Our Family is Growing and So Is Our Love!

We are so excited when we will finally be able to make it official and announce the newest addition to our family! We covet your prayers as we step out in faith!

 Lo, children [are] an heritage of the LORD: [and] the fruit of the womb [is his] reward.

4 As arrows [are] in the hand of a mighty man; so [are] children of the youth.

5 Happy [is] the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

Psalms 127:3 - 127:5

Give Thanks.....With a Grateful Heart!

 1 Chronicles 16:34 says:
"Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever."

We are so thankful, so very thankful! We give thanks to the Lord that our beloved Theodore has been matched with a family! That's amazing! We rejoice that he will soon have a Daddy and Mommy to call his own! We all grew to love him during this past month when we wondered and prayed if we would be the family that he would be matched with. Madelyn shed many tears when she found out that we were not the family chosen for Theodore.

I share this with you all with excitement. You see, God used Adeye and Theodore to open our hearts and eyes to Bulgaria and the need there. We were willing to step out in faith and commit to Theodore, and open our family to a special needs child from Bulgaria. God chose our child NOT to be Theodore and that is okay!

God is still at work. We are mailing out our check tomorrow to commit to another Bulgarian child. We will let you know as soon as it's official! God used Theodore to bring us to this point. We are rejoicing here! We can't wait to shout  from the mountain tops who God has matched us with!

We have so much to be thankful for! 
 We celebrated Thanksgiving with 25 of Glenn's family members all seated at the same table! It was wonderful!

 We rejoice that this was Rosie's first Thankgiving!

We were able to do 2 craft fairs so far this season. See my scarf rack to the left? I sold out! All of the money is going toward our Bulgaria adoption! Yeah!

The craft fair was at the quaint Union School House. Purchased by a homeschool family, it's a wonderful location!

All of the kids helped me with knitting the scarves! Thank you kids!

 We promise to keep you all posted!!
Our love to you!

M

We care for the orphans....

November is national adoption month, and we LOVE to celebrate that here! We have 2 homegrown children,
*Brittany--Age 22...married and has had our two beautiful grand babies! Marlena and Annalie!
*Madelyn-Age 17...and joyfully at home!
Then we have 6 awesome adopted children!
Grace and Jon from Haiti--7 years ago!
Edward and Elisha--twins from NH foster children--2 years ago!
Nicole--from NH--our foster daughter adopted this August
Rosalinda--from NH--born drug addicted...adopted in September of this year.
Now, one month ago, we started the process of adopting from Bulgaria. It's soooo exciting to see God leading and providing in such a mighty way! This truly is our mission field...caring for the orphans!!

On Thursday of last week, we went to the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center for NH's adoption celebration. It was such a blessing to us! Our dear friend Lisa Marro who has adopted all 8 of her children, all with special needs, was the key note speaker. She did such a wonderful job! Then after fellowship and wonderful munchies, we all got to explore the discovery center! It's an awesome place! 

Each child got a really sweet bear to love on!

New at the Center last Fall is this awesome full sized fighter plane that was flown by Alan Shepard!

All of the kids LOVED the flight simulator!

The girls LOVED being a weather person!

Nicole and her friend Chantelle are astronauts!

Then last night, we were invited to an open house at the Laconia family court. This court is the next in a cluster of courts to start having foster children attend court hearings and be part of the process. We love our family court, and have spent many an afternoon there for hearings during our foster care, and also for adoptions, too. We LOVE Judge Carrol. He's an amazing man!


Last night he was there, and his clerk, and many other staff. We all got a tour of the courtrooms and also the judge's chambers, too. The kids could ask any questions they wanted, and they even had cake and icecream as well as a really cool mural the kids could draw themselves on. It was a great time of fellowship and the kids all loved it! For us, as licensed foster parents, this court is an important part of our adoption journey! Check it out!

The kids all draw themselves and us on the mural of the courthouse!

Elisha even met up with a former classmate!

Judge Carroll tries to get Rosie to walk to him...no such luck, though!

Lisa explains things to the kids inside the court room!

Here is the finished drawing! Hey...who's that over to the left with a baby in her sling??

So we join with you all in celebrating adoption, and our adoption journey! Blessings to you!

 

"I am the potter you are the clay."

"But now, O LORD, you are our father; we are the clay, and you our potter; and we all are the work of your hand" Isaiah 64:8

This Sunday, afternoon, my older girls and I had the blessing of spending time at my dear friend Sarah's pottery studio...Sweet Fern Pottery. She was offering a clay class in making a luminary. Sarah showed us what to and then we were given a lump of clay to make our own.

Throughout the process of shaping and molding the clay, I was reminded of the scripture in Isaiah in which he proclaims that we are the clay and God is our potter, and we are all the work of His hands! It was such a special time to reflect and ruminate on God's word. As I worked, I prayed about all of the special children that we've come to love over the last month, as we have poured over the websites of the orphans in the many countries. I marveled in their beauty and in the hand of our Mighty Potter who created them all, the work of His hands!

As we created our luminaries I was also reminded that we are to be a light for the Lord! 
14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that[a] they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." Matthew 5:14-18. 

One of the neatest things that day, was that each of us created our own luminary design, and each of the designs reflected the light and joy of the Lord! Such a wonderful testimony! We can keep them or give them as a gift. It was a joyous afternoon!

Grace's theme of her luminary was joy. The cut outs for the light to shine through are candle sticks. It will truly.."give light to all in the house"

 Madelyn made hers to be a light house. The base of it is actually on a bed of rocks that she made from clay. She etched onto her light house the words..."Let your light so shine."

 Mine has different sized stars cut out of it. Etched into mine is.."It happened one night when a star shone bright."

 We can pick up our luminaries on November 30th. I can't wait to see them all fired up and with a glaze that we chose on them. Thank you Sarah for a wonderful afternoon! It was such a blessing!