I have had several people ask me, "how in the world did you 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}
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Thanksgiving passed; Christmas came and went, and we were still praying.
David took my request seriously and spent a lot of early mornings reading through the Bible and lots of time on his knees, having conversations with Jesus.
God started illuminating a bunch of Scripture to David about our responsibility as believers to care for orphans and widows.
As he was flipping through the thin pages of his Bible, he felt like he just kept being hit
over and
over about how caring for orphans wasn't really a suggestion, but his responsibility as a believer.
God made it really personal.
But, the finances were still a huge obstacle.
One night, after Christmas, my family was over and we were sitting around the kitchen table playing games. We were sharing a bit of our hearts and worries. David told my mom that if we were going to adopt, God was going to have to drop the money in his lap.
A few nights later, we received a random phone call. The man on the other end of the phone explained that he was a pastor. He had been looking through county records and saw that we owned some rental property at the University of Arkansas. He knew a family who was wanting to purchase some property on campus to house the church's student ministries and wanted to know if we were interested in selling.
{
little side note- we had bought the rental property when we were in college. It was a great investment. It was located right off of campus, always rented. We filled up the yard every game day and had lots of fun vacations and extras just with the parking money. At the time, we saw it as our nest egg. Our retirement. Our earthly treasure}
So needless to say, when we got the call, we were a little surprised. The market had actually hit a low, no one was buying, not even the University. So it was a pretty strange time to get an offer. David politely declined the pastor and hung up the phone. As soon as he hit "end", our eyes met and we knew that this was God "dropping the money" in our laps.
We soon formed a relationship with the pastor and learned of a few more pieces to the big puzzle that God was orchestrating. A family, whose son had been involved in the college student ministries, had tragically been killed by a drunk driver. The family had decided to buy a house and give it to the campus ministry in their son's name. They had been looking for awhile for a place to buy near campus and had about given up on finding a spot since no one (including us, earlier) was interested in selling. In hearing the story, we could see how God was using suffering in 2 separate families (who had never met) and a church to be woven together to fund an adoption of 2 children, bring some healing to a family and put a college ministry on campus.
We were amazed and humbled that God would answer our prayer in such a big way.
The family and church were amazing to work with us and be flexible in the way we sold the property; to match up with our adoption needs.
Each time we got to a step that we would think was impossible, God totally made it a non-issue.
It was such a time of seeing God's faithfulness and love for our family.
We were able to attend the beautiful dedication of our former property, now known as Brad's House. It was totally gutted and remodeled to fit the needs of a growing college ministry. As we toured the house, we ran our eyes over framed photos of college students flooding the lawn with hands held high in worship. It was hard to keep a dry eye as we saw how God had turned our "earthly treasure" into a place where "eternal treasures" were being made.
Next week....{part 6}
Linking up today with
Casey Wiegand's blog
