Home again

Debbie will be home tonight and I and the kids are so excited to see all of them. She is bringing our Ilia and Lydia our new children home from the Ukraine today. It is not a common to adopt kids when one already has 7 children however we know that the Lord wants us to do this and even though it is a sacrifice that has affected all of our family it has made us better and stronger as a family. We prayed and fasted many Sundays for months as a family and individually  that hearts would be softened and minds would be opened to help us as we were in Ukraine and the people we needed would be found. The Lord has lead us and answered our prayers He has blessed us in this adoption at many of the turns after we had done all we could He did the rest. We had Yana and Uri appear and take care of our family Debbie Derrick and I. The Inspector of Orphans was one of the special people touched by His hand to bless the children that they might be grafted into the fruitful olive tree  as in the Parable of the Olive Tree.
Our family have lived by faith especially this last year in the effort to make the money and prepare our home to receive these kids.  I feel like an observer of a movie about a great miracle for it truly has been that. Our family income is around $70,000 how do we come up with $35,000 to adopt.
This is the story last June 30 our home which would not have passed the home study to adopt burned we lost every thing but our family and my tools. As I drew the new plans for the house my wife made arrangements to host two children from Ukraine. After they left we held a family counsel to decide how we could find the money to bring these children home and it was decided that we would give up replacing things and working ourselves on the reconstruction we could do it. As I was working on the house plans I had drawn in the rooms we would need to make enough room for them without even knowing that they were coming, The formal parlor was converted to a bed room and a storage area was changed over also, a closet made from a hallway a closet added all for less than $200 and we had the space. the children and I worked hard for a year on the house while my wife worked more hours at the hospital to make up for my income as I built the house a friend spent days helping saving us thousands in labor . Who would have believed that your house burning down would bring so many blessings.I know that if you look in to the tragic events in your life you will find blessings if you look for them.  As my wife and I sat across the street watching the fire fighters as the house burned my wonderful wife said a very profound thing "well I guess the Lord just scraped the dross off". There has never been a truer statement as a door closes He opens a window and in our case He did as promised and "Opened the windows of heaven and poured out blessings that we could not hold them all" Because we are faithful tithe payers .