Ava's Hope Grant

We are so excited to announce that we just received a call this afternoon from Ava's Hope. They are awarding us a $5,000 grant to help with our adoption costs! This is such an answer to prayer and we are so excited!

Here is an excerpt from Ava's Hope's website:

AVA's Hope was founded in 2005 to fund the adoption of international orphans who
otherwise have no hope for the love, care or future that a permanent family
provides.

We believe that no child should go without a family simply because of
the enormous expense associated with the adoption process. We aspire to ensure
that money is never the reason a child goes without a home.

Thank you Ava's Hope for helping us in the process of bringing Aliyah and Christéla home!

If you would like to learn more about Ava's Hope, or how you can help other families through their grant program, please visit their website at www.avashope.org.

"Do Hard Things"

The other night I was driving home from a short visit at my parent's home in eastern Colorado. On the way home the radio program Family Life Today came on. They had on two young guests - 16 year old twins that were promoting a new book they wrote to encourage young people to "Do Hard Things." Their premise was that when we do hard things for the glory of God, we grow in our faith and walk with Him. As I thought about that, I was encouraged. As I look back over my life, the times I've grown the most in my faith are the times when I've done things that were hard - things that stretched me and made me rely only on Christ.

We find ourselves in that position now. This adoption process has brought us back to Christ and relying on Him more than we have for a long time. We love the girls we are adopting - and can't wait to have them home... and that is part of the difficulty. It is such a long process... maybe another 18-months to 2-years before we are able to bring them home. As we watch hurricanes and tropical storms pass through Haiti and see the devastation to that country, it breaks our heart for the people there and we just pray that the orphanage and all the children and staff are OK. We are also dealing with some medical news for one of our girls and we hurt that we can't be there for her to care for her while she is sick. We just pray that Jesus will hold her in His hand and comfort her.

• Please pray for our girls and their health.
• Please pray for the orphanages in Haiti as they are struggling even more now to get the necessities amid the devastation in Haiti.
• Pray for the people of Haiti who have suffered greatly in the last several weeks from flooding.
• And please pray for us as we are trying to raise the money for the adoptions. We are applying for grants and praying that some of them are awarded to us.

Thank you for your prayers!