Arkansas to Africa {Part 8-Lots of Talk}

I have had several people ask me, "how in the world did y'all wind up in Africa"?

Most of the time that ends with me stuttering around and giving some kind of a lame answer.

Not because there isn't a really good (non-lame) answer,
but because it is hard to know where to get started.

Sooo, I thought I would begin to share the story that God wrote for us.
It is a looonng story that spans many years.
But don't worry, no chapter book today!
 I will give it to you a bit at a time!

If you want to catch up to speed, you can find:
Part 1 {here}
Part 2 {here}
Part 3 {here}
Part 4 {here}
Part 5 {here}
Part 6 {here}
Part 7 {here}

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We came home from Haiti with a stirring in our hearts to do international missions.

We really wanted to do something with orphan care.

We especially wanted to do work that aided in family preservation.

We felt like God was pointing us towards Africa.

That was all we had at the time. 

We also felt incredibly stuck.

We had invested 2 years time in waiting for a referral (match) with not much forward progress.  We didn't feel like God was leading us to stop pursuing adoption, and we didn't want to either. 

If you have ever been around international adoption much, you know how hard it is to move homes during the adoption process, let alone countries! Everything (home study, USCIS approval, etc.)  is tied to your address. So, in our minds, we needed to wait until our adoption was finalized, before pursuing international missions.

So, we chatted, and dreamed, read books and piddled around researching on the internet; but mostly we just talked about where we felt God was leading us. We would sit around with some of our favorite friends (who just so happen to be moving here soon, eek!) and talk, talk, talk about our futures and life overseas.

In the meantime, we switched adoption agencies, and the country we were adopting from. We received a referral and over an 8 month time period, passed court and then lost the referral. It was devastating. 
And then, we were connected with 2 little sisters who were 2 and 4. They were paper ready and had been waiting for a family for quite some time. God did some amazing things to confirm that He wanted us to pursue the girls. We excitedly and nervously, I might add, started the process to adopt them.

During this time, David went out to dinner with a man that was mentoring him at the time. David shared with him that our family felt called to do some type of orphan care overseas. But, that our adoption was starting over at square 1. We were kinda at a stale mate. And then his mentor said some simple words, that were life altering for us. He asked, "What are you doing about it? Are you pursuing what God is asking you to do? or are you just talking about it? God is not held by space and time. If this is what you feel like God is calling you to do, then step out and pursue it, He'll work out the rest."

So we did.........

Quote via Pinterest {here}

Stay tuned for Part 9 next week!

Linking up with Casey Wiegand and Oak & Oats.