This whole adoption story with Gio started over a year ago. It's amazing how God is working in so many ways before we even have a clue of what is coming. A little over a year ago in January 2011, Justin and I took the college students at our church to the Passion Conference in Atlanta. Before the conference started, I had a few minutes alone in our hotel room. I had started reading through the Bible chronologically and was in Genesis. I picked up my Bible and started reading about Sarah and when the man of God visited her and told her that in "about a year" she would have a son. At the time, this was crazy to Sarah because of her age and her years and years of infertility. It truly was something only God could do. But just as God had promised, her Isaac was born about a year later.
In that moment, I heard God say "in about a year, you will have an Isaac too." It was one of those moments that I thought, "God, was that really you?" I really thought it was, but just doubted God would be saying that to me. So for the whole year, I have been thinking about that moment. As we continued on with the process of adopting from Ethiopia, I kept thinking our Isaac would be coming to us around the first of the year. But as the wait time got longer for Ethiopia, I wondered if I had really heard God. Maybe our Isaac was just going to be born around the first of the year and we would see the timing of the promise later. Still, I just kept thinking something was going to happen.
We had traveled to Atlanta for Christmas and were on the way home when we got the call about Giovanni. As soon as I heard our caseworker's voice on December 31 I knew this could be it. It was completely different than how I thought it would happen, but somehow I just knew. After I hung up with our caseworker, I was shaking and kept thinking....this is our Isaac. This is what God was talking about. Sure enough, exactly one year from the day I sat in the hotel room and had that moment with God, Gio's birth mom met with the counselor at Bethany, was presented with our family and chose to meet us and interview us to adopt Gio.
And, just as God promised, "about a year later", our Isaac is now home, sleeping peacefully in his crib as I type this.
God has challenged me so much to BELIEVE Him, even when things seem impossible. As we were going through the process of being chosen to meet the mom, waiting, meeting mom, waiting and then finally having Gio placed with our family, God asked me over and over again "Do you believe Me?" And as I look back now I am so thankful for the Holy Spirit and how He speaks. I am thankful for His sweet, personal promises. I'm thankful for how His Word speaks and is alive and active every day.
We will be naming Gio, Isaac Giovanni Wyatt. All our kids have biblical names for their first names and family names for their middle names so Isaac will be his biblical name and we will keep Giovanni as his family name from his birth mom.
We continue to be amazed at God's fulfillment of His promises. He is so faithful and good!
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Home
Today is the day we had been waiting for! The court hearing when the judge released FFN (the state) from following Giovanni's case occurred today. Custody was given to Bethany Christian Services so they could officially place Gio in our home. His birth mom signed the paperwork today to surrender her rights as well. Now Bethany starts the process to terminate the birth father's rights. This should take a few months to complete and then when all parental rights are terminated, we can file with the court to finalize the adoption. We are praying that the rest of the process goes quickly and smoothly.
We had the sweetest time with Gio's birth mama today. In many ways, we feel as if we are adopting her too. She has been through so many horrible things and yet she is still holding onto Jesus and is making steps to start her life again. The staff at Bethany held a beautiful ceremony for us and prayed over us and the birth mom. We were all able to share our hearts for each other and for Giovanni. It was an unforgettable, sweet time. We took some great pictures that I can't wait to share. We aren't allowed to share any until the adoption is finalized, but when it is, we will catch you up!
One part of this adoption that has been so stretching and yet so exciting for us is that it will remain open with Gio's birth mom. We have fallen in love with this girl. She is amazing. We plan to see her once a month or so and keep up with her pretty closely. We would love your prayers as we seek the Lord for wisdom on how best to minister to this mom, all the while keeping Gio's best interest first and foremost. Thankfully, we are all in agreement that his well-being and emotional health are the top priority and we have very open communication to talk through this as well. I love what she said in a text she sent me after our meeting...that she knew God has chosen her to be Gio's birth mom, but He chose us to be His mom and dad. SO sweet!
When we were waiting for our child for Ethiopia, I begged God to let me meet our child's birth mom.I just had such a longing to meet and thank and reassure the mom that we will love her child like our own and give him every opportunity to know God. I think God has answered that prayer with a huge, possibly lifelong, opportunity to know and minister to Gio's birth mom. I am amazed at His perfect plan. He is so faithful and so good.
Thank you for your prayers as we adjust to life with four children! We are doing good, just tired and finding our routine. When you know you are doing what God wants you to, it makes all the difference. :)
We had the sweetest time with Gio's birth mama today. In many ways, we feel as if we are adopting her too. She has been through so many horrible things and yet she is still holding onto Jesus and is making steps to start her life again. The staff at Bethany held a beautiful ceremony for us and prayed over us and the birth mom. We were all able to share our hearts for each other and for Giovanni. It was an unforgettable, sweet time. We took some great pictures that I can't wait to share. We aren't allowed to share any until the adoption is finalized, but when it is, we will catch you up!
One part of this adoption that has been so stretching and yet so exciting for us is that it will remain open with Gio's birth mom. We have fallen in love with this girl. She is amazing. We plan to see her once a month or so and keep up with her pretty closely. We would love your prayers as we seek the Lord for wisdom on how best to minister to this mom, all the while keeping Gio's best interest first and foremost. Thankfully, we are all in agreement that his well-being and emotional health are the top priority and we have very open communication to talk through this as well. I love what she said in a text she sent me after our meeting...that she knew God has chosen her to be Gio's birth mom, but He chose us to be His mom and dad. SO sweet!
When we were waiting for our child for Ethiopia, I begged God to let me meet our child's birth mom.I just had such a longing to meet and thank and reassure the mom that we will love her child like our own and give him every opportunity to know God. I think God has answered that prayer with a huge, possibly lifelong, opportunity to know and minister to Gio's birth mom. I am amazed at His perfect plan. He is so faithful and so good.
Thank you for your prayers as we adjust to life with four children! We are doing good, just tired and finding our routine. When you know you are doing what God wants you to, it makes all the difference. :)
Thursday, February 2, 2012
A Date
We got some good news today! The court hearing we have been waiting on has been scheduled for February 16. If all goes as planned, the judge will release Gio from the state's care and put him in the care of our agency to place him with us. We start transition visits tomorrow! We will pick Gio up in the morning and bring him to our house. We are so excited to show him his new home and spend some time with him. We are really praying that God puts Him at ease with us and that his transition would be as easy as possible.
As we have been waiting these last few weeks, God has reminded me of the same thing He has been showing me all through this adoption process. HE is the One we are seeking. HE is the reward. What He wants for us is more of Him, regardless of how things go. Whether we adopt from Ethiopia or from Pensacola, whether we are waiting or meeting our child, whether things are going like we planned or not, the point of all these things is that we get more of HIM. We see Him more, know Him more, love Him more and glorify Him more. He is so good and so worthy of our trust!
As we have been waiting these last few weeks, God has reminded me of the same thing He has been showing me all through this adoption process. HE is the One we are seeking. HE is the reward. What He wants for us is more of Him, regardless of how things go. Whether we adopt from Ethiopia or from Pensacola, whether we are waiting or meeting our child, whether things are going like we planned or not, the point of all these things is that we get more of HIM. We see Him more, know Him more, love Him more and glorify Him more. He is so good and so worthy of our trust!
Friday, January 27, 2012
More waiting....
I know a lot of you are wondering if Gio has come to live with us this week. The short answer is, not yet! The long answer to "why not?" is pretty complicated and confidential. I will just say that we are waiting on a court hearing and a judge to give the go ahead. A lot of things have come out about the case that are making it more complicated. Please be praying for us as we wait to be patient and rest in His perfect sovereignty. It was actually a blessing that things slowed down a little this week because we all came down with the stomach virus and it would have been a tough week to add a child to the home! :) So we know He knows exactly what He is doing.
We are all ready for him though! The kids met him last Friday and were so sweet with "Baby Gio" as they affectionately call him. We pray for him throughout the day and every time Sam David sees a picture of a African American baby in his books or movies he shouts "There's Baby Gio!!!!" It's so cute. The other day he was sitting at the table and noticed we have one empty seat. He told Justin that the seat was for Baby Gio. Josiah knows Baby Gio will have his own room, but he asked if we would consider letting Baby Gio sleep in the room with him and Sam David. I love seeing Gio grow in their hearts, just like he is in ours!
We will keep you posted as there are updates. We are still hoping that he will be with us soon, but will just wait and see how things work out next week. God is sovereign over us! Thanks for your prayers for us!
We are all ready for him though! The kids met him last Friday and were so sweet with "Baby Gio" as they affectionately call him. We pray for him throughout the day and every time Sam David sees a picture of a African American baby in his books or movies he shouts "There's Baby Gio!!!!" It's so cute. The other day he was sitting at the table and noticed we have one empty seat. He told Justin that the seat was for Baby Gio. Josiah knows Baby Gio will have his own room, but he asked if we would consider letting Baby Gio sleep in the room with him and Sam David. I love seeing Gio grow in their hearts, just like he is in ours!
We will keep you posted as there are updates. We are still hoping that he will be with us soon, but will just wait and see how things work out next week. God is sovereign over us! Thanks for your prayers for us!
Thursday, January 19, 2012
A Wonderful Interruption
Big news for Team Wyatt! It's not what we expected or how we planned it, but God has brought the newest member of Team Wyatt to us! A sweet little one year old boy from right outside Pensacola (not Ethiopia!) will be joining our team in the next week or two!
Warning-- this is long but well worth it! :)
On New Years Eve, we were driving back from visiting family in Atlanta when we got "the call." :) Anne, our adoption worker at Bethany called at the end of our long 6 hour ride. Kids were screaming in the back of the van so I grabbed Justin's arm and told him to pull over so I could talk. He stopped on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere while I stood in the grass and heard what Anne had to say. She said they had an 18 year old mom come into their office wanting to place her son for adoption. Anne obviously knew we are on the Ethiopia route, but she said she just could not get us off her mind for this case. They only had a few families to present to this mom so she started thinking about us. She didn't want to say "no" for a us, just in case we were interested. We heard a brief history of the situation and the basic info about the little boy and she asked if we could let her know if we were interested in being considered in the next day or two. My heart was beating so fast as I told Justin what I knew. We decided to get home, get the kids fed and in bed and then we could talk about it and spend some time praying.
We had a sweet time together praying for this mom and her little guy, praying for wisdom and ultimately surrendering our plans to God. We had so many questions but we surrendered them to Him and just told Him we are following HIM on this journey, not a child or a country. Wherever He wanted to take us is where we wanted to go!
So we had a wonderful worship service the next morning. We sang Aaron Keyes' song "Sovereign Over Us" and that has become my theme song over the last few weeks. I am SO thankful for His perfect sovereignty and plan in our lives and in the life of the child He has for us. Justin and I got home from church and both of us knew God wanted us to take the step and at least see what happened. We put our profile together and some pictures and sent them to Bethany. The birth mom was meeting with the Bethany counselor on Tuesday January 3 and she would be presenting our family and two others to the mom. The mom would then choose who she wanted to meet.
The next day, Justin and I left to take our college group to Passion 2012 in Atlanta. It's an incredible conference where over 40,000 college students met at the Georgia Dome to hear teaching from the Word and worship together. It was such a great time for us to be away, be saturated in the Word and His presence and hear from Him. As we worshipped, God made it abundantly clear to both of us that this step of faith is a picture of the Gospel and the He is calling us to live this out in our family. He gave me such a love for the birth mom and a desire to show her Jesus' love. She has been through a lot of very hard things, and she is amazing for what she has come through. We so wanted to be able to tell her that God has wonderful things planned for her, there is healing and that He loves her so much.
Tuesday night, Anne called to let us know the birth mom saw our profile and wanted to meet with us. We set the meeting for January 17.
So the meeting was Tuesday. Amazingly, God's peace ruled in our hearts throughout the whole day. We have both sensed God's hand working and moving so much and we were confident that whatever He wanted for us and for this sweet boy would be accomplished. We walked in to meet the mom and were immediately at ease. She is such an amazing woman, even at 18. We were able to share our hearts, talk about parenting, race issues (did I mention that the sweet boy is black? LOVE THIS!) and our desires for him.
We went back to Anne's office to talk about the next few days of waiting and what we needed to do in the meantime. We had been chatting about 15 minutes when there was a knock on the door and the birth mom was standing there. She came in and told us that she had made her decision and wanted to tell us in person that she wanted us to adopt her son. She said the minute she met us, she was at peace and she really believed God had sent us to her and He had sent her to us as well. She kept saying "Y'all are just so precious!" :)
We met our son yesterday at the Bethany office. He is so full of life and such a happy boy. He loves to give kisses, clap his hands and get attention. At one point a group of six of us were standing around him and he LOVED the attention. He was adorable showing off for everyone. His name is Giovanni. We will let you know later what we plan to officially name him, but we plan to keep calling him "Gio" like his mama does.
We can't tell you what absolute peace we have had throughout this entire process. God has calmed our hearts and spoken to us over and over "I have this, trust me." He is so amazing and good and we are so thankful for our newest member of the team!
We can't put his picture on the blog or on facebook til he is officially a Wyatt, which will probably be in about 3 months. Hopefully many of you will be able to meet him in the meantime!
Many of you are wondering what this means for our Ethiopian adoption. We will post again with more details on this, but at this point, we definitely still see Ethiopia in our future. We have invested time and money and our hearts are there! So, we aren't sure of the timing yet, and we are holding our plans loosely, but we are still hopefully adding an Ethiopian member to the team at some point! :)
Thank you for your prayers for us. We have felt them and we ask that you continue to pray for us as we take these next steps in following HIM!
Warning-- this is long but well worth it! :)
On New Years Eve, we were driving back from visiting family in Atlanta when we got "the call." :) Anne, our adoption worker at Bethany called at the end of our long 6 hour ride. Kids were screaming in the back of the van so I grabbed Justin's arm and told him to pull over so I could talk. He stopped on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere while I stood in the grass and heard what Anne had to say. She said they had an 18 year old mom come into their office wanting to place her son for adoption. Anne obviously knew we are on the Ethiopia route, but she said she just could not get us off her mind for this case. They only had a few families to present to this mom so she started thinking about us. She didn't want to say "no" for a us, just in case we were interested. We heard a brief history of the situation and the basic info about the little boy and she asked if we could let her know if we were interested in being considered in the next day or two. My heart was beating so fast as I told Justin what I knew. We decided to get home, get the kids fed and in bed and then we could talk about it and spend some time praying.
We had a sweet time together praying for this mom and her little guy, praying for wisdom and ultimately surrendering our plans to God. We had so many questions but we surrendered them to Him and just told Him we are following HIM on this journey, not a child or a country. Wherever He wanted to take us is where we wanted to go!
So we had a wonderful worship service the next morning. We sang Aaron Keyes' song "Sovereign Over Us" and that has become my theme song over the last few weeks. I am SO thankful for His perfect sovereignty and plan in our lives and in the life of the child He has for us. Justin and I got home from church and both of us knew God wanted us to take the step and at least see what happened. We put our profile together and some pictures and sent them to Bethany. The birth mom was meeting with the Bethany counselor on Tuesday January 3 and she would be presenting our family and two others to the mom. The mom would then choose who she wanted to meet.
The next day, Justin and I left to take our college group to Passion 2012 in Atlanta. It's an incredible conference where over 40,000 college students met at the Georgia Dome to hear teaching from the Word and worship together. It was such a great time for us to be away, be saturated in the Word and His presence and hear from Him. As we worshipped, God made it abundantly clear to both of us that this step of faith is a picture of the Gospel and the He is calling us to live this out in our family. He gave me such a love for the birth mom and a desire to show her Jesus' love. She has been through a lot of very hard things, and she is amazing for what she has come through. We so wanted to be able to tell her that God has wonderful things planned for her, there is healing and that He loves her so much.
Tuesday night, Anne called to let us know the birth mom saw our profile and wanted to meet with us. We set the meeting for January 17.
So the meeting was Tuesday. Amazingly, God's peace ruled in our hearts throughout the whole day. We have both sensed God's hand working and moving so much and we were confident that whatever He wanted for us and for this sweet boy would be accomplished. We walked in to meet the mom and were immediately at ease. She is such an amazing woman, even at 18. We were able to share our hearts, talk about parenting, race issues (did I mention that the sweet boy is black? LOVE THIS!) and our desires for him.
We went back to Anne's office to talk about the next few days of waiting and what we needed to do in the meantime. We had been chatting about 15 minutes when there was a knock on the door and the birth mom was standing there. She came in and told us that she had made her decision and wanted to tell us in person that she wanted us to adopt her son. She said the minute she met us, she was at peace and she really believed God had sent us to her and He had sent her to us as well. She kept saying "Y'all are just so precious!" :)
We met our son yesterday at the Bethany office. He is so full of life and such a happy boy. He loves to give kisses, clap his hands and get attention. At one point a group of six of us were standing around him and he LOVED the attention. He was adorable showing off for everyone. His name is Giovanni. We will let you know later what we plan to officially name him, but we plan to keep calling him "Gio" like his mama does.
We can't tell you what absolute peace we have had throughout this entire process. God has calmed our hearts and spoken to us over and over "I have this, trust me." He is so amazing and good and we are so thankful for our newest member of the team!
We can't put his picture on the blog or on facebook til he is officially a Wyatt, which will probably be in about 3 months. Hopefully many of you will be able to meet him in the meantime!
Many of you are wondering what this means for our Ethiopian adoption. We will post again with more details on this, but at this point, we definitely still see Ethiopia in our future. We have invested time and money and our hearts are there! So, we aren't sure of the timing yet, and we are holding our plans loosely, but we are still hopefully adding an Ethiopian member to the team at some point! :)
Thank you for your prayers for us. We have felt them and we ask that you continue to pray for us as we take these next steps in following HIM!
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Coffee with Purpose
Team Wyatt Store
If you know Team Wyatt, you know we love coffee! That's why this fundraiser is so perfect for us. Just Love Coffee Roasters has allowed us to create an "on-line store" of their coffee. For every bag of coffee that is purchased from our store, we receive $5. We have decided to use any money we raise through this program to go toward helping the orphanage our child comes from. God has grown Ethiopia in our hearts and we want to use this opportunity to bless the people who have been caring for our child.
Just Love also donates 5% of every sale to clean drinking water projects in Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras and other developing nations.
So if you need a stocking stuffer, or just want to stock up on coffee we would love for you to try this coffee out and be a blessing to many people!
Here's the link to the store--
Team Wyatt Store
If you know Team Wyatt, you know we love coffee! That's why this fundraiser is so perfect for us. Just Love Coffee Roasters has allowed us to create an "on-line store" of their coffee. For every bag of coffee that is purchased from our store, we receive $5. We have decided to use any money we raise through this program to go toward helping the orphanage our child comes from. God has grown Ethiopia in our hearts and we want to use this opportunity to bless the people who have been caring for our child.
Just Love also donates 5% of every sale to clean drinking water projects in Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras and other developing nations.
So if you need a stocking stuffer, or just want to stock up on coffee we would love for you to try this coffee out and be a blessing to many people!
Here's the link to the store--
Team Wyatt Store
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Hats and Grants
Thanks to our wonderful friend, Jimi Clark, who has crocheted over 50 hats to help us fund our adoption! When she offered to crochet these beautiful hats for us, I'm sure she had no idea how many hats her hands would be creating! We are amazed at her servant heart and her love for the newest member of our team. Thank you, Jimi, for your selfless gift that has been such a huge blessing to us! Aren't the hats adorable? My sweet Eliza is pretty cute herself too :)
The last few weeks God has completely overwhelmed us with His confirmation that He does indeed have a child for us. So many of you have given to our Lifesong for Orphans matching grant. Our deadline for our goal amount was November 15 and we exceeded our goal! Praise the Lord and thank you to all our friends and family who gave, put our magnet on your fridge and are praying. We have learned that this process takes the Body of Christ to make it happen. I'm so thankful for the way God puts together an amazing group of people to rescue His children. Amazing!
We also heard this week that we received a grant from Show Hope (Steven Curtis Chapman's ministry). The lady from the agency that called to let us know we had received the grant asked me how things were progressing with the adoption. I told her we are waiting, but God's work is definitely not on pause. He is completely overwhelming us with His provision. He is so faithful and good. We believe that even more as we have walked through these last few months.
If you want to join our team of supporters, just let us know. We also have another small fundraiser in the works that you will be hearing about soon. If you like coffee, you will love this idea!
I've been thinking about this song today. He is able to do anything. Nothing is too hard for Him. The Creator of the universe can move any mountain. When He asks us to do something, He is able to provide all we need. Amen!
2 Corinthians 9:8
And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
The last few weeks God has completely overwhelmed us with His confirmation that He does indeed have a child for us. So many of you have given to our Lifesong for Orphans matching grant. Our deadline for our goal amount was November 15 and we exceeded our goal! Praise the Lord and thank you to all our friends and family who gave, put our magnet on your fridge and are praying. We have learned that this process takes the Body of Christ to make it happen. I'm so thankful for the way God puts together an amazing group of people to rescue His children. Amazing!
We also heard this week that we received a grant from Show Hope (Steven Curtis Chapman's ministry). The lady from the agency that called to let us know we had received the grant asked me how things were progressing with the adoption. I told her we are waiting, but God's work is definitely not on pause. He is completely overwhelming us with His provision. He is so faithful and good. We believe that even more as we have walked through these last few months.
If you want to join our team of supporters, just let us know. We also have another small fundraiser in the works that you will be hearing about soon. If you like coffee, you will love this idea!
I've been thinking about this song today. He is able to do anything. Nothing is too hard for Him. The Creator of the universe can move any mountain. When He asks us to do something, He is able to provide all we need. Amen!
2 Corinthians 9:8
And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
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