My sister is currently in Ethiopia picking up my latest family member, Zoie.  She is a beautiful baby and I can not wait to meet her! I stumbled across this helpful article in families.com that might be of some help to those of you who have also adopted children in to your homes:

Many adoptees report feeling part of their immediate families, but never quite feeling like “part of the gang” at extended family gatherings. Especially when these reunions are of people who live far from each other and don’t know each other that well, much of the talk may center on who looks like who, on memories of someone your child never met, on family history and ethnic traditions which your child may be conscious of not being a part of. Even if your child is used to looking different from you and your spouse, being the only brown child in a sea of twenty blond cousins drives the difference home…read more here.

What God can’t do? Oh, yes, I believe there are a few things God can’t do. No way, He can do all things….isn’t that what I’ve been taught my entire Christian life? Well, there may be a twist you never thought about before. I know of three specific things God can’t do and I’ve experienced them all this past week!

First, God can’t leave us or forsake us. When God spoke to our hearts and made it very clear we were to adopt from China, a promise was made that God CAN’T break! He promised the Gibson family that He would walk by our side through the entire adoption process and never abandon us. Daily, my prayer is, ”I want to trust in You, Lord, with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding; in all my ways I’ll acknowledge You, and You will make my paths straight.” (Prov. 3:5)

As I shared before, we did not have the funds to move forward with our home study. Step 1 in the adoption process! We were frozen in place, not able to move. We cried out to Jesus our desires and specific needs. WOW…was He faithful!

A miracle happened on March 3rd! I was fixing tacos for dinner and while the meat was simmering, I opened up the mail. I was excited to see a letter from our twenty something “adopted” daughter from Kanakuk Institute. She had visited us the week before and we were able to share with her our great news of adoption. She listened as we shared our hearts and encouraged us with her joyful spirit. As I opened her letter, a check dropped to the floor. I gasped as I picked it up and saw the amount written…. it was for $1,000 dollars! I started weeping and shaking as I shoved the check in my hubby’s hands. We both just stared at the letter and check. We were speechless! She had written these precious words of love:

“GIBSONS, The family of God knows no limits. In the earlier days of the Israelites, they raised their children as a community. Since they were all under the law of Moses, they all shared the same beliefs of obedience and faithfulness. With your faithfulness to follow the Lords call to adopt a little girl, it seems that you will get to do the same thing as the Israelites…raising up others in the ways of the Lord! I rejoice already for that little girl! I have already begun to pray for her salvation that she may also be a part of our heavenly family….

As we sat talking about the girl ya’ll wanted to adopt, I immediately knew that I wanted to be a part of that process…and not just in prayer. The Gibson Family extends beyond Branson…to Boston…to China (Beijing, perhaps?), and I am so blessed to be a part of what God is doing through ya’ll! As a family that I know will always be there for me, please know that the opposite is also true! And if you need help with paperwork, I would love to come and visit!” Love, Jenny
2 Chronicles 16:9, I Cor. 2:9

We called Jenny immediately and shared the news that with her gift of love, we could start our home study and were waiting for our family coordinator to call and set the appointment.

God just can’t break His promises! He is always faithful!

……..to be continued

My husband, Roger sent this quote to me last week…..it gave me goosebumps!! The best I can do is the best God can do. I think at times I put so many obstacles in front of me everyday when I try to achieve my “best!”

Today I’m trying really hard to be the best wife, mom and Christian I can be. The problem is… my best is NOT God’s best! I always fall short. As I take a deep breath and focus on the journey ahead my heart fills up with fear…..can I really do this?

Adoption has become a sort of obsession for me. It’s all I can think, pray and dream about as we move forward. This past week our family was hit hard with financial emergencies.

How is it possible for both cars to need new tires, our five year old water softener breaks, Hannah’s orthodontist payment is due (in full), medical bills, and taxes! We could only gasp when we calculated what we spent in one week.

My initial thoughts were…How can this be happening….this IS so NOT fair God! We have to start making payments for our home study…$8,100 due by April 2, 2007. The entire journey stops cold unless you can pay the fees….. It feels impossible!

My flesh screams out to be in control of this situation! God calls me to “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-17

The best I can do today is to pray fervently and rest in Him. My soul yearns to hold my daughter, chosen specially for us from an orphanage in China. How can it be that I’m already in love with her and her birth mother? I don’t even know if she’s born yet.

My soul is awake and God knows the perfect timing……His perfect timeline of events. We feel blasted this week by setbacks, but we hold on to the belief that God has a plan. He knows the desires of our hearts. What is so funny (not really) is how long we dragged our feet.

We were called to obey and adopt…….it took us years to jump out in faith! Now, we’re ready to RUN forward, but because of “life’s little setbacks” we’re having to stop and wait.

I read a wonderful insight in Heather McCallum’s, Let God Surprise You, Children are treasured gifts! They are supernatural gifts from God, but sometimes we tend to forget that every child is a gift from God.

Psalm 127:3 says, “Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from Him.” The prophetic books of Jeremiah and Isaiah, as well as the Psalms, talk of God’s plans for children even while they are in the womb. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,” God said to Jeremiah (1:5). Isaiah 44:2 refers to God as “he who made you, who formed you in the womb.”

As gifts from God, our children- whether they come to us by plan or by surprise (adoption!) need to be treasured and protected. You don’t have to worry; God’s TIMING is always perfect. As the Bible says, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven” (Eccl. 3:1)

The journey continues…

I heard the simple message over and over in my mind. There was such an urgency in the message that I started weeping hysterically. I quickly pulled my hat down in case anyone could see me having a complete melt down!

I cried out to the Lord that I heard Him and I would obey! I started praying for our daughter from China and a birth mother we would probably never know. I heard what God wanted us to do, but we continued to move at a snails pace. We were afraid to trust in Him!

He challenged me again, about six months later, and I again told God we would obey, but wasn’t willing to move forward. Thank goodness, God never gave up on us.

December 10th, we were accepted into the program with America World Adoption Association (AWAA) and are thrilled with the journey of bringing home our precious daughter.

As for our son, Michael, he is 110% on board. Michael recently gave us a card and book on China for Christmas that I will keep forever! He has the privilege of watching his parents jump out in faith and obey God even when it seems so difficult!

We have put our home up for sale to cover the cost of the adoption. We are trusting God to take care of all our needs! We laugh and say that God did an amazing job pushing us forward and straight out of our comfort zone. Yes, we’re still afraid of all the unknowns, but we are called to obey and God will direct our path.

What happens when God wakes us up? The answer for me is simple – freedom! The pain I held onto for so many years has come to an end. It has been released….it’s a rebirth of emotions I thought were lost forever.

I will never forget our precious son, but my spirit has woken up to the miracle of motherhood once again. Please pray for us as we join the ranks with our “paper pregnancy”. It will, most certainly, be a journey of a lifetime!

Here’s what’s next: I don’t want to live my life in a way that the best I can do is the best I can do. What a small existence! What a tiny universe! How boring. How sad.

But it doesn’t have to be that way!

Pray like it depends on God and the best you can do is no longer the best you can do! The best you can do is the best God can do! Same with the tithe. If I’m not tithing, the best I can do is the best I can do. But when I take a step of financial faith and live in compliance with Malachi 3: the best I can do is the best God can do.

What a way to live! What potential!

God had a mighty hard time getting my husband, Roger and I to move forward with the process of adoption. First, our son, Michael was NOT on board with bringing another brother or sister in our family circle.

He was not on the same page as we were! In fact, he was praying just the opposite of our daughter, “Please, God DON’T let us adopt!” We were filled with anxiety about everything. We didn’t feel a lot of support from friends or even some family members.

Quite simply, I think people thought we were a little crazy. I have a 13-year old and 10-year old – why in the world do we want to rock the boat! It felt like a wild emotional roller coaster ride.

But one of the biggest hurdles was the cost of adoption! We had no idea how expensive adoption was, but even through our doubts and fears, God never gave up on us, He kept pulling on our hearts and pushing us toward His will and farther away from ours. To be very honest, we weren’t listening or obeying God in the direction He wanted us to take our family. We definitely wanted to adopt, and had even picked out China as our destination, but were unwilling to move forward and start the process. We were afraid.

July 2005 was supposed to be a relaxing day in Huntington Beach, CA. Our family was there on business, but we had a few free days to play. I will never forget, for the rest of my life, what happened to me in my bathing suit and sunglasses that first day on the beach.

I was simply minding my own business, reading an InStyle magazine, looking up once in awhile to watch the kids play in the waves. Roger was throwing them into the crashing tide and I was laughing giving the thumbs up! I casually looked up in the sky and noticed the gorgeous clouds hovering over the ocean! It was breathtaking to me, so I said outloud, “God, you did an amazing job today with the clouds….WOW!”

Out of nowhere came the feeling of a lightning bolt straight into my heart and I heard clearly in my mind an urgent message from God, we were suppose to adopt! Move forward immediately!

to be continued…

I’ve been asking myself this question all week. I believe with all my heart that God can take a painful experience and heal His child completely from start to finish. My pain started eleven years ago when my husband and I held our precious son in our arms as he passed away.

He was only 21-weeks old and very tiny, yet perfectly formed. Something died in me that day and I experienced pain greater than my heart could ever imagine. I pushed and buried my pain deep down in my heart to move on with my life, but God had a much greate plan in store for me and my family.

We were incredibly blessed with a daughter, Hannah who was born 3 1/2 months premature. She was the miracle we needed to keep our hearts open wide with faith that God knew what He was doing in our lives. As the years passed, I was forced to “kill” the dream of ever having any more children. All desires and dreams of being pregnant were gone.

I felt a great sense of loss when I had a partial hysterectomy six years ago, because of complications with the beginning stages of cervical cancer. The experience was both a burden and a renewal for me physically! I was blessed with two beautiful children and my entire focus was being the best wife and mom I could be.

Four years ago, my daughter asked me if we could have another baby. I carefully explained to her that I was not able to have any more children, but she looked at me and said….”Yes we can, we can adopt!”

The comment took my breath away! I took the easy way out and said with a smile, “Why don’t you pray about that and we’ll see.” I had no idea that my little six year old would take on a special mission and pray fervently every night for four years.

She was so consistent with her prayer that we started praying with her at night the same question, “Dear God, do you want us to adopt? If you do, please open the door for our family.”

Hannah was adorable, praying the most precious prayers of faith and love for our family. The shocking part was what happened to my heart. I could physically feel my heart melting in love with the idea of adoption! The miracle Hannah prayed for finally melted her daddy’s heart and we became a unit. One night, we looked at our daughter and told her she was an Ambassador for Christ in our lives! She was the first one we told our secret to. That we were read to adopt!

to be continued…