The one with the Announcement

Hi friends and family!

If you've been a follower of this blog for a while, it is no surprise to you that the past two years have been heartbreaking for us, as we’ve tried to expand our family. If you're a new reader, you can read our story by clicking the link above. Through it all, the Lord has shown His love and faithfulness with the help of your kind words, actions and prayers. We know that our story is not over and He is taking care of our babies until we are able to meet them one day. We are confident that He has big plans for our family and are more hopeful than ever that our family will continue to grow.

It is with excitement that we want to share with you the news that we are adopting!

We began working with an adoption consultant in Atlanta back in April and are pursuing domestic newborn adoption. Because she works with agencies across the country, we hope to welcome our baby to our family by Christmas! We want to share this wonderful news with all of you, because we are asking you to link arms and support us through this process.

1. We are asking for your prayers. Pray that the process would continue to go smoothly. Pray that we would have discernment when reading through cases that we receive through email. Lastly, pray for our birth mother that we have yet to meet that could very well be carrying our baby right now.

2. We are asking for financial support. As domestic newborn adoption expenses can cost upwards of $40,000 depending on the state and agency, we have a goal to raise $25,000. If you would like to help us achieve our goal, there are several ways you can give. We can guarantee that 100% of the funds we raise will go towards bringing our baby home.

- We have set up an online giving link on this blog through PayPal that can be found on the right sidebar.

- If you are local, you can donate any gently used items to our yard sale (and shop our yard sale!) that we are going to have the weekend of August 3rd. Email me at Stephanie.oprea@gmail.com if you are interested in donating items and I will send out separate updates about how to help with this.

The past two months have been a blessing as we’ve learned the many different parallels of this adoption process to our spiritual adoption by our Heavenly Father though Jesus. We are so excited about bringing a baby home and are confident that the Lord already knows the baby that is meant to join our family. We know that He is calling us to this and He will see us through it. Thank you for celebrating what God is doing in our family. We look forward to updating you with happy news along the way.

Our Kids

This is something that I have wanted to do for quite some time and I'm honestly not sure why we haven't done this sooner. I'm talking about sponsoring a child through Compassion International. It's no secret that Dustin and I have a huge heart for kids. You can just look at what we do for a living to see that. Compassion is probably the most respected international sponsorship ministry and it's been around for quite some time. If you're new to this concept, I would highly encourage you to visit their website. With a payment of $38/month, you can sponsor one child internationally and provide food, clothing, education, biblical teaching and healthcare all given in the name of Jesus. You can be a part of giving that child a future he or she would probably not have otherwise and show them that they are loved by someone thousands of miles away and most of all loved by their Heavenly Father. You are sent pictures of your child and become a pen pal. You can send birthday cards and Christmas cards and the kids will often write back as a part of the Compassion program. If you visit the website, and look at the faces of all these children it's hard to not want to sponsor all of them. I did the math and for a little over $70,000/month all 1,800 children can be sponsored. While we would love nothing more than to sponsor every single child, it's just not possible- but what is often spoken at our church, we wanted to do for one what we wish we could do for many.

 Like I said before, this is something I've always wanted to do and I really do not have a reason why we haven't done this sooner... until now. You see, we are approaching the one year mark since we lost our first baby. Last night, as we were looking through the faces of all of these children, we knew exactly what we wanted to do. We know that our sweet babies are with their Heavenly Father now so while we wish more than anything that they were both here with us, we wanted to choose two of His children to sponsor with birthdays on both of my due dates.

Meet Umwizerwa. 

She's 6 years old from Rwanda and her birthday is January 4.

Meet James. 

He's 5 years old from Kenya and his birthday is August 24.

They are now our "kids" overseas. Once we get our sponsorship packet in the mail, we'll be able to send them letters and cards. Maybe one day, we'll be able to plan a trip over to Africa where we can meet them both. If you are the least bit interested in sponsoring a child of your own, I would encourage you to go to their website and take a look. There are children all over the world that need a little love and would love to be chosen just as your Heavenly Father chose you.

Sugar and Spice

This past weekend, my college roommates and I threw a baby shower for our other roommate, Andrea. Her little girl is due to make her appearance in July and as you'll see below is already loved by so many. Here are some pictures from the day...

 

 Super cute invites- with Heather's address and Meagan's contact info deleted (you're welcome, ladies)

 Meagan, Andrea, Kristen and Andrea's new little niece, Caroline.

 The party planners.

Our Atlanta family dinner group with Caitlyn expecting a little one in October!

Heather and her momma

Andrea's nephew, Cayden helping with the gifts.

Roomies

For better or for worse

Five years ago today, we said those very words in our wedding vows- but I don't think we fully grasped what they meant until this past year. When you get married, it's easy to imagine the for better part. Those days are filled with smiles and laughter, holidays and vacations. Nobody wants to imagine the for worse part. These are the days filled with sickness and sadness, grief and anger. Our for worse came in the form of the loss of two babies. While we miss them everyday, we know that their short little lives were meant to teach us something- that the same God that allows pain and suffering also loves us more than we can imagine. That He wants us to cry out to Him through hurt and anger and He'll meet us right where we are. And that through it all, we've learned to lean on each other and rely fully on God's grace even when we couldn't understand His purpose. We look forward to the for better days that lie ahead of us knowing that God is faithful.

This song was sung at our wedding five years ago today by a good friend of ours. Looking back over the past year, it's easy to dwell on all of the sadness and forget about all of the blessings that the Lord has blessed us with. Through all of the tears and heartache, He has shown His love to be bigger than we'd known and His grace to be overwhelmingly more than we could've imagined. He has done great things for us and I pray that those are the moments on which we can continue to dwell as we hold fast to the plans He continues to have for us.

The big 2-9!

With tomorrow being our anniversary AND husband's birthday, I thought that two posts were needed. Granted the birthday post is a day early... I still wanted it to stand alone. A couple weeks ago, Dustin's mom discovered an old stack of pictures that we'd never seen before. I felt it was necessary that some of them be included in the birthday post. This one made me laugh out loud for about 10 minutes...

So happy birthday, husband! I love you lots and look forward to celebrating when you turn the big 8-9!

Blog Makeover and Greenville Trip

I have been wanting a makeover of some sort for some time now... not for myself... but the blog- which let's face it, is a reflection of me. So here it is... the new and improved blog (big thanks to Tricia Nae Designs!) It just has a cleaner and more professional feel to it... not to mention it is pretty stinkin' cute.

This past weekend, husband and I made our way to Greenville to visit with his sister's family and celebrate our nephew's first birthday. Here are some pictures of the weekend's festivities...

On Friday night, Steve took the big girls to their annual daddy-daughter dance. They spent the afternoon getting ready and then daddy picked them up from the house with flowers.

Even though Brooke was too young to go, she got her very own flower from daddy.

On Saturday, I went with Miranda and Haley to get Haley's dance pictures taken. I also took a few of my own because she is quite the beautiful ballerina.

And Sunday was party-time for Sawyer... and his sisters loved it too.

The sweet Carson family

 

Opa with Reese

The coolest aunt and uncle in town.

 

Mom-Mom and Grandaddy with the kiddos

 

Oma and Opa with the kiddos.

 

Haley and Reese ended the afternoon with a jam session.

 

Happy Birthday, Sawyer!