Wow....I cannot believe how long it has been since I have blogged. Getting everybody out the door and picked up from school each day has wreaked havoc on me!

I have such a mixture of emotions as I write today. I have been walking the adoption journey with several of my friends the past year and right at this moment….it is all coming to fruition!! Some of you might remember my 40^th birthday present from Gwen…the funds to help Tosha bring Abigail home. Tosha is on a plane RIGHT NOW to Uganda!! She has never traveled internationally. She is an emotional MESS!! Thankfully, her sweet husband (mike) and her daughter (Kenzie) are with her. I will be posting throughout the next few weeks so that you can follow her story in Uganda via blog world…SO EXCITING!!!!

Another one of my closest friends is in the process of a domestic adoption. She and her husband have been on this journey for awhile now. They have had one disruption, and the journey has just been ROCKY. They received the call Thursday that their birth mom was having contractions 3 minutes apart and to jump on a plane! They made it in time, and their little angel is here and healthy. NOW, the hard part is that my friend is “rooming in” at the hospital with the birth mom, caring for this child, and giving the birth mom the emotional support that is needed. This is, without doubt, one of the hardest 48 hours that she has ever experienced. With domestic, family seems to always come out of nowhere and claim to want to help keep the baby. The birth mom (who has been alone the entire pregnancy and never feels love and support from her family) is so torn with what SHE wants and desires and KNOWS that she can’t handle (a child) but longs for the approval of her mom….its just a nightmare. Moment by moment, you are falling in love with a baby, and the THOUGHT of that child going to a place where he/she will not be loved and cared for breaks your heart IN HALF. Yet, you sit and wait. You wait for time to pass, trying to be the hands and feet of Jesus to this woman who might do the most UNSELFISH act on earth…OR NOT because of pressure from family.

My heart is broken, anxious, excited, and angry. I am feeling all of the emotions that I know my sweet friend is living right now.

I have another friend that contacted one of the orphanages that Gwen and I visited in Uganda. She got matched with two little boys!! We were SO excited!! Then, they contacted her and said that one of the boys had a biological sister that they just learned about. She was at a crossroad. What does one do? She already had names, and two faces of two little boys that were hers. Does she leave one of the little boys behind so that the biological siblings can stay together? Tears, heartbreak, anxiousness, fear….all creep in. She and her husband have decided to bring all three home!! How fun/crazy/radical is that? They are going from 3 kids to 6 over night!! I love it!! Will it be hard…yes. Will it be exhausting…yes. Will she feel the presence of God more than ever…yes!!

There are four more families heading to China over the next year in our school. We have 134 families fundraising with 147 Million Orphan gear right now. The Holy Spirit is MOVING. He is doing things on behalf of the orphan more than EVER. It makes my heart WHOLE. It makes me want to stand on a mountain top and scream to HIM….THANK YOU!! THANK YOU for allowing me a GLIMPSE of the joy that you feel from all of this!

What I LOVE about all of these scenarios is that the HOLY SPIRIT is at work. As believers, we can pack our brains FULL of knowledge about Christ, scriptures, and biblical truths. We can stand on them, rely on them, and use them as confirmation to strengthen our spiritual walk….but if the HOLY SPIRIT is not there…we are MISSING IT!! We need to FEEL HIS presence to know that HE is walking alongside us as we travel to Uganda or China. We need to KNOW and FEEL him sitting right beside us in that hospital room, while we love on a birth mom who is broken from the inside out. We have to KNOW that all THREE of those children waiting at an orphanage in Uganda belong to us and we can’t leave one behind. We have to feel the PRESENCE of our ALMIGHTY SAVIOR to have the peace in our hearts that only HE can give.

Without the HOLY SPIRIT we operate in our own strength and can only accomplish and live out human-size results. When believers walk through life guided by the HOLY SPIRIT, the evidence in their lives is supernatural. I am seeing it FIRST HAND…spirit guided adoption journeys and it is blessing me deep, deep in the depths of my soul. The HOLY SPIRIT is VITAl to live as a true believer today. When HE moves, NOTHING can stop him!! If He doesn’t move, we will not produce fruit, no matter how much effort or money we spend.

In Acts 4:13, it says “now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.” Let’s live wrecklessly! Let’s live so that when others view our lives they are blinded by the Holy Spirit.

WOOOHOOO!!! Come on!!! Let’s do this thing!!!