Help bless the Cromers!

Hello everyone! As we wait for our little girl's arrival (any...day...now...), we want to share a way for you to bless our friends Nathan and Kimberly as they also prepare for their little guy's arrival in a few weeks. (If you missed their big announcement, simply read my last post--exciting times!!) The Cromers have started a baby registry at Walmart and plan to get one going at Kohl's soon as well. If you like to shop, you can visit their registry online here at Walmart , print it out to take with you to the store, or shop online through the registry as well.

Or, for those of you who aren't shoppers or live out of town but would love to join in the fun, we are offering a way for you to collaborate in blessing them together. From today through July 31, EVERY donation amount that comes in through our PayPal donation link on our blog will go directly to purchasing items they still need. Gifts from your donations will be given at a baby shower in the works for them shortly after they bring their little guy home!

ANY amount will be greatly appreciated and will be a huge blessing to them as they quickly prepare for a little one! If you wish to donate, simply click our PayPal link on the right (Donate to our Adoption) or go here. Or, if you do not have PayPal but wish to contribute, you can simply send funds our way and mark "Cromer adoption" in the memo line (Daniel and Mae Verheyden, 3612 S Selby Street, Marion, IN 46953).

We are SO, SO excited for what the Lord is doing in the lives of our friends and can't wait to meet their little one next month :-). Please continue to pray with them for details in paper work, travel, and completion of the adoption, as well as for the expectant mother who is bravely making this decision to provide an awesome future for her little boy. Pray that her heart will be overwhelmed with the love and peace of Christ as she spends the remaining few weeks preparing for this decision. May the Lord be praised and glorified!

Our Biggest MUST-READ Post of the Year!!!!!

Dear friends and family,

Today I am BEYOND EXCITED to share something amazing with you. As we have struggled with the timing (...waiting...) in our adoption journey, the Lord has unveiled an AWESOME story line in the last 9 days that He's been weaving right along.

Many of you know some of our best friends in the world, Nathan and Kimberly Cromer. These two have been trusting the Lord to reveal His plans for their family and have been faithfully following Him in caring for foster children this past year. Daniel and I have watched their trust in the Lord grow even deeper and have been in awe of their immense love for the children they've cared for. Through both exciting moments and challenging ones filled with spiritual warfare, Nathan and Kimberly have loved the children coming through their home with the unconditional love of Christ, providing a safe and caring environment and praying relentlessly for the six foster children they've had in their home this past year.

As their most recent group of children was placed back with their mother and father not long ago, the Cromers were again waiting on the Lord to bring just the right children into their home at the right time. They were trusting Him to reveal the next step, when the following events unfolded.

Last Wednesday night, we were approached by a friend in our monthly adoption and foster care support group, informing us of an urgent need for a home-study-ready adoptive family for a baby boy due at the end of July. I have to admit, the first thought in my head was, “Lord, really? Don't You know this is bad timing?” as we could not even entertain the thought since our home study will become invalid as soon as Zoe is born (any day now). For a few moments my heart broke for this expectant mother and her pre-born child, wondering if our friend would be able to locate a family soon enough. But then she asked, “What about the Cromers? Would they be interested?” Daniel and I both definitely agreed that they'd be interested. We prayed desperately that night at home that the Lord would protect this expectant mom and her child and bring just the right family along for him.

Just twelve hours later, I received a simple text from Kimberly, “filling out the paper work now.” I'm not sure my heart has ever felt such joy as hearing those few words, knowing that (of course) the Lord's timing was not BAD, but instead ABSOLUTELY, INCREDIBLY AMAZING to be writing this beautiful story into the Cromers' lives. Just 24 hours after our friend first informed them of the situation, Nathan and Kimberly were matched to be the adoptive family for this little boy!!!!! They will travel through several states to bring him home at the end of July—and, not a coincidence, right during the weeks Nathan had already had planned with his boss to be out on vacation.

In the letter they sent out this week, the Cromers shared this verse: “My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts are higher than your thoughts,” (Isaiah 55:9). How incredible these words are! So many times (over, and over, and OVER again), I have doubted what the Lord is up to in our family's adoption journey—especially why He asked us to start the journey so soon, already knowing He planned to bless us with pregnancy shortly after, which would cause significant delays in our adoption process and cause us to essentially start at square one again after Zoe's birth. But His ways ARE higher than ours. He reminded me this week that had we not begun our adoption journey, I wouldn't have been able to help Kimberly throw a family profile together using ours as a template in 2 hours (designing ours took weeks...and weeks...). From the profile, the expectant mother was able to “meet” the Cromers in more depth than just from photos alone. We also would not have been there to have to say no but affirm that the Cromers would definitely want to hear about the situation. This may seem small, but the Lord used this to remind me again that He does INDEED have timing under control. His ways are higher and BETTER than mine.

As you rejoice with us in this amazing news, be watching our blog for how you can be involved in the Cromers' journey in the coming weeks. They will be starting from scratch for baby items (they do have a car seat and pack-n-play), so that will be one need we'll address on our blog soon. They have shared the following prayer requests in the letter they sent out this week, and we'd love you to pray along with them:

We know and believe that “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” James 5:16. We need prayer for wisdom as we become forever parents. We need prayer for strength through this time of quickly preparing for a newborn. We need prayer for the processes and paperwork that need to be completed to finalize this adoption. We need prayer for travel as we drive across several states to bring him home. We need prayer for our time with the birth mom, allowing Christ to shower his love and hope to the birth mom through us.

Today I will simply close this post with the beginning words from their letter:

We want to praise the Lord for His unconditional love, His eternal Gospel, and His great and precious promises! Amen!

(AND AMEN!!!!)

Urgent Prayer Need

Dear praying friends, I know you have watched the Lord do amazing things to heal, restore, forgive, and uplift His people. Today a little boy, Mattie, is in serious need of the Lord's physical touch on his body. He is the son of our adoption consultant, Tracie Loux, and is very close in age to Nathan.

A little of Mattie's background follows from Tracie's blog: "Matthias is now 2 1/2. We are blessed beyond belief with this treasure of a little boy. Mattie has Down syndrome and was hospitalized the first year of life. He is now home living with our family and loving life. Mattie has a tracheostomy, is on a ventillator part time, has a Gtube for feeding, and has had two heart surgeries.

Today his family shares the following update, following several recent hospitalizations for respiratory infections:

I have withheld the severity of Mattie’s most recent illness until we were able to talk with our older children face to face this morning. Last night was the worst night we have ever faced with Mattie. He became ill suddenly on Thursday night and went down hill with puzzling symptoms throughout the day Friday.

By Friday evening we were needing to increase vent settings at home and had him on the highest level of oxygen possible, his lungs started bleeding. We rushed him to the ER around 7PM. He was quickly transferred up to the PICU where even on the hospital ventilator, they weren’t able to get his oxygen saturation to go up.

As they continued to adjust settings, he crashed. And like a bad movie was taking place before our eyes, they resuscitated him and did chest compressions. This happened 4 times last night while they worked to put in central lines, arterial lines, giving life saving medications, and transfer him to an oscillating ventilator. He has bacterial pneumonia and is septic. He is as stable as is possible at the moment, yet critically ill.

Mattie needs a miracle. We need you to surround us. Pleas pray for us, our son, our other children, and for the medical team supporting our son.

We are clinging to the One who saves and delivers.

PLEASE PRAY for Mattie today! His life has already touched so many, and we pray that the Lord will again uplift his little body. You can read more about him at the family blog at http://tracieloux.wordpress.com/.

Adoption Update: 6.4.13

From some conversations we've had in-person and online recently, we realized it's high time to post an official “adoption update.” As you know if you follow our blog, we began our adoption journey last July after praying for clarity on when/where/how our family should be involved in adoption or foster care. We strongly sensed the Lord asking us to step out in faith to pursue adoption of an African American or biracial infant from the U.S. (a need we previously didn't know existed).

As you also know if you've followed our blog, we started our home study immediately and were nearly finished in October, when we unexpectedly found out we were pregnant! We CAN'T WAIT to welcome Zoe Grace into our family in the next few weeks (due date is June 23)!

On the adoption front, pregnancy slowed things down a lot for us as energy levels were not what we had planned for participating in fundraising, filling out paper work, etc., but in early February we were finally finished with our home study. Mae was able to finish designing our 20-page family profile in March, just in time for the third trimester of pregnancy to kick in and slow us down again.

We were about to send out applications to specific agencies that have great needs for families for minority babies, when we realized we'll need to update both our home study and family profile again as soon as our daughter is born. So instead of sending and resending paperwork to agencies, we agreed with our adoption consultant that it would be best to wait until after Zoe's birth to apply to agencies so that we can send updated paperwork.

We anticipated that our home study agency would simply update for us as soon as we were ready to proceed, but we recently discovered they require a nine-month waiting period before a family may update a home study after a new family member is added. We were a bit discouraged with this news as we have already been moving very slowly, so we looked into other possible options to get things moving again sooner. We do have one small window of opportunity with an agency that may be able to get us going in September instead of waiting until spring, but please pray with us for wisdom in how aggressively we should work to get things moving again after Zoe is born. We have been anticipating hitting the adoption trail hard after her birth but want to be alert to the Lord's leading. He has been working in our hearts in so many ways as He reminds us to wait on His timing and rest in His presence, and we are trusting Him to direct us to a little one in need of a family at the precise time He chooses.

So, basically, we are waiting for a couple (or many) months so we can update paperwork again. As we wait, will you please pray specifically with us for the following needs?

1. Zoe Grace is due June 23. Pray with us for a continued healthy pregnancy and a blessed time of welcoming a new little one into our family.
2. Pray for wisdom and discernment as we move ahead, that we will not rush things but will move at exactly the speed the Lord has in mind for bringing our next little one home.
3. The Lord has already provided over $10,000 of the $30,000 we will need for the adoption!! We praise Him for faithfully providing in the midst of our physical weaknesses. You have all blessed us greatly with donations of funds, freelance jobs, and things for us to sell. If you would like to contribute to our fund, you can use the PayPal donation link to the right on our blog at danielandmae.blogspot.com, make a tax-deductible donation through our AdoptTogether account at www.adopttogether.org/danielandmae, or send a donation directly to our home at 3612 S Selby Street, Marion, IN 46953. We have been accumulating a large stockpile of items to sell beginning in August or September, so if you have items laying around that you'd be interested in donating as well, we'd love to add them to the growing collection.
4. With the addition of a little girl via pregnancy as well as the anticipation of a little one through adoption, we will have three children in our family before we know it. Our beloved little fuel-efficient Chevy Prizm sadly only holds two car seats, so to transport all our little ones, we will need to join the minivan club in the coming months. Please pray we will find a vehicle that is still road-trip-reliable for visiting family for a price we can afford.
5. Please pray that we will continue to trust the Lord's timing and rest in His presence. He has shown us amazing things about Himself as we've embarked on this adoption journey, and we can't wait to grow even deeper in our love for Him and passion to serve Him as we continue to follow His call to adopt.

Thank you all for your prayers and encouragement in this journey. The Lord has used so many of you to speak life-giving words into our hearts at just the right moments when Satan has tried to discourage us. We thank God for each of you and trust He is revealing Himself to you in new ways each day as you seek Him!

Daniel, Mae, Nathan, and future little V's