Walking in obedience

Nine years ago Nathan and I were newly married and working at Southside Christian School. We were surrounded by great community and overwhelmed by the many opportunities for so many to hear the Gospel in SO MANY places. We felt led to apply to work overseas in China. We didn't necessarily feel a calling for China but felt that walking in that direction was what we were called to do. We took a step in obedience and were totally at peace to go wherever God would lead us (...lets be honest...Nathan was totally at peace but those of you that know me know that it took me a little longer to come around to the idea :-(....)

We went to China and were surrounded by so many families that fostered/adopted/served in the orphanages. We saw a great need to care for the fatherless. The summer between our 1st and 2nd year, we received an email that there was an urgent need for a family to foster this little guy: 

We emailed to say we were interested and were told we were the 2nd family to ask so he was being cared for by the first family. We were later contacted by said family and they asked us if we would take weekend shifts to provide respite care for them and to love on this little guy. Our little Jian Bei became our little man and he went from the above picture to: 

We took care of him every other weekend or so until we had Maddy, about 9 months. 

After Madeline was 6 months old, we began to ask about fostering again. We chatted with leadership at our school to let them know our thought process, since we ere on a team. The greatest concern we had were people desiring for us to see that thought fostering can be a great thing, it has ups AND downs. When people would caution us that we can get too attached and then the child be taken away, here was our philosophy: We know that this process can be painful but we'd rather care for a child that has no one and deal with the ups and downs rather than leave a child alone and know that we would be "safe" emotionally. Fostering/adopting isn't for the faint of heart and isn't a calling on everyone so I don't think everyone should feel the same way or be guilted in it but just to express what we felt. To show you how different things are overseas, we mentioned and interest and within weeks we had this little guy in our home:

He was dropped off at our house without any classes and very little documentation. He lived with us for about a year. He was autistic and couldn't talk or walk. Parenting has many challenges. Autism has many challenges. Speaking a different language has many challenges. All of this caused for many ups and downs and a great lesson on how we can never be great parents without God's help.

We returned to the US and found ourselves surrounded, yet again, with many families that had adopted/fostered or were currently starting the process. This opened up the discussion for us again and after balling my eyes out after EVERY SINGLE adoption video, story, etc. we began to seek and pray what we should do now.

So we decided that walking in obedience this time meant taking steps to prepare for fostering/adopting. We aren't sure when the whole things will play itself out but we knew that we needed to take our first step now. So....

Tomorrow our realtor is coming to our home to take pictures so we can put our house on the market. We desire to adopt through DSS and know that we will need a 4th bedroom for us to even qualify to start the process. So we are now selling our home and house hunting fora bigger place. We will keep you posted on our progress but wanted to make it official so a "FOR SALE" sign in our yard didn't shock any one. We would appreciate your prayers as we walk down this path. The Lord has been so good in giving us little signs of confirmation along the way even just in the first few steps of obedience...which are always appreciated for people like me who can get a little anxious in the unknown. Thanks for your prayers and support!