Persue my heart, all the way to Jamaica.

Well good evening to all you folks, perhaps goodmorning, if you are on the other side of the World. 
Putting off writing a blog on our adoption can no longer go on, its exhausting procrastinating. Anyone else feel that way? I swear I feel the idea of something hovering more than that Something I need to be doing, more times that not. So, here I am, cuddled up in my bed, listening to my girls go on and on about shoes in the night light lit happenings of their cutsie pink room (cute right) then of course L has to disregard her diapering and well, lets just say it turned completely uncute in a matter of seconds. But that's what parenting goons is all about right? You got to be willing to switch it up last second, then choose the right attitude (or hope you chose it, or beg for forgiveness when you know you didn't). So back to "switching it up", pretty much where our Adoption story begins-
As adoption has always been something I wanted to per sue, even as a child (I would tell my mom it would hurt to bad to have babies, so naturally, I would take care of someone elses) funny enough, I became a nanny to the sweetest little baby boy, then his brother, then another little guy, then three girls, then I got married so I had my husband (heehee) then an 17 year old, then we did foster care, then we had three kids of our own, then we had a young lady and her daughter... God gave us a lot of prep for the desires He laid in our hearts to adopt. And Praise Him for that because if you have any idea with what areas we have now been trained in, I can't wait to see who He is planning to put in our care!
We have talked about adopting since before we were married, we would surf through child profiles wondering who the Lord was preparing for us. Lots of time spent on NWAE. I started doing fundraising events to support Orphanages in Rwanda and Uganda in 2008, so naturally our hearts were drawn there. So we investigated the possibilities of Rwanda and Surprise! They close their borders to adoption. God knows us well. So we then pray about Uganda and over the next few years, put the little dot on the map and wait for God to say "MOVE". 
Well, He said "PREPARE", so we did- And I will intentionally leave out a portion because I do no want to lose my crown to throw to the Lords feet someday (I can say that right?) Continuing to prepare, Dustin's heart is led to India and Russia (which ironically closes its borders to adoption recently) Also you can only have up to 3 kids, sometimes 4 depending on the situation to adopt from India, but we were led elsewhere then found out we are expecting our 4th goon this September (we arent really your doers of thee conventional style as it would appear) So put a dot on the map on  India, Russia, Uganda...
 So I am looking at the map I was dotting all over and if you take a circle and go around each country we were thinking about adopting from... the circles cover the area of the world... then the Lord totally spoke to my heart and said "They are all orphans!"

What I love about the Lord, is that if you say "Lord, seriously, lead me, I am lost here..." He will quite literally take me by the shoulders and turn me a direction, give me a little shove...
So were having bible study that we do at our house and a group of people just went to Jamaica from our church. One of my girl friends went on the trip and was showing us where they went and about the kids, etc. Honestly, even in her telling the story I felt no attatchment emotionally, just that I was so glad she had an amazing time. 
There are certain parts of the story I want to keep to myself for reasons beyond the guarding of my heart. That being said, I will skip to that same night we were shown photos of some children and two literally had Dustin and I absorbed into my friends computer. We began to pray silently when suddenly God told me to email the family, I looked at my husband and he says "you could email and ask..." 
So the journey into email begins and the perfect peace that followed when the Lord said to "call them by name" that "chosen to be sons and daughters through adoption", we knew we were to inquire more.
I then call the Jamaican gov't, here's how the phone call went:
ME: Hello, I was wondering if I might be able to inquire about possibly adopting a couple children from your country. 
JAM: No, I am sorry they are not available for adoption.
ME: I didn't even tell you names, how did you know?
JAM: Oh yeah, what are their names?
ME: *names*
JAM: (2full seconds later) Oh no, not available, but if you want to adopt them you must fill out two seperate adoption applications, go get them on the CDA, fill them out and mail them to me, thank you bye.
ME: .... 

Next we dished out our adoption homestudy like a couple studs and waited for the Lord to give us the go ahead to send in the papers. In the meantime He was preparing our hearts for certain fundraising ideas (hope you enjoyed your lasagna ;}) and told us to stop everything for the month that we had the young lady and her daughter living with us. I will tell you what, I did NOT, want to stop but boy did I prefer the will of the Lord, He has brought us this far, with lots of cool gifts might I add! 
The young lady leaves and the Lord says "move", our homestudy is sent in the mail, the application is in Jamaica and our fundraising is going beautifully. 

"The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples, the Lord has chosen you to be his treasured possesion " Duet 7:6

Psalm 139:4 "For the Lord has chosen Jacob to be his own, Israel to be his treasured posession."

Isaiah 41:9 " I took you from the ends of the earth, the furthest corners, I called you. I said you are my servent, I have chosen you and have not rejected you."

"For many are invited but few are chosen" matt 22:14 (And we chose to persue those kids that was a neat verse to read then!)

etc.

Here is where we come to an interesting work in my life over the last several months of this journey. Taking the courses for adoption was something I really though I was prepared for. I mean, we did foster care training, I worked in social work and had trainings but God has spent all this time working on my heart and I wasn't even aware of it until recently. 
The Adopted Child's Greif, something I absolutely relate to and was completely unaware my whole life. This was one of the hardest trials and healings God has brought me through, and I feel it is important for anyone led to this page perhaps dealing with the same personal battle. I grew up with an amazing dad, he married my mom when I was about 2 and a half. He even sold his base ball cards to pay to adopt me, a real stud this guy is. And as much as I love my dad, I never had peace about my biology. I was a very rebelious teen, and fully believe that had everything to do with why. Part of not knowing my biological father was that it did not come with the smiles and flowers of a happy "you'd rather not know him" kind of life, that a lot of people who have divorced or even adopted children have this idea; It is not how it works, the reprecussion of sin, it effects someone if not everyone.`This inparticular is a form of greif, like you have lost someone in a sense, but havent. So in the even that someone dies, there is a process to greiving, denial blame acceptence. In greiving a Life I would have had, or family I could have had or known, that live and breathe, it is an unpredictable pattern and there is nothing specific each time that sets it off, an unpredictable amount of time that is greived and more times that not, no understanding of why I would be upset or want to act out. Having experienced this personally and having the Lord to guide me through it has altered my outlook incredibly on children that will come into our home and someday want to know what their biological make up is and or who it is. 

Crazy right? Wasn't at all prepared to experience this emotional twist but was so blessed to have had it. What a good hug it was from the Father of All Fathers to say "Ultimatley I am your Father, and all these children too", boom.

The other part of guarding my heart in adopting is, God told us to "persue" these children. Because we have done foster care and seen many kids leave our home, I am partial to "not my kids until the deal is done"- by persuing, and with the heart I have for the opportunity to   know biology (God made it a certain way for a reason right) I pray that we get to love on these children, but I also know that if we were only to persue these children to pull up biological relatives that possibly never knew about them and needed the opportunity to learn of them, then my heart shall be full. (and then we begin again) But I tell you what, my heart, no matter how much I guard it, pours out for these kids, I so love them already, similar to all the kids we used to look at on NWAE before we were married.

So, now you know. Lots to be praying for, lots to be thankful for! 
God is SO GOOD! If you don't know Him and you think we're having fun, PerSue Him! You wont be disapointed!!!!!!