He's coming home!

We just got word--our new baby is coming to live with us! As many of you know, we have been working on adopting a beautiful baby boy, who is currently in Arizona. Well, all the initial paperwork is done, and we are leaving early tomorrow morning to pick him up!

Pray for us. This is just the first step in the adoption process. We've got a ways to go before he's "officially" ours.

Also, one of the coolest things about this whole situation has been how our church has rallied around us. For example, we have a community outreach planned for Saturday. I was planning on calling everybody and rescheduling it for a Saturday when I can be there. But one of our members told the Mighty Mrs. J, "We can do it anyway. After all, pastor says it's not a one-man show. We're all part of God's mission." So the outreach goes on!

I'm blessed and happy that the message is resonating with our church folks.

Oh, and if you're wondering whether there will be a massive onslaught of pictures of the new baby...I think you already know the answer to that question...

Updates, we got updates...

I'm sure you'll be getting sick of these updates before long, but I'm going to give you another one anyway. We're in Glendale, AZ. Tomorrow morning at 9, we are going to meet the social worker for the baby. We'll talk, she'll get to know us a bit, then we may be able to have a visit with the baby.

I guess what I'm saying is, keep praying....

Update time...

We just spent a great week in Colorado, hanging out with my aunt and cousins. We left this morning, and we are spending the night in Albuquerque. Nice hotel, questionable pool cleanliness...but that's another issue altogether.

As for the baby update, we are supposed to meet him in Phoenix on Wednesday. The social worker is working out the details, but it looks like we'll be able to spend some time with him. He won't be coming home with us on this trip because there is still court work to be done. But that part could be wrapped up in a few weeks, and we'll have a new member of the family!

Interesting side note: while we were relaxing at the hotel pool tonight with the kids, we met a guy who is also staying here. We started talking, and it turns out that he was in town on business, but he lives and is on staff at a church in the same Phoenix suburb where we will be meeting the baby. He was very encouraging. He prayed for us, right in the hot tub! It was a great church service, amongst the bubbles.

Please keep praying! I'll keep you posted...

Prayer request from the road...

Hello everybody! It's been a while, and I have a lot to update you on. But that will have to wait. Right now, we are in Parker, CO, visiting my terrific family. We're having a lot of fun, and we plan to be here until next Monday.

I want to ask you to pray for us. We got a call this afternoon. I can't go into details, but we were asked if we would be interested in adopting a baby boy. We have been talking about adopting again for months, so we are definitely interested, But we need pray, and lots of it. We need God to open doors. We need wisdom. We just have needs, period.

So, the Mighty Mrs. J and I would really be thankful if you would remember to pray for us.

Thanks!

Family makes a difference through foster care and adoption...

This article and "Today" show video tell the story of Daniel and Lori O'Brien. They are 2 ordinary people who decided to open their homes and hearts to 11 foster children. They ended up adopting 7 of them, in addition to their 3 biological children.

They took in all kinds of kids: different races, kids who had been beaten and molested, kids who were deemed "unadoptable." They didn't have a lot of money, or a fancy home, but they did have what every kid needs--lots of love.

For me, there's something to be learned here. I don't know if these folks are Christians, but I do know that if every Christian family was willing to take in a child or two, there soon wouldn't be any kids left who needed homes.

Like I said in last week's podcast, we Christians really do have it in our power to live out the gospel by taking care of the neediest people on earth. Unfortunately, we instead spend countless millions on stuff we don't need, and political campaigns to pass laws that make sure unbelievers "act Christian."