You guys! It is happening! We are officially in the process of adopting from Macedonia. This has been such a far-off thing for so long, that we are so in awe that it is actually happening in the now. Now. Crazy exciting. So, I (Kristin here) will be doing most of the blog posts, and I just wanted to start by telling you how we settled on Macedonia. Adoption was never a question. We’ve known that was coming. But there was a question of where. “God, where do You want us to adopt from?”

When we met with Lifeline for the first time, and received a whole list of places that you can adopt from, we had no idea. I seriously had the thought, “If they could just hand me a child, I will love her, but I don’t know how to pick a place.” So, we were praying for some kind of pull towards a certain place. We of course didn’t want to just randomly pick somewhere. We wanted the Lord’s leading.

We went through the list and were able to mark off places that wouldn’t work for us. And then we started looking at places that would work. Macedonia was one of the places that stood out, so I just googled Macedonia and shared what I saw with Jonathan. We were both just like “that’s neat”, but that’s all.

The next Sunday, I was sitting in church. At the beginning of the message, my brain shifted to thinking about our options of where to adopt. Fostering is something we are interested in, but think that may be later on down the line when our children are older or out of the house, so I was able to table that option for now. Then Macedonia popped into my head and I thought, “Isn’t Macedonia in the bible? Is it?” So, I looked it up in my concordance and there it was in Acts 16:6-10. So I read it. Go read it right now.

Okay, I will read it for you.

And they went through the region of Phyrgia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the spirit of Jesus did not allow them. So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, “ Come over to Macedonia and help us.” And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

What?! I have read Acts many times, and I just don’t even remember it saying Macedonia and specifically saying “come over to Macedonia and help us.”

I immediately felt overcome. Like shaking, holding back tears, dizzy. I managed to continue taking notes on the sermon, while also sneaking glances back at Acts 16, while also fighting the urge to get up and run out of the sanctuary to where Jonathan was with the Kids Church and share this with him. At the end of the service, when I stood up to sing the last song, I had to hold onto the pew in front of me to physically support myself. Once we made it to the car, I was finally able to share all of this with Jonathan, and I shared it hesitantly because I was prepared for the possibility of “that’s cool, but no.” Ha. But Jonathan’s eyes watered as I told him, and he was just thankful for the Lord leading us.

So, we are going forward in faith. We are trusting in the Lord for all the details, big and small.