Back up the Bus!!!

Ok, so this post has been a long time coming.  As all of you know by now, we are leaving for Zambia, Africa in a month to be missionaries for Jesus and to adopt a little boy into our family.  People that know me now were not much surprised at this turn of events in our lives.  People that knew me in my former life were and probably are still thinking---"she is going to be a missionary?" "did I miss something here?"  "I didn't even know she went to church!" And then after maybe the shock and confusion came questions like---"what happened?" "I wonder what would make her want to serve in Africa?"  "why is she adopting?"
Well, friends/family/acquaintances, this post is to answer all of those burning questions!
I am going to start by apologizing for not being strong enough to resist all the temptations that come in high school.  I made so many poor choices and did not reflect my Lord and Savior.  I look back and I know there are so many people I could have influenced for good-but instead I probably tainted people's view of Christians with the way I behaved.  So, for this, I am sorry!!!  I wish I could go back in time and share the love, grace, and truth of my Father with so many people.  But, I also know God does everything for a reason.  He gave me free will and He knew I would live the way I lived for a while and that someday I would return to Him full force, and the most important thing is to now share my story of redemption. So here it is:
I asked Jesus into my heart at the age of 6 years old.  I knew He loved me so much that He died for me on the cross to pay the penalty for my sins and that by trusting in Him, I could live with Him in heaven when I died.  After this, I was pretty much on fire for God, singing at the top of my lungs in the front row at church, inviting friends to Awana, going to church camp, wanting to be a missionary, got baptized, and so forth.  Then came junior high-y'all know how rough those years are!  I left my tiny Christian school and started attending the public school so I could play sports.  Not going to get into too many details, but things went downhill from here.  My desire to be liked and to be in the cool crowd outdid my desire to follow God no matter what the cost.  I am not blaming the peer pressure at all either-it was my choice to sin.  We are all given that choice everyday.  I was having fun, I was popular, and I figured I could just obey God later when it was easier and I was married with kids.  (ha!)  I was totally banking on God's grace card.  Now His grace is pretty amazing and I know He still loved me through all this and has completely forgiven and forgotten now that I have repented, but I took that grace for granted.  God says clearly in His word to not continue in sin just because of grace. 

Romans 6:1-2 
1)What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that 
grace may increase? 2)By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 

But that is how I continued to live for a while...I went on sinning...(and I still do, not perfect by any means-I just try harder to stop now because I know grace is a gift that Jesus paid the price for and to be honest, sinning just isn't that fun anymore-I WANT to obey my Father now) I digress...So when and how did things start to change?  Halfway through my freshman year at Kirkwood, I met my hubs.  I knew there was something different about him.  He wasn't really following God at that point in his life either, but I just knew that he was something special.  As we started dating and had some good conversations, we found out we both really desired a better relationship with God and wanted to get out of sin cycle we were in.  I can't say that happened over night but we got engaged, got married, and started attending our current church-Ankeny Free Church.  It was the second church we visited in Ankeny and we haven't looked back since.  The teachings were biblical, challenging, and relatable.  We were invited to be part of a small group, not knowing what a  small group was and started going to that weekly.  (if you don't know what a small group is, please ask-I would love to explain!) This group became our family and the lady leader of the group really took me under her wing.  Not that I really wanted to hear all that she had to say at the time-I thought I had things pretty well figured out!  But thankfully, she dealt with my stubbornness and spoke truth into me-helped me to understand what it really means to follow Christ and live for Him, to be a daughter of the King.  (Thanks Annette Babcock! love you!)  This was all about 7 years ago now and God has just been growing me ever since...I can't even begin to go there explaining all the things I have learned about God these past 7 years.  All I can say is I want more.  More of Him. So that hopefully explains to some of you asking the "what happened" question. 
The serving in Africa question is a slightly shorter answer.  It all started with adoption, which I will explain next, but it has so much more to do with our marriage.  If you have met my hubs, you know he is an adventure seeker.  He is a firefighter for crying out loud, he actually wants to run into a burning building when everyone else is running out.  You also should know the man loves to travel and see the world.  He gets seriously cranky when he hasn't been out of the country for a while.  And lastly, he really enjoys helping people and teaching people something he is knowledgeable about. (God and Farming!)
So what does this have to do with why I am serving in Africa?  Simply put, I love my husband.  This is his dream, to have a family adventure, to live on a different continent, to help people with something that he is really good at, and to bring people to relationship with God.  So when I brought up adoption and he brought up adopting from Africa-even though adopting from pretty much anywhere else would require much less work and us not moving away for a year-I knew this was God giving me an opportunity to support my husband in his dream.  I am not always great at being submissive to my husband like the Bible commands (like I said before, not perfect!), but surprisingly this decision came pretty easily.  We both felt like God really wanted us in Africa for a year.  
Finally, why is she adopting?  GOD TOLD ME TO. Not lying.  I felt His still small voice and I couldn't ignore it.  Believe me, I wanted to at times.  Life would be much easier with just my two.  But as I said above, my desire is now for God...I want to please Him in all I do and when He asks me to do something, I try to do it.  After I said yes to God, it is cool how He has and continues to show me the "why".  1st, I love how it opens up doors.  When you say you are moving to Africa for a year and you are adopting, it starts some great conversations where you get to share your faith.  Love it.  2nd, the more I read in the Bible about orphans, the more I understand the job God has given us believers in caring for them.  3rd, I can't wait to explain to this child that he now has a mommy and a daddy who will love and care for him like he is our own.  More importantly, I can't wait to explain that our love for him grows out of our love for our Father in heaven and for our child to see that Jesus loves him.  4th, I am excited for the opportunity this gives my biological children.  For them to be a part of God's word in action...

Psalms 68:5-6 Father to the fatherless, defender of widows — this is God, whose dwelling is holy. God places the lonely in families.

I know they will learn tolerance, patience, understanding, kindness, love in taking someone into our family and making them a part of us.  5th, I am excited for what I will learn through this-for how God will work on my heart to be more like Him, to love more like Him.  
I know adoption won't be easy-there will be many ups and downs, but I know if I keep these reasons written on my heart, God will be glorified and our family will be blessed.  

So there you have it, thanks for reading this super long post-I tried to keep it short and sweet but it just didn't happen!  :)   I hope this answered some of those questions roaming in your mind, but if you have any more questions or just need someone to talk to about anything you are wrestling with in your life, please don't hesitate to contact me via text, phone call, email, whatever! I would love to help.  God Bless!