New Church & Haitian Orphans

Wow! When people ask what's been going on in our lives I can't stop talking. God is doing some BIG stuff. First of all we are helping to start a new church called Collide. We're having our first meeting this Saturday, Jan. 30th at 6:30pm at the Scotts Valley Community Center. Anyone and everyone is welcome to check it out. This new church wants to focus on what it means to operate as "the body of Christ" and to authentically worship the Lord. We won't have a lot of programs and we want to keep it very simple and fluid. We desire to see God move in His Power. I'll write more about this soon. It's been a year long journey and a really neat story.

In addition, we just got back from a meeting on how we can long-term foster (as in forever care for) a Haitian orphan. IF all goes as this agency thinks it will we could even have a child within 30 days. I say IF because there are still a lot of details to be determined by the US Gov, Haiti, and the UN. However, this agency is contracted by the US Government to place refugees and has been told to be prepared. Since we are already fost/adopt licensed the process can be sped up although we will have to go through some additional training and paperwork. I'll update again once I have more info but to say we are excited would be an understatement.

The way God has been leading us in this direction has been amazing. We started this adoption process back in August 2008. Our hearts have always been with the Haitian people after spending 3 months in the Dominican Republic and working with the Haitian villagers. It's the first time we saw extreme poverty and it changed our lives. When the earthquake happened and we saw the hurting and orphaned Haitian children our hearts were broken. I immediately called our adoption agency and it seemed impossible that any orphans would ever be adoptable but after talking with a friend she told me about this agency that works with refugees available for long-term foster care. The child will not be adoptable for their own safety in case a relative is located and because the humanitarian agencies are against letting the children be taken but they are not against fostering. We're really excited to see where God leads and how the details are worked out. When we started this adoption process many months ago God laid it on my heart that something would happen and that there would be many orphans. Of course I hoped this wasn't true and I kind of thought that must mean in the US since we were pursuing local adoption but now I'm thinking that He was getting us ready for this exact purpose. We shall see. Please be praying for our child. Whoever and wherever he or she might be. We are excited to welcome them into our family.