"Yes, Ma'am"

Here we go! After talking about adoption for our entire married life (all ten years) and even before we married.... Here we go. Right from the start, we wanted to start this blog in order to share our journey with you. There are so many places I could start. I thought about our first post being about our family's journey through seeking to live with an open hand to others, but we are still learning so much, not nearly having that mastered. Or, I thought about posting about where God has us on another journey: to fight against our flesh in feeling a need to live out the American dream vs. being sold-out Christ followers. Again, we are still so fresh, so "green", so "not there yet." Then, I thought the perfect place would be to start with my journey to Ethiopia this summer, how God opened my eyes to so much, grew passions in me I never knew existed, and how that experience changed my life in a million great ways. But, as it stands, we are here.... praying, reading, listening. Longing to simply be ink poured out for Christ to write our stories how He sees we best fit into His BIG STORY. Are we excited? YES! Do we have fear? YES! Have we lost our minds? YES, I hope so. We decided a year or so ago to lose our minds... to change our idea of success, to stop our selfish ways of thinking, and to try desperately to lose it all to gain His mind. Those decisions are daily and hard. They are a constant struggle and more times than not we revert back to using "our minds." But, in faith, we are trusting, knowing this journey of adoption is part of the story God is writing.

So, I will start here. At the beginning. At the place where the lady on the other end of the phone said, "So, you need 2 copies of these birth certificates and marriage certificate authenticated at the state level for international adoption from Ethiopia?"

To which I simply replied, "Yes, Ma'am."

Here we go.

Thanks for journeying with us.