Ethiopian Princesses God Nod

I received the following story via email 10/10/11 (just two days after Chrissie’s 6th birthday).  Remember how I shared with you about the God Nods we have received, and continue to receive, as a blessing from God that keep us connected to Chrissie?  Well, this is another God Nod testimony that has blessed our hearts tremendously.  I absolutely love when God chooses to share with us a small piece of His greater puzzle.  Thank you, Kathleen, for sharing this with us!

The following testimony was written by Kathleen and shared with me via email (unsolicited by me) on October 10, 2011:

Hi Lorraine…you do not know me.  Just another of your many blog followers. : )  I have never commented on your blog but have been a reader for quite some time and felt compelled for some reason to write to you today to let you know that your family has been instrumental in our story.

We have six biological kids and have always had a passion for orphans. We even started our own business a few years back and felt like God was leading us to step out in faith...the mission of our custom/ high end wood working business was to be able to help fund adoptions.  Even though we always wanted to adopt, we always assumed that because of our already large family we would just have to stay on the "giving end" of things.  To make a long story shorter...God chose to instead have us close our business after about 4 years of daily "faith walking".  We had used all of our retirement funds in the startup so, once again we were starting from scratch... God has continued to be faithful as our "bruised" faith has slowly learned to walk again.

I came across your blog and was drawn in through Chrissie's story but was also able to relate on other levels.  We also live in the country, on 11 acres in Northern Indiana- Have two houses on our property, the smaller one always being used to "love on others" in one way or another.  Your posts about large family and animals and life as it is just always made me chuckle and feel a little more "normal"..hah! : )

So while I can't give you a particular day, it was partly through following your story that we began, again, to discuss adoption. For many years, at each Christmas, our kids beg to give up gifts and just "Go get a baby".  We would explain to them how that just wasn't possible and wasn't the "wise" thing to do..but maybe "someday".

Then earlier this year we felt God asking us to go through the process of becoming foster parents instead.  We could still use our home and our family to help children but it would not require the outlay of $ that we did not have to adopt.  We went through all the hours of classes and paperwork only to be told at the end of the process that Indiana had just changed its laws on June 1st and the maximum # of children in a home, including foster children, was 5...so we were no longer qualified.  Looking back now I really think that God used the foster parenting process just to get us to start moving.  As our eldest son told us once during a family prayer time.." Dad, you can keep praying "someday" for the rest of your life or you could just get busy and start doing something".  Got to love it when our kids use the same things we have taught them to speak truth into our own lives.

SO.....our dossier is ready to send off to Ethiopia!!!! : )  We have committed to adopt two little girls.  We have not received our referral yet but are told it could come any day.  We are humbled at being on the receiving end of things as we try to raise funds to bring our princesses home.  We have not seen their faces yet but we love them already.  God is bringing the desire He gave us many years ago to fruition, and indirectly, your family has gotten to be a part.  Thank you for continuing to be real in your journey.

On another note..have loved following Selah's story.  Our oldest son, who is now 18 had a brain malformation at birth and "would probably never talk and possibly not walk...definitely not be normal"...that was the diagnosis we heard.  BUT GOD!! He will be graduating from High School this year and is a starter on the Varsity Football team.  Not...he is not "normal" and we daily praise God for that!! 

Just wanted to share with you...I know you get lots of emails from people but just felt like I needed to send this.  Hope it is an encouragement to you. I attached a picture of our family because I could not figure out how to get it in the email : ( 
Blessings,
Kathleen     www.shawnkathleenmillerfamily.wordpress.com