Sentencia!

And when they arrived and gathered the church together, 

they declared all that God had done with them...(Acts 14:27)

We are not home yet, but we want to "gather" the church together and share all that God has done with us to bring us to this point today....

Sentencia.  

Adoption Finalization.

May we introduce you to our new kids

Marian and Katerin

Omar

Saimon

Our family at the Judge's office with our awesome agency representative,

Maria

God is good!  We are a new family of nine today.  Just 3 1/2 weeks after arriving here in Bogota, adoptions are final.  He answered our prayers for favor and quick finalization.  We are thankful.

I have been thinking about how all this started.  When Jeremy and I first talked about expanding our family back in December 2008.  We did not know how or when but we started praying.  I thought about that January 2010 when we told our adoption agency to put us on their radar for sibling groups or older kids.  That same month, 4 siblings were given to the care of the state and entered an orphanage in Bogota, Colombia.

I've been thinking about how God confirmed for us that we could love older kids just as much as we loved the babies on that first mission trip to Rwanda.  I remember first praying I Thes 3:11 "Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you."  And those 4 kids in Colombia were declared adoptable that same month.

And then we said "yes" to just hosting orphans for a vacation program last summer.  We did not commit to adopt them before they came, but we were willing to say "yes" to whatever God had in mind.

It was not a week after they left that Jeremy confessed, "I don't need to pray to know if this is the right thing to do, I know it is the right thing to do.  I need to pray for courage."  All those months we were asking the Lord, "Where are our children?"  And then He brings.them.to.our.home.

We said "Yes, Lord, do whatever You wish."

And we started the adoption process and only knew to follow Him one step at a time.  A hundred things could close the door.  He never promised that these kids would be ours.  And now we have passed through the final door.  

And they share our last name.

Here is a short video taken by Orphan Hope International last Fall as we began the adoption process

http://vimeo.com/32647939

Now what?

We will keep believing, trusting, following, depending, hoping. 

Thank you for your prayers, support, encouragement along the way!!

 God has done great things and we give Him the glory.  

The credit in NO WAY belongs to us.

We know that He has not called us to this task of parenting kids from hard places to leave us to ourselves.  We need you.  We need your continued prayers.

Give thanks with us today for ALL that God has done!

Enjoying some ice cream tonight as we celebrate!