Saturday, January 10, 2015

A New Year

Well, it is a new year! We are so excited about all God is going to do in and through us this year. Not that it is about us, but it is all about Him using US to be His hands and feet in total surrender for His glory.

Psalm 28:7 The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him.
1 Peter 5:6-10 (NLT)
So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believersall over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are.10 In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation.
One thing we are most excited about this year is our partnership with Children's HopeChest. If you have not sponsored a child yet, please go on over to http://www.hopechest.org/community/holeta/sponsor. Check out the site and start your $38 a month sponsorship. We have 78 children out of 150 that still need to be sponsored. Thank you to everyone who has already sponsored. Check out the other blog posts about our connection with HopeChest to see what this organization is all about. I have 4 different video links here that show you some pictures from our trip in October. We will be going back October 31- Nov. 7th this year. If you are interested, let me know. 


We still have some Ethiopia Love t-shirts available as well. (We should hear something soon about the waiting list for our adoption. Continue to pray for that sweet precious child God has planned for our family!) We have some navy blue hoodies with the same design if you are interested in one of those. We have adult small, medium, large and X-Large available for $25.00. Click on the paypal link on the homepage of the blog. Put your address in the note section and add $2.00 per shirt. 





Monday, October 20, 2014

Children's HopeChest


James 1:27
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

So, what can you do to help orphans in Ethiopia?

Just a little history on Ethiopia. 
Ethiopia has one of the largest populations of orphans in the world: 13 percent of children throughout the country are missing one or both parents. This represents an estimated 4.6 million children – more than 800,000 of whom were orphaned by HIV/AIDS. The country has seen a steady increase in the number of children becoming orphaned because of AIDS. In the past, famine, conflict and other diseases were the main factors that claimed the lives of parents. 
Through our adoption, we know God has led us to start a partnership with Children's HopeChest. 
Our church will be giving out more information in the next few weeks, but I want to go ahead and get the word out because it doesn't STOP in our church. We as Christians are called to help and take care of the orphans and the widows. I would love to share with you our experience of sponsorship. We have been sponsoring our child, Asrate, for the last couple of years. He is in the "Trees of Glory" care point led by Karen Wistrom. 
We have been able to write to Asrate, send care packages and now just two weeks ago, meet him and his family. A friend of mine put it perfectly, "Our sponsor child has become a believer since being a part of Trees of Glory. Also, my mom's sponsor child and her mother have also been saved. God is definitely big enough for Asrate's heart and his mom. That is the beauty of sponsoring. You may be the only person in the world praying for that child and family. This is how lives are changed."
So, I would love to get you connected with sponsorship. We have 150 kids to get sponsored. Read the details below, and I will get you more information. Contact Robin Bracken at robinsbracken@gmail.com for more information about Children’s HopeChest, sponsorship, partnership with Holeta, Ethiopia.
 Let's change the world with ONE! 

At HopeChest, we advocate a “community to community” partnership model. While many great organizations exist to provide individual sponsorship opportunities, we believe that holistic sustainable change in the poorest communities occurs when one community partners with another.
The gift of sponsorship…
The most precious gift you can give an orphan is the gift of sponsorship and relationship with your family. A sponsor is a person who commits to three things…
1. Pray
As a sponsor, we ask that you would pray for your child as often as possible. Your child’s packet will give you information about their circumstances, family of origin, orphanage, town, and country–all vital tools in helping you pray for your child.
2. WriteUsing the “Write Your Child” link, you can use the Web site to write your child as often as you’d like. We ask that sponsors try and send a message to their child about once a month. Say things to your child like, “I am proud of your hard work in school!” You may be one of the only encouraging voices in their lives.
3. Support
Each sponsor commits to a $38/month sponsorship relationship that provides a child with many benefits. Your funds will enable us to hire in-country staff who will directly minister to your children. We will help with projects at your child’s orphanage and facilitate the letter writing exchange program.

While $38 cannot meet all the needs of a child suffering through extreme poverty, it does provide significant help. In our community-to-community model, all funds are "pooled" together so that if one child does not have a sponsor, they will still have these needs met.

Acts 20:35 "In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' "

Karen Wistrom- HopeChest Sponsorship Coordinator, “Adoption is a most amazing gift but not everyone is able or willing to adopt, and not every child will have the opportunity to be adopted.  The beautiful thing about sponsorship is that you can come alongside one child, to provide for their basic needs of food, clean water, clothing and medical care - and most importantly provide a valuable education and Christian discipleship!  The very things they need to break the vicious cycle of poverty and equip them to become the future Godly leaders of their family, their community and their country. Through your letters and your prayers (and if possible, a visit) you demonstrate the love of family and the love of their heavenly Father. 

Thank you for your generous gift to Children’s HopeChest. Because of the faithful support of ministry partners like you, thousands of orphans will have the opportunity to survive, thrive, and succeed. You can always get the latest information about our ministry at


on Facebook at

Thank you for providing not only earthly help, but also the true Bread of Life. You are the critical difference in their lives.




Tuesday, October 14, 2014

A Journey

I guess it is time for the world to meet the little girl behind our drive and push to open our lives to the country of Ethiopia.

A little history... Nick and Jessica Irvin ( http://steadfastminds-ethiopia.blogspot.com/), friends of ours, adopted two sisters from Ethiopia. They came to visit and ride horses. Meron and Jessica just so happened to get thrown off on the last little ride. Long story short, everyone was ok, but Travis and Meron spent the next couple of hours snuggled up on the couch. This was the beginning of us falling in love with the beautiful people of Ethiopia.

Nick and Jessica end up adopting 2 more children from Ethiopia, and God worked on our hearts during this process. Our pastor was preaching on moving out of our comfort zones, and reaching beyond something greater than ourselves. Every sermon was like our pastor was preaching to us to do something. Do what makes you feel uncomfortable and pushes your faith to more than you can imagine. On Valentines 2012, Travis and I went out to eat and we talked about how God was calling us to adopt.

It is now October 2014, and why do we still not have a child?
Our first referral, Melat. We found out April 2, 2013 that her grandmother came to the orphanage to take her back. Ok, heartbroken does not come close to how we felt. We had fallen in love with a picture of a beautiful little girl we had already started calling "ours!"
We knew God had called us to adopt, and we would not let this stop us. 
This is when "Oceans" became our theme song. 

We received our next referral on July 27, 2013 (My 30th birthday). Then, in February 2014, our agency was indicted with fraud. We found out the kids in the care center had been moved, and we knew the only way we would be able to hold on to our child would be to get on a plane and go find her. We had no idea where she was, but God said, "Go!" So, within 5 hours, Travis and I boarded a plane to Washington, DC to head to Ethiopia the next morning. We asked our friend Jessica to possibly go with us, since she had experience with Ethiopia and adoption. She did not hesitate and willingly came along with us. We still cannot thank her and her family enough because this is where the true journey occurs! 

Within a couple of hours of arriving in Ethiopia, we made phone calls and found our sweet little girl. Meet Mulunesh. 

The next couple of days we made connections in Ethiopia to try everything we could to bring this sweet girl home. While we were there, they placed a hold on international adoption. Since then we were able to renew all of our paperwork, homestudy, etc., and Ethiopia gave us a new agency to work with. In the next few months, Mulu would have to move to another orphanage because the one she was in was shut down. By the grace of God, we found out where she was and made immediate contact with the new director. 

So, where are we today. We would love to tell you that we are headed to Ethiopia any day now to bring our sweet girl home. But we are thankful that God sees the bigger picture, and we are trusting in His plan- even though it is hard. 

Since going to Ethiopia in February, God placed a burden on our hearts to do something more for the children in the community where we found Mulunesh. We have been sponsoring a child through Children's HopeChest for the last couple of years, and we knew God was telling us to pursue a partnership through HopeChest. So, Travis and I with a few other people from our church were going on a vision trip with HopeChest to see exactly where God wanted us to partner. 2 days before we left, we received an email from the orphanage director that Mulunesh was going to be reunited with her family. 

What? Why? I know, we are asking the same thing! Two and a half years in an orphanage, and now? We have no clue what God is up to, but to lose our second referral, especially after meeting her, we are heartbroken, BUT we have not lost the FAITH. Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

We know our journey is not over, but we do know.... 



This beautiful, sweet, little girl has brought us to love a nation that we are not sure we would be so in love with, if we would have never gotten on that plane in February. God has used her to bring us closer to His calling on our lives. To reach out to something greater than ourselves. To live a life devoted to Christ. To be His hands and feet! 

James 2:14-26 (ESV)

Faith Without Works Is Dead

14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good[a] is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! 20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by workswhen she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

Who knows.. a few months from now, a year from now... only God knows! But we are holding close to His promises...Deuteronomy 31:6, "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you."
WAITING LIST for Child #3! Thankful God is holding us in His hand! We will not abandon YOU because you will not abandon us! 

Coming Soon.. how can you help the orphans and widows of Ethiopia? Stay tuned. You do not want to miss out on this opportunity! 

Listen here to a great new worship song. Maybe you need to be reminded of His GRACE!

Steady Heart- Bethel Music.





Friday, October 10, 2014

What we are doing...

Well, Travis and I just got home from a short trip to Ethiopia, Africa with Children's HopeChest. We had an amazing time, and I cannot wait to put all the pictures together and thoughts in to writing. We have started a new blog to document all things MISSIONS. We are just wanted to encourage each and everyone of you to live a life like Christ. So many times, I feel we have just gotten comfortable attending our Sunday services, but never really doing what we have been called to do. So, together we are learning and changing our lives to become more and more like Christ on a daily basis.

So, for now... for those interested in our Ethiopia shirts, you can purchase one for $15.00 each. Shipping is $2.00 for each shirt or I can meet you somewhere if you are local. Sizes are youth small, youth medium, youth large, adult small, adult medium, adult large, adult X-large. We are working on getting 2X and 3X.

Click the donate button at the top right hand corner of the blog.

Also, check out our friends at Under the Carolina Moon. You can find a lot of cool things in their store as well as online. They have supported our adoption and so many things at our church, so give 'em some love!
http://www.underthecarolinamoon.com/
Adoption friends- they have some really great things for you!!!!