BIG NEWS!!

We are so excited to (finally) officially announce…

WE ARE ADOPTING!!!

God has been stirring our hearts for quite some time, and we have taken the exciting step toward becoming parents through the blessing of adoption! I can’t even explain how ecstatic we are about this journey. For many months (years, actually), we have longed for a child, and we are thrilled to be moving forward! We found an incredible agency, Crisis Pregnancy Outreach in Tulsa, OK, and strongly believe in their mission. One thing that really stands out to us is their mission of not providing babies for families, but instead, they provide families for babies. As a crisis pregnancy center, their main focus is to minister to birthparents that are making an incredible decision to choose life. They support birthmoms that choose adoption, but also those that choose to parent their babies themselves. Steve and I have become huge advocates of the open adoption process as we’ve prayed about our own journey, and are excited to (hopefully) be able to minister to a young lady that will ultimately become a part of our family, in whatever capacity that may end up being (this could be pictures and letters, or it could be frequent contact through visits. We’re excited about the potential!).

The process of adoption is bittersweet, and we pray every day for the birthparents of our future child. The decision she will be (or, possibly is currently) making will be one of the most difficult, grief-filled decisions she will ever have to make. And it will lead to the happiest moment of our lives, as the baby we have prayed for and longed for is placed into our arms. One incredible moment, two extremely different perspectives - one huge contradiction. For this reason, we would love for you to join us in praying for this process and everyone involved. We pray that God places a shield of protection over the birthparents and this precious baby; that He gives a peace that passes all understanding; and that above all, God is glorified through our lives and this entire process. It is such an amazing thing to be a part of.

So…you may be asking…what’s next? Well, we are definitely on our way with what is affectionately called “the paper chase.” It’s incredible what is required in order to complete a home study, but for my type-A, list-making personality…I thrive on the chase! And there is certainly nothing I’ve been more excited about, which makes the fingerprinting, background checking, and document chasing worth every second. We have our home study interview with the social worker scheduled for Tuesday, July 13th. We’ve already sent our “life book” to the agency, and our adoption mentor said they’d start showing it to potential birthmoms as soon as they receive it. Since we will be hand-picked by the birthparents, there is no telling how long the process will ultimately take…it could be a few months, or it could be a few years. We are completely at peace knowing that God’s timing is absolutely perfect and that His hand has been guiding us this entire time. Hopefully that peace will continue as we complete the home study and start the “hurry up and wait” part of the process!

One of the cool tools we have found in order to raise funds for our adoption and the related expenses is this website: http://www.justlovecoffee.com/Irwin2010Adoption.

As a coffee lover, this is right up my alley! Just Love Coffee is company that sells 100% Fair Trade specialty coffees produced from the places that do coffee best. According to their website, Just Love Coffee selects “only Fair Trade coffees from small farmers so that we are helping those farmers, who labor to bring us such wonderful coffees, earn a living wage. We roast our coffees to order so that you are receiving the freshest coffee possible every time.” Yum! Sounds delicious, doesn’t it? If you order using our family’s link provided above, a portion of the sales will benefit our adoption and help defray some of the costs related to the process. Our site is being set up as we speak, so it should be up and running soon! Check back often, and place your order for some tasty coffee once our site is active! We’d love your support in this endeavor, but mostly we covet your prayers. Prayers for us as God prepares us for parenthood, prayers for the birthparents as they go through this decision and their pregnancy, and prayers for Crisis Pregnancy Outreach as they continue their awesome ministry to these girls.

Thanks so much for your support, your excitement, and walking through these past couple years in our journey toward parenthood which has certainly not been the one we had envisioned (but we trust God that it is so much better than our plans were)!