Feeling called to...

So Doug and I have been going back and forth about what the next step for our family is.  Our original plan was to have 4 children and then foster/adopt 2 children through Harris County's foster/adopt program.  Then we started to think that maybe we should have more biological children now, while I am still young and healthy for pregnancy and then adopt later in life.  We were starting to lean toward this decision when a friend lent us a book to read...

 The book is called Kisses from Katie and it is about a 19 year old girl who moves to Uganda and starts a ministry that provides food, medical care, and education for the children there.  While living there she also ended up adopting 14 girls! All throughout the book she describes the extreme poverty in Uganda. She talks about the children dying of starvation and from diseases and how they don't even have anyone there to comfort them and hold them and wipe away their tears.  She wrote that there are 147 million orphans in the world and if you include children in slavery and sex trafficking that the number is actually closer to 168 million.   There are 2.1 billion Christians in the world.  If only 8% of the Christians would take one child than there would be no more orphans in the world. 

Here's the thing...Doug and I feel called to be part of that 8%! And although we know children in the US foster care system need parents and love, they at least have food, clean water, and medical care.  So we are now leaning toward international adoption.

There are plenty of obstacles ahead but where we see obstacles we know that God sees opportunities.

So please join us as we are praying for God's direction in all of this.  We are currently researching possible countries to adopt from and adoption agencies and trying to familiarize ourselves with the adoption process.