Its approved!!!

Its with great excitement that we announce we are paper pregnant! 

Our application for adopting from China has been approved. This means we are underway to schedule our second home-study since beginning this jounrey in 2011. We switched agencies as the Lord directed us to a Christian agency with the same heart as ours. We are so excited about where the Lord is leading. 

Our hearts are filled with hope as we bring hope home! 

China has strict guidelines, and with that, I (Becke) will still need to continue to lose weight. I am ok where we are, but for my health and to be able to do amazing things with Hope, its for the best! 

Please pray as the Lord leads us on this journey. 

We are so grateful for all of you that have followed and prayed us through on this journey. It has not been easy and filled with emotions far greater than we could have ever imagined. Along the way, we have not lost Hope in where the Lord is leading and guiding. We have not lost hope that the Lord will provide. 

With that, we need to raise some funds for this adoption to bring Hope home. We also have created a Facebook group as well if you are interested.  We are looking for ideas for fundraisers, and people to come along and help. If the Lord leads, we have put a button on the top of the page, that you can donate at.(Paypal, donate now) 

We are trusting in the Lord to provide what we need when we need it. 

We are moving to a new house in May so our home study we are hoping to have it begining of June. This gives us time to gather papers, update forms from our previous home-study and raise the needed funds. Also, this gives more time for me (Becke) to drop some weight.

We will keep you updated along this journey to bring Hope home to us. 

One idea we will be doing is having a suitcase that we will bring with us to China when we get Hope that will have all the names of those that have provided for her to get there. If there is a donation, we will put your name on the front of the suitcase that we will take. If there is a personal message you would like us to put on it, please let us know. 

Also if you live around us, you can write it on the suitcase. We are so excited to resume this journey! 

Looking forward in what the Lord does.

Back in the Saddle again!

I don't know where to even begin in this blog post, or how to convey what the Lord has been doing in regards to adoption. So, I will just start and see where the Lord leads.
In October, we were nudged by the Lord to start the adoption process again. So, we contacted our agency about needing to update our home study that was finished. We waited for a response and felt really hopeful,  until we got a response and lost the hopefulness.
Basically we were told we needed to start everything from scratch. This was a complete blow to our spirits as we knew we needed to have it updated, but to do everything all over? Really?
We became a bit numb and disenfranchised with the whole process at that point. Over Christmas and New years we really were just processing, and praying, and waiting. Clinging on to the Hope we knew, the Hope we hoped for, even though it was a small little glimmer that didn't shine really bright.

The Lord began to work on our hearts again and soften them to the process again. We continued to pray for our little one who is out there. This was our Hope!
Talking with friends here in Korea, an agency came up lots of times in every circle we were apart of. We began to take notice, and Dan and I both started wondering what the Lord was doing. We started talking and praying more, and asking God for wisdom. When discussing where the Lord was leading Dan mentioned a country that I previously had not even wanted to consider. I asked the Lord why, and what the was the reason because at the time, I didn't have one. I don't know why I didn't want to adopt someone from there, but I really sought the Lord. While here in Korea we have been bombarded with the culture of babies being abandoned, and left on streets, garbage cans, etc. This has burdened our hearts so very much for the Asian culture.

We have decided to start the adoption home study process once again but going with China. I will link a video below that is an hour, but it really explains so much of why.  In China, there is a one child law in place, and if a girl is born 9 out of 10 are aborted because everyone wants a son. This is so sad, and there are thousands of orphans who are waiting for a forever home. What can we do about this? The treatment of females in China is hard to fathom,  and makes our hearts sad. Its a patriarch society and places a higher value on men than woman. Again, makes my heart sad.
Today, February 2nd, we sent our application, with address from when we were 18, and a photo in to Small World Adoption. This agency is a Christian agency and places such a high value on adoption from the Biblical perspective. We are so excited to begin again this journey.

Please pray for us, and for our Hope Haas that we would be united in the Lord's time. With adoption we have need for funding again. We raised enough to cover the last home study, (which will come in handy for this one) and will once again need to raise funding.  We know the Lord is faithful!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0d97v7mjsE




Who will be our Hope?

Radical love

http://danandbecke.blogspot.kr/2013/10/radical-love.html




Click on the above link, for news about our Adoption Journey.

God's gift that keeps on giving

So today I started attempting to unpack the office, which is a crazy place. While sweating like mad, I came across the following item. Made me stop and praise God that Hope Haas is still out there. 

Thank you Hayden for being used again and again. 

unpacking hope

We got our household goods yesterday, and as I was going threw a box, I ran across an outfit I had purchased for our little one. Made me sad. 

Not sure what God is doing, but as  I have been reminded the past 2 days this is what I need to do. 

So, I am hopeful!

Last night in Bible Study we talked about Simon the fisherman and how God used fish to show him how great he is cause he was a fisherman and He knew Simon would totally get it.  What is it that would get your attention to know He is GOD! So the question was asked, what is your fish? 

prayed over

hey everyone. Its been a while since I have written.  We still are hoping for Hope. WE don't know what that looks like. We don't know what the Lord is doing, but we know He is doing something. 

Saturday night we have a lovely Korean couple over to our house, and they asked us about babies.  They asked if they could pray over us, and if they could be our super prayer warriors in that department. They mentioned they had done this with a few other couples while they were in Korea, and the Lord heard them, and gave the couples a child while in Korea. 

I don't know what this all means, but I love that they want to pray. We have hope that the Lord will be faithful to what we said to us. We just don't know what that is going to look like. 

Would you pray with us as well. 

Waiting in Hope in Korea.

Following God

So some of you already heard that our adoption is on hold at the moment.

God has moved mountains, and moved so mightily in both Dan and I's hearts separately and together.
The last week of October we found out that Russia was restricting access into the country for adoptions, and we had to get our stuff in to Russia by November 1. We did everything we could do, but Illinois did not play fair. But, that being said, this adoption road has been filled with bumps and bruises. When we first started we were listening and following God in where He was leading. Through so many turns we went from Country to country, but this time it was clear that now is not the time for us to adopt. It doesn't mean that is completely done, it means its on hold. We trust the Lord that the timing wasn't right.
I went to a women's conference the last weekend in October, and Dan did some solo time with the Lord. Right before the conference the Lord put a phrase of a song in our hearts (song is Blessed be your name) and the phrase was there is pain in the offering, and you give and take away. Wouldn't you know it at the conference they showed a video of some orphans and in the video was a girl dying in her bed, and two guys playing a song over her, and it was the same phrase, with no other phrase playing.
I thought, ok God. I understand. There were many confirmations along the way as I went to a seminar workshop called Barren Womb not barren soul. This was first hard to attend, as there were 3 ladies total along with the teacher. In this workshop we talked about all the passages the Lord was impressing on my heart for the last 3 months, but also added a Psalm.

Psalm 127:3-5

New International Version (NIV)

³ Children are a heritage from the Lord,
    offspring a reward from him.
⁴ Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
    are children born in one’s youth.
⁵ Blessed is the man
    whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
    when they contend with their opponents in court.

What hit me the most with this Psalm, was that not anywhere does it say natural born, or specific to giving birth, or adoption. This was life changing for me as the Lord revealed to me that not everyone can parent thousands of kids and when you get to Heaven, you will see all the kids that call you mom.


All that being said, the Lord confirmed in our hearts that it was time to move. He needed us to sacrifice our desires now for natural kids for His desire for the lost. While our desire for a family is huge, His desire to reach the lost is bigger. So, this is us walking in obedience to the Lord.  God's desire is so much bigger and we are not here on earth for us, we are on this earth to honour and worship the Lord.
He's in charge, so why wouldn't we follow where He says to go, if we don't who would want to be around us... (aka Jonah and whale)

We will be leaving Germany Jan 31st. We are still in need of about 800/month support but we are trusting that the Lord will provide. If He's called us to it, He will lead us thru it.