversation and Kevin pushed back on my idea a little and I felt discouraged. The next morning i went for my long run and the entire time I was in conversation with God about this child and Kev's push back. I cried and just asked God to help me let this go if this isn't what he had for us, if this was just all in my head or some emotional response. I was very quiet all morning, in constant prayer that God would help me release this because it was so hard. Kevin and I finally talked early afternoon and while we were talking and sharing about this whole thing, it was like something shifted in us both. We came to this place, really unexpectedly, where we felt God was showing us that we could say Yes to moving and going forward with our plans we had been thinking about for months now or...we could say Yes to Guerlens. We looked at each other and in a second our eyes filled with tears. We didn't even need to say it out loud, we both knew , without a doubt, that we wanted to say yes to this child. So we did.
We called Mallery and asked if he still needed a family, and she said yes and we told her we wanted to be that family. After we made this decision, we had confirmation after confirmation. It was just amazing!
We knew he had an older brother but felt such a sense of urgency for Guerlens, that we thought we'd get his adoption going first but very quickly realized that we needed and wanted to adopt them together!
We are thrilled that God is allowing us to be a part of this story and to be the parents to these amazing boys!
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Saying Yes
Kevin and I have said yes to something, something big, something life changing and something very unexpected. We will share more as details get worked out but our daily lives could change drastically within a matter of weeks and we can't wait! We are fully trusting God in every step and would love your prayers...for direction, provision and clarity.
Check out:
www.haitifoundationagainstpoverty.blogspot.com :)
Check out:
www.haitifoundationagainstpoverty.blogspot.com :)
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