We can't say it enough, but we're going to try:  thank you!  We wanted to give you another update as you join us in our adoption process!  We are 100% funded with our official costs which means that we have the money we need to bring out baby home.  However, there are other costs that aren't apart of the official fees.  10 photobooks from Shutterfly to introduce our family to birthmothers cost around $300.  Finalization fees 6 months after our baby comes home cost around $1,000.  All that to say, that God has used you to help us raise almost everything we need so now we are waiting for a phone call.  Once a birthmother chooses us, we will meet with her and hopefully put together an adoption plan.  Until then...we wait.  Until then, here is a short article about how adoption in God is for everyone...

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This week we were in Foster Park to taking pictures. The leaves were falling and the trees were absolutely glorious! Sara and I love to take pictures so there we were with a photographer snapping away at our daughter. But then…E was having a blast running and laughing, but she couldn't get up from sitting by a log.

“Daddy, I need help!” she cried. I reached down and helped her up, brushing the leaves and dirt off her as she came up.  I’m her Dad and she needed me.

God as our Father saw that we were beyond help and sent His Son to save us. That’s part of our story as Christians: adoption is God’s story through Jesus. To set this up…I’m taking us back to Matthew and Hosea…

At the beginning of his gospel Matthew quotes part of Hosea to contrast Israel as God’s failed son and Jesus as His faithful Son.

• WHEN ISRAEL WAS A CHILD, I LOVED HIM,  AND OUT OF EGYPT I CALLED MY SON. -HOSEA 11:1

So Israel was given the gift of sonship via adoption and here again in Hosea God tells us about one of the major moments in history when He showed his love for them: the Exodus. Matthew quotes this same passage, but uses it to reference Jesus coming out of Egypt with his parents after escaping Herod. He writes,

• AND SO WAS FULFILLED WHAT THE LORD HAD SAID THROUGH THE PROPHET: “OUT OF EGYPT I CALLED MY SON.” -MATTHEW 2:15
  

According to Matthew, this was prophecy that applied both to Israel AND to Jesus. And is it just me or is Matthew setting up a contrast between these two sons? Israel was brought out of Egypt, and as we know, failed in it’s sonship, and the gentiles were brought into the family. They were brought into the family THROUGH the work of God’s faithful son, Jesus. Paul picks up this theme in Galatians,

• BUT WHEN THE TIME HAD FULLY COME, GOD SENT HIS SON, BORN OF A WOMAN, BORN UNDER LAW, TO REDEEM THOSE UNDER LAW, THAT WE MIGHT RECEIVE THE FULL RIGHTS OF SONS.  BECAUSE YOU ARE SONS, GOD SENT THE SPIRIT OF HIS SON INTO OUR HEARTS, THE SPIRIT WHO CALLS OUT, “ABBA, FATHER.” -GALATIANS 4:4-6
  

As he says in Ephesians, God the Father’s plan from before time was to bring us into His family. He did that by sending His faithful Son, Jesus to make a way.
I think back to this week when I was helping my little daughter after she cried out, “Daddy (Abba), I need you!” and I start to understand the heart of God. God loved us so much that He sent his faithful Son to die so we could cry out, “Daddy, I need you!”

**Thanks to Together for Adoption for much of this content!