Breaking news but be warned: we haven't been hacked and we
have not lost our mind :)
We are adopting a sweet 11 year old girl...but wait there's
more...literally more...because ya see there's 2 of them...yup the Turner's are
adopting twins!
It took me a few days to get scraped off the floor but now
we are bouncing of the ceiling with joy!
For the love- you have to read the story behind this because you cant
even make this stuff up!
******************************************************************************Everyone knows we have been waiting a very long time for this adoption thing to actually work (you know- a child come's to your home)
Well, even without having
met these girls we would have waited all over again! I know some may think that we just got tired
of waiting for a 'little one' but we would say yes to these girls a thousand
times over because we are that sure of the fact that God wants them in our
family....and so, with no further wait, I give you:
"The proof we aren't nut's, wouldn't you
have said yes too?"
One lovely day I felt like I
should advocate on facebook for a few sibling groups that our adoption agency
was having trouble finding homes for.
(note so self: don't ask others
to do something that you yourself think is a bit nuts...good thing they weren't
triplets;)
3 days later- woke up with a
huge burden to pray for the adoption. I didn't
even know what I was praying for but if felt like a battle call. I felt God was saying, 'keep praying, break
through, I'm really doing something here!'
THAT afternoon we received
an email from our agency. They sent us
information on the twin 11 year old girls from Ethiopia
That
SAME afternoon (you remember... the one where God told me to pray cuz he's
doing something) we got a letter from US Immigration stating that our forms to bring an
orphan into the country was sent back to us because they saw a few mistakes. The 'overlooked' mistakes included: our
child age request was worded wrong, they told us to go back and have our social
worker fix the wording on our AGE request AND whether we were approved to adopt
a single child or Multiple children! (yeah...you could say it was about here
where God got my attention) These
'mistakes' should not have been overlooked by so many.
I went back and read the girls background information and that's when my heart felt it's first tug.
BUT- I knew it was not for us because we wanted to honor the
kids feelings- I knew they did not want older siblings...Jacob (8) was adamant
about this from the start. Well you
guessed it...when I mentioned the girls to them they jumped up and down begging
us to adopt them- they were relentless and non stop about if for days- which
shocked us. They immediately acted crazy writing letters to them for, 'when
they come.' The kids wrote the date down, 'to tell the girls when we first knew
they were our sisters.' Jacob slept with
their picture for 2 days and they literally would not stop talking crazy talk
such as, 'how are we going to tell them apart?" and I may or may have not
yelled, 'they are not your sisters!"
You see, God used each of our children to speak to us in our adoption
decisions...and they were starting to make me nervous.
The plan all along was that we were going to take Jacob with us
to Ethiopia
It was all it bit much- not the
children's crazy reaction- but all the other stuff even before this. Even though it was crazy...Mike and I talked
about it- what this would look like, what would this mean for our family and
the 10 good reasons why this was a bad idea.
But then we prayed about it- we gave it to God- and said, 'this
certainly looks like you are trying to get our attention here- and even though
you pulled some crazy stuff off to make us even consider twin 11 year olds...you
have to 'pull out all the stops' on this one!
We'll be open...but you have to be REALLY clear on this one God!"
(this is where it get's Really good)
I'll pause here for a moment to let that sink in...
AGHHHHH!!!!
I found it amazing that
God gave us such awesome undeniable clear confirmation...he obviously knew we
just needed to hear it point blank. The
best part of it all is that he used her in perfect timing. He spoke to us first- we were totally feeling
it- but it was just so scary to us that we needed that boost of faith to step
out in!
2 more crazy things: To
adopt a sibling the fee's are drastically reduced- the additional fee's that we
would have to pay to adopt the twins is: $3500
Remember our '7 for Seats fundraiser' going through
facebook? (the one I started because I
felt that we needed to 'prepare' even though we didn't have a child match
yet?) Yeah well can you guess how much
we raised so far? You guessed it: $3500
I now know that God inspired me to set that up so that we would
be ready and have that fee. (Yes, please
don't point out to me that we are now starting fresh with the travel
funding...you can bring that one up to God please)
Last crazy thing (for now):
a friend of mine reminded me of
what may be just coincidence but for me it's another wink from God....
last year for my birthday she gave me a willow tree set of those family figurines. She gave me 2 boys, a girl, and she said she couldn't
find any singular babies....so she bought me a set called 'Twins' with 2
children in it. We put one child away
and I laughed saying, 'I always wanted twins!' and she laughed back, 'hey, ya
never know, maybe that was prophetic...'
I'm sure God was laughing with us saying, 'If you only knew!"
So in conclusion: Mike
and my conversation that changed the course of our family and grew us from 5 to
7 went something like this:
BUT we both know that would not have been the actual Plan A for
us- God's plan. He made it so clear to
us and even gave us the desire for this- it was just all the earthly fears that
swarmed us. But we know that God's plan
is greater than mans, and his grace is sufficient. We choose God's will for our lives...because
we know that's were we will find the most joy and blessing and where we will
see his glory be made known on Earth the most.
Bring it on!
Psalm 68:5
Father to the fatherless,
defender of widows—
this is God, whose dwelling is holy.
God places the lonely in families;
this is God, whose dwelling is holy.
God places the lonely in families;
Helen and Jerusalem
we are coming!
PS. We
now have an 'updated' version of $7 for seats....Please pass it on through
your circle of friends and networks, we truly appreciate it!
check it out: http://www.acharityproject.com/f/7forseats
