Pure Crazines....

Big things are coming, crazy God things that ONLY HE can explain or know.  We are  stepping out in pure Faith on a lot of things....some I hope to announce soon.  I find myself saying I don't know a lot, but with peace and an excited heart because decisions have been made and are being made and only God knows the out come.

With that said this is why I love this picture!  It is so not the perfect family pic, but filled with so much joy amongst so much craziness!

 

Please pray for us. Pray for our family and our changes. And specificially pray for our next adoption that God provides all the finances in his time so we can apply to agencies, and that we trust in him and have patience in his timing.

God Bless!

147 Gift Orders...Order Quick!

Christmas is coming and in order to help you out we are selling some great product!

These gifts will not only give once, but three times!  Help support our adoption, Give food, water, and medicine to a child in need, and help beautiful African Mothers support their families.

Order soon while supplies last!  Just leave a comment or send me an e-mail at carriestamm@gmail.com.

Thank You and God Bless!

 

These beautiful Haitian Earrings are wonderful gifts for Mom, a sister, or a teacher.  They also come in brown, but I had trouble uploading the pics.  There are plenty of the blue, brown, and clear, but only 8 green so order soon.  Cost $15.00

Ugandan Bead Necklaces are still available to order and I have 2 red in stock at home.  Cost $20

 

 

Brown 147 Ball Cap- Cost $20

Leather Helping 1 Home Cuff-$10.00

Butterfly Tee- Cost-$27

Sizes S, M, & L

Long Sleeve Grey Tee-Cost$30
Sizes Small - XXL

Unisex Navy Tee- Cost $20
Sizes XS-XXXL

Kaboom Toddler Tee-$17.00
Size 2T-4T

Green Youth Tee-$20
Size XS(4)
S-(6-8)
M-(8-10)
L-(12-14)
XL-(14-16)

Order Today!
Thanks!

 

We Have a Choice

We have a choice to REFUSE to remain UNCHANGED.

We have a choice to let Real pictures like these not just touch us for a moment, but for a lifetime.



We have a choice to make that change that will move our hearts from momentary sympathy, to a lifetime of loving and serving God’s people, his children.

Galatians 6:9
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

What if we stay unchanged?

Where would they be?





The answer.... it is heart breaking.... heartbreaking for the ones without family, and heartbreaking for the families still together that are suffering from basic need... while we live with more than we need....

What will I do?

What will you do?

More importantly, will we do it today?


For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
~ Philippians 2:13

Refuse to remain Unchanged Today

The New Step One Is Complete!

Sorry for being so absent, but I have been in my canning/freezing season and just tons of other things. I plan to start blogging regularly soon, so I hope some still read. I haven't run out of things to say, just haven't had time. :)

My news today on the switching over from a foreign adoption to domestic is the home study has been transferred over and complete! YAY

With that said we have a lot of fundraising to do. We are essentially starting over and will need to raise at least 28k. I know with that we may receive more negativity and many other things, but the thing we are most at Peace about is that we are completely in GOD'S WILL. That gives us so much peace, and the strength to move on because he is about to bless us and another one or two of his precious children.

So we ask for your prayer that God gives us the wisdom we need to press on and do his will in this adoption and everything. We know he will provide and we trust that.

Your prayers and support mean the world.

With that said I will leave you with a quote I put on FB the other day. No one, besides God of course, says it better than Mother Teresa!

“At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. We will be judged by ‘I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in.’”
-Mother Teresa

Bead Necklaces-Pics

Adoption update coming soon, but for now, I have 6 Bead Necklaces to sell. The sale of these necklaces I have on hand will help us purchase additional profile books about our family so we can start applying to agencies in about 2 weeks for birth families to view.
I know most of us our visual people, so I have taken pics of the necklaces I have on hand now. They are $20 and I can mail them anywhere.

These would make great gifts to keep on hand when you want to cheer up a friend, or to give to teachers at the start of the school year.
For those who do not know the story of the beautiful necklaces here it is:
These necklaces are made from recycled paper by Ugandan women as a way for them to provide for their families. The roll the beads by hand, dip them in varnish, and thread them onto the string. Prior to learning how to make these beads, most of the women “picked trash” or turned to prostitution to provide for their children.

The purchase of one of these necklaces helps in 3 ways. One for the Ugandan women and their families, two you will also feed a child in Uganda, and 3 you are helping us bring a child into our family through adoption. Very cool!






I have 2 red

A Hard Decision

So I have been pretty MIA in a lot of things lately and it’s time to share one of the reasons. Our family has lot of changes being talked about, being made, and waiting on the Lord to reveal, but one decision we have made just recently has to do with our adoption journey.

If you note our timeline for our journey to adopt from Ethiopia we started thinking in Feb of 2011, and officially signed on in May of 2011. We have been on the wait list for 9 months now, and that wait is still a very, very, long one. We were initially ok with the wait, but felt another path being pressed upon us. We tried to request a change in policy with our current agency about allowing concurrent adoptions, and that became a complicated path. There were times of hope that this could work and we could stay the course as we wait, but it simply didn’t work out.
The short of this all is that we are in the process of terminating our contract with AGCI and stopping our Ethiopian adoption, and then at the same time in the beginnings of starting a new adoption journey domestically. This is the short and simple of it.

To be honest I am not going to share all of the painful, hard details of the change here, but our decision was not made lightly or easily. It was hard and painful, but we know we are where God wants us to be.

A friend of mine who is adopting for the second time said something like this when their journey took a completely different turn…”Sometimes God leads us in one direction only to take us in another.” At the time I read this, this statement made sense but also hit me at a level I didn’t completely understand at the time, until now.

I do not doubt that we will indeed return to Africa to adopt again; in fact we plan on it, but right now God has us here on a journey that is unknown, and to be honest, a little scary.

There are some of you who will no doubt have questions, and I will gladly answer them. I invite you to leave a comment or send me an e-mail at carriestamm@gmail.com. There are just too many things to try and write out and explain on the blog.

Truly I want to end this very sad and hard post with pure joy. Joy in our next step, and request for prayer as we are completely laid bare before our maker and trusting him in this with everything we have. Thank you for your support and love; truly means so much.

As things progress more we will keep you updated on our domestic journey.

Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.

~ Philippians 4:6

Are you Comfortable???

Are you Comfortable?

I have been thinking about this a lot lately.

As sinful people we all tend to quickly judge, question other people’s actions, and think we know what is best for others. And as a sinful people when others come at us with concern that comes out as, here is what I think you need to do instead, we get awful defensive, don’t we? I know I do.

So let’s go back to the question… Are you Comfortable???

Most of us, though struck by tragedy at times, are pretty comfortable and secure in our lives, aren’t we?

We like that predictability, and we like to prepare and insure almost everything. You know, Just in case….

We have schedules, and plans for our future’s and our children’s futures. Our lives are figured out and barring no unexpected catastrophe, life is good and sweet and predictable. We’ve worked hard and we deserve what we have worked for. We have all experienced tough stuff, some more than others, and we deserve to just do what we want and make ourselves happy. Our plan will be to just cruise into heaven when the time comes at the ripe old age of whatever and God will say to us “Way to go, you collected all this stuff, and did all these things for you. Oh, and you went to church every Sunday to spend an hour with me and fellow Christians and did a few charitable things here and there. You provided a secure future for your family and rested well in your retirement years. Way to go Good and Faithful Servant...

EEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!(This is my brake noise) :)

Whoa…I am not so certain God would say this, are you? And actually, I really don’t think this is what I want to hear God say to me, his child whom he brought to this earth for a purpose. My only purpose really, which is to do HIS will.

Recently my husband and I have been making decisions, or are on the verge of making decisions that have brought some interesting responses and that make me step out of my comfort zone big time.

I have found that adoption is one of those things that God has willed for our family and one of those things I can’t control or predict one single bit. I have to rely COMPLETELY on God. COMPLETELY!

And here is something I realized. I LOVE IT! I love seeing him move in ways that only HE can do. I have seen him move hearts to pray, to give to families, to support them emotionally, to ask questions so they can understand, and so many more things.

I have seen unthinkable things in adoption that bring about God Moving Miracles and it brings me to tears all the time.

There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t look at my children and thank God for the gifts he has given and the stretching he has done. Because the journey does not end just when they come home, and I have to rely on him as I love them through the hard. I won’t expand on my children’s individual situations here, but they both started out their life with a huge loss and a lot of hard. Sometimes those things effect their behaviors, but I know it, and I just love them that much harder. They are beautifully and wonderfully made.

It absolutely excites me and scares me the desire God has placed in Kent and I’s hearts to bring more children home.

I love how God doesn’t look at our age, our bank account or future plans; he simply just lays his desire and plan on our hearts and asks us to let him carry it through.

That’s it.

No matter how hard it gets, and it is always hard, he carries us through and ministers to our hearts so we can love his children.

I am so in awe of HIS story for our lives. Every Day.

So the conclusion to all this is.. I think everyone should adopt so they can know what I mean.

Ok, not really, I just wanted to see if you were still reading.

I do believe we all need to make a conscience effort to step out of our boxes every day and lean on God to do it.

Instead of making yourself, schedules, and things your priority start the day out asking God to please help you see what he wants you to see for the day, and to do what he wants you to do in every moment of your day.

My family and I have committed to try and do this, and we will fail, we are sinful beings, but we will get back up and face what the Lord has for us.

We are making a lot of decisions and contemplating a lot of things that are soo outside the box, and uncomfortable and it is so exciting; truly!

I wake up every morning, go downstairs, open my Bible, and I just beg God to help me see him, and to be with me, because I NEED him Desperately.

So love, hate, or plain don’t care about what we do or say or ask, but if anything please ask God to move your heart and see the things he wants you to see and love.
Don’t judge, don’t make conclusions, but pray and truly seek him.

It’s amazing what God does to our hearts when we stop talking with our eyes, and just start loving his people even when what they do makes zero sense.

If we all did this I truly believe I would never have to ask others to open their eyes to the need of the lonely, the widow, and the orphans and then to act on it.
Over and over in God’s word it talks about loving each other. It’s hard a lot of times, but more and more I am just doing it. It’s amazing how much this ministers to me and those around me.

So I dare you..

Start loving others truly with everything you have and just see for yourself the beautiful working of our Father. It may hurt and stretch you farther than ever, but it will bring you that much closer to God and his will for you and that friends is EVERLASTING.

Hebrews 6:10

God is not unjust; he will not forget your work & the love you have shown him as you have helped his people & continue to help them.