Our Journey to Zambia
(go to the top of the page and pause music before you play the movie)
OUR STORY
The story of two crazy in love high school sweet hearts fell in love and were married shortly after high school and later started a family.
~We knew that we wanted to follow the Call of the Lord on our lives. One month after being married we moved to Pensacola, Florida to go to Bible College.
One night while at Bible College we were attending an all night prayer meeting and my husband felt the Lord speak to Him that we were called to Zambia, Africa. Funny thing because at the time we had no clue that there was even such a country. We went home broke out the map and wondered where in the world Zambia was and if there was such a country. Within the end of that year we found ourselves pregnant with our first child who is our son. Later we moved back to Indiana after hearing that some friends were planting a church and knowing they needed help and my husband had worked with them previously with Youth Ministry and felt called to come back and work along side them as Youth Pastors and also after finding out the Bible College we were attending was losing accreditation. So we moved home a lot happened as well as life and later three more blessings we added to our family. After our third child we felt the call to adopt. After talking with some friends we felt the call to adopt through foster care. It's crazy but after almost nine years now that we originally felt the call that we would some day be going to Africa we have felt that every part of our Journey has a part to play in what we will eventually be used in the future. We know that with everything there is a season. This season for us we know is a season of preparation. So we were officially licensed in April 2010 and around the same time found out we were expecting our fourth child. You have got to love all of those unplanned surprises. Our fourth child is one of the greatest blessing and we are so blessed God chose to surprise us with her. We sat waiting for a placement for two years all the while God was speaking different things to our hearts. We got our first placement of a sweet little baby boy that we picked up from the hospital and he was only with us for two short weeks but has impacted our life for eternity. We then fostered two sweet little boys who we loved dearly. We had our 2nd experience of loving then having to let go. Later we felt the Lord prompting us to prepare for a baby. We thought and if you had asked me at the time I just "knew" we would be getting a placement of a baby. There were times we wondered if we should just close our home. I questioned and asked the Lord, "why would you tell me to prepare for a baby to end up just closing our home in the end." A week later I found out we were expecting our fifth child. Not planned at all. Completely shocked but he is such a blessing and we are so grateful for this unexpected gift the Lord has given us. When we found out we were expecting after praying we decided to close our home. We had just went through the process to become re licensed. Our choice was either continue and then have to move whatever kids would be in our home when baby arrived or we could just close our home. We ended up instead becoming a Safe Family. Which is a ministry that works with families to take them in and help them until they can get on their feet. We heard about a sibling group that needed a home temporarily while the single mom got on her feet. We knew this is what the Lord was leading us to do. This is such a great ministry and I cannot say enough good things about it. We have been able to since keep in contact and build a great relationship with this family. In March of 2014 we were accepted as missionaries with Kids Alive International after coming back from a missions trip that June. The whole year until after the baby was born we soaked up pregnancy and started slowly purging from our home. We started support raising in March of 2015 and sold our home in May 2015. The end of September 2015 Brandon quit his job (a huge leap of faith) and we went to CIT (Center for Intercultural Training) for a month. The month of October we soaked in all the knowledge and then November 1 started full-time support raising. We are anxious to be in Zambia early 2016.
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