An Update

Well...okay...we are not a very good "bloggers". Sharon had the intention of keeping up with this site and let time get away. So, we have recommitted to this site with the recent mailing of our Christmas Cards! Our intention is to give you an insight into all that God is doing in our lives. We also want to give Him the praise and glory for the finances and physical needs He provided during our two adoptions! He brought over $55,000 in the last two years to save the lives of six children and bless the lives of those they will encounter over their lifetime. A brief note on why we began adopting...

In 2002, Sharon was diagnosed with breast cancer and under went surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. She has been in remission for four years...PRAISE GOD! Upon the completion of her treatment she was unable to have more children biologically. God accomplished many things in our family due to cancer. We became closer as a family and made a very difficult church change. The church change was hard because we loved the people at our church, but knew God was calling us to follow Him above all. Cancer gave us the courage to do what God was calling us and He has blessed our family immeasurably due to our obedience. So, Sharon was cancer free, life was going along and then we each felt the reality of no more children. It was then we talked about adoption. Adoption was something we had talked about during our married life, but never in a serious way until we were infertile. We sought much wise counsel and prayed wanting to know if this was our will or God's will. The answer came in the finances. Many meetings and much prayer took place and then we received word that someone was wanting to help a family adopt financially at our church, Community Bible Church. They did not know we were trying to adopt; they just knew God was calling them to give financially. This is how the majority of the money came for our first adoption!

We traveled to Ethiopia in April 2006 and brought home Bethlehem age five and Habtamu age 2 (See Bethie and Tamu's Story for the details). We had our first two children home from Ethiopia for approximately five months when we received a dvd in the mail from Christian World Adoption. There were over 200 children on the dvd that needed homes. Lawson and Sharon sat and watched the dvd and Lawson said, "Mom, we have to get some of those kids." Sharon was struck by a group of children all wearing jean jackets, but decided that surely they were no longer available. I watched the dvd and without knowing Sharon's thoughts, was struck by a sibling group of four all wearing jean jackets. We reached out to many families in our church asking them to consider adoption and a couple did, some are still praying! Well, we prayed and I told Sharon to call and check into what it would take to adopt again from Ethiopia. Sharon called and spoke with Michelle Gardner who was in charge of the program. After talking with Sharon a little while she asked, "Do you have a sibling group in mind." Sharon responded, "No." It was then Michelle said, "I have one in mind for your family. Did you see the children on the video wearing the jean jackets?" It was then we knew the Lord was calling us to adopt this sibling group. SCARED is the word that comes to mind. We were thinking, $33,000 God, we need a bigger home, we need a bigger vehicle etc...all along we knew He would provide. Below are the details of His provision:

1. We sent a video out and letter campaign to friends and family and received $1700.
2. God brought checks in the mail for various items like "Overpayment of a bill" etc..
3. We received three grants: Shaohannah's Hope ($5,000), Hadassah's Hope ($1,000) and A Child Waits ($5,000)
4. An anonymous donor gave us $9,000 for expenses we incurred.
5. $1000 from our pest control guy.
6. A 15 passenger van the week before we flew to Ethiopia that was in our price range.
7. 5 acres of land and a HUGE double-wide. Yes, we are so thankful for our new home. We knew that we couldn't pass up the opportunity to purchase land in Beaufort. We also knew with ten children we would need plenty of chores. Thankfulness comea as the kids have room to run, chickens provide our eggs and goats, coming in January, will provide our milk. We also hope God will bless our garden efforts this spring for our veggies.

the above list does not begin to explain how God weaved each gift and its timing perfectly. He also continued to encourage us to "Press On" when discouraging words came our way.

So, that is a brief narrative of how we got to today. Sharon is going to try and keep this updated. She has blogging insecurities and a perfectionist attitude towards writing! Please ignore all grammatical errors and she will be fine. Our goal is simply to point others to Christ as He blesses our lives.

Mark~