God Is Faithful !!!

So, it's been a long time since I have posted anything. We have been very busy with our growing kids and growing our family. If you are at all familiar with our family or in any contact with us , you know we recently accepted a referral for a two year old boy from Ethiopia. We can't share photos until we pass court on our first trip, but trust me, he is the cutest kiddo and sure to melt your heart the way he has ours. I will try to post more often to keep people updated on our upcoming trips. For now feel free to share this blog, and encourage people to donate. We have about $10,000 in air fare coming soon.Thank You!!

Trusting Him.

I'm sitting at work. I was reading a book that has really affected me and I'm only on the third chapter. It's called " Kisses from Katie." It's about a 22 yr old women who went to Uganda on a mission trip when she was sixteen. She fell in love with the country and returned when she turned eighteen. She has since adopted thirteen children, and often has ill or injured adults and children living with her. She only has electricity sometimes and is surrounded by poverty and disease. Her mission work is incredible, but not because of her. She does it only to glorify God. To show so much love to the people of Uganda, that they see Jesus in her. She writes: " He(God)blinded me to the filth and disease, and I saw only children hungery for love that I was eager to share with them. I adored them, not because of who I was, but because of who He is. I just sat right down on the cold, hard floor and snuggled my nose into their dirty necks and kissed their fungus-covered heads and didn't even see it. I was in love."
I am humbled by her faith. She glorifies God. It's that simple. She spends many days working from sunrise till she climbs into her bed covered with netting to keep out the bugs. All this because God has called her to love. The children there are covered in filth. The red dust blows in the wind and it's impossible to stay clean.Yet she loves them because Christ loves them. We were covered in the filth of our sin. Dirty and not worthy of Gods mercy and grace. He washes away the dirt and filth of our sin and forgives us, making us worthy to someday live with Him. Thank you Lord.

Reading about the children in the orphanages of Uganda, makes me excited to finish with our process and bring home a little one who needs a forever family. We counted up the total cost of the adoption and found that it will come to roughly $25,000. Our fund raising is not going as well as I had planned. We have had our puzzle for two weeks and have only sold one piece. I still believe God will provide. He has not called us to do this only to fail. He will provide and be glorified in the sight of the nay sayers and people who don't believe this to be God's will. If you feel led to donate, please contact me and help us bring our little one home.Praise the Lord!

Paper Quicksand

Hi All,
I know it's been awhile since the last blog. We are done with our autobiography though, so that is a big step that is completed! We made contact with our agency coordinator Aneata. She has been really great! I guess we got so busy with our homestudy paperwork, we forgot to do our IAN policy agreement...oops!No problem right? It turned out to be thirty one pages long. The hardest part is getting a paper notorized in the doctors office. We are going to have to find a notary who will travel.Once we get that paperwork turned in, we will simultanously finish our homestudy, and begin our dossier. You guess right...more paperwork. I don't want to sound like I am complaining. We truly believe God has orchestrated this adoption from the beginning. Christians through out history have overcome more with less lipservice.

The garage sale was a great success!!! It was Labor Day weekend if you didn't have a chance to come. We made just over a thousand dollars in two days of sales. We still had lots of stuff left over, and our awesome christian friends(family really) came thru again and donated more stuff. We are praying for another successful sale since this will be the last garage sale. After this, everything goes to Goodwill.I hope to buy the puzzle this week.Your prayers are welcome.

The family is doing well. Emily is back in soccer. I'm so glad she is interested in sports and physical fitness. She exercises with us all the time. She joined running club at school, so we went running together the other day. She ran 1 3/4 miles with some walk breaks. What can I say? She's a Ramey. Becca is doing well too. She is beginning to drive. Yikes! Caden is well. Loving school and making us laugh.
I wanted to recommend a movie to everyone. Katy and I actually had a date last week and went to see the movie Courageous.

It is a call for men to step up and be the kind of man a wife and children need. I lack in many areas believe me. I'm a work in progress, but I thank God for the conviction to change and the grace when I don't measure up.I won't go on. I said plenty on this in my last blog. Will you meet the challenge? If you see the movie let me know. See ya soon.