I'm thankful...

I'm thankful...
That my wife wife is more beautiful today than the day we married.
That my brother Clint is with us for Thanksgiving.
That this is the last Thanksgiving we will spend apart from our kids.
That we've been blessed to adopt.
That we are spending Thanksgiving in a warm home with wonderful friends.
That my sweet wife just came in and told me that I have to finish the pie, the cake, and the yams. Did I mention I'm already doing the turkey? So I gotta stop now.
For such great friends, I am especially thankful. And as always...


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grace our blog!

So, as many of you know THE SHIRTS ARE IN!!! We are asking for a minimum of $15 (cash, check, or PayPal). We have S, M, L, XL, and XXL. We are seeing about getting kids sizes. Please leave us a message if you would order a child's shirt. All of the proceeds will go to help fund other adoptions. More to come on that...

Here is my beautiful bride sporting her stylish new N. shirt. She's so cute!

Please send us pictures of you and your loved ones wearing their shirts; we would love to have your presence grace our blog!

Thanks for reading!

Adoption is not...

A few of you have told me that we should post more often. The problem is we don't have any new news. All of our paperwork is in N. waiting for January to come so it can be processed. Then approximately 3 months later we will recieve a referral. This will include pictures and whatever information they have on our children. So that will be around March, give or take. About 3 months after that will have clearance to travel to N. to pick up our kiddos! We will spend about 2 weeks there. The first week we will visit them in the orphanage and the second week they will come stay with us at the hotel and be with us from then on.

We're really excited.

We interupt this irregularly scheduled blog with a confession from its sponsor: I'm really only writing this repetitive update because I wanted to try out this new Blogger iPhone app. Now back to the program.

We are extremely grateful to Brother Waymond Warren for allowing us the opportunity to speak to our Fair Park family this past Sunday about adoption. For those of you that don't know, November is Adoption Awareness month (or something like that). Since we have yet to complete the entire process we decided to talk briefly about what adoption is not. Jessica gave me the majority of mic time because she knows I love talking into a mic and in front of people. Well, really I just like talking. Anyway, I want to breifly recap what adoption is not.

1. It is not natural. It is the result of the fallen world in which we live. It is however our call as Christians to love and care for orphans and widows.

2. It is not a back up plan. It is the great commission. God has called us to make disciples of all nations. Is there a better way than to bring a child into a loving home?

3. It is not for individual couples. It's for the mission-minded church. If we believe that God has adopted (grafted) us into His family why would the church not be excited about doing that for others? Dr. Russell Moore says, "If we believe God in heavenly things, we will follow Him in earthly things."

4. It is not shameful. I grew up hearing very little about adoption. It was only talked about in hushed tones, the same way one speaks of cousin Frank's meth problem or the rumor that daddy took a mistress. Adoption should not be whispered about; it should be celebrated! It is a beautiful picture of the Gospel, maybe the clearest of all.

I'm done rambling.


Thanks for reading.