I suppose it all began when God gave us a heart for the orphans in our city and we began to foster for Neighbor To Family. Over the course of one year we were able to minister and care for five sibling groups, a total of thirteen children.

We began planning our fourth child. I had hopes and expectations of getting pregnant again and was looking forward to expanding our family once again. About the same time, my husband and I began reading the book, Radical, by David Platt.  The Lord began speaking to my heart about receiving our fourth child through the gift of adoption.  After praying and sharing all of this with Josh, our first thought was to call the Department of Children and Family Services.  We already knew there were orphans right here in our city.  Surprisingly we were told we would be put on a three year waiting list unless we wanted a sibling group of three or more or were willing to adopt a child with severe special needs.  At this point, we began checking into agencies.

Our first agency was great and we were ready to send them the first check with all of our paperwork; and then they realized we already have three children and informed us that our wait time would likely be longer than normal because there are so many couples waiting who have no children at all.  We closed the door on that one and began to pursue an adoption attorney in South Carolina.  Everything looked great on paper, we requested they send us all of their paperwork to get started, and we requested that our home study from the foster agency be sent to the attorney…however…none of this was ever completed.  Three weeks went by and we never received any paperwork from the attorney.  The lady at our foster agency that was going to put our home study in the mail was out sick for several days and hadn’t mailed our home study yet.

During this time of nothing happening, the Lord had been leading me to websites and blogs and videos about the orphans in Africa.  I learned about Christie, who sold everything she had to move from Alabama to a tiny village called Bombo to serve the people and share with them the goodness of our God.  I learned about Katie who, at the age of 19, left her life and family in the U.S. to minister to the Masese community in Uganda.  Katie now has thirteen adopted daughters and over 20 little girls living with her at any given time as she feeds the children in her village and raises sponsorship for the fatherless and the unwanted.

God was stirring my heart for Africa.  I couldn’t talk about what I’d read without crying; shaking on the inside.  When I closed my eyes at night, I could see those beautiful, brown faces; faces of hope because two young women chose to answer God’s call on their lives and minister to the least of these, no matter the cost.

During an hour long car ride to pick up our boys from my parents’ house one weekend, Josh began asking me if I was sure about the path we were taking; domestic adoption.  Through what we’d learned about domestic adoption, he felt like it was a wonderful opportunity for couples without children to adopt locally and have a newborn baby placed in their arms forever.  However, there was clearly an abundance of American couples adopting domestically.  He shared what the Lord had been doing in his heart.  God had already blessed us with three wonderful little boys.  Why not take our heart for adoption to a third world country where the children have no guarantee of ever finding a forever family…or even surviving childhood.

God had already given us a name for our little girl.  Zoe Amaris means Life, Promised by God. My heart pounded inside my chest as I asked Josh,

Does that mean we can go to Africa!?

God had been working in Josh’s heart just as He had mine.  We spent hours on the computer with the boys that night watching videos of African adoptions, learning about the different villages where God has sent missionaries, and researching agencies who work with Africa.  We found Lifeline Children’s Services and were thrilled to work with a smaller agency who has a much smaller wait time; where we would be a real family with five faces rather than simply a case or client number. We’re working hard to continue paying off debt and will begin to sell everything that’s not nailed down in order to raise the $27,000 needed to bring our little girl home!  I have complete peace for the road ahead and I’m overjoyed and excited to watch God move in our journey to Africa. We began our fundraising right away in the form of yard sales and selling hair bows that I began making back when we were trying to adopt our two little girls out of foster care.

Please continue to pray for us in the months ahead.

We give God all the glory and continue to seek His wisdom and direction every step of the way.

~audrey