I've been not so subtlety hinting at some big changes in our near future.
Well time to spill the beans: we're moving!
We're staying in Terre Haute but we're moving across town into a new house.
The icing on the cake is the story surrounding our move.
Friends/church family of ours have been missionaries in Italy and came back to the states a few years ago.
They are setting out again this summer on mission in Germany.
I've told my friend for a long time that we would be *very* interested in buying their house if they ever sold it and lo and behold that's what the Lord has asked them to do.
To make the deal EVEN sweeter, another couple who we are close friends with is buying our house!
Everyone is currently signing papers getting the ball rolling so I thought this would be the ideal time to share our news.
Our new home will be much bigger than our current place which will allow us to be a family to more kids.
Yup, we want to adopt again.
We just can't get enough of the bubbling joy that comes with kids.
We love how the gospel is illustrated through adoption.
We have a love/hate relationship with how God works through children to soften and strengthen a parent all at once and make that old parent heart more childlike again.
We daily feel the need in our community for more loving parents to take in children who need a home that will fully commit to them 100%, whatever may come.
We are open to whatever the Lord wants, whether it is another young sibling group or a few singletons one at a time.
We just know that children make you rich and we want to be filthy rich with 'em.
The new home will make this possible as the square footage of our house has to meet certain guidelines for us to have more children.
In our region, foster/adoptive families have to have fifty square feet of bedroom space for each child.
God is blessing us with much more than that and we can only assume He means to fill it up with children who need a family.
We long to be that family.
When I share this hope for our future I see people get a questioning look in their eyes when they do the math of the child to parent ratio.
Or maybe they start assuming we have some secret source of energy/peace/ability/endurance for this kind of work.
While we do have a source, it's no secret and it has nothing to do with who we are as people.
The source of anything good about us is God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
We believe they are urging us towards this and will supply everything each member of our family will need for the blessed task.
As a mom, the part of me that is the Holy Spirit is chomping at the bit, joyful, ready to dive into loving the hearts of these yet unknown children.
The Kensie part of me is admittedly feeling more of a range of things: excitement, alarm, uncertainty, unease at considering how much sleep will be lost for the (worthy) cause of loving new little ones, and a frantic energy to plan/control as much as possible.
We want to be realistic and as prepared as possible so that we might be as free as possible to throw ourselves into the full time care of several young and uniquely needy children.
Of course that looks like this bigger house but it also includes preparing our hearts, the hearts of our children, and reenforcing the things that strengthen our family in the Lord.
Yet faith is essential as we will 100% come to the end of ourselves no matter how much we prepared *praise God*.
We will need the Lord to love us all as only He can.
That's been the greatest thing about anything I've ever done.
From marriage to ministry to fostering, adoption, and parenting it's stepping out in faith, coming to the end myself and getting a front row view of God just being who He is: the ultimate Being who is every good and perfect thing.
That's what life can be all about.
Letting Him do what He does: bringing everyone to the fullness of life in Him.
This is my hope for our new home:
That He would fill the place with Himself, giving Himself through our family to some precious ones who need Him.
Can I ask a favor?
Would you be praying for us?
We desperately need it.
Adam and I are woefully immature and often feel how not ready we are for this.
But God has called us to it and we will obey.
Pray that we would be firm, faithful, and continuously obedient to God.
Pray that we would be humble and not prideful.
Pray for our family's material and practical needs because kids can require special equipment, food, energy and a lot of it.
Pray for Larissa, Kenna, and Malachi as everything from the move to expanding their family isn't their choice but will require new things from them as well.
Pray that God uses this all to draw each of them closer to Him.
Pray that they will catch the vision for the life God has called us to, that we will always be a team.
Pray for the children who will be ours one day.
They might be living through the events that will cause their removal even today.
They might be SUFFERING.
They might be in PAIN or HUNGRY or ALONE or SCARED.
I (Kensie) am painfully aware of this daily and there's nothing I can do but prepare for them and pray.
Pray that whatever bring them into foster care is enough to remove them but that they are protected from long term scars and damage.
Pray that someone loves on them today.
It's possible that the children will be with another foster family before they are placed with us so pray for that family, that they would love our kids like their own.
Thank you for reading this (I hope it made sense).
Thank you for caring.
Thank you for praying.
Well time to spill the beans: we're moving!
We're staying in Terre Haute but we're moving across town into a new house.
The icing on the cake is the story surrounding our move.
Friends/church family of ours have been missionaries in Italy and came back to the states a few years ago.
They are setting out again this summer on mission in Germany.
I've told my friend for a long time that we would be *very* interested in buying their house if they ever sold it and lo and behold that's what the Lord has asked them to do.
To make the deal EVEN sweeter, another couple who we are close friends with is buying our house!
Everyone is currently signing papers getting the ball rolling so I thought this would be the ideal time to share our news.
Our new home will be much bigger than our current place which will allow us to be a family to more kids.
Yup, we want to adopt again.
We just can't get enough of the bubbling joy that comes with kids.
We love how the gospel is illustrated through adoption.
We have a love/hate relationship with how God works through children to soften and strengthen a parent all at once and make that old parent heart more childlike again.
We daily feel the need in our community for more loving parents to take in children who need a home that will fully commit to them 100%, whatever may come.
We are open to whatever the Lord wants, whether it is another young sibling group or a few singletons one at a time.
We just know that children make you rich and we want to be filthy rich with 'em.
The new home will make this possible as the square footage of our house has to meet certain guidelines for us to have more children.
In our region, foster/adoptive families have to have fifty square feet of bedroom space for each child.
God is blessing us with much more than that and we can only assume He means to fill it up with children who need a family.
We long to be that family.
When I share this hope for our future I see people get a questioning look in their eyes when they do the math of the child to parent ratio.
Or maybe they start assuming we have some secret source of energy/peace/ability/endurance for this kind of work.
While we do have a source, it's no secret and it has nothing to do with who we are as people.
The source of anything good about us is God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
We believe they are urging us towards this and will supply everything each member of our family will need for the blessed task.
As a mom, the part of me that is the Holy Spirit is chomping at the bit, joyful, ready to dive into loving the hearts of these yet unknown children.
The Kensie part of me is admittedly feeling more of a range of things: excitement, alarm, uncertainty, unease at considering how much sleep will be lost for the (worthy) cause of loving new little ones, and a frantic energy to plan/control as much as possible.
We want to be realistic and as prepared as possible so that we might be as free as possible to throw ourselves into the full time care of several young and uniquely needy children.
Of course that looks like this bigger house but it also includes preparing our hearts, the hearts of our children, and reenforcing the things that strengthen our family in the Lord.
Yet faith is essential as we will 100% come to the end of ourselves no matter how much we prepared *praise God*.
We will need the Lord to love us all as only He can.
That's been the greatest thing about anything I've ever done.
From marriage to ministry to fostering, adoption, and parenting it's stepping out in faith, coming to the end myself and getting a front row view of God just being who He is: the ultimate Being who is every good and perfect thing.
That's what life can be all about.
Letting Him do what He does: bringing everyone to the fullness of life in Him.
This is my hope for our new home:
That He would fill the place with Himself, giving Himself through our family to some precious ones who need Him.
Can I ask a favor?
Would you be praying for us?
We desperately need it.
Adam and I are woefully immature and often feel how not ready we are for this.
But God has called us to it and we will obey.
Pray that we would be firm, faithful, and continuously obedient to God.
Pray that we would be humble and not prideful.
Pray for our family's material and practical needs because kids can require special equipment, food, energy and a lot of it.
Pray for Larissa, Kenna, and Malachi as everything from the move to expanding their family isn't their choice but will require new things from them as well.
Pray that God uses this all to draw each of them closer to Him.
Pray that they will catch the vision for the life God has called us to, that we will always be a team.
Pray for the children who will be ours one day.
They might be living through the events that will cause their removal even today.
They might be SUFFERING.
They might be in PAIN or HUNGRY or ALONE or SCARED.
I (Kensie) am painfully aware of this daily and there's nothing I can do but prepare for them and pray.
Pray that whatever bring them into foster care is enough to remove them but that they are protected from long term scars and damage.
Pray that someone loves on them today.
It's possible that the children will be with another foster family before they are placed with us so pray for that family, that they would love our kids like their own.
Thank you for reading this (I hope it made sense).
Thank you for caring.
Thank you for praying.
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