Expecting Times Two!

So, for those of you who haven't read on Facebook or who we haven't had the pleasure of telling this news to personally, our lives have been consumed by a new life event over the past few weeks: pregnancy!! We are no longer expecting to increase our family size by just one in the near future through adoption but now two through pregnancy as well. (BabyCenter.com says our “due date” should be June 23 :-).)

Many of you have asked where this leaves our adoption journey. Well, we're glad you asked—it doesn't “leave” our journey, as we are going to continue as planned with our adoption. Yes, we know, there is a strong possibility we could have two newborns in the house within just months of each other. We also know traveling could pose some additional fun challenges. But we know the Lord called us into this, and we're not stopping due to the extra blessing of pregnancy :-).

We would love you to continue praying with us through this adoption. As we mentioned previously, our last month has been anything but uneventful, so adding morning sickness into the mix has been a bit discouraging as we finally thought we'd get moving quickly on our remaining home study and family profile needs. Unfortunately we've instead had to slow down at everything in life to keep up with the basics like eating, meaning our home study is yet again being drawn out. Please pray that we can push through the final few hoops to get this portion wrapped up soon.

Also, please begin praying with us as we start applying for grants and coming up with creative fundraising ideas. Both of us had originally planned to take on as much freelance work as possible to help with funds, but Mae is now not going to have as much expendable energy as originally planned. We aren't worried about funds as we know the Lord will take care of the thing He has called us to pursue, but we want to use our time and energy in the ways that will best fulfill His plans for the financial aspect of this adoption.

Thanks so much again to all of you for your continued prayers and support! We are so SO blessed by each of you as we continue in this exciting adventure the Lord is taking us on!

Quick update on "life"

Since we've been fairly inactive in our blog, I thought I'd just post an update of all the crazy events that have happened this past month:

1. Our rental house ceiling collapsed, resulting in many nights of work for Daniel. Nasty insulation everywhere, our friend living there trying to finish up last-minute details to fly to Poland for two years as a missionary...it wasn't an "ideal" scenario. The devil tried pretty hard to discourage her in her call to missions and us in our pursuit of adoption...sorry, didn't work this time!

2. Our close friends Tim and Melody welcomed their second child, Laina Christine, into the world on October 16! She is gorgeous like her big sister Hannah (and her mommy, of course!). We were blessed to spend a couple days caring for Hannah while Tim and Melody enjoyed the first moments with Laina.

3. Other close friends had to fight a huge spiritual battle in the lives of their foster children as the kids were placed back with a family member this past Friday. We are all claiming the Lord's protection over these little ones as they have trusted Him as their Savior. We know He goes before them and knows them inside and out! They are never outside of His hands.

4. Our friend Becky (who's ceiling collapsed) hopped a plane TONIGHT for a two-year term in Poland, working in youth ministry. Becky has been such an encouragement to us in our adoption journey, as we watched her pursue God's call on her life whole-heartedly and found herself completely funded in less than a year. God enables those He calls!

5. We are still plugging away at the adoption! We are oh so very close to completing our home study!! Daniel just needs to finish reading the "required reading" book (in his free time, after this ceiling project is done!), and we should be on our way to FINISHED after our last visit. We can't wait to move into the next phase!

6. We will be an aunt/uncle by this time next month...just had to stick that in there! Yahoo for Nathan's first cousin!

So, you can see that a few things have been happening in our circles. We have been blessed to see how the Lord has been working in the lives of our friends and greatly encouraged and comforted knowing that He holds us up in the moments of despair and suffering as well.

Tax-deductible, anyone?

Today we received great news that we've been approved for an AdoptTogether adoption fund! What this means for you is that now you have a secure, TAX-DEDUCTIBLE way to donate to our adoption! All you have to do is visit https://adopttogether.org/danielandmae/ in order to make an online donation. Or, if you wish to contribute via check through the mail, you may make checks payable to AdoptTogether and include our names (Daniel and Mae Verheyden) in the memo line. Checks may be mailed to:

AdoptTogether251 W. Central Ave #278
Springboro, OH 45066 

AdoptTogether works by applying your donation amount to our adoption financial goal, and when we are at the point of needing funds to send to an adoption agency after being matched with a child, we will fill out a grant application for AdoptTogether. They will reward us a grant (every grant applicant to date has receive 100% of the funds requested) that will be applied directly to our adoption expenses. Pretty great, I think!!!

Thank you all for your continued partnership in this journey! I know we have not blogged in awhile as we have been dealing with some very exciting and very heart-wrenching life events in our friend group over the past few weeks, but we wanted to make sure to share this opportunity with you. We hope to post very soon a "real" update on our lives and how God is continuing to work! He is SOOO good!!!!

God WILL make this happen!!! (A fundraising update!)

So it's been forever since we've updated you, since we've faced a lot of "bad circumstances" (spiritual warfare) in the past few weeks including our rental house kitchen ceiling collapsing, illness, and discouragement, but we want to take a second to remind you of this verse and it's TRUTH:

God will make this happen, for He who calls you is faithful. 1 Thessalonians 5:24

This past week, beginning with Pastor Bob's sermon on Sunday morning on swimming upstream in a downstream world (found here if you missed it), followed by a week filled with blessed conversations and spiritual renewal through God's Word, the Lord reminded us yet again that the things He calls us to are not promised to be easy, popular, or even "fun" by the world's standards. But yet we must obey, we must stand strong, and we must swim upstream in pursuit of His call!

This week we have watched several friends experience God "making this happen" in their unique calls to serve God, and we are praising Him with them in these days! We also wanted to highlight a few big things happening in the fundraising area of our adoption journey:

1) Two friends of ours, Priscilla Wondercheck and Becky Locke, are teaming up to host a "virtual" Pampered Chef Party for anyone to "attend." The party is already open, and you can shop online here. This is how you shop: 

1. Click on the top LEFT button that says "Shows you're invited to or hosting." If you haven't registered on Pampered Chef online yet, you'll have to register first. Priscilla Wondercheck is the consultant if you are asked for that information.
2.  After you have registered, go back to that button on the main page again, and click Find Your Show Now, entering Becky Locke (in Indiana) as the Host.
3. Once you've selected her name, it's time to shop! 25 percent of the sales will be donated to our adoption once product sales hit $600.

2) Also (drum roll please...) in the past three weeks, we have reached a total of $7101!!! This brings us to 23.7 percent of our total goal, up $874 from September 19. We are so excited to see how the Lord is providing! 

God WILL make this happen. He IS faithful!!! 
 

 

The Spirit of Adoption

In July when we were 99.9 % sure the Lord had called us to pursue adopting a minority infant from the U.S., we were encouraged to read a book called The Spirit of Adoption by Randy and Kelsey Bohlender. If you've never read it, I HIGHLY recommend it. If you have any doubts whether adoption is in God's plans or what value God places on children, this book will give you fresh insight into the immeasurable value of children and the spiritual battle going on for their little hearts.

The book also highlights the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the church today in the area of adoption. Personally, until several years ago we'd only known one family who had been involved in foster care. Today we are connected with more adoptive and foster families than I can count, and this morning in our MOMS group, I was blown away by how God is drawing so many families' hearts toward lonely and hurting children. Through foster care and adoption, so many little ones are being shown the love of Christ and being embraced as part of a family. God is truly orchestrating a "Spirit of Adoption" in the hearts of His people.

You may never be asked to pursue adoption, but I pray you will listen closely to the Lord and what He wants you to do about the great orphan crisis in the world. He longs for His people to be His hands and feet and reach out to a hurting world full of little ones in need of mommies and daddies, brothers and sisters, grandmas and grandpas. Maybe there is a teen in your church who lacks emotional support at home. Perhaps you are a teacher, a bus driver, or a medical provider who could make a difference to one lonely child today by showing you care. You may be called to lay your heart on the line through foster care, loving a child as your very own yet knowing he or she may very well be relocated, humbly submitting yourself to the emotional pain to touch one child with Christ's love. Maybe God has a lonely child (or even a set of siblings) in need of your family forever.

However He asks you to participate, may we rejoice as He sets the lonely in families and continue to be His hands and feet to the world around us.

The Search for "Normal"

Over the last few weeks months  years we have often commented to each other, "Maybe life will return to 'normal' when _______ " To this day, life has never reached that searched-for normal. As I sat at the computer tonight, feeling exhausted from balancing parenting and home life with ministry involvement and fundraising for our adoption, I found this blog post from Sally Clarkson, the author of several parenting books including Mission of Motherhood which we studied last year in MOMS group. She writes:

“Jesus’ work in a person’s life has always begun with a call to leave behind the goals, purposes, and distractions of this world and to say yes to a whole new life, a new way of thinking. “Follow me” is what He told the disciples as He recruited them. And they did, abandoning their fishing nets, their tax-collector’s moneybags, their permanent homes, their everyday duties and pleasures. And they never went back. Sure, they still did a little fishing from time to time! But once they made the choice to follow Jesus, their lives were forever changed. They never returned to ‘normal.’

I think this is vital for us to keep in mind as Christians and as parents. We know we are called to follow Christ, to take His message to the world, to raise our children to heed Jesus’ call. But sometimes I think we fail to consider that following the Lord might mean leaving behind the ordinary and the familiar. It means exchanging a temporal view of life for an eternal goal. And this may mean leaving behind things we really care about–involvements and pursuits that seem important and worthwhile but may not be God’s best for us.

Part of giving the gift of inspiration is helping our children understand this–and perhaps reminding ourselves. To fulfill God’s design for their lives, our precious children must at some point determine to give Jesus allegiance in every aspect of their lives. There is a cost to discipleship, and that cost is everything!” ~ The Ministry of Motherhood

As we follow God's call on our family to adopt, our days and nights have been filled with completing paperwork, reading book requirements, and sending emails--all in between cleaning up the day's third spilled cup of milk, fundraising, and ministry involvement. We have started to search desperately for "normal" again. We long for those elusive quiet evenings at home filled with popcorn and movie nights, football games, and homemade milk shakes. We long for an entire day to get some projects completed in our home. 

How often we forget that following the Lord means "leaving behind the goals, purposes, and distractions of this world and to say yes to a whole new life, a new way of thinking." When we said "Yes!" to the Lord, we essentially said "No!" to the ordinary, familiar, temporal, and even enjoyable things of life that were not God's best for us. 

If you've already answered the Lord's call to "Follow Me," are you, like us, finding yourself distracted searching for the normal in life? Instead, may we count the cost of discipleship, say "Yes!" to Christ, and embrace the "whole new life" we find in Him!

What God is doing

I know most of you come to our blog to see what's happening in our lives in regard to adoption, but I'd like to share something different, yet related, with you today.

Our friend Becky Locke is a recent IWU graduate who served on staff at Brookhaven Wesleyan for awhile before being called by God to go to Poland to work with the youth there. Becky originally had a goal to make it to Poland by July of this past summer but is now aiming for October, after some unplanned delays in August (isn't the Lord's timing awesome though how He knows our futures even when we have our own thoughts of the "whens" and "wheres"?). Anyway, I wanted to share Becky's Facebook post with you today, as her journey has impacted us as we trust God to provide financially and in His timing for our adoption. Becky was appointed as a missionary with Global Partners earlier in 2012 and now, less than ONE YEAR later, she is so very close to leaving all she knows to love the youth of Poland. Here's what Becky shared today:

I want to celebrate and give all glory to God for His mighty power! I give Him praise for raising up a team of His people who believe in His faithfulness and anticipate the mighty work He is going to do through all of us in Poland!! Yes, I mean ALL of us! Even YOU! 

PARTNERS: God has laid it on my heart to share this with you today! Your partnership is an incredible value to me and the Polish people, I pray it will be an incredible blessing to you as well. I am praying and believing that I will be at 100% [funded] by the end of next week and will be heading out by October 26th! Please pray and believe with me! Thank you for being a vital part of our ministry. Please, let me know how I can be praying for you during this journey. These next two years are going to be amazing!

Philippians 1:3-6 "Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy, for you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now. And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns."

I want to rejoice with you!


-Becky

How awesome our God is to provide so incredibly for Becky and show her that He has INDEED called her! If you want to learn more about Becky's journey and how God has worked in her life or would like to partner with her through prayer or financially, you can find her on Facebook on Becky Locke in Poland or by visiting her missionary page by clicking here.

Praise God for His amazing, perfect, and complete provision!