2015-Year of Many Changes

Its sort of breathtaking to read my last post knowing what doors were opened last year!! The door of ADOPTION. Here is a brief story on what lead our hearts to adopt from China… I am hoping through this blog I am able to document our journey and update our friends and family.

If you asked me if we would adopt 2 years ago the answer would be No! We have 4 beautiful boys that are healthy and expensive to feed ;-). Our hands were full and so were our hearts .. But You see there has ALWAYS been this deep desire to have a little girl in our family. I yearned for the mother-daughter relationship. Not just to dress her up in cute bows (although that will be so fun) but because the relationship I have with my own mother is lets say strained and complicated… I had 101 reasons why we DIDN'T need to pursue this desire in my heart but still my heart felt like a piece was missing.

We have traveled to China, had a nephew adopted from China and good friends whom we have prayed for their little girl from China. But in my mind it still wasn't for us….(little did we know that a seed was being planted and all these events would be part of our story)

God slowly started to work on my heart. When he moved our family to Melissa, he didn't just move us in a neighborhood with 4 other families that had adopted from China but right smack in the middle of two of them. Our families grew closer together and witnessing first hand the love between all of them was indescribable. One night one of my best friends said to me.. I could see you adopting and I don't just say that to anyone… Say what?? Then later in the year of 2014 a family we had grown closer to through our church plant and community was on their way to pick up their little boy. I followed her updates every day and my heart would explode at all the pictures of them together.. We went to the airport in anticipation to greet this sweet boy we had prayed for along side many other friends. The Holy Spirit was in that airport waiting area. I could feel this overwhelming sense of love and compassion that brought tears to my eyes and goosebumps to my arms. This sweet boys was with his FOREVER Family. It was about 2 months after that I said let's do this!!

So here we are… One year after starting the process and as we are estimated to leave in about 3 weeks to go get our little girl Brooklyn Emilia Stoltzfus! My heart is so full and I can't wipe the smile off my face thinking about the day I get to wrap my arms around her!

I am also including some pics from the sweetest shower my friends and family threw me this past week! So much love and thought went into each detail of this shower. It was a moment I tried to soak in as much as I could. I am blessed to have such a strong support group of friends and will be forever grateful.