As many have already heard, we are in the process of adopting. Many of you know our story and the dreams God gave me (Jennifer) prior to coming to Bulgaria and were not surprised in the least bit when you heard that God was now writing this new chapter in our life, but some of you do not know that part of our story and we would love to tell it now. This is a story that has roots so to tell you about our todays, I have to take you back into our yesterdays...
Before Micah and Ben arrived, they had three brothers or sisters that came before them. If those pregnancies had come full term, this year we would be the parents of a 14 year old, a 12 year old and an 11 year old. Those three lives that left earth early, gave me the life I have now. Their short lives helped me discover a hereditary blood clotting condition I never knew I had and gave me the ability to take aspirin for the rest of my life to avoid an early heart attack.
With the help of prayer and medicine, Micah and Ben were born. Unbeknownst to us, medicine was not the cure to fix our history of miscarriages and we later discovered it was God alone that brought Micah and Ben into our arms as medicine would soon fail us.
After Ben was born I became pregnant a year later. The baby was growing healthy and with a strong heart beat. We again depended on prayer and medicine but during the sonograms we saw a small shadow of blood every time. The doctor assured us that she saw no problems and that the blood was more than likely implantation bleeding. A week later, with no warning we were devastated to have lost the pregnancy.
October 2009 we were packing and preparing for our move to Virginia for training and then to Bulgaria. We had been very busy and were not trying to get pregnant, but in a very clear dream God told me I was. God has spoken to me 6 times in my life through dreams, twice in high school (one telling me I would live overseas) and without understanding why, He choose 4 dreams to show me details of this 2009 pregnancy. I woke from that dream knowing it was from God, called Cameron at work and told him (much to his shock lol) and on his way home from work we purchased a pregnancy test to confirm what we already knew. We scheduled a doctor's appointment immediately. The normal medicine began, we prayed and everything went well. Due to my high risk pregnancies, I got sonograms often. The night before my second sonogram appointment, God showed me exactly what would happen. In the dream when I laid down for the sonogram, we saw a healthy baby but instead of a little bit of blood like our last pregnancy, the dream revealed that we would see a lot of blood surrounding the baby. The next day, we were disheartened to see a dark shadow of blood surrounding the baby. The sonogram showed a weak heart beat but an otherwise healthy pregnancy with the exception of the unexplained blood. The doctor put me on immediate bed rest. Women at the seminary like Tara Guy, Erin Lepoint, Mandi Barham, and Crystin Niscavits took charge and became substitute mamas for my boys. A group of women came and prayed over me and our baby and again the night before our next appointment God showed me in my dream exactly what would happen the next day. In my dream the blood had completely and unexplainably disappeared and the baby's heart beat was strong. When I laid down the next day for my sonogram, the technician asked me if I had experienced any bleeding and turned the screen away from us so we could not see. I answered that I had no bleeding and she asked the same question again. I again answered that I had not bled at all and she immediately asked "Well where did it all go?" My heart sank as I assumed she meant the pregnancy, but to our shock and relief she turned the monitor to show us that the blood had completely disappeared and what was left was our miracle! The baby was healthy, the heart beat was strong and faster and our peanut had grown! We told her that we had prayed God would make the blood disappear and she confirmed "Well God certainly did!" I was taken off of bed rest and everything was beautifully perfect waiting for our July 10th 2010 due date. Another dream came shortly after, I was boarding a plane holding a baby and Cameron and the boys were in front of me. I could only see the backs of us but when I woke up I knew this too was from God.
Unexpectedly, while Cameron and the boys were on a weekend trip I woke in the middle of the night and lost that dream. I held a tiny lifeless treasure in my hand and screamed and cried harder than I've ever cried in my life. I felt so betrayed by God in that moment. How could all of the dreams come true in perfect detail except this one? I was so happy Cameron and the boys were away, as it was a healthy and needed time for me to wrestle all of these emotions out with God. I wanted to fix what I felt was God's unfair mistake and quickly said to myself "I must have just interpreted the dream wrong! That dream must mean that when we come back from Bulgaria I'll be holding a baby we adopted." God immediately interrupted me and told me two very clear things, "You are going to Bulgaria in obedience to me and to me alone." and "If I add to you while you are there, then I add not you and if I take away, I take away but you are to go in obedience alone. You will not go to fix your heart by putting a baby in your crib." It was clear and it was unmistakable and in that moment I prayed that God would remove my desire to adopt as I did not want that desire to ever cloud my obedience. The next weekend at church the pastor began his sermon like this "Some missionaries went to Russia and visited an orphanage. Being the Christmas season, they told all of the kids the story of Christ's birth. Later they passed out popsicle sticks and a small piece of red cloth for the children to create a manger with and place the piece of cloth into the popsicle manger as a reminder of Christ. As the missionaries looked at each child's manger, they noticed one little boy had two pieces of red cloth in his manger. Concerned that the child misunderstood, they asked the child to retell the story of Christ's birth to understand where his mistaken understanding occurred. To their surprise the child retold the story correctly but at the end said 'I am an orphan and will never be like the wise men who came to Jesus. I felt bad that I could never bring a gift to Jesus but Jesus told me that anyone who comes to him is the greatest gift of all. That's me in the manger with Jesus.'" In that moment, my heart squeezed and God said to me "Do not go to Bulgaria to put a baby in your crib but to put children in my manager. Even if you put 10,000 babies into your crib there will still be 10's of thousands who never make it into my manger." In that moment God began healing my heart and the thought of adoption was far removed from our minds and my mission was to work with children in Bulgaria to tell them about that Jesus in a manger who loves them. It's been a joy to do just that :)
After 2.5 years of living in Bulgaria Cameron had a dream of a little girl that he vividly remembered and told me about it, but adoption was not on our radar and we were completely at peace with Micah and Ben being our only children. Around this time we got an email from my brother who was attending Brook Hills Baptist Church. A man he was meeting with there had a daughter who worked for Lifeline Adoption Agency and a small team was coming to Bulgaria to visit one of the orphanages. We offered to meet them and drive them to the orphanage. While visiting, I was heart broken to see the children laying in cribs or unengaged and sitting on the floor, but sorrow didn't compel our hearts towards adoption. After seeing the high physical and emotional needs the children had from neglect, we felt an overwhelming fear to adopt. We asked about the costs of adoption on the way back to Sofia and after hearing the costs, we were even more confident that surely God was not calling us to adopt. We decided we could love on families who were called to adopt and told Lifeline to connect us to any family that was coming to Bulgaria and we would care for them to the best of our ability. We met family after family in our home and witnessed that despite the needs of the child they adopted, it was clear each time we met them, how God had perfectly called the right family to the right child. When we went back to America this fall we decided to figure out the next steps in the adoption process, "should" God ever call us to do that and met with Lifeline. Again we felt at peace that we had done our part to investigate it should God ever call us to do that, but surely God knew our financial situation and our family needs and this wasn't our calling...that was until God removed ever excuse we had and made our path straight!
Through the amazing families who have come through Bulgaria to adopt, God has used each one in a different way to answer questions and soften our hearts to His calling. God removed the cost concern and then over Christmas completely took away any excuse we could ever come up with. Without her knowledge of it, Mandy Davis wrote a blog that helped my heart have peace to say yes to the chapter God is writing in our story now and without many of you realizing it, God used so many of you to bring us to the place of saying yes, very fearfully at first, but now with exploding joy and YES!
We will turn in our paperwork later this month and will request a healthy bulgarian or roma baby girl, age 3 months to 1 year. We have been told that the process will go quickly due to our openness to adopt a roma baby and to expect a baby possibly by August. Even after saying yes, I had small concerns about the cost of a crib, stroller, car seat and everything a baby needs, but even in those things God quickly showed His love and provided all of it within a week! I now have a room filled with PINK baby stuff that came to me free (with exception of paying 15 dollars for two carseats, a bouncy chair and one highchair!) We feel so privileged to soon hold our baby girl and as you've faithfully done before for our last 7 pregnancies, please pray now for our baby girl to be delivered safely into our arms at God's perfect time!
