"Thank you Jesus for your bobo's"

We try every night before Gabe goes to bed to read a section out of his Jesus Storybook Bible and we pray and put him to bed. The other night he flipped through his Bible after we read a story. He happened to come to the picture of Jesus hanging on the cross. The first thing he said was where is the man's shirt? We explained that some men took his shirt in the best way we knew how! He then proceeded to ask about the marks on Jesus' body. His bobo's. Again we explained why Jesus had bobo's and that he did it for us. When it was time for him to pray it went like this: "Jesus, thank you Daddy, Mommy, "little brudder", "Arica" (Africa), thank you Jesus for bobo's". I looked at Ben and we both had tears in our eyes. It hit me; My sweet babies will both have to make a decision when they get older. They will either choose or reject Jesus as their Lord and Savior, and it is mine and Ben's job to teach them not by just words but by the way we live our lives in front of them. I also started thinking, if it wasn't for Jesus' "bobo's" we would have no hope, there would be no adoption. I realize that this adoption is nothing without God's adoption of us as His children. It is still amazing to me that God has called us to this and that without His power we CANNOT do anything. Through His Power we can get through every obstacle that this adoption will have, through His Power we can save and raise the funds for this adoption, through His Power we can fly to Ethiopia and meet our son and love him and bring him home to be a part of our family just like we brought Gabe home to be apart of our family on December 14, 2008. Through the Holy Spirit and God's power that he supplies we will be able to bring our baby home.
"... whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the STRENGTH WHICH GOD SUPPLIES; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen." 1 Peter 4:11

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The other day we sent in our signed agreements and $1,125 to America World! This means we have officially signed a contract saying that we understand everything that is about to happen in this adoption! As far as I'm concerned there is no turning back!!! That is scary and exciting! Most likely in a few days our family coordinator will call and introduce herself to us and explain the dossier process to us. The dossier is all the paperwork, medical papers, government fingerprinting, homestudy, etc. She will send us the packet and we will get started. Tomorrow I will contact Lifeline Adoption in Birmingham. They will be doing our homestudy. That is where a social worker will visit us and evaluate our home and family. This is a huge prayer request because this can be a little nerve wrecking and once our home study is complete we can start applying for grants and no interest loans. This week we also start our first training course on adoption. I am very excited about this!! Please be in prayer for us as we continue in this process.
* PRAYER PRAYER PRAYER. This is always the first and most important thing we need from everyone!
* our emotions as we know that this will be a frustrating process at times.
*The funds needed for the adoption. In the next few months we will have to pay for the homestudy, the USCIS (government fees), and when it is time to submit our dossier we will have to pay almost $8,000 at one time! As I have said before, we know God has called us to this and He will provide. Maybe He is calling you to care for the orphan by assisting us monetarily with our adoption? Pray for us as we save and fundraise.
*Our families and our church as we seek to make everyone aware of adoption and our role as Christians in taking care of the orphan.

I also wanted to remind you of our fundraisers going on. We will be continuing to sell T-shirts (picture, cost, and sizes to the right) until Monday, August 8. Two weeks from tomorrow. It is a very cool t-shirt that will bring up awareness of adoption!

We also have a link to our Just Love Coffee store. You can go online and order coffee or whatever you would like and part of the proceeds will go to our adoption and part will go to an orphanage in Ethiopia.
Please message me or Ben if you would like to order a tshirt or have questions about Just Love Coffee.

Pray for us also as we start planning a yard sale! (yikes!) If you would like to donate any items to sell at our yard sale please email me at toriram52@hotmail.com or message me on facebook.

Thanks for all your support! We love you all!