SeekingLovingWalking=ACTIONS

My heart hurts. My head is just spinning.

It's just amazing the way I hurt sometimes when I allow the Spirit to guide me to open my eyes. It's amazing the way I want to be so selfish sometimes in thinking life is waking up, going to work, coming home and playing with my awesome family. I so so so often think about how easy we have it as Americans. It's so easy to think we don't need God because of all of the things we can have and do for ourselves.

But what about the people who don't have everything? What about the people who don't have a voice? What about the people who never experience love? What about the people who are never experience the greatest love story on earth---the love Jesus shows us?

I have been keeping up recently with the Dr. Gosnell's murder trial. If you haven't been keeping up with it, READ ABOUT IT HERE. It makes me so sick to my stomach. How is this happening? The biggest ordeal right now about this issue is that the media has turned a blind eye. While, yes, that is disturbing, what's even more disturbing is what are we as Christians doing about this??

Last night, Matthew and I watched STUCK the documentary. Once again, sick to my stomach. (And no, I'm not constantly sick at my stomach because I'm almost 33 weeks prenant. That brings on enough emotions as it is.) This documentary, which you should BUY HERE, reveals the hard journey of adoption and why it is on the decline. (Yes, a lot of people think there has been an increase in adoptions, but there has been a 50% decrease over the last 10 years.) Heart breaking doesn't touch the surface of how it makes me feel to see all of these orphans. What are Christians doing about this??

Proverbs 24:12 says "Once our eyes are opened, we can't pretend we don't know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows what we know and holds us responsible to ACT."

DO WE SERIOUSLY CARE ABOUT SEEKING JUSTICE, LOVING MERCY AND WALKING HUMBLY WITH GOD??

Yes, we are adopting a child. And yes, I KNOW that is exactly what the Lord wants us to do. But I can't sit still and think that He wants us to adopt one child one time in my life and think that is good enough.

There are MILLIONS of orphans that need love. There are MILLIONS of babies being aborted. PLEASE do SOMETHING. Not everyone has to adopt a child. But can you sponsor a child? Can you go to an orphanage and love on a child? Can you get together a group of Christians and start an orphanages so that so many of these babies don't have to live in overcrowded government institutions? Can you donate to an orphanage, an adoption or a children's home? Can you drive to an abortion clinic and sit in your car and pray for God to change those doctors' and mothers' hearts? Can you write a letter to the legislature?

WHAT CAN YOU DO? 

ADOPTION SALE PREPARATIONS!

On May 11-- ONE MONTH FROM TODAY-- We will be having an Adoption Sale!! I am so excited! We will be raising awareness about the orphan crisis in our world, as well as raising money for our adoption! We have asked our family for donations, and I know they are busy cleaning out all kinds of exciting things from their homes! Now, we are asking YOU to donate! If you would like to donate, we will be glad to pick up your items from you!! We already have started collecting and can't wait for our collection to GROW!

We will be having a bake sale, taking new t-shirt orders, and fellowshipping at the sale! Sounds like fun, right?? One of our bakers is Matthew's grandmother. If you know anything about Mimi's cooking, you'll want to stop by and participate in the bake sale if nothing else!!

As we prepare for this fundraiser, here are our specific prayer requests:
1) We will be able to spread and show the word of Jesus through this sale
2) People will open their hearts to following the command set out in James 1:27
3) This sale will bring us one step closer to bringing home Matsy Grace
4) No rain!!!

We are thankful that our church is allowing us to use their front parking lot! This location will be more of a central and visible location. So...please make your plans to attend the sale at the Lake Harbour church of Christ in Ridgeland on Lake Harbour Drive between Pear Orchard and Wheatley.

PLEASE HELP US SPREAD THE WORD!!!

You can e-mail me at tiffanipowell7@yahoo.com if you have any donations you would like for us to pick up!! 

Update and Prayers Needed!

Before I get started with our update, I just wanted to remind everyone that I am turning in our 1st t-shirt order on WEDNESDAY!! Let me know if you have not ordered one and would like to! We will also be having an adoption yard sale on May 11 if you would like to make any donations to the sale or shop the yard sale! More details to come soon! 

Well, we got a call from our family coordinator yesterday. Phone calls make me both excited and nervous! While she talked me through our next several steps, I tried not to get too overwhelmed! I had in my head that they would put off a lot of our next steps until after Micah gets here. I figured it would take longer to get our dossier compiled and sent off. Well... that's not so! Our agency wants us on the ball! They want most of it done BEFORE he gets here! ---Yes! You read that correctly!!!

While I am excited to really get started on getting the million pieces of our dossier together, I haven't forgotten about our 2nd sweet baby! (Basically, he's growing growing growing and doesn't LET me forget him!) SO.. the next 8 weeks brings a large to-do list as well as a lot of excitement to the Powell household! The earlier we can get our DTE (dossier to Ethiopia), the sooner we can get on the official waitlist for our sweet little girl! I don't want to do anything to lengthen the time it takes to bring her home--so here we go!

Our prayer requests as of now:

1) God will provide us with the energy and brains for the next 8 weeks to prepare for the arrival of our sweet Micah AND Matsy Grace! If you know us personally, you know that we are quite the laid back parents. We don't stress about much with Noah. (Today, he wanted to eat his banana off of the grass instead of his plate while we were having a picnic outside. Well, a few bites of banana-grass-dirt pie later, I heard a big "MMMMM!!" Ok, my child likes dirt. For now, I'm not sweating the small stuff.) This also means that I haven't been that perfect OCD mom who has her life together and everything ready for her babies' arrival by the time she's 20 weeks pregnant. We still have a few things to get done for Micah. Please pray that God will give us strength to sustain these next 8 weeks and get everything done we need to do!

2) With the submission of our dossier to Ethiopia comes our dossier submission fee. This is the largest fee we will have to pay before we get our referral (the phone call saying we have been matched with our daughter!!) With our time frames being pushed up a little, this means less time to fundraise. Within this, we have several requests. Please pray that we have continue to have the faith to believe that the Lord will continue to provide! Please pray that God will send His people to us with open hearts to support this mission. Last, please pray that God grant us with the wisdom to fundraise for His glory!

3) Please pray that we always seek God's guidance and direction in raising our children. If you have kids, you know that it takes a village! I firmly believe it also takes the prayers of the village as well!!

"And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people." 
Ephesians 6:17

^"Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." 
Romans 8:26