God is Truly Incredibly, Awesome...He is on the throne!!!

The e-mail below was sent to us from a good friend, Kelli. It 100% confirms that God is in control. If you read the entry that Amanda posted last and then read this email and chills don't run up your spine, you probably ought to check your pulse to see if you're still alive.

Amanda,

I just wanted to let you know that I just received confirmation from Exodus 14:14; When we got off the phone I started praying very hard, I opened up my Bible to Exodus and started reading Exodus 14:13- "Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today." I next went to the web and started reading, and I got chills all over because I felt the Holy Spirit around me. Please know that God is watching and PROTECTING yall!!!! We Love ya and if there is ANYTHING that we can do please don't hesitate to let us know!!!! Give Jake and Bella hugs and kisses for me!!!!

Love ya, Brad and Kelli

Now, ain't (yes I said ain't...I'm from Louisiana) God truly GREAT!!!!!

As Promised- Day 3 Pics

Pray! Pray! Pray!

Well, President Berger is at it again. Those of you that have been called on in the past few weeks to pray, know what I am talking about. For those of you that don't, here it is... The president of Guatemala has been threatening to issue an executive order that will suspend all adoptions if he is successful. Of course, what he is trying to do is uncontitutional and our attorney is leading the way to have it overturned. He tried to do this Friday, Feb. 16 and it did not happen. I believe that enough praying people stormed Heaven's gates and God heard and thwarted his plans. Well... it seems he is at it again with plans to issue it tomorrow, here in Guatemala City. Please contact your prayer chains and get your family and friends praying that it is stopped once again. If this does happen, then all adoptions in process will be suspended and the children in privately-run orphanges (this includes Bella) and those in foster care homes will be taken and put into a public welfare system of some sort. The big problem with this (besides the obvious--my daughter not coming home), is that they have not made ways to financially fund all of these children. Without going into more detail, the bottom line is this: Pray for it to fall through once again and pray that all cases in process get to moving at a God-created, lightning speed and we can all get our children out of there and home where they belong. Also, pray for the fear that is trying to hit me,to leave my mind. I cannot tell you how I am fighting the thought that when I bring her back to the orphanage tomorrow afternoon, it may be the last time I ever see my precious baby girl. But, I WILL fight that fear, nontheless and ask you to pray for us, tonight and tomorrow. We are unsure of the time we will have to bring herback, but do know it will be one of the hardest moments of our lives. We need God's strength.

I must say that in the past, when this was a threat, I freaked out. But, after my "meeting" with God in the air Sunday night, I have an incredible peace that I have not had before. God has finally "convinced" me that Bella is ours and He will be the one to bring her home to our family. I read a quote today from a devotional in my Bible that really stood out to me. "God cannot work a miracle until there is no one else but Him to accomplish what needs to be accomplished."
Well, this is a miracle waiting to happen!

So, I will pray (and ask all of you to pray), and will hold fast to the verse in Exodus 14:14. It says "The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace and remain at rest."

Jeff will post pictures from today whenever he gets up from his nap with Bella. I haven't learned how to do that yet. Those of you that know me understand.:)

The Day After....

Our first night together was a pretty good one. She teased me with sleep all night long. She would sleep for 2 hours at a time and then wake up. I think she was overly stimulated from the day. She spends all of her days on one floor of an orphanage with one caretaker. Whenever we got to our room yesterday, she had a ball. As soon as we went downstairs to the dining room for lunch, she lost it. She took one look at all the people in there, heard all the noise and began to cry the biggest crocidile tears I have ever seen. I took her back to the room and calmed her down. She was laughing and kicking those cute little feet of hers. So, I tried again. Same thing. Jeff took her up to the room and I finished eating. Anyway, I figure she just needed time to realize that there are other people in the world and we interact with them. The orphanage is really quiet and hot. I know this trip must be a shock to her. We tried it again last night, and she did fine.

Breakfast was great. Whatever it was that upset her, she has gotten over and is doing fine today. We took our first trip to the pool. She loved the swimsuit and seemed to know how good she looked. However, the fun stopped there. She did NOT like the pool!! She lasted 5 minutes and we were undressing fast to get dry and warm. We will try again when she comes home.

Speaking of coming home, we need to ask all of you to pray for our embassy to issue us Pre Approval. There seems to be an incident with an adoption facilitator that committed visa fraud recently and they are scrutinizing everyone now. We seem to be one of the families that are caught in this. There is not an issue with us that is being investigated, just that the harder investigating that is being done, is clogging the system for all of us. After being with Bella these couple of days, I cannot begin to tell you how badly I need you to pray God's favor for us in this area. My baby girl NEEDS to come home!!!!!!

Jake is being such a great big brother brushing his little sisters hair.

Jeff and I want to thank all of you for checking our blog and giving us the sweet comments. It feels so good to know that we have people in our lives that care about what we are doing. Keep them coming!!

Well, my baby has been trying to get my attention, so I have to go. You understand--priorities.

We will post more pics later.

Enjoy!!!

I don't know if she just found her hands or if she's been knowing about them, but each time she sees them, it's like the very first time.

The beautiful mom!! This is Jeff...I just didn't want anyone to think Amanda was stuck on herself.

What a crew...huh!!! Now that's one hot Dad. This is still Jeff and I don't care what you think!!! Just kidding!! :-)

The Belly of the Whale

Well, my trip started off in a VERY eventful way. First of all, let me explain that Jeff and Jake and I traveled separately. Well, Jeff traveled separately from me and Jake. We booked our tickets before we decided to take Jake. When we tried to get another ticket, we couldn't. So we changed Jeff's ticket to Jake's name and bought Jeff a ticket on Continental. Jake and I flew Delta because my parents gave us their FFM. Anyway, Jake and I were scheduled to fly out at 6:00 on Sun. morning and Jeff at 6:30. At about 5:40, instead of boarding us, they announced that maintenance was on the plane trying to fix a problem. At 6:20, they announced that the plane was being brought back to the hanger and the flight was canceled. Fifteen minutes later, they decided to send us on another plane. Meanwhile, Jeff had to leave me and Jake crying and not knowing if and when we would meet him in Guatemala. Long story short, I got on the plane and realized that I was going to miss my connceting flight in Atlanta. this was because of them grounding us for weather problems over there. Once I realizedthis, I told the stewardess that we needed off the plane. They had to ground that flight and get our luggage off. Can I tell you how popular I was with many people. (NOT!) My parents then got on the phone and bought Jake and I new one way tickets with Continental and we were able to use the return ticket part of our old ones. (Thanks Mom and Daddy--ya'll ALWAYS come through for us!!) Jake and I got to Houston at 11:30 and had a 7 1/2 layover. Then the plane sat and waited on 17 people that were running late to board. We finally arrived in Guatemala at 11:00 last night. Did I mention that by that time I had been up for 40 hours straight? The night before we left, I did not finish packing until 1:15 and needed to get up at 2:00 to get ready for the airport. So, I figured it was not worth sleeping.

I must admit that I was beginning to feel that I was being picked on. But on the flight to Guatemala, they were showing a boring movie. I decided to read my Bible and when I opened it guess where I turned? The book of Job. Well, about that time I was feeling like I needed a name change anyway. I began to read and realized that God had me right where He wanted me. In the air, exhausted and ready to be still enough to listen to what He was trying to show me. Those of you that know us well, know that this has been a long and hard road. I have not always handeled it the way I should. I grew weary and fainted alot. But God, in His goodness, gently showed me that if I will allow Him to use this to teach me to put my TOTAL trust in Him, He will change me from the inside out. And these days I surely need it.

I now realize that, without a doubt, Bella is our baby girl that God ordained from the beginning of time. Everything we went through with infertility, brought us to God's perfect plan for us--her. Now it is time to move on and let Him lead us forward. If I will just be still and let God do it, He will bring her home. No one can stand in the way of His plans. And no one is bringing her home but Him. We are beliving she will be home for Mother's Day. It will take a miracle, but then again, isn't that His specialty? Needless to say, I will be forever grateful for my "belly in the whale" experience. God did a big work in me yesterday!!

Bella is incredible!!!! She is just about rolling over and has found her precious little hands. She is amazed at them. I will post pics of that tomorrow. She just woke up and needs her Mommy. I will finish telling you about her tomorrow.

Quick note with pics!!!!

We all finally made it, after many, many complications...more on that later. We are all starving, but wanted to post a couple of pictures before we went down to eat. By the way this is Jeff, Amanda won't put Bella down long enough to type on the computer. FYI- The spots of irritation aren't scabies, it appears to an allergic reaction to something.

On Our Way to Guatemala!!!

I can hardly believe that I will be seeing my baby girl on Monday morning. We are flying out at 6:00 a.m. Jake, our 7 year old son, will be meeting his sister for the very first time this week! Jeff and I went to visit her back in Oct. and were there when she turned 1 month old. She and Jake were born on the the same day, exactly 7 years apart. He (along with us) has been waiting a long time for a baby sister. It will be awesome to finally see them together. We cannot get her from the hogar until Monday morning, so we will have fun at the hotel pool when we arrive this afternoon. Jake doesn't understand why we just can't go get her as soon as we land. I wish it were that simple!!

Bella is 5 months old and we have been submitted to PGN on 2/12 without PA. We should be getting kicked out any day now. The problem is that we have yet to get PA from the embassy. We had a positive match on 1/8 and received the hard copy results on 1/12. We are praying that we hear something this week.

Well, it is really late and if I don't get in the bed soon, I may as well stay up until we fly out in a couple of hours. I need my sleep. Jake and I are flying out together on one airline and Jeff flies on a different one. We decided to take Jake after we booked out tickets. When we called back to get him one, the flight was all booked. We did a name change and Jeff bought another ticked for himself. The good news is that we all fly back together on Friday!

Stay tuned.. I know I will be able to supply you with lots of cute pics and updates of our Bellaboo!