When Pigs Have Eight Eyes

Brody asked for a piggy bank this month.  I asked him why he needed one, and he told me he needed to save money to adopt babies.  He does not understand that the adoption process is long so he was ready to take matters into his own hands.  He thinks his saving will bring babies home faster.  He really wants to be a big brother!  Brody is energetic, loud, always into something, and surprisingly very tender hearted.   He loves babies!  And he has a heart for the orphan!!!   So all the coins have now been gathered all over the house to go into his bank, and he is proud of his bank.  With all the waiting, Brody's idea for the pig is a big encouragement to me.  That pig makes me smile every time I walk past it knowing our whole family is working towards bringing a baby home. Yes, the pig has 8 eyes...would you expect a normal pig from The Brices???

The update-  Things are moving in India!!!  They allowed 100 families all over the world get a registration number in the month of January....we were one of those families.  Whoo hoo!!!  Now that we have a registration number, we can follow our process online.  According to their new system, once our dossier is sent again but this time with a registration number we will get assigned to an orphanage within 15 days.  Hopefully getting a referral for a child at that time or soon after.  This is a new system, a new way of doing things, new laws to understand, and it could take longer than what they are planning for.  I remain very optimistic.  I'm believing we will adopt a baby this year.  I'm looking forward to sharing more good news in February.  Please pray with us!

Adoption is when a child grew in its mommy's heart instead of her tummy. ~Author Unknown

Happy New Year!

Pray, hope, and don't worry!

Happy New Year family, friends, and bloggy friends.  May your 2012 be filled with love.  As I told a lady in the adoption process the other day, may God continue to multiply our families! 

Happy New Year Baby (or babies as Brody says you will be twins)!  We are praying and hoping 2012 will be the year you join our family.  OH, how I cannot wait to hold you!    I want to be able to tell you how much you are loved and how very important you are.  I smile every morning as I pray for you.  We have a room ready for you, and we are eagerly waiting for you to be a Brice.  You will be treasured here.

Happy New Year Baby's Mother!  I think about you all the time just imaging what a difficult choice you had or will have to make.  You are giving me a precious gift of a child, and I'm so thankful for you choosing life.  I pray for you too!  I know I will probably never be able to tell you thank you, but if I could I would tell you how important and special you are as well.  I read this poem the other day, and it was perfect.  I promise to read it to our child one day.

LEGACY OF AN ADOPTED CHILD

Once there were two women who never knew each other
One you do not remember, the other you call Mother

Two different lives shaped to make you one
One became your guiding star, the other became your sun

The first one gave you life, and the second taught you to live it
The first gave you a need for love, the second was there to give it

One gave you a nationality, the other gave you a name
One gave you a talent, the other gave you aim

One gave you emotions, the other calmed your fears
One saw your first sweet smile, the other dried you tears

One made an adoption plan, that was all that she could do
The other prayed for a child, and God led her straight to you.

Now, which of these two women, Are you the product of?
Both, my darling, Both, Just two different types of love.
---- Unknown

Updating Our Health Examination

With our dossier being mailed to India on September 30th, we are making sure all paperwork is updated.  That meant doing our health examination over again.  Ours was done in July 2010 so the paperwork was over a year old.  Bummer!  I don't mind seeing our doctor, but I do mind having a needle stick me.  The lab tests are AIDS test, Tuberculin test, and RPR (VDRL) test.  The rest of the examination is a breeze.  Answering questions, me just chatting, is easy.  So once again, we've got that checked off our list!

We've been asked a lot lately about updates or news on the adoption, and there has not been much to tell.  All I know is that on October 1st our dossier will be in India.  All of our paperwork has been sitting in Tulsa for months, and I'm just happy it will finally make it to India.  We are looking forward to a day when we can give our family and friends some actual news...and good news too! 

Any other families redoing paperwork lately?   :o)

Keep Living Our Lives

I've got India on my heart and on my mind.  I dream everyday about our child.  I'm so ready for another baby, but we still have a long wait ahead of us.  India adoption laws were redone this year, and we're unsure exactly how it will affect us.  Hopefully this Fall we will have a better idea what the timeline might look like.  After reading through the new adoption rules last week, I was a little bummed.  I sighed and gave Ryan a "now what?" look.  Ryan being very wise said, "We keep living our lives until the time comes."

You may ask what is the Brice Family up to this summer.  Schools here do not get out until the second week of June so that's when our summer began.  My son Brody and I went to Alabama to see my folks our first free weekend.  The next weekend we travel to Virginia Beach for our niece's 1st birthday party.  The last week of June was youth camp.  While B and I was traveling all through the south, Ryan worked hard on preparing for camp.  We had 155 teenagers go to camp at Mrytle Beach this year.  It was an awesome week. Brody also had a blast at the beach. 

The Skywheel

Before I even knew it, it was July.  Ryan's family visited us this past week.  It was so nice to have family here in North Carolina.  This week we are preparing to go to Honduras.  I've been washing clothes and trying to get suitcases ready.  Ryan is taking two trips of teenagers to Copan, Honduras. I'm going on the first trip with him.  While we are in Copan, we will work with the Chorti.  The Chortí Indians are the desendants of the Maya Indians. 

Please be in prayer for this unreached people group.  They are starving.  The rains came very late this year, and they are just now beginning to grow crops.  So there is currently no food.  Our church has been sending teams to them the past few weeks to give out beans and corn.  Our two student mission teams will be giving out food and telling Bible stories.  We've been planning this trip for a year, and everything we've planned has changed.  We are excited about this opportunity to show them love.  I blogged about the book of
Esther a few months ago, and I shared my heart about the "for such a time as this" moments. That seems to be the theme of this year.  We are once again faced with a huge task before us, and we are humbled that God is bringing us to the physically and spiritually hungry "for such a time as this." 

When we return from Honduras, Ryan will again two days later take another team to the Chorti.  Pray Ryan will have lots of energy to do the work that needs to be done.  Pray the July team will plant seeds in the hearts of the Chorti and the August team will come water those seeds.  Pray there will be a great harvest in many different ways.

Brody is pumped to get to spend some time with his Nanny and Pops while I'm in Honduras.  They are taking him to the circus.  I can hardly wait to hear what he thinks about the circus.  There will be several fun adventures with his grandparents!

August and September will be pretty busy too.  B and I might get to go to Texas.  Brody has his preschool graduation, and then he will start Kindergarten.  Oh MY!...Kindergarten!!!  August 25th is his BIG 1st day of school.  Then a few days later Ryan heads out on a trip to Nigeria, Africa to the Dibo people.  My two favorite guys will both be off having adventures.  I'm a little sad to have a quiet house during the day come fall, but there are a couple of volunteer activities I'm looking into. 

We've made plans all through the winter, but then our calendar is a little blank.  I had great hopes 2012 would bring a baby into our lives, and our traveling plans would be to India to meet our child.  I want my 2012 days to be filled with taking care of my two children, but I know in reality this may not happen.  So I will take the hubs advice of "we keep living our lives."  It's a must to keep planning and to keep doing.  And I'm sure there will be lots of fun along the way!

Happy Mother's Day



Brody and I making a memory at the Birmingham Zoo



Making the decision to have a child is momentous.  It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.  ~Elizabeth Stone

I just wanted to wish all the moms a very Happy Mother's Day.  Being a mom is hard work, but the salary is the best because the reward is pure love. 

It is a joy to be a mother to Brody!  I watch him daily grow and grow into the amazing boy he is.  It's bittersweet to see my baby grow into a little man.  I held a friend's baby recently and as I handed the little bundle of joy back to her mother my chest ached.  I long to be a mother to another baby.  There is just a need inside of me to take care of people.  So as we continue to wait in the adoption, I pray God will allow me love on those in my community around me. 

Adoption update...things a starting to move again in the India adoption world.  We are extremely excited about eight children now being with their forever families.  I have loved reading the blogs of these families, and I have shed some tears of joy over these last few weeks.  It's also exciting to know that there are spots for eight more babies at the orphange.  Our family is #8 on the non-NRI waiting list.  There are six families on the NRI list that come before us so really that makes us like #14 on the waiting list.  The estimated time for a referral is 18-24 months.  That's a long time, but I remain optimistic that things will continue to keep moving making the waiting time a little bit shorter.  I think if God can move mountains then He can move paperwork too.  I chose to be optimistic in everything.  I figure I can always cry later if I need to, but I rather look for the good right now.  While I'm looking at the good, being #8 is better than #10!  It's good to be at a new number.

Until Every Child Has a Home

I love Divine Appointments.  What's that you might ask?  I call them the moments God has put you somewhere to minister to someone.  It's a moment you did not anticipate at the beginning of the day however God choose to use you to bring glory to His name.  I love it when my day is "interrupted" to encourage someone.  I had one of these sweet appointments yesterday.  When I had planned my day yesterday, I did not have sitting at a table discussing adoption with a precious couple on the schedule.  Praise Jesus, He had on His schedule to do just that!  What a blessing it is to be able to share the passion God has given to me!     

What passion has God place on my heart?

TO SPEAK ABOUT ADOPTION UNTIL EVERY CHILD HAS A HOME

One of my favorite books in the Bible is Esther.  It's Esther 4:14 that stirs my heart to pray daily to be in the kind of moment that would be classified as "for such a time as this."

"For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”

God has been placing me in the position over and over for weeks now to speak about the many orphans in the world.  I'm not really good with words, but I keep remembering the first part of verse 14 "For if you remain silent at this time."  There are too many children waiting for relief and deliverance from orphanages and foster homes for me to keep silent.  I have to be a voice for them and encourage couples to adopt them.  Me and my little mouse of a voice is terrified sometimes to speak up, but I know my father the King of Kings has placed His daughter in these royal positions for such a time as this.  Hmmm..."until every child has a home" might take a long time, but I think it would be an honor to spend the rest of my days trying to accomplish that goal.  I'm not sure what this life is going to look like, but I'm pretty excited about it. 

Here is one of the videos of our adoption agency Dillon International.  It was the phrase "until every child has a home" that made me like Dillon so much.  I find it a great video for anyone who is considering adoption. I hope you find it an encouragement too.  There are so many wonderful agencies. I didn't put this video on my blog to promote one over the other, but just to give the encouragement someone might need to start the adoption process.

The Whys

We get asked often why we are adopting and why we are adopting from India.  Although those are personal questions, I never mind answering them.  My life is an open book for all to read so I'm just fine with sharing my thoughts and reasons.  Feel free to ask me questions anytime.  We created this blog to let family and friends know what is going on with the adoption, and we also want to be an encouragement to those who are adopting, have adopted, or may be considering adopting as well. 

Why adoption?  
My doctors have all recommended that I not try to conceive again.  My body and pregnancy just don't agree.

1st pregnancy- Baby Andy miscarried at 12 weeks

2nd pregnancy- Baby Brody born at 28 weeks weighing 2 lbs. 4 0z.

It would be a great risk for me to try for a third baby.  It was also very difficult to watch Brody fight to live.  I would not want to make another child have to go through what he did.

My first time to see Brody.  He was 2 days old.

This week we celebrate Brody's 5th birthday, and he is doing wonderful.  We still work hard to help him in some areas, but we are so thankful for all the struggles that have made us a strong family.  Brody really wants a brother, and I hope one day he gets his wish.

In 2008, we went to Africa for the first time, and it was a  trip that changed our lives.  Had Brody been on that trip with us, I'm not sure Ryan would have ever got me to leave. On day 3 of that trip, I told God how much I loved being in this village and would gladly move there.  So we began praying from that day for several weeks if God would have us to change ministries and go on the mission field.  God did speak to our hearts and gave us a knowing that our place was to continue to serve in the church and share God's word with teenagers.  He did move us to North Carolina, but He sent us here with a passion for all the nations.

Hassan and Housayni with their beautiful mother

This is who I meet on day three who broke my heart.  These tiny twins who probably weighed around 4 lbs. were so precious.  Their mother's milk was already starting to go dry, and I couldn't help to wonder as I held them if they would survive.  I wanted to help them, and I cannot hardly describe what it feels like when your whole chest aches so badly with the feeling of you need to do something.  Now these boys have parents who were doing their best for them, but I started thinking about all the orphans who have no family.  I thought about what if Brody had been born to a different family, and they gave him up because they thought it might be too hard to take care of him.  I had to change the way I thought of the world after my eyes had been open to the desperate needs of the world.  There are so many orphans in need, and our family is incomplete and is in need of more little feet running about the house with sweet little smiles that light up the room.  So we will build our family through adoption. We have lots of love to give, and we can hardly wait for our baby to come home where he or she is hugged daily and told what a special treasure they are.

Why India?
Selecting an adoption agency is no easy task.  There are many out there, and you will find yourself asking "Who's the best?"  I'm not sure there is one better than the other, but the best fit for our family is Dillon International.  We prayed a lot about what country to adopt from, and we just kept being led to India.  I've never really been around many people of Indian heritage, but during those weeks of prayer I bumped into so many of them.  Whether I was sitting in a waiting room or in an airport, someone from India would end up sitting beside me to which we had wonderful conversations.  I even came upon a family who had adopted from India at a grocery store.  God kept confirming India over and over to us. 

India is not a huge country, but it is the second most populated country in the world.  Many of its people live in near starvation on the streets in overcrowded cities.  A recent study showed the Indian states, including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, have 421 million poor people.  This is more than the 410 million poor in the poorest African countries.  It was hard for me to believe at first that eight Indian states account for more poor people than in the 26 poorest African countries combined.  As I wrote in my last blog, UNICEF estimates the number of orphans at 210 million in the world in 2010. This includes the estimated 86 million orphans in India, 44 million orphans in Africa and 10 million orphans in Mexico.  To us, there just seemed like a bigger need for adoption there than in other countries. 

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8  I remember my youth minister George teaching this passage when I was sixteen years old, and it had a great effect upon me.  He shared the importance of being God's witness to our neighbors, to the person who's locker is next to you, to the old lady on the other end of town, to the opposing college football team in the state and their fans, to the people up North who don't drink sweet tea, to the people across the country, and to all the nations until we reached the ends of the earth.  I am called to go to all distances to share the gospel.  My heart's desire for many years has been to be an Acts 1:8 family.  As a family, we will be a witness in our community, state, country, and world.  India is our "ends of the earth."  We may not be able to bring the gospel to the whole Nation of India, but we can bring it to one child.


These are the answers to the "whys" we get.  It may not make sense to some, but that's ok too.  It's what is good and right for our family.  My prayer for writing this is that it will plant a seed for a new thought to someone.