Why?

This weekend I was reminded that we have not really shared our story on this blog.

There are lots of pieces to how we got here, but today I want to share the "why" part of the story. In the past few months I have been asked a lot of "why" questions. Why that country? Why a special needs child? Why adopt now?

For me the journey started on Sunday, July 18, 2010. At the end of service, our pastor reminded us that the song we were about to sing, I Surrender All, was a song of action, and if we were not ready to surrender all, we should not sing it.

I was convicted and could not sing the song, and so I prayed that God would show me, not what to surrender but how to surrender. That week we were introduced to Reece's Rainbow. To make a long story short... God is teaching me how to surrender, and I am definitely a work in progress.

So, the answer to all the "why" questions is simple ...God! His call was to big to ignore. For me it was not just a call to adopt, it was a call to surrender. Adopting Grady is the blessing we will receive for answering the call.

Romans 8:28 "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose."

I love this post from the Reece's Rainbow blog. While We Wait

Somewhere Out There

I have been thinking about how adopting can be so different and yet so similar to being pregnant.

Both have a lot of waiting! Both are so emotionally draining; one moment can have such joy and excitement and the next such anxiety and fear of the unknown. Both bring such hope for the future of the precious little one who you will soon hold in your arms. With both you "fall in love" with a child you have not yet met.

There is one part that is so different and also so difficult. When I was pregnant I could feel my little girl growing each day, and I could care for her as she developed. My heart aches knowing that Grady could be scared, crying, sick, hungry, cold, or feel alone... and I am not there! I know that God is taking care of Grady, but the desire to nurture and care for him is still there. Tonight, he feels so far away! This made me think of the song Somewhere Out There from the movie American Tail. So sad tonight!!

Please pray for Grady that he might feel God's loving arms around him. Please pray that we might be able to bring him home soon!

Fundraising

We are coming down the home stretch on our dossier paperwork. We have sent in the final documents to the US government for approval! Hopefully everything will be approved and done by November! So please keep praying that everything can get done and the agencies that have control over this will move quickly.

Meanwhile, we are now in the part of the process where we need to raise $25,000! We will be heading up several fundraisers to help raise the funds, and we hope there will be one, or more, that you would like to participate in.

Please visit the link on our blog if you would like to make a donation by purchasing a T-shirt. The shirts are also a great way to raise awareness for the many children who sit in orphanages today dreaming of a family to love them.

If you would like to give a monetary donation please click on the link and follow the instructions on the page. http://www.reecesrainbow.org/sponsorcoffman.html Donation through Reece's Rainbow are tax deductible. Please make sure to note in your donation that it is for the Coffman Family's adoption of Grady.

We would greatly appreciate if you would forward this along through your email address book, blog about it, post it on your Facebook wall and even twitter about it! We have a long way to go, but we have no doubt God will provide!

Thank you in advance for all of your prayers and help, and we look forward to introducing you to our new son.

Paperwork almost done!

We are moving now! We received our homestudy today! This was a big piece that we were missing. We have all of the paperwork for our dossier ready to go, but we will need to wait for our fingerprint date and I-171H approval. Please pray that this will come quickly. We are trying to send our dossier before November when SDA takes their break (Nov-Feb). If we can not have it ready by then, we will need to redo all of our paperwork since anything dated 5 months or older will not be accepted.