The Lord IS Providing

We are once again in awe of how the Lord provides!

He is making a way for this domestic adoption to happen and its all in His perfect timing!

To say He is perfect, amazing, and awesome is an understatement.

 

While we still need Gods people to make this thing happen, we will be able to start showing our profile to birth moms. 

In fact....we have a sweet little mom in mind who we might be showing to next week.

I will keep you guys updated!

 

Meanwhile, we have 246 puzzle pieces left.

If you have not had the chance to make a tax deductible gift toward this adoption yet, the link is below.

We appreciate your prayerful support as we try to decide which birth moms to show our profile to.

https://www.adopttogether.org/pehl

Finding His Will.

I have spent a lot of time in the past two years trying to decide what God's will is for my life.

Should we adopt?

Should we move?

Should we travel?

Should we adopt again?

It can get seriously exhausting trying to figure out if God is saying yes or no.

 

When we started thinking about adopting domestically alongside our Congolese adoption, I started doing some serious bible studying.

I wanted God to give me a really clear yes or no.

Here is what I discovered.....

 

Gods will for my life is not difficult or confusing.

I was spending a lot of time making it more complicated than it needed to be.

God commands us to do certain things in the bible....

 

In Matthew 4:19 he says," Come, Follow me and I will make you fishers of men."

He wants us to follow Him and spread the gospel.

We can all pretty much agree that this is God's will for ALL of our lives.

 

James 1:27 says,"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this;  to visit orphans and widows in their affliction."

When I read this passage for the 50th times, I realized that no where in the bible does it say that a person can possibly take care of too many orphans.

There is not one passage that warns against adopting too many kids.

 

So how can I be so sure that we are doing the right thing by entering into a second adoption before getting Isryelle and Boaz home?

The Lords heart is to care for the orphans.

My heart is to care for the orphans.

These facts are all I need to have peace that we are headed in the right direction!

Good News and Bad News

Do you want the good news or bad news first?

I always like to hear bad news first so hear it goes!

 

A little while back, our agency added on some extra fees to our expenses. 

The Congo is not letting children out which is causing fees to increase due to new procedures and a longer stay in the foster home.

We were told to pay the fees whenever we could...no rush.

Well about a month ago we got a past due bill in the mail and felt a little bit of pressure.

At the time, we had absolutely no money so we did not pay the bill.

Then our precious anonymous donors sent a $10,000 check to Lifesong For Orphans.

They wanted to pay for travel and so we had left it in our Lifesong account for travel.

 

Then we got another bill in the mail a couple of days ago.

Instead of the bill having a "due date" it just said to pay it ASAP.

OK so I feel a lot of pressure and start praying. 

 

We felt to relieved to have all of the travel money in the bank.

We honestly did not want to let go of that little sense of security.

But there was God, once again bidding us to trust Him.

 

So tonight, I paid our bill.

 

The good news is...we had the money to pay the bill!

Praise God for His perfect provision!

 

So I am reporting that although we still need to come up with money for travel, our agency fees are paid in full!  That is a weight off my chest for sure!

248 pieces left!

Our puzzle showed up in the mail yesterday and we absolutely LOVE it!

There are 248 pieces left if you want to buy one.

 

 

Just make any TAX DETECTABLE donation to the link below.

https://www.adopttogether.org/pehl

I will write your name on a puzzle piece and post it so you can see!



Here is an example of someone special who will be remember by our child for his or her whole life!

I LOVE this fundraiser!

Investigations Have Begun

Our kids investigations have finally begun.

The U.S. embassy in Kinshasa will investigate our children's backgrounds to be sure that they are orphans but U.S. standard.

This usually takes about 6 months to complete.

 

Our kids will then get a visa appointment and will be issued their visas.

Lord willing, we will have their visas is 7-8 months.

Now if only the D.R.C. would open up so we could go get them!

 

We are feeling comforted, joyful, and encouraged as we wait for them.

Prayer Warriors - Domestic Adoption Update

Hi Friends!

We are all set to start showing our profiles to birth moms.

The only thing we are missing is the money to do this.

We have tried everything we can possibly think of.

God has said "no" to all of our "man-made" ideas about how to finance this thing.

 

So now it is time to be still and KNOW that He is God.

We are praying BIG!

We are praying that God will deliver a BIG GOD SIZED MIRACLE.

 

We are asking you all to commit to praying with us this week.

If you are willing to pray with us, please let us know of you commitment in the comments section below.

God hears our prayers!



Travel is Paid for!

We got a huge blessing last week!

It took me way to long to post about this but I felt like it deserved its own post.

Among all of the other Thanksgiving blessing we got, someone decided they wanted to pay our travel expenses for when we go to Congo.

That right...$10,000!

 

What?!?!

I must say it is shocking to see someone so selflessly and generously give of their money to help out us and our kids.

Every single time someone prays, gives an encouraging word, or donated money for our children

we are truly touched.

 

Thank you so much to this anonymous donor who really gave us one of the best Christmas presents we could ask for.

We Need Help

I know that we seem like those people that just keep asking for money.

Let me tell you, fundraising is awful!

It is not fun asking people for help and we have been doing it for too long it seems.

We try to remind ourselves that we are the body of Christ that has been commanded to care for the orphan.

God does not expect us to do this by ourselves.

So we are once again asking for help. 

We need Gods people to help bring an orphan into a loving family.

 

So this is where the puzzle piece fundraiser comes in.

We are going to buy a puzzle.

All of you wonderful people can purchase a piece for however much you wish to donate.

We will write your name of the back of a puzzle piece. 

When all of the pieces have been purchased, we will put the puzzle together and frame it.

Our child will forever know how loved he or she was loved!

 

We have more good news.

We have been accepted into the "adopttogether" program.

This means if you follow the link below, all of your donations will be tax deductable!

O Yeah!

adopttogether.org/pehl



Thanksgiving and Care Packages.

I had a very blessed thanksgiving this year. 

There was lots of family and tons of food!

We sure do have a lot to be thankful for this year.

 

This year, instead of being sad that our children are not home for the holidays, I chose to be thankful that they finally received their care packages.

8 months after sending the packages both of our children got to see their new family for the first time and that is something to be thankful for! 

We also got a video of Isryelle!  What a blessing to hear our little ones little voice.  She sang and danced in the video!  I can not show the video publicly on our blog but it is posted on our private FB page.  If you are not a part of the page yet, let me know and I will make sure you get added.

 

We also had the blessing of having our family profile completed only a few days after getting all of our pictures and information to our adoption consultants.  We were told that it would take about two weeks but they worked their tails off and really blessed us this holiday season!

To top it off, our home study is finished and we were able to send our applications to a few agencies.

We should be ready to be matched in a week or two!

Holy Moly God is Good!