Possibly Introducing Another New Robinson

Well friends, I want to update you on what is going on with our adoption. After much prayer and conversation, we really have had peace with just bringing one child home. The Lord knows our frame and also knows the other crazy stuff that is going to be happening all during this time. That being a wedding in June in Florida! Woohoo! So all that to say, our adoption coordinator emailed us on Monday about a little guy who is 2.5 years old. She wanted to find out if we were set on bringing two children home or if one would be ok. We also talked about what the time frame would be if we accepted a referral right now. Our concern would be that our travel would interfere with the wedding. After checking the calendar, we realized that we would be traveling probably in April. How cool would it be to have the entire Robinson family at the wedding? She then began to tell me about him. I spoke with Doug and we decided to go ahead and see his picture and info. Our intial reaction in seeing him was fear. All of a sudden it really hit us that we were bringing another child into our home and life as we have known it was going to change. We had to remind each other of why we were doing this. We went back to what God has spoken to us from the beginning about adoption. The rest of the evening was spent talking with our children, looking at his picture, reading about the area he is from and praying. Let me just tell you that he is the cutest little guy. When Seth saw him, he said, "he looks sad". That is one thing that I have noticed about every referral picture. The children look so different after they have been placed in a family. It has really challenged me in how I look to others. Does my countenance reflect the reality of my adoption in Christ? He comes from an area that is hardest hit by the drought in Ethiopia. Only 22% of the water is drinkable. The great thing is that he is a chubby little guy and looks very healthy. We passed his medical information on to a friend who is a doctor to review. With the little information that is given, he said that everything looks great.

So what happens next? We have two weeks to officially accept his referral. At the time of accepting his referral, we will need to give the agency $6915. We have $3870 in our adoption fund. We are short $3045. As we have walked this journey, we have continuously stated that this has to be all God. It is easier to say that than to walk it out. We have applied for many grants and are waiting to hear about them. One of the grants is a matching grant that we were hoping would match the money in our fund. We are also looking at doing some kind of event in February. Not sure yet if it will be a spaghetti dinner or a trivia game night.

Here is where we need your help. The first thing that you can do for us is to pray! We only want to say yes to what God has said yes to. If this is our son, our God WILL provide! Please pray that we would clearly hear from Him during this time. The second thing is I have 200 cookbooks that need to sell. That would give us $1400 which is half of what we need. We do have the rest in savings so that would be amazing! If you would like a cookbook, read the previous post on how to do that. If you would like to sell some cookbooks for me, let me know and I will get them to you! Lastly if after reading this you feel lead to contribute to our adoption fund, you can do that by writing a check to New Life Community Church. Your contribution will be tax-deductible. I hesitated in adding this but feel that I would be disobeying God if I didn't. James 1:27 tells us that we are to care for widows and orphans in their time of need. I do not believe that everyone is called to adopt but I do believe that as Christ followers, we are all called to care for orphans. Sometimes that means just being able to help another family bring one home. As you read that please do not feel motivated by guilt to participate just be moved by grace. Also pray that God would move upon the hearts of the people reviewing our grant applications. Please pray for our little guy. Pray that God would continue to keep him healthy. Pray that if this is not our son that God would provide a loving family for him. Pray for his birth mom who had to bring him to the orphanage because she had no way to provide. She will forever be a hero to me. How much courage and love it must take to be able to do that. Thanks so much for your continued support and prayers!