Memorial Box Monday

Wow, it is Monday and I am actually remembering to do this. I am still new to this and not the best at remembering to do it yet. If you don't know what Memorial Box Monday is please click here for Linny to explain it to you.



This weekend we had a amazing experience at our church. They had an international children's choir there to help raise money to dig wells in countries that only have dirty water to drink. An amazing thing happened this weekend though. They gave testimonies of a couple of the kids from Uganda and these children were orphans and boy did they touch the hearts of many, many people in the church. These children were not available for adoption (as far as I know anyway) but I can't even begin to tell you how many people were talking about wanting to adopt these children. I can't even tell you how excited that I was that God was opening so many peoples eyes to adoption even though that wasn't the focus of the weekend.



In the last couple of months some special friends of mine have stepped out in faith to bring home either their first or another child home. These friends of mine are not rich and did not have the money to just start an international or domestic adoption but they knew God would provide. It really brought back memories of how God provided for Jaxson to come home so that is what my Memorial Box Monday is about this week. I'm sorry I know this is going to be long.



One day in June of 2007 I saw the most beautiful little boys face I had ever seen on a waiting child list. We were not planning on adopting at that time, I was just doing research for an orphan ministry we were trying to get started in Church. As a family we started praying that this beautiful child would find a good Christian home. As the weeks went by of us praying for him we fell in love with him. I knew we were not in the position to adopt at the time so I hadn't even told Chris that I had fallen in love with him. One day at the end of July my friend Rett called me while on vacation and ask me if we were going to pursue him to be our son. I told her she was crazy because we couldn't afford to do that. I tell you though that her phone call was enough to get me to tell Chris I had fallen in love with this little boy and Chris told me he had too. Chris then told me (shocked me actually) that if God wanted him to be our son then God would provide.



Ch*na had just set a new list of restrictions for adopting families and we didn't meet those restrictions. God slowly (let me tell you it felt like forever) opened all the doors we needed except for the money. On the day we met all all the requirements Chris called the adoption agency and said "this is our son, we don't care what his medicals say, we don't have any money, we are doing this on faith." The agency then said "OK, but you will need to have $6500 in one week." How in the world were we going to come up with $6500 in one week when we have NOTHING? We decided it was time to tell our family about this boy we had been praying about. Our families are not rich so we didn't expect them to give us any money but we needed prayer BIG time.



How do you tell your family though that God has told you to travel to the other side of the world, to bring home a child with so many special needs that it would even scare a Dr. to look at his file, not to mention he had one arm, and by the way we have NO money?" We went and told my mom first and I cannot even tell you how scared I was but do you know she was supportive of us. I know I should have expected her to be but in all honesty wouldn't you think your child was crazy if they came and told you this when you had no experience with God's heart for the orphan?



The next day my mom was driving on a long trip and God told her how He was going to provide the money for Jaxson to come home. My mom called me and you would have thought she had just seen a ghost and she told me what God told her what to do. God told her to send an email to everyone she knew explaining our situation and how we need to come up with $6500 in one week. God told her to start a fundraiser called "Opportunity for Change." My mom ask everyone she knew to donate the change they had laying around in jars in their house to help raise the money.



Within I think 12 hours or so a special anonymous angel wrote my mom and said she has been holding $6500 in tithing money off of an inheritance that God had told her to hold onto until he showed her what the money was to be used for. This angel knew as soon as she read mom's email that this was exactly what God had planned for that money that she had been holding onto for months.



During that one week time people kept stopping by with little amounts of change, big amounts of change, checks kept coming in the mail like crazy, our local MOPS group collected change, workplaces were collecting change and on and on. We had people give up their vacations to help bring Jaxson home. God used many people and many pennies and in ONE WEEK provided not just the $6500 but provided everything we needed to get Jaxson home. So this week I will be adding a coin wrapper to our Memorial Box to remind us of that moment of stepping out in faith and God providing for our needs.



I will be honest and tell you that it is not usually this easy for people to come up with the money to adopt but I can tell you I have seen God provide for many, many families to bring home children that the families didn't have the money to bring them home but they had the love to give and the faith to say "OK God, were ready to step out in faith."