Wow & Thanks!

Just a few weeks ago Steve was teaching our students about worship. He put into simple terms that the way we should approach God in our worship is with “wow and thanks”. “Wow” for who God is and “Thanks” for all that He has done. As I stood in the Coventry Oaks Shelter this past Friday night for the “Born in our Hearts” fundraiser event, I was overwhelmed with the phrase “wow and thanks”.

Tears streamed down my face as I looked around this beautiful room. Children, teenagers, college students, young adults, and families filled the room. It was so great to spend time with our current students and their families, former students who are now in college, friends from all different circles of our lives, and people that we had never met but wanted to encourage us in our journey.

We also had the privilege of meeting families who have adopted from Russia. I was introduced to a precious little girl adopted from Russia 10 years ago. I told her how exciting it was to see her face and meet her. Her sweet, little face beamed and it was amazing to get to spend some time with her parents and hear their story of adoption.

The whole evening was such a beautiful picture of the Body of Christ in action. For food, we had 15 different kinds of soup (all home made and brought by different people), dozens of different desserts, beautiful cakes decorated with fresh flowers sat on every table, all created by our friend Carey. College students served the soups and drinks and at the end of the night, other friends completely washed all of the dishes. Eric Hays led us in song and it was such a beautiful sound to hear all of us together with one voice singing “How great is our God.”

Steve and I were able to share a little bit of our story; how God has directed our path, moving before us in this whole process. Then Dave and Jen Smith led a precious time of prayer, with each table praying specifically for the adoption, for us, and for our little St. Pete. It was one of the most encouraging and uplifting days of my life. It’s such an incredible story to be able to tell our little one of the hundreds of people who came together on a Friday night in November just for them. I can’t wait to tell him/her all about this amazing night and all of the people who have loved him before we ever knew him.

Thank you to all who came, who served, who brought food, who prayed for the event. We still are finding it difficult to put into words our immense gratitude. At the end of the night, I had forgotten that one of the reasons we were having this event was to raise money ☺ In my mind, I had a thought of what we would raise and then I had a “secret hope” of what we could raise. And I have to tell you, that the amount that was raised was almost double my secret hope!!!

God has truly given us more than we could have asked or imagined, which was my prayer from the beginning. He gave us more encouragement, more hope, more love, and more financial support than we could ever have asked or imagined. And while we know we still have a long journey ahead of us, we have been given a boost of energy, excitement and perseverance to keep going with joy and gratitude.

Wow and Thanks….to God who initiated all of the stirring and the ideas and the calling. Wow and Thanks to all who were involved in this amazing evening. Wow and thanks to God for how He is using people in our journey towards adoption. And wow and thanks to this beautiful calling of adoption on our lives…

Updates:

• Our case worker told us she still has not heard that we have been officially registered. We’re hoping this week.
• We still have not yet heard from the 2 other grant organizations we applied to for financial help.
• After this past weekend, we are now closer to our financial goal and we are so grateful.

Prayer Requests:

• Pray that we would be registered this week
• Pray for our little one (who may be born) for warmth, touch and love from their caregivers
• Pray that we would hear from the other 2 grant organizations

We will update our blog this time next week! Love, Kate & Steve